Baseball

New York – Hall of Famer Bob Gibson, the dominating St. Louis Cardinals pitcher who won a record seven consecutive World Series starts and set a modern standard for excellence when he finished the 1968 season with a 1.12 ERA, died Friday. He was 84. The Cardinals confirmed Gibson’s death […]

Chicago – The Miami Marlins didn’t need a hand from a fan at Wrigley Field to knock the Chicago Cubs out of the playoffs this time. They did just fine on their own, and they showed they’re hardly bottom feeders. Garrett Cooper homered against Yu Darvish in a two-run seventh, […]

Oakland, California – Sure, most of these young Oakland Athletics might barely remember some of the gut-wrenching October losses over the past two decades. Two recent defeats were plenty fresh enough to motivate manager Bob Melvin’s slugging, happy-go-lucky A’s. Oakland finally ended 14 years of postseason futility, riding Chad Pinder’s […]

Cleveland – DJ LeMahieu’s tiebreaking single in the ninth inning off Cleveland closer Brad Hand sent the New York Yankees into the AL Division Series with a wild 10-9 win over the Indians early Thursday in a rain-delayed Game 2 that started in September and ended in October. At 4 […]

For Masahiro Tanaka, playing under the bright lights of the MLB postseason is nothing new. When Tanaka takes the mound against the Cleveland Indians in their American League wild-card series on Wednesday, he’ll do it with the experience of a 5-3 record and 1.76 ERA in eight career postseason starts […]

Minneapolis – Tarnished by scandal at the start of the year and below average during this pandemic-abbreviated season, the Houston Astros showed up for the playoffs with their usual confidence and poise. Just like that, they’ve got the edge on the Minnesota Twins in an elimination game. Jose Altuve drew […]

Los Angeles – Kenta Maeda is not yet nervous about starting in the first game of the 2020 MLB playoffs, but says the butterflies will likely arrive sometime before his Minnesota Twins take the field at home on Tuesday. The Twins will take on the Houston Astros in a pandemic-shortened […]

The difference between playing a mostly representative NPB season — as opposed to 50 or 60 games — or having it all fall apart was always as tenuous as some dinner plans. That was laid bare last week as the league experienced its first midseason coronavirus cluster, with five Hanshin […]

New York – DJ LeMahieu became the first player to win undisputed batting titles in both leagues and Juan Soto became the youngest NL champion as Major League Baseball’s shortest regular season since 1878 ended Sunday. Home runs were down from last year’s record level in a mini-season of diminished […]

Los Angeles – Shohei Ohtani wants to remain a two-way player for the Los Angeles Angels, even though he didn’t come close during the shortened season to matching his performance from 2018. Ohtani went 1-for-4 with a strikeout — and grounded out to first for the final out — in […]