When Bud Black was fired as manager of the Colorado Rockies on Sunday, the last limb of the acclaimed Mike Scioscia coaching tree was snapped off and stacked on the mulch pile.

Joe Maddon remains out of work after being fired by the Angels in 2022. Scott Servais was canned by the Seattle Mariners last year. Ron Roenicke hasn't managed since 2020.

Black, who managed the San Diego Padres for eight-plus seasons before lasting another eight-plus seasons with the mostly hapless Rockies, boasts his own coaching tree. And one particular branch has become strapping and sturdy: Dave Roberts.

Black mentored the Dodgers manager from 2011-2015 as a Padres coach, and they remain close friends.

But the winds of change in Colorado caused this particular branch in Blue to rattle and sway.

“I'm bummed. I'm disappointed. I don’t think Casey Stengel could change the outcome of that ballclub,’’ a perturbed Roberts told reporters Sunday. “That’s not the manager’s fault. Obviously, they felt they needed a change in voice or direction, but for me, there’s not many people that are better than Buddy Black. It’s very disappointing. It’s certainly not his doing.’’

Read more:Plaschke: Dave Roberts is Dodgers’ real MVP? New contract removes all doubt

The Rockies sent Black out a winner, defeating the Padres 9-3 on Sunday, but remain historically bad, posting a 7-33 record that includes three eight-game losing streaks and projects to a finish of 29-133 that would be the worst by any team since 1899. Only four other teams lost 33 of their first 40 games: the 1904 Washington Senators, 1928 Philadelphia Phillies, 1932 Boston Red Sox and 1988 Baltimore Orioles.

Roberts disparaging the Rockies was a bit surprising because it was akin to someone telling Mother Teresa to take a hike. A visit from Colorado cures ills. Struggling pitchers are revived. Slumps stop. But Roberts' mentor and friend had devolved over two decades from Angels' World Series champion pitching coach to Dodgers punching bag.

Case in point: The Dodgers hosted the Rockies for a three-game series in mid-April after they'd lost six of the previous nine games, including an embarrassing 16-0 defeat to the Chicago Cubs two days before Black and Co. arrived. Et voila! The Dodgers won all three, jump-starting a 16-8 stretch that continues with a homestand beginning Tuesday.

They don't play Colorado again until June 24, when presumably Warren Schaeffer — the Rockies' third-base coach until today — will remain interim manager. It is doubtful that his purple-clad charges will be much better than they were under Black.

Black, 67, led the Rockies to playoff berths in 2017 and 2018, but they haven’t had a winning season since and are well on their way to a third consecutive 100-loss season. They are already 19.5 games behind the first-place Dodgers in the NL West, and their minus-128 run differential is nearly double that of the next closest team. They are batting a dismal .219, and the ERA of the starting rotation is an MLB-worst 5.77.

“Our play so far this season, especially coming off the last two seasons, has been unacceptable. Our fans deserve better, and we are capable of better,” Rockies owner Dick Monfort said Sunday in a statement.

Read more:Tony Gonsolin, Freddie Freeman help Dodgers complete successful trip

Some of the underachieving Rockies players don't blame Black, whose even-keel temperament, attention to detail and empathetic communication skills made him a respected leader. And everyone knows the first to go in troubled times is the manager.

“It’s tough, I don’t think it was Buddy’s fault, much,” Rockies infielder Ryan McMahon told the Denver Post. “We didn’t play to our capabilities, but this is the direction the organization decided to go, so we’ll roll with it. …

“Hey, it might be a kick in the ass. Like, heads up! We’re in a spot where we need to make some moves and start doing some stuff, or things like this are going to happen.”

Black had a strong track record when he took the Rockies reins in 2017. He was the Angels' pitching coach when they won their only World Series in 2002 and made the postseason three times in his six years. He was the National League Manager of the Year in 2010 with the Padres. A left-handed pitcher for five teams in 15 years, posting a 3.84 earned-run average over more than 2,000 innings, he won a World Series with the Kansas City Royals in 1985.

Colorado made the postseason in Black's first two years as manager, but did not come close to .500 since then. He approximated his mentor, Scioscia, in managerial longevity but not in accomplishments. Scioscia, the Angels manager for 19 seasons, stepped down in 2018 and hasn't returned to a major league dugout, although he was head coach of the bronze-winning USA team in the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

Read more:Remembering Dodgers legend Tommy Lasorda

Nobody can adequately explain why so few pitchers become managers, let alone successful ones, but Black lasted longer than just about any other. Dodgers legend Tommy Lasorda is easily the most decorated. California native Bob Lemon won a World Series with the Yankees.

Hall of Fame pitchers Walter Johnson,Christy Mathewson and Ted Lyons were much less successful as managers than with a baseball in their hands. Roger Craig finished exactly one game over .500 in 10 managerial seasons and Clyde King five games over .500 in short stints with three teams. Marcel Lachemann, Ray Miller, Larry Rothschild,George Bamberger and a few others failed to win half their games.

Black's tally stands at 649-713, a .477 winning percentage. He didn't address the media on Sunday, but his players ducked into his office one by one to say goodbye. Left-handed starter Kyle Freeland was probably closest to Black; his rookie year in 2017 coincided with the manager's arrival.

“I have a lot of different emotions right now,” Freeland said, referencing fired bench coach Mark Redmond along with Black. “I have been with Buddy and Red my entire career. Both are great guys, and they have been in my corner my entire career. I love both those guys."

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

A pair of Mets top prospects are taking home some hardware, as Rumble Ponies right-hander Jonah Tong and first baseman Ryan Clifford have been named Eastern League Pitcher and Player of the Week, respectively.

Tong, 21, earned his second Pitcher of the Week award after delivering 6.2 spotless innings in what turned into a combined perfect game on Saturday against Reading. Tong, SNY contributor Joe DeMayo’s No. 7 overall prospect in the Mets’ system, struck out 13 batters and leads all Eastern League pitchers with 51 punchouts on the season.

Tong now has a 2.57 ERA over his six starts this season, in what has been his first taste of Double-A ball.

As for Clifford, the mashing first baseman went 9-for-19 in the series against Reading, launching three home runs with nine RBI, five runs scored, and a 1.500 OPS over the five games.

Clifford, SNY’s No. 4 Mets prospect, now has six home runs on the season, tied for fourth most in the Eastern League.

Rafael Devers named AL Player of the Week amid first base drama originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

Boston Red Sox designated hitter Rafael Devers’ wild week ended with a reminder that he remains one of MLB’s premier sluggers.

On Monday, Devers was named the American League Player of the Week. The three-time All-Star has gone 10-for-21 at the plate with two home runs, eight RBI, and a 1.386 OPS over the last seven days.

Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman earned the honor in the National League.

Devers capped off his red-hot week by going 6-for-7 with a homer and five RBI over the last two games of Boston’s series in Kansas City.

That Royals series started with Devers making headlines for his words rather than his bat. After the team’s series finale against Texas at Fenway Park, the 28-year-old called out the Red Sox front office for asking him to move to first base in the wake of Triston Casas’ season-ending injury. His comments prompted team owner John Henry and chief baseball officer Craig Breslow to travel to Kansas City to meet with their disgruntled star.

While the plan is to keep Devers at DH for the foreseeable future, Breslow and manager Alex Cora have left the door open for Devers to make the switch. The club has yet to find a permanent solution for the void at first base.

After taking two out of three against the Royals, the Red Sox will begin a three-game set in Detroit on Monday night.

It was the night the Dodgers were coldest offensively this year that Freddie Freeman’s swing first started to get hot.

On April 25, when Paul Skenes and the Pittsburgh Pirates mowed through the Dodgers in a 3-0 shutout at Dodger Stadium, the veteran first baseman remembers something clicking in a sixth-inning at-bat, when he dumped a down-and-away splitter into center field for a base hit.

At the time, Freeman’s swing didn’t look like much, a seemingly nondescript single on a night the Dodgers generated little else against the reigning National League Rookie of the Year. As Freeman pulled into first, there was no sign he’d just experienced some sort of long-awaited breakthrough, with the 35-year-old slugger still grinding through a slow and injury-hampered start to his season.

Sixteen games later, however, that’s what Freeman now cites as the origin point for one of the most productive stretches of his entire career — the moment when, after more than a year of sensing his mechanics at the plate were slightly off, his simple swing finally felt once again on-line and in-sync.

Read more:Tony Gonsolin, Freddie Freeman help Dodgers complete successful trip

“It was a changeup away, and I was able to stay through it and hit a line drive up the middle,” Freeman recalled. “That’s when I kind of figured things were working … That’s when my confidence in my swing kind of skyrocketed, was after that hit.”

In hindsight, the demarcation line couldn’t have been more clear.

Entering that game against the Pirates, Freeman was batting just .250 this year, with a .911 OPS inflated mostly by a flurry of early home runs.

Since then, he has gone on a tear that, even by his former MVP and eight-time All-Star standards, stands out statistically: Over his last 61 at-bats, he is batting .475 (29 hits) with six doubles, one triple, five home runs, 22 RBIs and a 1.374 OPS.

In all of Major League Baseball, no one this side of Aaron Judge has been so good.

"I just think he's relentless,” manager Dave Roberts said of Freeman on Sunday, after his four-for-four performance in Arizona raised his season batting average to .376 and OPS to 1.170 — marks that both rank second in the majors (among hitters with 100 at-bats) behind only the New York Yankees star.

With a look of amazement, Roberts added: “I can't remember him being this good, for this long."

To many others around the Dodgers, Freeman’s early surge has come as a pleasant surprise. They know the sprained right ankle he played through in last year’s playoffs is still giving him problems, even after he had a debridement surgery on it this winter. They know the week he spent on the injured list in early April, when he re-aggravated his ankle after slipping in the shower, got him nowhere near back to 100% health.

Every day, Freeman said he gets “about an hour and a half” of pregame treatment on his ankle. In games, he tapes it up for stability and wears heel lifts in his cleats to prevent it from getting jammed as he runs.

Freeman has assured the team he still feels “good enough” to maintain an everyday playing schedule. This past road trip, he started in each of the Dodgers’ 10 consecutive games despite some brief conversation about finding him a day off.

“He's been ailing,” Roberts said. “But he’s moving really well. And he’s doing a really nice job of sort of playing with a governor, managing it, knowing when to pick his spots, manage his work, all that."

Perhaps by the All-Star break, Freeman has been told by the team’s training staff, his ankle will be back to relative normal — or, at least, to the point where “I might not have to do as much treatment,” he said.

“I’m looking forward to that,” he added with a laugh.

In the meantime, however, more of Freeman’s focus has been on building off his mechanical rediscovery; trying to maintain feel for a swing that had eluded him for so long.

Read more:Dodgers hot streak against Cy Young winners ends during loss to Diamondbacks

Since late in the 2023 season, Freeman had what he derisively refers to as a “cut swing” in the batter’s box. His hips would open early. His bat would cut across the strike zone. He struggled to stay in rhythm and squared up to the ball.

It’s a flaw Freeman has battled off-and-on for years. So much so, he developed a meticulous routine of batting-cage drills to call upon every time the issue arose.

But last year, nothing Freeman tried seemed to remedy the problem. His .282 batting average and .854 OPS, while still good enough to make him an All-Star, were his lowest since the 2015 and 2014 seasons, respectively. And despite his October heroics, he came into 2025 still seeking a solution.

“There’d be spurts last year where it was good, and then it’d go away,” Freeman said. “Even at the beginning of this year, it was still a little cutty.”

That’s why, when Freeman golfed Skenes’ down-and-away splitter to center field last month, he started to feel hopeful.

“The previous two weeks, I would probably have rolled that over,” Freeman said. “But that pitch in that location, and how I hit it off Paul in that at-bat, I felt like I was in a good spot. It kind of helped my confidence.”

What exactly triggered the improvement remains a mystery, even to a generational hitter with a career .301 average.

“I don’t know what changed,” Freeman said last week. “I’ve been doing the same routine, the same thing. That’s why you can never figure this game out. You just gotta ride it out.”

But suddenly, what began as a slow opening month has transformed into one of Freeman’s hottest-ever starts.

Never before has Freeman maintained a batting average even close to his current .376 mark through the first 30 games of a season (his previous high was .336 in 2017). And only in that 2017 campaign, when he belted 11 home runs in his first 30 contests, had his OPS been better this far into the schedule.

“I looked up the other day and saw he was hitting .360, I had no idea,” Roberts joked. “Like I said, he's just been relentless."

Freeman’s current 16-game heater also has few personal parallels, representing just the second time in his career he has batted .475 or better over a stretch that long (he hit .477 from July 16 to Aug. 3 in 2023).

“Just seeing strikes and hitting them,” he said when asked why he’s been so hot. “I wish there was more I could give you. I do the same routine every day, try to hit strikes. And they’re just falling right now.”

After gradually eliminating his cut-swing problems over the last few weeks, Sunday’s four-hit performance felt like Freeman’s coup de grâce.

He started the day with two doubles against Diamondbacks right-hander Zac Gallen: the first on an outer-edge fastball he blasted the other way, the second on an inner-half cutter he pulled down the right-field line. In the seventh, he recorded his ninth home run and 33rd RBI of the season, barreling a curveball from left-handed reliever Joe Mantiply into the Chase Field pool in right-center field. In the ninth, he added a superfluous single against another left-handed reliever, Jose Castillo, knocking his down-and-away slider through the right side of the infield.

It was four hits, on four different pitch types, to four different areas of the field.

And the only time he didn’t reach base, Freeman still lifted a fifth-inning sacrifice fly 356 feet to straightaway center.

“I do feel that he's seeing the baseball well, swinging at strikes like he does,” Roberts said. “And I think he really understands how his body's moving right now, with regards to his swing."

These are all things Freeman struggled to do repeatedly before his single against Skenes almost three weeks ago.

Read more:Shohei Ohtani home run caps wild ninth-inning comeback in Dodgers' win over Arizona

But ever since, such results have been coming seemingly on demand, even despite the continued limitations of his ankle.

“He's already got a simple swing, simple approach,” Roberts said, trying to identify the roots of Freeman’s recent dominance. “But this might be something where, because of the right ankle, he is being more mindful and not trying to overswing or do too much — maybe."

The one thing the manager knows for sure about his superstar first baseman right now:

“It's been a while [since] I've seen him this consistent."

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.