Category: Sports News

The Yankees needed a big outing from Marcus Stroman on Sunday, and he delivered. 

The right-hander was shaky at times during his minor league rehab stint, but taking the big-league mound for the first time since April 11 he looked strong as he limited the Athletics to just one run over a season-high five innings of work. 

“I thought he was terrific today,” Aaron Boone said. “He was a little bit of an unknown going out there coming off his buildup out -- I know he’s coming off a tough one down there in Triple-A, but I thought he got after it really good today.

“He got pitches where he needed to, I thought he had a presence on both sides of the plate, was a little unpredictable using his sinker, his cutter and the different breaking balls -- but he got after it in the zone when he needed to and gave us everything we needed.”

Stroman cruised through the first but then had a bit of a scare in the second, as he was struck by a Max Muncy liner right back through the box, but after a brief discussion with trainers he was able to stay in the game. 

The Athletics pushed a man into scoring position with a leadoff walk and single in the third, but he got star rookie Jacob Wilson to roll into an inning-ending double play. 

Stroman then worked around a two out walk in the fourth, but his lone blemish came in the fifth as he allowed the A’s to get on the board with Willie MacIver’s second home run of the season to deep left.

He ended his afternoon on a high note by retiring the next two, and with the Yankees’ offense providing more than enough support, he was able to pick up his first win since August of 2024. 

“I feel like this was a good building block,” Stroman said. “It’s not the same being on the side, you feel like you’re left out. So it’s definitely good to be back with the boys, it's an incredible team that we’re a part of we can truly do some special things. I’m just looking to do my part and contribute as much as I can.”

All-Star voting resumes Monday at 9 a.m. PDT for 48 hours with the Dodgers entertaining the possibility of fielding an unprecedented eight position players.

The top two vote-getters at each position through Phase 1 of voting are finalists and moved on to Phase 2, which ends Wednesday at 9 a.m. PDT. The defending World Series champion Dodgers boast a finalist at each infield position and two among six outfielders.

Even though only three Dodgers led National League Phase 1 voting at their position, all eight have an equal chance of starting because votes don't carry over to Phase 2. The player at each position to accumulate the most votes in the two-day window will start the July 15 game at Truist Park in Atlanta.

"Very proud. It's great," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "Obviously we're playing well. As it stands now, we're the best team in the National League, so we should have the most All-Star voting for the team."

Read more:Justin Wrobleski gives Dodgers a surprising boost during win over Royals

Shohei Ohtani locked in an automatic spot as starting designated hitter because he led all National League players with 3,967,668 votes in Phase 1. Catcher Will Smith and first baseman Freddie Freeman are the other Dodgers to lead voting, while second baseman Tommy Edman, shortstop Mookie Betts and third baseman Max Muncy finished second. Among outfielders, Teoscar Hernández and Andy Pages finished second and fifth, respectively.

In American League voting, the Angels' Mike Trout is one of four finalists to secure one of two openings in the outfield. Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees already earned a starting spot by leading all players with 4,012,983 votes in Phase 1.

Trout, who has 13 home runs in 56 games, is competing against Riley Green and Javier Báez of the Detroit Tigers and Steven Kwan of the Cleveland Guardians.

Voting can be done online at MLB.com/vote, all 30 team websites, the MLB app and the MLB ballpark app. The winners will be announced on ESPN at 1 p.m.

Read more:The Sports Report: Clayton Kershaw closes in on milestone

The most position players voted to start an All-Star Game from a single team is five — accomplished by the 1976 Cincinnati Reds ,the 1956 and 1957 Cincinnati Redlegs and the 1939 New York Yankees.

"I hope we get five, six, seven Dodgers," Roberts said. "That'd be great."

MLB All-Star finalists

AL guaranteed spot: Aaron Judge, OF, Yankees — 4,012,983 votes
NL guaranteed spot: Shohei Ohtani, DH, Dodgers — 3,967,668 votes

National League finalists
Catcher: Will Smith (Dodgers), Carson Kelly (Cubs)
First base: Freddie Freeman (Dodgers), Pete Alonso (Mets)
Second base: Ketel Marte (Diamondbacks), Tommy Edman (Dodgers)
Shortstop: Francisco Lindor (Mets), Mookie Betts (Dodgers)
Third base: Manny Machado (Padres), Max Muncy (Dodgers)
Outfield: Pete Crow-Armstrong (Cubs), Teoscar Hernández (Dodgers), Ronald Acuña Jr. (Braves), Kyle Tucker (Cubs), Andy Pages (Dodgers), Juan Soto (Mets)

American League finalists
Catcher: Cal Raleigh (Mariners), Alejandro Kirk (Blue Jays)
First base: Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (Blue Jays), Paul Goldschmidt (Yankees)
Second base: Gleyber Torres (Tigers), Jackson Holliday (Orioles)
Shortstop: Jacob Wilson (Athletics), Bobby Witt Jr., (Royals)
Third base: José Ramírez (Guardians), Alex Bregman (Red Sox)
Outfield: Riley Greene (Tigers), Javier Báez (Tigers), Mike Trout (Angels), Steven Kwan (Guardians)

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

In truth, there was very little notable action on Sunday afternoon at Kauffman Stadium.

Which, in effect, is exactly how Justin Wrobleski liked it.

In the Dodgers’ 5-1 win over the Kansas City Royals — a victory that clinched the weekend series and gave the club a 5-1 record on this past week’s road trip — Wrobleski continued to quietly impress as a depth pitching option for the Dodgers, pitching six scoreless innings that were short on flash but long on substance; serving as the latest productive outing in his suddenly auspicious sophomore season.

“Justin's confidence is at an all-time high,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And he's a confident young man already.”

Entering the game behind opener Lou Trivino at the start of the second, Wrobleski made easy work of a struggling Kansas City offense, giving up just three hits and one walk in a six-strikeout showing as the Dodgers (53-32) pulled away at the plate.

Read more:Shohei Ohtani hits 102 mph in another sharp pitching start, but Dodgers fall to Royals

Kiké Hernández hit a two-run homer in the second. Will Smith added a solo shot in the sixth. And by the time the team tacked on two more runs in the seventh, such extra insurance was already looking unneeded.

Instead, Wrobleski further raised his stock in what has been a surprise midseason rejuvenation, turning in his best career performance at the big-league level.

Over his 83-pitch outing, the Royals (39-45) only once managed to even put a runner in scoring position. They squandered all three leadoff hitters who reached base. And during their best opportunity to rally in the third, Wrobleski mowed through the heart of their order, sandwiching one strikeout of Jonathan India and fielder’s choice grounder from Vinnie Pasquantino with a statement-sending punchout of Royals star Bobby Witt Jr., getting him to whiff on a 96-mph fastball and putaway two-strike slider.

“Bobby Witt is one of the best hitters in the game,” Roberts said. “And for him to beat him with the fastball, he wasn't doing that last year.”

Indeed, few saw Wrobleski’s surge coming this season.

After a choppy eight-game debut last year, when he had a 5.70 ERA, the 24-year-old left-hander’s first opportunity in the majors this season was a total disaster, giving up eight runs in five innings to the Washington Nationals back on April 8.

Wrobleski was optioned back to the minor leagues after that, and made only one MLB appearance over the next two months: a four-inning outing in mop-up relief duty during a May 15 blowout of the Athletics.

Read more:Why Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman have struggled at the plate lately for the Dodgers

At the start of June, however, he was called back up to make a spot start in St. Louis, turning in a decent six-inning, four-run effort. And since then, he has continued to get better each time out. In his last 20 innings — all of them coming in bulk relief — he has conceded just four earned runs while striking out 21 batters. His overall ERA in five June appearances was 2.73.

“Having that bad one in Washington, honestly, set me back in a good way,” Wrobleski said. “I had to go back down, make a few adjustments.”

And now, he joked, that D.C. start “feels like it was three years ago.”

The biggest difference with Wrobleski of late has been his fastball. In that April start against the Nationals, it averaged just 93 mph. In every outing since, it has sat around 96-97 mph, and topped out above 99 mph.

Wrobleski credited the improvement with some small mechanical tweaks, having adopted a wider base in his pre-pitch stance and incorporated a rocking motion in his delivery to help him direct his momentum toward the plate.

But also, he said he has simply found a way to throw with maximum effort more consistently — coupling it with an increased reliance on his sinker to attack the zone and induce quick outs.

“I think it just goes back to me being me,” said Wrobleski, an 11th round pick out of Oklahoma State in 2021. "That’s how I got here was doing that. I got away from it a little bit, tried to quote-unquote ‘throw strikes,’ and when you do that, it leads to results that are not desirable. But at the end of the day, [I just want to] throw my best stuff for as long as I can until they take the ball. I think that’s been a major key.”

Read more:Clayton Kershaw moves three strikeouts away from 3,000 as Dodgers finish sweep of Rockies

As a result, Wrobleski’s name is quickly rising among the hierarchy of young Dodgers pitching.

The fact that he was even on this road trip was a sign of the organization’s growing confidence in his abilities.

During the team’s last homestand, fellow young talent Emmet Sheehan returned from Tommy John surgery with four sharp innings, and seemed primed to occupy an open spot in the Dodgers’ rotation moving forward. However, with Sheehan not yet fully built up, the club elected to option him back to triple A and have Wrobleski pitch twice in a six-day span this week, with a five-inning, two-run outing in Colorado on Tuesday preceding Sunday’s gem in Kansas City.

Sheehan should be back in the majors soon, having pitched six perfect innings with 13 strikeouts in a start with Oklahoma City on Wednesday (manager Dave Roberts said Sheehan’s next outing will also be with OKC, though he could still rejoin the Dodgers before the end of their upcoming homestand).

But now, he’s not the only former prospect showing flashes of being an impact option in the majors.

“He’s changed a lot,” Roberts said of the team’s evaluation of Wrobleski. “We’ve always valued him and thought a lot of him as far as the talent. But right now, he’s getting major league hitters out … And in the spirit of getting opportunities while earning them, he’s doing that.”

Sign up for more Dodgers news with Dodgers Dugout. Delivered at the start of each series.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The New York Rangers have one clear option regarding how to handle K’Andre Miller’s future. 

Whether Rangers president and general manager Chris Drury likes it or not, he has to keep Miller, at least for now. 

Since the 2024-25 season ended, Miller has been the subject of trade rumors as the team has been attempting to shop him. 

Now though, the draft has come and gone and Miller remains a Ranger and that’s no coincidence. 

Answers about what the future holds for Miller have not been answered and chatter about the situation has been quiet over the past few days. There are two reasons for that. 

First off, the Rangers don’t like what they’ve been offered so far for Miller, which has held up a potential trade. 

On the other side of things, the Rangers don’t want to give Miller a long-term contract extension, slowing down negotiations between the two sides. 

The Rangers and Miller are essentially at a stalemate right now. Both signing a long-term contract extension and finding a feasible trade that the Rangers could be content with continue to seem more and more difficult. 

It’s critical the Rangers don’t panic though and trade Miller for an underwhelming return because the 25-year-old defenseman still has a ton of potential and it would be foolish to give up on him for nothing. 

A Bridge Deal For K'Andre Miller With The Rangers Is A Possibility With The Clock Ticking The New York Rangers’ situation with K’Andre Miller may end up being resolved in the short term but not necessarily in the long term. 

At this point, the wisest move for the Rangers would be to give Miller a one-year bridge contract and let the 2025-26 season play out with him on the roster and determine later if he’s worthy of a long-term extension. 

So for now, the Rangers should keep Miller and avoid a potential disaster where they don’t maximize his full value.

Francisco Alvarez appears to be finding his groove down in Triple-A. 

The Mets' young backstop lifted a 434-foot three-run shot on Saturday night, and he followed that up with another strong showing on Sunday. 

After failing to reach in each of his first two plate appearances, Alvarez stepped to the plate with Syracuse trailing by a run in the fifth, and he ripped a double over center fielder Robert Hassell III’s head. 

It left the bat at an impressive 109.6 mph and one-hopped the fence. 

He would score the game-tying run just three pitches later, as the red hot Pablo Reyes tripled down the left-field line as part of a three-hot effort. 

Alvarez was called out on strikes with a man in scoring position in the seventh, but he was able to do more damage two innings later, as he crushed a go-ahead two-run homer to deep left-center. 

This one left the bat at 107.2 mph and traveled 412 feet. 

The 23-year-old has now gone deep on back-to-back days after going hitless in each of his first three games following his demotion from the big-league level. 

Luisangel Acuña reached base for the sixth time in seven games since he was sent back down -- lining a one out single in the top of the seventh, and he picked up his third stolen base of the season at the level. 

On the pitching side of things Syracuse’s bullpen was pretty impressive -- youngster Dom Hamel tossed two scoreless innings, Rico Garcia put up a zero of his own, Austin Warren struck out the side in the eighth, and Justin Garza locked down the save.

Following a tough 13-game stretch that saw the Mets get swept at home by the Tampa Bay Rays and then win just three out of 10 straight games against NL East opponents, the team came into Pittsburgh this weekend with a chance to right the ship against one of the worst teams, record-wise, in the National League.

But hopes of turning things around quickly dissipated, and what could have been a bounce-back weekend became another nightmarish series for the Mets, as the Pirates swept the three-game set in dominant fashion, outscoring New York 30-4.

“It’s frustrating, and we are all frustrated, obviously. Not gonna lie, we’re better than that, and they know that,” manager Carlos Mendoza said after Sunday’s 12-1 defeat. “It’s a tough stretch, but we’ve got to be better.  It starts with me. We believe in those guys. Off day tomorrow, and then we’ve got another good team coming into town in the Brewers. They’re playing well, so we’ve got to bring our best game.

“[We’ll] continue to support the guys, but obviously we’re not happy about it.”

The Mets found themselves in an early hole on Sunday that proved to be too much for the club to dig out of, as starter Frankie Montas allowed five two-out runs in the first inning, including back-to-back home runs from Oneil Cruz and Tommy Pham.

Montas stuck around for 4.0 innings, allowing six earned runs on seven hits while striking out five and walking one, but his poor first inning was too much for the Mets to overcome.

“To be honest, just in that first inning I felt like I was missing my spots a little bit,” Montas said. “I thought I threw some pretty good pitches after that.

“I feel like I wasn’t really commanding my fastball the way I wanted to, and that’s the thing. If you’re not hitting your spots, they’re going to hit you pretty good.”

The Mets, who are now just 19-25 on the road this season and currently sit 1.5 games behind Philadelphia in the NL East standings, have an off day on Monday before welcoming the Milwaukee Brewers (winners of eight of their last 10) to Citi Field, starting on Tuesday night.

The Mets know they were outplayed by the Pirates in every facet during this weekend’s set, but Francisco Lindor explained that the hope is the off day allows them to reset before facing a hot Brewers club.

"It's a tough stretch for sure. Hopefully getting the day off, the mental day off, and getting away from the field, we can come back and get back on the horse,” Lindor said.

“There’s a big league team on the other side,” he added later about the three-game sweep. “We’ve got to tip our cap to them, they outplayed us. They pitched better than us, they hit better than us, they got on base better than us, they played better defense. It’s a big league team on the other side. With that being said, there’s a sense of, yeah, we’re frustrated that we’re not winning, but at the end of the day it’s just part of the adversity that we’re dealing with right now.

“We’ve got to stick together and play as hard as we can to come out of it. Hopefully once we’re out of it, we don’t go back to something like this.”

The Yankees closed their weekend set with a 12-5 win over the Athletics on Sunday afternoon.

Here are some takeaways...

- Jazz Chisholm Jr. got the scoring started with a solo shot in the bottom of the second off Luis Severino. Jazz was smooth again just one inning later, as he ripped a three-run triple into the right-center gap, blowing the game wide open at 4-0.

Chisholm was on base three times on the day with the pair of extra-base knocks and a walk.

- The Yanks would add on again against their former teammate in the bottom of the fourth, as Aaron Judge crushed a two-run shot deep into left field seats. Judge struck again later in the contest, launching another two-run shot in the seventh, this time off of right-hander Tyler Ferguson.

Judge now has five straight seasons with 30+ homers and he's the second player to reach that mark this year.

- Cody Bellinger got in on the fun as well, cracking a three-run shot to right-center in the fifth as part of a three-hit afternoon. The sweet-swinging lefty now has knocks in nine of his last 10 games and he has two homers and six RBI over that span.
- It was a rough go for Severino against his former team, as he allowed six earned runs (seven total) on five hits, three strikeouts and three walks over just 3.2 innings of work. The veteran right-hander now has a 5.18 ERA during his first season with the A's.

- Marcus Stroman was hit by a line drive off Max Muncy’s bat in the top of the second, but he was able to stay in the game after talking to the training staff. Making his first start since April 11 (knee inflammation), the right-hander held the A's offense to just one run on three hits and two walks in five innings.

- JT Brubaker struggled in just his fourth outing of the season, as he was unable to work through the sixth inning and allowed the A's to creep their way back in. He recorded just one out before being pulled -- allowing four runs on two hits and three walks.

- The rest of the Yankees' bullpen was able to get the job done behind him -- Jonathan Loaisiga, Tim Hill, Ian Hamilton, and Luke Weaver combined to allow just one baserunner to reach via walk while striking out four over the final 3.2 innings of work.

- New York pushed their lead over the Rays in the AL East back up to 1.5 games.

Game MVP: Aaron Judge

The captain reached base three times, including his 29th and 30th homers of the season.

Highlights

Jazz opens the scoring! pic.twitter.com/lPAv8JX1YF

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) June 29, 2025

TURN UP THAT JAZZ! pic.twitter.com/Aw8eCnKGJX

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) June 29, 2025

ALL RISE 👨‍⚖️ pic.twitter.com/Kq6IqCYHy1

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) June 29, 2025

Cody Bellinger blows the game wide open with a three-run shot! pic.twitter.com/wqtNrIfYEl

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) June 29, 2025

AARON JUDGE 30 HOMERS! pic.twitter.com/3WlU47b13c

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) June 29, 2025

What's next

The Yanks go to Toronto to start a four-game set with the Blue Jays on Monday night.

Carlos Rodon (9-5, 2.92 ERA) takes the ball for New York with a 7:07 p.m. first pitch.