Baseball

This story was excerpted from Jordan Bastian’s Cubs Beat e-newsletter. To learn the total e-newsletter, click on right here. And subscribe to get it often in your inbox. CHICAGO -- The All-Star Game is within the rearview mirror, the second half is approaching quick and the Cubs have loads of work minimize out for them if the workforce desires to push its manner again into the October image and keep away from one other Trade Deadline outlined by promoting. Let’s take a short look again and a glimpse on the weeks forward: What we realized within the first halfAfter two years of rebuilding, the Cubs infused the 2023 roster with veteran free brokers with the objective of fielding a extra aggressive workforce. Led by All-Stars Marcus Stroman and Justin Steele, the rotation (whose 4.02 ERA rank...

This story was excerpted from Christina De Nicola’s Marlins Beat e-newsletter. To learn the total e-newsletter, click on right here. And subscribe to get it repeatedly in your inbox. The All-Star break is completed, and thus begins -- for my part -- the stretch run. The Marlins (53-39) have the fourth-most wins within the Majors and maintain the highest National League Wild Card spot with 70 video games remaining on their schedule. It is not going to get simpler, with matchups towards the Orioles, Rays and Phillies earlier than the Aug. 1 Trade Deadline. Will normal supervisor Kim Ng experience the present group's chemistry? Will she add key items to jolt the lineup? "That definitely enters into the equation for sure," Ng mentioned. "But we do have choices to make, and so that you make the...

Three days. Twenty rounds. Six-hundred-and-fourteen gamers. The 2023 Draft is formally full, and now the race begins for all 30 organizations to signal their picks forward of the July 25 deadline. As we wait to see who goes professional and for a way a lot, some picks already stand out greater than others – whether or not or not it's due to pure talent set, expertise relative to their Draft place or a number of different elements. Here are our favourite picks from every membership from the 2023 Draft: Blue Jays: Arjun Nimmala, SS (first spherical)Nimmala was one of many youngest gamers within the Draft – he gained’t flip 18 till October – and already brings above-average energy potential that may play to all fields. There are some swing-and-miss issues, however once more, he’s younger suff...

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about Meg’s spectator expertise on the All-Star Game, whether or not it’s good or dangerous that the MVP was a participant as obscure as Elias Díaz, the rise within the variety of All-Stars per season, different All-Star highlights and lowlights, complaints about All-Star uniforms, perennial requests for a expertise competitors, Rob Manfred’s and Tony Clark’s feedback about extra lenient pitch clocks within the postseason and the ball-strike problem system, extra particulars concerning the Alabama baseball betting scandal, and extra, plus a Future Blast from 2032. Then (59:10) they discuss to Byron Motley, producer of the brand new Negro Leagues documentary The League, concerning the lengthy street to creating the film, the latest enhance in appreci...

Baseball followers love an excellent power-speed menace, and people generally love spherical numbers and symmetry. So it’s not arduous to grasp the attraction of the 40-homer, 40-steal season -- particularly when you think about the rarity. The 40-40 Club has solely 4 members, that includes two all-time nice abilities (Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez) and two different dynamic, memorable gamers (Jose Canseco, Alfonso Soriano). And now, right here comes Ronald Acuña Jr. The Braves proper fielder has an opportunity to make every kind of historical past in 2023 due to a sensational first half, and that probably contains the primary 40-40 marketing campaign in 17 years. With 21 homers and an NL-high 41 steals by way of 89 workforce video games (he is performed in all of them), Acuña is on tempo fo...

With the second half of the season about to start, it is time for an additional MVP ballot.  This is MLB.com's third MVP Award ballot of 2023, and also you would possibly be capable to guess who's on the prime as soon as once more popping out of the All-Star break. But this time, each No. 1 selections are unanimous: Shohei Ohtani within the American League and Ronald Acuña Jr. within the National League. And although there have been 19 unanimous MVPs in AL/NL historical past -- most not too long ago Ohtani in 2021 -- there's by no means been a unanimous MVP in each leagues in the identical 12 months. With 47 MLB.com reporters and analysts collaborating, voters had been requested to rank their prime 5 AL and NL MVP candidates primarily based on what has occurred thus far this season and wha...

Tyler Rogers and the rising submarine slider n","providerName":"Twitter","providerUrl":"https://twitter.com","type":"oembed","width":550,"contentType":"rich"},"__typename":"Markdown","content":"Bailey is the one who unlocked Rogers' slider's full potential.nnRogers had solely pitched 17 Major League video games, as a 28-year-old rookie, when Bailey arrived because the Giants' new pitching coach in 2020 and noticed the UFO slider in particular person for the primary time.nnIt was Bailey's concept to let Rogers unleash his slider on the high of the zone, and defy all the normal baseball knowledge for breaking pitches within the course of. Before they began working collectively, Rogers believed he wanted to throw his slider on th...

As the second half of the season will get underway with the stretch run towards the postseason on the horizon, which gamers are key to every membership's fortunes transferring ahead? With the assistance of every MLB.com beat author, this is a take a look at one key participant for the second half from every workforce: Blue Jays: Alek ManoahIs Manoah going to return to his 2022 kind, which was ok to land him a third-place end in AL Cy Young Award voting, or will it's extra of the identical? Manoah simply spent every week within the Minors, a lot of which passed off on the membership’s advanced in Dunedin, Fla., as he and the Blue Jays tried to make sense of a surprising begin to the '23 season. There isn't any larger variable on this roster than Manoah, who may both lead the Blue Jays to th...

Baseball For All Nationals creating alternatives for ladies in baseball n","providerName":"Twitter","providerUrl":"https://twitter.com","type":"oembed","width":550,"contentType":"rich"},"__typename":"Markdown","content":"Many ladies beginning out in baseball should push previous the widespread false impression that baseball is a person’s sport. Tse, a 17-year-old from Glenville, N.Y., was reluctant at a younger age to hitch the all-boys youth baseball crew when her mother inspired her to make the transition from softball.nn“My first year playing baseball, I absolutely loved it, but I was very hesitant at the beginning,” Tse stated. “At first, I didn’t want to be different. I’m a girl, and we’re told we’re supposed to play soft...

CHICAGO -- The recreation was on the road this previous Sunday for the White Sox, trailing the Cardinals, 4-3 within the backside of the tenth, however with runners on second and third and two outs. Tim Anderson was on the plate, which from 2019-22, not solely would have been the optimum state of affairs for the White Sox, however a state of affairs they tried to rearrange. In this occasion, Anderson struck out swinging on 5 pitches after leaping forward at 2-0 in opposition to left-handed reliever JoJo Romero. It has been that kind of dismal first half for the White Sox shortstop, who enters Atlanta this weekend with a stunningly off-kilter .223/.259/.263 slash line over 290 plate appearances and 67 video games. He has 9 doubles and one triple, however has not hit a house run since July 1...