mlb Page 98 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

The Constantly Stupid Braves Announcing Booth Has Infected Jeff Francoeur
Even in a profession that asks old men to talk about baseball non-stop for four hours a night, the Atlanta Braves’ announcing team stands out for its dedication to infuriating dumbassery. Most often, it’s the duo of Joe Simpson and Chip Caray who do the heavy lifting, running their mouths about suit...

Edwin Dí<em></em>az Will Save Every Damn Game If He Has To
After closing three games in three days, Edwin Díaz was supposed to have Sunday off. It didn’t look like the Mariners would need him anyway, as they trailed the Astros heading to the ninth. But Ryon Healy homered to tie the game, and then Mitch Haniger doubled in the go-ahead run in the 10th, and Dí...

Max Scherzer, Still An Intense Weirdo
Lost in the thrill of rookie David Bote’s spectacular walk-off grand slam was the best pitching duel of perhaps the entire season. New Cubs acquisition Cole Hamels threw seven innings of one-hit, one-run ball, and Max Scherzer, favorite for a third straight Cy Young, did him one better with three h...

David Bote's Walk-Off Grand Slam Was Exhilarating
When you’re playing baseball as a kid, just messing around with a bat and a ball in the park or your backyard, what are you picturing? Every time, it’s you’re down three, bases loaded, bottom of the ninth, two outs, two strikes....

Ramon Laureano Threw The Shit Out Of This Baseball
Ramon Laureano has played a total of five games in the majors, all this season, all since the start of August. It’s been a fun start! He’s already had a number of defensive highlights, and his first hit in the bigs was a walk-off game-winner in extras, in his first career game....

The Rockies' Bullpen Needs To Get Its Shit Together
The Colorado Rockies had a chance at a signature win Thursday night against the division-leading Dodgers. Instead they got a signature loss, or at least lost in the same way they’ve lost all year. At home versus their division rivals in a crucial series, Chris Iannetta smacked a go-ahead three-run h...

Giancarlo Stanton Set A Record For The Hardest-Hit Home Run
Exit velocity has become the bugbear of baseball’s anti–“super nerds” crowd. For them, the relatively recent ability to measure how hard a ball comes off a bat is a symbol of everything wrong with modern baseball analysis: a quantification of something that doesn’t need to be quantified; a number th...

The Mariners' First Four Batters Hit For The Cycle Off Justin Verlander In The First Inning
The Seattle Mariners rocked Justin Verlander for a home run, a triple, a double, and a single, all in the first inning of their game against the Astros on Thursday night. The reverse cycle put the Mariners up 3-0 at the end of the first inning, which accounted for exactly half of Verlander’s game. H...

Vlad Guerrero Jr. Is Healthy And Back To Mashing Taters In The Minors<em></em>
Good news for anyone deeply troubled by the mid-season injury of Blue Jays prospect Vladimir Guerrero Jr: He’s back, he got called up to Triple-A at the end of July, and he’s still belting the ball in that same heroic way we’ve enjoyed all year....

Jayson Werth Has Me Feeling Nostalgic For The Sabermetric Wars
After 15 seasons as a big leaguer, Jayson Werth is out of baseball this year, which has given the 39-year-old an opportunity to pick up a couple of age-appropriate hobbies: reliving past glories in pick-up games, and hating on the newly powerful generation directly behind his. In Werth’s case, his q...

The End Of Felix Hernandez
Felix Hernandez, once and not too long ago among the AL’s most feared and fearsome fireballers, is near the end of the line. It’s been a steady decline too, not a cliff, which makes it feel less like an aberration and more the irreversible march of time. His injury-plagued 2017 was his worst statist...

Yeah, That's A Goddamn Moth In An Umpire's Ear
Gahhhhh. This is an awful thing that should never happen—with any living creature, not just a dusty flying bug—but Yankees-White Sox umpire Bruce Dreckman was remarkably calm when a small, moth-like animal (most likely a moth) flew into his ear between innings....

Holy Shit, Jacob DeGrom Got A Win
For the first time since June 18, Mets ace Jacob deGrom started a baseball game and was officially awarded with a win at the end of that baseball game. This is notable mostly because deGrom has been pretty much the best pitcher in the Major Leagues this season....

César Hernández Circles The Bases On A Bunt Thanks To Diamondbacks' Errors
In the eighth inning of the Phillies’ game against the Diamondbacks on Tuesday, two throwing errors by Arizona led to César Hernández touching ‘em all on a bunt....

Shohei Ohtani Will Throw Again Soon, And He's Still Smacking Big Dingers While He Waits
The Angels are more or less sunk this year, thanks to the depth of good teams in the AL West. But Japanese rookie sensation Shohei Ohtani is still balling, despite not being allowed on a mound since June. ...

Why Is Jose Reyes Still Playing For The Mets?
It still doesn’t quite scan, given that Jose Reyes is one of the best players ever to play for the New York Mets, but it’s true. Purely from a baseball standpoint—surely the most charitable standpoint from which to view someone who was suspended for 51 games by Major League Baseball for an incident ...

Félix Hernández Can't Contain His Laughter After Ugly Adrián Beltré Strikeout
King Félix has some of the nastier stuff in baseball. Tuesday night he K’d up his old nemesis Adrián Beltré on a wicked 78-mph breaking pitch, drawing a hilarious truncated swing out of Beltré, followed by a look of pure bafflement. It was more than Hernández could handle:...

Nationals Pitcher Heroically Respects Anthem While Under Attack By Praying Mantis
During the always-sacred pre-game performance of the U.S. national anthem in our nation’s capital, ahead of a game between the Nationals and Braves, Washington pitcher Erick Fedde was faced with an impossible choice. He could continue to stand at attention and give his deepest respects to a dull son...

Javy Báez Is Now As Great As He Is Captivating
Only a true turd would try to claim that Cubs infielder Javy Báez has not been the most consistently entertaining player in baseball over the last few seasons. From the moment he arrived in the big leagues he went about turning his every movement on the field into highlight-reel material, but there ...

Big League Bullying: The Conspiracy To Humiliate MLB Umpire Steve Fields
Baseball consensus holds that umpires only get noticed when they make a bad call. Steve Fields’ career as a major league ump was bookended by two calls that put him in the spotlight. But he went to his grave insisting both were right....