Category: Sports News

Former Chicago White Sox pitcher Bobby Jenks has died at the age of 44 from a rare form of stomach cancer.

Jenks was a two-time All-Star pitcher for the Chicago White Sox and was part of the team that ended their 88-year wait for a World Series title in 2005.

He threw the final pitch of the match in game four of the series as the White Sox beat the Houston Astros.

"We have lost an iconic member of the White Sox family," White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement.

"None of us will ever forget all that Bobby did for the 2005 World Series champions and for the entire Sox organisation during his time in Chicago."

After six seasons with the White Sox, Jenks finished his career in 2011 with the Boston Red Sox, but played only 19 games because of bone spurs on his spine that hampered nearby nerves and tendons.

Jenks moved to Portugal last year and had been receiving treatment for adenocarcinoma, a form of stomach cancer.

Entering Saturday's game, Pete Alonso had gone 13 straight games without hitting a home run for the Mets.

The first baseman had been hitting the ball well during that time, just not over the fence like he's accustomed to -- stuck on 18 home runs for the season and 244 for his career.

But against the Yankees in the Subway Series, Alonso broke out of his power outage and made up for lost time by hitting two in a 12-6 win. He made them count, too, one of them a two-run shot and the second a three-run bomb. Both extended Met leads in a game that was never safe, especially with the Yankees' high-powered offense and the Mets' ultra-thin bullpen.

Alonso's career home run total is now at 246 which puts him six homers away from tying Darryl Strawberry's franchise record of 252. So not only did he end his homer-less drought, he's that much closer to entering the Mets' record books as the most prolific home-run hitter in team history.

And if we know anything about Alonso's power, his dingers tend to come in bunches -- just ask the Yankees.

That means the Mets might need to gear up the celebration paraphernalia sooner rather than later as they get ready to honor their home-grown slugger.

But if you ask Alonso about the record, he'll tell you he's just trying to focus on helping his team win as many games as possible.

"I mean I know it," he said of the record, "but I just want to help the team win. That’s really all I want to do."

It's the right attitude to take for a team that has gotten hot again after enduring a terrible 3-14 stretch that had many people wondering about the legitimacy of this team.

After four straight wins, the Mets are 52-38, 0.5 GB of the Philadelphia Phillies for the division lead and will start to get much healthier in the coming weeks. They also have a chance to sweep the crosstown rival Yankees on Sunday if they can pull out a win without a true starter on the mound.

Nevertheless, despite being in the thick of a playoff race, whenever Alonso does, in fact, break Strawberry's record, the Mets will be able to let their guard down, just for a second, to celebrate Alonso's accomplishment.

It seems the only question now is, can he do it before the All-Star break?

The Dodgers’ starting pitcher had no problems on Saturday afternoon.

It was the bulk guy who followed him who ran into issues.

In a 6-4 loss to the Houston Astros at Dodger Stadium, Shohei Ohtani showed more encouraging signs as a pitcher, throwing two scoreless innings that included a double play in the first and a strikeout of the side in the second.

But, in a reminder of the still-tenuous pitching depth the Dodgers have relied on for much of this first half, long man Justin Wrobleski came back down to earth in a five-run, 4 ⅔-inning outing thereafter, sending the team to a defeat that clinched a series loss to the Astros.

“It's a good club over there,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Now we got to find a way to circle up, regroup and salvage this series.”

In the big picture, this weekend has offered hope for the Dodgers’ long-term pitching plans.

On Friday, manager Dave Roberts said injured $136.5-million right-hander Tyler Glasnow is on track to return from his shoulder problem during next week’s road trip.

Before Saturday’s game, injured $182-million left-hander Blake Snell threw his second live batting practice of the week, striking out four of the eight hitters he faced in what is expected to be his final simulated session before going on a minor-league rehab assignment. Both he and injured reliever Blake Treinen, who also threw an inning of live batting practice Saturday, are lined up to be activated from the IL “at some point in time shortly after the All-Star break,” per Roberts.

Then there was Ohtani, who despite once again being limited to a short workload in his fourth pitching start of the season, was also once again dominant in a 31-pitch display.

Shohei strikes out the side! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/wrmHrDX1n6

— Los Angeles Dodgers (@Dodgers) July 5, 2025

After Isaac Paredes singled to lead off the game, Ohtani broke Cam Smith’s bat on a 96-mph fastball for a double-play grounder to second. In the second inning, Ohtani fanned Christian Walker with a slider, then Victor Caratini and Yainer Díaz on a pair of big-breaking sweepers — all while also touching 101 mph on the radar gun.

“I think the stuff continues to get better, the command, the feel for making pitches,” Roberts said of Ohtani, who also celebrated his 31st birthday Saturday. “Really impressed how he's continuing to get better and better each time out."

In his six total innings this year, Ohtani has given up just one run, one walk and four hits while striking out six batters.

And though it remains unclear exactly when he’ll be fully stretched out in his return from a second career Tommy John surgery — Roberts called it “feasible” to eventually get him up to five or six innings if needed — the Dodgers are inching steadily closer to having the rotation they envisioned this year: One with Ohtani, Snell and Glasnow joining likely All-Star Yoshinobu Yamamoto in a star-studded quartet the club has spent lavishly the last two offseasons to build.

“We can see a little squint of light,” Roberts said. “It's taken a little longer than we've all expected or hoped for, as far as getting our guys together. So we haven't gotten there yet. But we're hopeful and excited.”

In the short term, however, the Astros have put a dent in the optimism the club had clung to among its stable of young pitching depth.

Read more:Hernández: Dodgers must aggressively pursue pitchers before the trade deadline

After Ben Casparius was knocked around in a historic blowout on Friday night, Wrobleski suffered a similar fate against Houston’s surging lineup. Upon entering the game at the start of the third, he quickly blew an early 2-0 Dodgers lead, giving up a leadoff single to Cooper Hummel and back-to-back two-strike doubles to Mauricio Dubón (who fouled off fastball after fastball before whacking a full-count heater the other way) and Zack Short (who got three-straight off-speed pitches, pulling the last one down the third-base line to score two runs).

Miguel Rojas, tapped to play third base Saturday in place of the recently injured Max Muncy, made matters worse by misfiring on a tough throw to first on a soft ground ball from Smith with one out, allowing a run to score. Then Walker, an unlikely Dodgers killer over his career, lined a two-out single to right to make it a four-run inning and a 4-2 Astros lead.

“I just think my mechanics were a touch off there those first couple innings,” Wrobleski said. “It was just kind of a matter of finding them, getting back into a rhythm, getting ahead in counts, which overall, didn't do a great job of today.”

Wrobleski, who had a 2.73 ERA in an impressive June before Saturday’s regression, did eventually settle down, but not before Díaz homered at the start of the third to put the Astros up there.

That deficit proved insurmountable for the Dodgers. They made it 5-4 when Rojas homered in the fourth (he also had an RBI single in the second inning, and drew a walk in the fifth) but stranded a string of opportunities down the stretch, finishing the day one-for-five with runners in scoring position and with nine men left on base.

The biggest blunder came in the seventh. Having already homered in the first inning, Mookie Betts flashed another encouraging sign in the seventh, lacing a line drive that got all the way to the wall after left fielder Cooper Hummel came up empty on an over-aggressive diving attempt. As Hummel recovered the ball, however, Betts made an ill-advised decision of his own, trying to stretch a double into a triple as Hummel retrieved the ball and threw to the cutoff man.

The relay beat Betts to third in plenty of time. Afterward, Betts acknowledged he made a bad read after seeing the ball thrown to the shortstop.

“When I was running, I was like, if he throws it and I see it not going toward third base — because it was more toward shortstop — that’s why I just kept going,” Betts said. “So a misread for sure.”

From there, the Dodgers fizzled, stranding two runners in the eighth and another in the ninth against Astros closer Josh Hader.

“I think that we gave ourselves an opportunity to get back in the game, to win the game,” Roberts said, “and just couldn't cash in.”

In time, a healthier Dodgers pitching staff could render such mistakes mute. But on Saturday, they led to the team’s first series defeat in almost a month, and another day of waiting on their full stable of arms to be fully available again.

“We gotta finish [the season] healthy,” Betts said. “We’ve only been healthy for like a week. So we’ll see.”

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

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Carlos Mendoza continues to mix and match with the Mets’ lineup. 

Brandon Nimmo has been red-hot since being bumped to the leadoff spot, but facing Yankees left-hander Carlos Rodon on Saturday afternoon, the skipper decided to turn back to Starling Marte. 

Mendy explained his thought-process pregame. 

“This is a guy that has been in this league for a very long time,” he said. “He’s been in that position before facing a left-hander today, we just felt like it was a pretty good day to put him back up top there.”

Well, Marte immediately made the decision pay off. 

Leading off the bottom of the first, the veteran dropped a double into the left-center gap, and after a sacrifice bunt and two walks he was able to trot home on Brandon Nimmo’s second grand slam in the last four days. 

The double was the 1,600th hit of Marte’s career. 

An inning later he would strike again -- this time taking advantage of a Jazz Chisholm Jr. throwing error on what should’ve been a routine groundout, lining an RBI single over left fielder Jasson Dominguez’s head.

Marte was robbed of an infield hit on a great play by Oswald Peraza in the fifth before being lifted for a pinch hitter a few innings later -- he finished the day 2-for-3 with a single, double, and his 20th RBI of the season. 

In a small sample size, he’s now hitting an even .500 with a 1.483 OPS out of the leadoff spot. 

“I like the combination of him and [Francisco] Lindor,” Mendoza emphasized. “This is a guy that can impact the baseball, he puts the ball in play, he can put pressure on the defense with the way he runs the bases -- there’s a lot of like with him in that spot and I’m glad it paid off today.”

The Mets will turn to right-hander Chris Devenski to open Sunday's Subway Series finale.

It'll be interesting to see how much the Mets lean on Devenski, who hasn't pitched more than two innings in an appearance this season.

The right-hander has posted a 3.60 ERA and 0.80 WHIP across his four big-league outings.

Lefty Brandon Waddell, who was recalled from Syracuse this week, will likely serve as the bulk reliever behind Devenski.

Waddell has pitched well during his brief stints in the majors this season, recording a 2.55 ERA and striking out 12 across 17.2 innings of work.

The Mets will need as strong a pitching performance as they can get facing off with Yankees ace Max Fried (10-2, 2.13 ERA) as they look for their fifth consecutive victory.