Worldwide Sports News

You could look at the final tally of 8-3 and feel like the Royals had this in control all along. You’d be so very, very wrong. The inning that we’re going to spend the most time on is the sixth inning, but let’s get there chronologically.

Daniel Lynch IV got the start for the Royals. This is a decision the Royals have made out of desperation, but it has yet to bite them on the butt. Today had all the markings of a game where it would happen. He had a quick first inning despite Isaac Collins misplaying a routine groundout. The Royals stranded Salvador Perez after a leadoff double in the second, and things started to get very, very bad.

Lynch walked Jo Adell to lead off the bottom half of the inning. Jo Adell walks less than 5% of the time. Angel Martinez followed with a home run to left field, and the Royals were down for the first time in this series. But then Lynch walked David Fry, and Bobby Witt Jr. got a throwing error on a potential double-play ball that probably still should have been caught by Isaac Collins at second. Fortunately, the Royals got the double play right on the next play, and the damage was limited. But would they score any runs? And would Lynch prevent any more scoring?

Lynch worked around a leadoff bunt single in the third but gave up a one-out double in the fourth, and that was it for him. That left his line at 3.1 innings with 3 hits, 2 walks, and 3 strikeouts. That simply isn’t good enough. It’s remarkable he didn’t give up even more runs. That’s thanks to the Royals’ beleaguered bullpen that simply didn’t allow another baserunner until the ninth. But that wouldn’t have mattered if the offense hadn’t figured some things out.

First, they finally got to Foster Griffin in the fifth. Nick Loftin doubled off the top of the wall in left, Tyler Tolbert got an infield single, and Isaac Collins ripped a double down the third base line to tie the game. The Royals stranded him there, though. And we didn’t yet know how good the bullpen was going to be. So it was easy to expect the Royals to eventually blow it.

Then the top of the sixth happened. And everything changed.

Colin Holderman came on in relief. Holderman came into the game with a 2.25 ERA and 20 shutdowns to only 5 meltdowns in 52 relief appearances this season. Bobby Witt Jr. didn’t care. He smoked a single back up the middle at 110.3 MPH. Jac Caglianone celebrated the removal of Griffin by ripping a single to right at 111.8 MPH. Adell had the ball in his glove before Bobby touched second, but he was going to third or dying trying. Were it anyone else on the team, it would have been an incredibly stupid choice. But it’s Bobby, so he was in there, and it wasn’t even close.

Salvador Perez came to the plate, and I had just enough time to post on social media that I would pinch-hit Vinnie Pasquantino for him before he smashed a ball into the left-center gap at 107.6 MPH. Had he hit it much softer, it would have only been a sacrifice fly; instead, it was an RBI double, and the Royals had the lead with runners at second and third with no one out. Nick Loftin – what else? – hammered a grounder up the middle at 103.8 MPH. This time, Brayan Rocchio was in front of it. But Loftin had hit it so hard that when it took a little funny bounce, it popped up off the ground straight into the air, and Loftin beat it out for an infield single, loading the bases.

John Rave was tasked with pinch-hitting for Tyler Tolbert with a righty on the mound. The Guardians chose to stick with Holderman. Holderman pitched away, away, away until finally John Rave found himself looking out there too hard and chased a sinker off the edge to hit a routine grounder to José Ramírez. Who promptly let it go between his legs in his hurry to try and turn a double play. The Royals now had a two-run lead, but the bases were still loaded, and there was still no one out. Isaac Collins avoided a double play on a routine ground out, but that’s the best we could say. So Josh Rojas pinch-hit for Matthew Lugo (who honestly looked terrible at the plate in both of his at-bats, ending in strikeouts). The Guardians countered by summoning left-hander Erik Sabrowski from the bullpen.

Sure, a two-run lead was nice, but you always want more when you’ve got the bases loaded and nobody out. The Royals needed Rojas to come through, and the final swing of this highlight reel was the moment it finally felt like the Royals were really going to win this one:

He didn’t even mean to swing at it! It’s ridiculous that he made contact with it. But not only that, it dropped where he could hardly have thrown it better to drive in a pair more.

Rojas wasn’t done, though. In the eighth inning, John Rave singled in his second at-bat of the day, and Rojas decided to try a full swing and see what that felt like.

Just a silly, silly win. One of those wins that you always seem to get when you’re doing well and you lose when you’re doing poorly.

Let’s go ahead and shout out the relievers for their terrific work tonight

• Anthony Gose pitched 1.2 perfect innings, earning the win. It was his first win since 2022.
• Craig Kimbrel had a perfect sixth after the Royals took the lead.
• John Schreiber had a perfect seventh.
• Nate Pearson pitched a perfect eighth with a strikeout. That made 14 outs in a row for the bullpen
• With a 6-run lead, Alex Lange allowed a run on two hits and a strikeout.

As Josh Rojas said in the post-game interview, “This is baseball!” This is a lot more fun than the baseball we’ve watched for most of the season. The Royals have guaranteed a winning road trip now. If they hadn’t completely sunk themselves earlier this season, that would be more than enough. That said, if they can somehow pull off the sweep tomorrow, they’d find themselves 5.5 games back of a playoff spot with 24 left to play. Still really long odds, but a far cry from the 10 games back they were at the start of the month. To say nothing of the 10.5 games back they were before they started this 13-2 stretch in Anaheim of Los Angeles two weeks ago.

Winning tomorrow is going to be very difficult. I know I said last night that Seth Lugo (4.61 ERA, 4.51 SIERA) was pitching today, but I was a game early on that. He’ll pitch tomorrow afternoon. Unfortunately, even tougher than Foster Griffin will be tomorrow’s opponent, All-Star lefty Parker Messick (2.50 ERA, 3.52 SIERA). If they can win tomorrow, they get that much closer to what could be a really fun final weekend of baseball where the Royals might be battling for that final playoff spot with these division rivals at home. Wouldn’t that be something?

In a bit of a surprise move with the regular season winding down, the Mets have placed outfielder Luis Robert Jr. on waivers, SNY MLB Insider Chelsea Janes confirmed.

If Robert were to be claimed by another team, they would pick up the remainder of his contract. But it is not guaranteed that he will be claimed. Saturday is also the last day you can take someone on waivers and have them be postseason eligible.

Robert has a team option worth $20 million for the 2027 season, making it unlikely the Mets were going to pick it up. Robert also has about $3 million remaining on his 2026 salary and a $2 million buyout for the 2027 option, MLB.com's Anthony Dicomo notes.

The 29-year-old has had a rough first season with New York after being acquired in January from the Chicago White Sox in exchange for INF Luisangel Acuña and RHP Truman Pauley. 

Injuries continued to be a problem for him, as he landed on the 60-day IL at the end of April with lumbar spine disc herniation and didn't return until July 20.

Over 56 games, he hit just .229 with a .720 OPS, 10 home runs, and 23 RBI. 

Teams will have 48 hours to claim Robert and take on his salary. He can continue to play while on waivers, and if he goes unclaimed, he will return to the Mets.

On Friday night, the Yankees came away with a win over the Red Sox despite not getting much in the way of offense. That was because they got a stellar start from Cam Schlittler and some big time defense from the likes of Cody Bellinger. In Saturday afternoon’s game, they still didn’t get much offense, but the other aspects also weren’t as sharp leading them to drop the second game of the series.

However, there’s no time for them to lick their wounds. The Yankees will be back in action tonight in the second game of today’s doubleheader.

In this game, Max Fried will get the start in his return from the injured list. Fried was placed on the IL earlier this month with a bone bruise, but he only ended up missing the minimum amount of time before returning tonight. As for the rest of the lineup, lefties Luis García Jr., Jazz Chisholm Jr., and Austin Wells are all starting after coming off the bench this afternoon.

Meanwhile, the Red Sox will be using pitcher Alex Gamboa as an opener in this game. The rookie southpaw has a 1.31 ERA in 20.2 innings on the season, including one previous game as an opener. Expect familiar face Brayan Bello to get some work in this one too, as he’s been working as a bulk guy for much of the second half.

We hope you’ll come join us in the game thread, so here’s everything you need to know on how to catch the action.

How to watch

Location: Yankee Stadium – Bronx, NY

First pitch: 7:15 pm ET

TV: FOX

Streaming: FOX One app

Radio broadcast: WFAN 660/101.9 FM, WADO 1280 – NYY | WEEI 93.7, WCCM 1490 AM (SP), WESX 1230 AM (SP) – BOS

For updates, follow us on BlueSky, Twitter, and Instagram, and like us on Facebook.

Mariners 3 Blue Jays 4

That was a terrific celebration for Buck Martinez. Seeing Tony Fernandez’s widow started me tearing up, and it didn’t stop until the first pitch of the game.

Congratulations, Buck. You deserve that.

The Jays got a very nice start from José Soriano. Seven innings, just five hits, two walks and six strikeouts, with three earned runs. He gave up a Cal Raleigh home run in the second. And he had some trouble with two outs in the fourth. Single, walk, walk, single (bringing in two runs). The first single was a very softly hit infield single that Charles McAdoo couldn’t get to quickly enough. Too bad, he could have been out of the inning without anything bad happening.

But still a good outing.

On offence, we waited until the fifth inning to get on the board and then took the lead in the seventh.

• In the fifth: With one out, Myles Straw singles. Brett Bateman walked. After Alejandro Kirk struck out, Vlad took a six-pitch walk. Then George Springer walked on a wild pitch, Straw scored, but Bateman didn’t slow down rounding third and scored. The funny part was that Cal Raleigh got the ball back to pitcher Eduard Bazardo in plenty of time to tag the runner, but Bazardo apparently didn’t know he was coming. You would have thought he would have figured it from the catcher throwing him the ball in such a rush. I’m not sure if Bateman was very smart or very lucky.
• In the sixth: McAdoo led off with a walk. Two outs later, Straw walked. Bateman singled home one. And Kirk singled home our fourth run. We could have had more. Vlad lined one to left field (116.3 mph) but right at the left fielder. Oh, I missed the big news: Kirk stole second in there, beating the throw to second.

We only had five hits on the day, but it was enough. Kade Anderson looked terrific, starting for the Mariners. They have a good pitcher there.

After Soriano’s seven innings, Tyler Rogers started the eighth. He got two strikeouts and then gave up a walk to Julio Rodríguez. John brought in Mason Fluharty to face the lefty Josh Naylor. Naylor managed a single, but Fluharty struck out Raleigh to end the inning.

Louis Varland got his 31st save, going ground out, strikeout and fly out. Very democratic to do one of each. Really nice job.

The first out of the ninth was a very nice play. Ground ball wide of first, Vlad got to the ball, made a nice toss to Varland, who barely beat Cole Young to the bag.

Jays of the Day: Varland (0.16 WPA), Springer (0.21), Bateman (0.17) and Kirk (0.09). Let’s give honourable mention to Straw for 2 hits and a walk. And Rogers, Fluharty and Soriano.

Other Award: Clement (-0.14).

Tomorrow we have game three with the Mariners. It is a 1:30 Eastern start time. Max Scherzer (1-7, 7.02) vs. Logan Gilbert (11-7, 3.36).

A pleasant daydream: Kade Anderson, 0.16 WPA

A rude awakening: José Ferrer, -0.35 WPA

Game Thread Comment of the Day:

We definitely were talking about something else.

Alec Gamboa serves as opener as the Sox and Yankees play the second game of the day. The Sox turned on the gas in the ninth but the Yankees burned through a lot of their bullpen and bench in Game 1. Feels like the Sox still have the juice though.

Let’s go.

How to Watch and Listen

First pitch is at 7:15 PM ET on FOX and WEEI.

Lineups

The White Sox have rolled into Target Field and won what might have been described as a “must-sweep” series, the kind of outcome that you have to root for given the mathematical state of things, but that might deliver you a few side-eyes depending on how genuinely you think it’s going to happen. Today, it was a 3-2 Sox victory that saw Andrew Benintendi deliver three key hits, and Bailey Ober watch his bullpen cough up a loss despite another needle-threading outing.

Ober managed five innings, striking out five Sox and allowing just two hits. One was a first-inning single to Benintendi, scoring the opening salvo after Ober walked his first two men. The other was a Benintendi double in the fourth that came around to score on an error by Kaelen Culpepper. Ober notched just 80 pitches this afternoon, but has a 4.37 ERA in a bizarre season.

And while the Twins got to Erick Fedde for similar numbers — 5 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 2 BB, 4K, nearly identical to Ober’s line — the Sox had the edge. A Josh Bell sacrifice fly and a Walker Jenkins RBI groundout were enough to match Chicago for a pair, but Andrew Morris couldn’t keep Benintendi off the bases, and the veteran’s sixth-inning homer split the difference.

Fellow veteran Sean Newcomb went three innings in relief, and Bryan Hudson locked down the save.

The most hilarious outcome for this season is that the Twins, now just 64-72 and only three games ahead of the fifth-place Royals, wind up in last place, where a great many fans anticipated them being after last season’s post-deadline performance demonstrated just how quickly rock bottom can be reached. It would be a deliriously roundabout way to reach that outcome, but it’s exponentially more likely than Minnesota suddenly righting the ship and going on a generational tear.

I’m pretty sure most of Twins Territory has accepted that the jig is up. Now, shades of 2022, 2024, and 2025 are being drummed up again, as a team floating in the realm of contention by the skin of their teeth finally sees the bottom drop out completely.

See you tomorrow!!

STUDS:

SP Bailey Ober (5 IP, 2 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 2 BB, 5 K)

DUDS:

3B Brooks Lee (0-for-4, 2 K)

SS Kaelen Culpepper (0-f0r-4, R, K, E)

The Brewers are raiding a three-game winning streak, as well as a four-series winning streak entering tonight’s game. They have the chance to extend both of those tonight in the second game of their series against the Rangers.

Shane Drohan gets the start tonight for the Brewers. Though the plan is to move him to the bullpen to manage his innings, he remains in the rotation for at least one more start. He’s coming off of a five-inning start against the Braves, where he allowed two runs, eight hits, and three walks while striking out five. Drohan has a 3.84 ERA and 3.33 FIP overall this season, but that jumps to a 4.58 ERA and 3.71 FIP as a starter. If the Brewers are limiting his innings, the bullpen should be in good shape to take an extra inning or two tonight.

The Brewers will have a tough challenge ahead of them tonight as they face Cal Quantrill of the Rangers. He is finishing up an incredible August tonight, posting a 0.72 ERA and 2.40 FIP over five appearances (25 innings). He has not allowed more than one run in an appearance since July 22nd, which was a three-inning relief appearance against the White Sox where he allowed two runs. He began the season in the bullpen but has shifted to the rotation since late June. This is Quantrill’s fifth career appearance against the Brewers. He faced the Brewers twice last season, allowing three runs in 8 2/3 innings pitched. Overall this season, he has a 2.90 ERA and 4.02 FIP with 60 strikeouts in 83 2/3 innings.

The Brewers will make a couple changes in the lineup tonight. The top four remains the same, with Brice Turang, Jackson Chourio, Jake Bauers, and William Contreras starting. Garrett Mitchell moves up to fifth with Christian Yelich sliding back to sixth. Luis Lara gets the start over Sal Frelick in right, and Cooper Pratt is back in the lineup at shortstop. David Hamilton rounds it out at third base, with Joey Ortiz on the bench.

Tonight’s game is at 6:15 p.m. on FOX, but is the secondary broadcast. It will be broadcast in Wisconsin and Texas, as well as some surrounding markets. It will also be available on the Brewers Radio Network, as usual.

The Cubs celebrated 150 years since becoming a National League franchise before Sunday’s game, with many of the team’s icons present.

Then the current Cubs put on an offensive show, with its newest potential franchise player, Pete Crow-Armstrong, solidifying his claim on this year’s National League MVP award. PCA hit three home runs, also singled, and had a chance at a fourth homer in the eighth inning. He got a standing ovation after grounding out against a Reds position player in that at-bat, and how often do you see that?

Alex Bregman, Carson Kelly and Seiya Suzuki also homered for the Cubs and all of that helped the team to a 17-5 blowout of the Reds.

The fun started in the first inning, after Kevin Gausman set the Reds down in order in the top of the frame.

PCA hit the second pitch of the bottom of the first for his 34th home run [VIDEO].

Leadoff homer facts from BCB’s JohnW53:

PCA’s homer was the eighth of his career in the first inning with nobody on and nobody out, tying him with Brian McRae for the fifth most by a Cub.

Alfonso Soriano hit 22; Rick Monday, 17; Dexter Fowler, 12; and Ian Happ, 11.

All of PCA’s have come this season, five of them since Aug. 5.

Soriano hit 12 in 2007; Monday, eight in 1976; and Fowler, seven in 2016.

The most remarkable thing abouit that — five leadoff home runs in the team’s last 22 games!

Also, that ball was demolished [VIDEO].

And the Cubs weren’t done in that inning. Suzuki followed with a single and then Bregman went deep, his 20th [VIDEO].

Gausman, though, was also susceptible to the long ball on an afternoon with the wind blowing out at 13 miles per hour. A double by Tyler Stephenson was followed by … sigh… yet another home run by Eugenio Suárez against the Cubs, the 39th career blast for him against the North Siders, making it 3-2.

But the Cubs came right back in the bottom of the inning. Tyrone Taylor led off with a single and went to second on a single by Pedro Ramirez.

Carson Kelly then flied to right and Taylor took off for third. Then this happened [VIDEO].

Reds shortstop Elly De La Cruz made a bad throw trying to get Ramirez advancing to second, and on that throw, Taylor scored to make it 4-2.

PCA was next [VIDEO].

That one clanged off the right-field foul pole, homer number 35 for Pete, and a 6-2 Cubs lead.

Again Gausman got taken deep in the third. After he walked De La Cruz, Sal Stewart homered and it was 6-4. That, though, would be as close as the Reds would get.

The Cubs added one in the fourth. PCA came up for the third time in four innings, with people cheering for another homer. Instead, he singled, then went to third on a single by Suzuki and scored on this single by Bregman [VIDEO].

So that’s 3-for-3 and four RBI for PCA in just four innings.

One more run scored off Gausman in the fifth to make it 7-5, and Gausman was removed after the fifth having thrown 102 pitches. It wasn’t a great outing, but with Cubs hitters smacking the ball all over the yard, it didn’t need to be.

The Cubs then began to pour it on in the bottom of the fifth. Taylor and Ramirez singled and Kelly went deep [VIDEO].

It’s now 10-5 Cubs, where it was in the seventh and that’s when the Cubs had even more offensive fun. Taylor and Kelly drew one-out walks, bringing up PCA again [VIDEO].

PCA three-homer game facts from John:

Pete Crow-Armstrong is the 30th different Cub since 1901 to hit three homers in a game. He is the third to join the club this season, after Dansby Swanson on July 1, at home vs. the Padres, and Alex Bregman, on Aug. 12 at Washington. Michael Busch did it on July 4 of last year at home vs. the Cardinals. So they have done it four times in less than 14 months, while playing 211 games.

The previous four had come over 23 years: Brant Brown in 1998, Moises Alou in 2003, Dioner Navarro in 2013 and Rafael Ortega in 2021.

The 30 players have done it a total of 45 times. Sammy Sosa leads, with six; followed by Ernie Banks, four; Dave Kingman and Aramis Ramirez, three; and Kris Bryant, Hank Sauer and Alfonso Soriano, two. PCA is the 23rd with one.

But the Cubs were not done in that inning. Suzuki walked and Bregman was hit by a pitch. One out later, Nico Hoerner came to the plate. He had gone 0-for-4 up to this point, but his single scored Suzuki to make it 14-5 [VIDEO].

Just a bit of an interruption of all this hitting to show you that the Cubs also played some D in this game. Here’s a nice stop by Bregman that ended the top of the eighth [VIDEO].

At first it looked like Bregman had caught the ball, but he immediately threw to first. He knew he hadn’t, and on replay you can see the ball hit the dirt first. Nice grab.

With a nine-run deficit the Reds brought in backup catcher Jose Trevino to throw the bottom of the eighth. Taylor blooped a single to right, his fourth hit of the game. Ramirez flied to center, and then Taylor scored on a double by Kelly [VIDEO].

That brought up PCA. As you can imagine, with a 15-5 lead he was absolutely, positively trying to hit a home run. Who could blame him in that situation? Instead, he grounded out and left to a huge ovation.

But the Cubs were not done hitting homers! Suzuki blasted one into the bleachers to make it 17-5 [VIDEO].

Colin Rea, who hadn’t pitched since a week ago Friday (and only once since Aug. 15) threw two scoreless innings to finish things up. Here’s the final out [VIDEO].

A note on the three-run homers by PCA and Kelly from John:

The three-run homers by Carson Kelly and Pete Crow-Armstrong raised the Cubs’ total this season to 30 with two men on base, breaking the team record for such homers, set in 2017. They hit 28 in 2008, 27 last year and 26 in 1930.

Their 30 this year are the most by any team. The Nationals went into today with 26; the Mariners, 24; and the Brewers and Yankees, 23.

And here are PCA’s postgame comments on his big day [VIDEO].

It was a fantastic day in and around Wrigley Field, both during and before the game. Here’s the full 150th anniversary pregame ceremony, which was well done, and it was wonderful to see all these Cubs greats together on the field:

The Cubs will go for the series win against the Reds Sunday evening at Wrigley Field — remember, this was originally a 1:20 p.m. CT game, it was moved for NBC, which is featuring it on Sunday Night Baseball at 6:20 p.m. CT. Announcers will be Jason Benetti, Anthony Rizzo and Jeff Brantley.

Starters for the game Sunday: Shōta Imanaga for the Cubs and Chase Burns for the Reds. Let’s hope the Cubs can start another winning streak here.

Texas Rangers @ Milwaukee Brewers

Saturday, August 29, 2026, 6:15 PM CDT (105.3 The Fan / FOX)

American Family Field

RHP Cal Quantrill vs. LHP Shane Drohan

Go Rangers!

Andrew Benintendi had three hits and was involved all three White Sox runs. The rest of the team had zilch. Didn’t matter, because the Twins are really bad, resulting in a 3-2 game and series win for the White Sox.

Benintendi’s first hit was an RBI single in the first, a 78 mph squib through a drawn-in infield that was only drawn in because Bailey Ober walked Sam Antonacci and Munekama Murakami to start the game, with Antonacci taking third on a Miguel Vargas fly out.

Erick Fedde gave up runs in the first and second to give Minnesota a 2-1 lead, walks being key in both cases because the Twins can’t hit much with Byron Buxton hurt.

Benintendi’s second hit was a leadoff double in the fourth, after which he scored when rookie shortstop Kaelen Culpepper, perhaps having watched too much World Cup, decided to kick around Chase Meidroth’s absolutely routine grounder to make it 2-2.

Benintendi’s third hit was a homer in the sixth, which would stand up as the game-winner:

Meanwhile, Fedde settled down to throw scoreless ball through the fifth, Sean Newcomb had an excellent relief stint of three innings with two singles and no walks, and Bryan Hudson tossed a 1-2-3 ninth for the save.

As his luck — or skill — would have it, Culpepper followed up the costly error by striking out, fouling out, and then ending the game on a grounder to first. Definitely not his day, so let’s be kind and show his one moment of competence — oh, OK, make that excellence — on a Braden Montgomery grounder with two on (via walks, of course) in the seventh.

Twins pitchers tried to help the Sox, issuing six walks, but when you go 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position, the walks don’t help enough. Twins batters tried to help as well, going an even worse 0-for-7 with RISP.

Heck, even Twins catcher Victor Caratini did his best to help the Sox by running his team out of challenges early, one of his calls on a pitch not even close — challenges they could really have used in the eighth and ninth, when two very bad calls against them had to stand.

The win runs the White Sox record to an amazing 72-63, a season-high nine games better than .500. With Cleveland again trailing Kansas City, there’s a chance that the magic number drops to 24 to 23 in another hour or so.

Either way, the White Sox are eyeing a sweep tomorrow, with Jordan Hicks playing the role of opener versus Zebby Mathews, who sports a 4.86 ERA but has had good performances his last two times out.

Sox MVP
Andrew Benintendi: single, double, HR, two RBI, 1 run

Runners-up
When Benintendi had the only hits and RBIs in the game? Fuggedaboudit

Soiled stockings
The rest of the offense, in a team effort