pitcher Page 1 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Ex-pitcher Dan Serafini gets life sentence for '21 murder
Former major league pitcher Dan Serafini was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Friday for the 2021 shootings of his in-laws in North Lake Tahoe, Calif.,Serafini, 52, was convicted in July of the first-degree murder of father-in-law Gary Spohr and the attempted first-degree murder of moth...

Joey Gallo, released by White Sox, says he's converting to pitcher
The Chicago White Sox granted outfielder-first baseman Joey Gallo his unconditional release on Sunday, and he announced on social media that he intends to continue his career as a pitcher.,Gallo signed a minor league deal with an invitation to Chicago's spring training on Feb. 15.,The 31-year old hi...

Shohei Ohtani throws from mound for first time in year
Shohei Ohtani's achievements with the bat in his hands this season have been so magnificent that it's easy to forget that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar also is a top-tier pitcher.,Recovering from a second major elbow surgery, Ohtani won't pitch this season, but he took a big leap toward 2025 on ...

MLB pitchers are the new NFL RBs in terms of career length
Major League Baseball is on the precipice of a pitching crisis. ...

This may upset Rob Manfred, but starting pitchers are not ever going to be what they used to be
It’s easy to say that MLB gets too caught up in its past and tries too hard to be the game it once was. A major part of baseball’s charm is its connection to its past. While the other sports don’t look anything like they did even 20 or 30 years ago, baseball doesn’t ever move too far from what it’s ...

The Tampa Bay Rays are running out of dudes, and ESPN somehow becomes more of a farce
The Rays might be the best developmental organization in baseball, staying on top of an AL East where they’re constantly outspent by factors of three by their competitors by consistently bringing dudes through their system and onto the MLB roster. Or they toast other organizations in trades and turn...

Just pre-tack the baseball already
You have to give MLB and its umpires credit. There really isn’t anyone more hilarious to eject over sticky substances on his hand than Max Scherzer. No one’s going to look more ridiculous arguing their case, everyone in the stadium is going to know exactly what’s going on, and if you want to make an...

Great news — Rob Manfred has more ideas on how to 'fix' the game
Major League Baseball has certainly gotten its plaudits for the rule changes for the 2023 season, mostly because it’s sped up the game to well under three hours. Strikeouts and walks are still about where they’ve always been, but more grounders are getting through (strangely from right-handed hitter...

MLB’s rule changes have made baseball more like itself
One week into the MLB season, the rule changes are by and large a huge success. It seems that fans and players alike overwhelmingly like the changes. ...

Get to know your new MLB rules
Leather is popping, grunts from a mound are being emitted, and GMs are already coming up with lame excuses in the sun — it must be spring training! Pitchers and catchers have reported in Florida and Arizona, and very soon there will be actual games played. They won’t count, of course, and will be ac...

MLB cares more about middle relievers — and money — than the fans
No one comes up with a solution for a problem that doesn’t exist quite like MLB. It’s their specialty....

The ruthless efficiency of Sandy Alcantara
As the baseball season draws to a close today, one of the rites of this time is to look at numbers that pop off the screen. For most of the last month, that’s been Aaron Judge. Whether it’s the number of homers he hits — or more often, it’s simply the gap from him to the second-place homer total, wh...

One, two, three … balks, you’re out?
Is Marlins’ reliever Richard Bleier the first Jewish pitcher to be called for a balk on Rosh Hashanah? I don’t know. What is a stone-cold fact is coming into Tuesday’s game against the Mets, Bleier had made 572 professional baseball appearances over the course of 15 years — never in his seven big le...

The most uncomfortable at-bat ever
I join many others in giving MLB hitters a hard time. The need to lift and drive has added an untenable amount of strikeouts to the game, and it can be frustrating watching guys simply pound contact right into a gaggle of fielders shifted over. But we also try to defend them as best we can, given th...

God bless Johnny Cueto
There’s just something about a veteran pitcher whose stuff isn’t the same and yet finds a way. The joy is in knowing every opposing fanbase is screaming, “HE’S SPINNING IT ON HIS FINGER! JUST TAKE IT!” or some such derivative while he’s on the mound as they watch hitter after hitter be bewitched by ...

Stop bashing little leaguers for showing compassion
Unless you’ve been on vacation in a cave lately, I’m sure you have seen the video of the little leaguer who got hit in the head with a pitch and then went to console the pitcher that hit him. Most would contend that this was a great moment of sportsmanship and forgiveness that many youth sports pare...

Front offices are bitching about the pitcher limit, which probably means it’ll work
I get caught in the trap as much as anyone, but I’m an impulsive guy. Baseball isn’t like other sports, where you can change one rule, any rule, and see the effects on Opening Day. In baseball, everything takes some time to have an effect....

Front offices are bitching about the pitcher limit, which probably means it’ll work
I get caught in the trap as much as anyone, but I’m an impulsive guy. Baseball isn’t like other sports, where you can change one rule, any rule, and see the effects on Opening Day. In baseball, everything takes some time to have an effect....

Baseballs really went from sticky to slippery in less than a year
Today is the one-year anniversary of MLB’s ban on sticky substances. In that time, we’ve seen a massive decrease in spin rate, a few suspensions, plus a striptease or two from Max Scherzer and company. Even most fans seemed to like the change. Yes sir, everything was going according to plan for Rob ...

Y’see, this is the problem
Most of the discussion about baseball this year has been about the baseball itself, or the lack of runs being scored. Rob Mains at BP expertly broke down just how big the offense problem in MLB these days, when you pull it out from under the shield of extra innings/Manfred Man. These discussions lea...