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Former All-Star shortstop Wander Franco was found guilty of sexual and psychological abuse of a 14-year-old girl but will not serve prison time, according to a verdict delivered Monday, May 25 by a three-judge panel in the Dominican Republic and reported by ESPN.

Franco, 25, was facing a second trial after he received a two-year suspended sentence when he was convicted in June 2025 of having an intimate relationship with a 14-year-old girl when Franco was 21. The girl's mother was convicted of trafficking her daughter and received a 10-year prison sentence that was overturned on appeal; prosecutors allege that Franco had paid off the mother.

The mother was once again convicted of trafficking her daughter and again received a 10-year sentence, ESPN reported. Although the outlet reported that the court issued a judicial pardon to Franco, he was still convicted of a crime of moral turpitude, which would prevent Franco from obtaining a visa to work in the USA.

The court's decision will be issued June 16. Franco remains on Major League Baseball's restricted list for failure to report.

"We are aware of today's verdict in the Wander Franco trial and will conclude our investigation at the appropriate time," MLB said in a statement.

Both the prosecution and Franco's attorney appealed the first trial's outcome, and according to "Diario Libre," a Dominican Republic newspaper, the state sought a five-year prison sentence, while Franco sought to have the conviction overturned – which would likely be his only hope to continue a major league career.

Franco responds to sentence, wants to play in MLB again

As he exited the courtroom, Franco expressed relief and hope he might resume his MLB career, unlikely though that may be. 

"To my fans, keep supporting me, trust in God, and with faith in God, I'll soon be back (in MLB)," Franco said in a video by Dominican journalist Luis Tomas Rae Barett. "In this process, I learned to never give up and to value family. Value your family, because they will always be there. I've always kept training thanks to my dad. I will continue training and waiting for God's decision."

Franco was in the second year of an 11-year, $182 million contract in 2023 when posts emerged on social media of Franco and the 14-year-old girl. Franco's conviction meant the Rays have not had to pay Franco in the years since, and that's likely to continue.

Franco was named to the American League All-Star team in 2023 and had accumulated 5.4 WAR before he was placed on the restricted list that August. He played his last game on Aug. 12.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Wander Franco guilty of sexual abuse of minor in Dominican Republic

The headline represents about all I’ve got for the Cubs’ 2-1 loss to the Pirates Monday afternoon, their ninth consecutive defeat.

Ben Brown was absolutely dealing. He allowed four hits and a run and struck out seven in six solid innings, throwing 83 pitches (58 strikes). The six-inning effort was his longest of the season, but the 83 pitches were just one more than he’d thrown in his previous outing. It was a warm day in Pittsburgh (73 degrees) but not overly hot and humid, so why not let him go one more?

Perhaps that would have prevented Henry Davis from hitting the solo home run off Trent Thornton that was the difference in the game.

We’ll never know, of course.

The other difference in the game, naturally, was the Cubs’ almost-complete offensive failure. They had six hits and three walks off Carmen Mlodzinski and Wilber Dotel over eight innings (and no runners in the ninth), but again couldn’t get any of the runners across the plate. It was so bad that the RISP numbers were just 0-for-2, largely because they simply couldn’t get anyone to scoring position. Overall the Cubs left seven on base, with one runner (Alex Bregman) picked off.

The only Pirates run off Brown came in the third when he walked Spencer Horwitz with one out and Brandon Lowe doubled him in.

The Cubs tied the game in the fifth when Michael Busch homered off Mlodzinski, his sixth [VIDEO].

Busch has now homered in back-to-back games. So that’s good. Too bad there wasn’t anyone on base. That home run went a long way [VIDEO].

A bit more on Brown’s outing from BCB’s JohnW53:

Ben Brown finished with one run on four hits, two walks and seven strikeouts in six innings.

Only 12 previous Cubs starters since 1901 had exactly the first four numbers in at least six innings. Just three did not get a decision: Rube Kroh, first of the 12, in 8.0 innings in 1908 at Philadelphia; Tom Gorzelany, in 6.1, in 2010 at Cincinnati; and Jeff Samardzija, the last before today, in 6.0, on June 23, 2014 at home vs. the Reds.
Eight were winners: Orval Overall (1910), Dick Selma (1969), Fergie Jenkins (1972), Scott Sanderson (1987), Jon Lieber (2000), Mark Prior (2003), Carlos Zambrano (2004) and Rodrigo Lopez (2011).

Prior and Lopez pitched 6.0, as Brown did.

Matt Garza pitched a complete game in 2011 vs. the White Sox and lost, 1-0.

Here’s more on Brown’s day [VIDEO].

As you can see there, Brown used a really good pitch mix and mostly baffled Pirates hitters. Could it be that Ben Brown has finally arrived as a MLB starter? You know I had my doubts, but the fact that he has developed good secondary pitches appears to have made the difference. Great for Ben, and great for the team. Here are Brown’s seven strikeouts [VIDEO].

Thornton retired the first two Pirates in the seventh on ground balls before Davis homered. The pitch wasn’t a bad pitch, either, a cutter down and away, but Davis just got it.

Jacob Webb threw a scoreless eighth, helped in part by this fine catch by Pete Crow-Armstrong [VIDEO].

Craig Counsell sent three pinch hitters to the plate in the ninth, the first was Nico Hoerner for Pedro Ramirez.

I’m having trouble understanding why you’d bat for a switch-hitter (Ramirez) in that situation. Okay, Nico’s experienced at leading off innings, I guess you can make a case for it.

Nico swung at what would have been ball three and grounded out.

Seiya Suzuki, batting for Moisés Ballesteros, struck out and Carson Kelly, batting for Miguel Amaya, grounded out to end the game.

You can tell these guys are pressing, which can happen when a team’s on a long losing streak. All the team can do is pick up and try to win tomorrow.

A couple of likely meaningless notes on the Cubs losing recently: First, this game ran 2:24. It’s the sixth game this year the Cubs have played in that time or shorter. They’ve lost all of them.

Second, and even more meaningless:

Maybe wear the blue alternates the rest of the road trip? Just for the heck of it? Can’t hurt, right?

The Cubs will once again attempt to end the losing streak Tuesday evening at PNC Park. Jordan Wicks will make his first 2026 start for the Cubs and Braxton Ashcraft will go for the Pirates. Game time Tuesday is 5:40 p.m. CT and TV coverage will be via Marquee Sports Network.

The San Francisco Giants welcome the Arizona Diamondbacks to Oracle Park this afternoon to begin a three-game series. Just like we did last week, only this time at home!

As of the time this is being pre-written (due to the holiday), neither team has announced pitchers for this game. So make sure you head down to the comments for the most up to date information.

Game #54

Who: San Francisco Giants – Arizona Diamondbacks

Where: Oracle Park, San Francisco, California

When: 2:05 p.m. PT

Regional broadcast: NBC Sports Bay Area

National broadcast: n/a

Radio: KNBR 680 AM/104.5 FM, KSFN 1510 AM

Our first visit of the year to San Francisco, and we’re hoping it goes as well as the last time the D-backs faced the Giants. You probably remember, considering it was the dim and distant depths of… last week. Arizona swept San Francisco handily, outscoring them by a margin of 23-8 across the three games. But like most teams, the Giants have been harder to beat on their own turf. They have gone 12-13 at Oracle Park, as opposed to 10-18 on the road. So I’d be perfectly fine with Arizona taking two of three. That’d give the team a 10-3 record across two weeks of games against divisional rivals (albeit the bottom of the barrel), and you can’t argue with that.

Merrill Kelly will seek to post a fourth straight quality start. Though to be fair, those games were against the three worst teams in the league, in the Mets, Rockies and Giants. It did include our first complete game at Coors in a very long time, which is no mean feat. Merrill held the Giants to three runs over six innings in a 6-3 victory last time out, scattering eight hits and no walks with four strikeouts. Kinda meh, considering the Giants offense. They did scored 18 runs against the White Sox on Saturday and Sunday. But they scored 16 against the Athletics on Saturday and Sunday before coming to Chase Field, and that didn’t help them there, did it?

Bit of an odd start time. I get the day game on a Monday thing, with it being a holiday, but 2:05 pm is a bit odd, especially since I don’t believe it’s a national broadcast or anything. Oh, well. I’ll have to convince Mrs. S to delay the barbecuing until after I get the recap posted. I’ve been on good form of late: haven’t had a losing Monday recap since April 13. Admittedly a slew of off-days helped! But my last two recaps were victories in completely opposite ways: one was 1-0, while the other was a 12-2 win, our biggest margin of the season. I think I prefer the latter: always nice to start work on the recap in the fourth inning!

Per Wilner:

Lukes isn’t having a great season, slashing .250/.286/.327 (a 73 wRC+) in 56 PA before he went down with a hamstring injury. To be fair, though, he was hampered by some strange issues with vertigo in the first three weeks of that time. In 21 PA since seeing a specialist to work out a treatment plan for that issue, he had notched 10 hits including four doubles. Hopefully that means that the Lukes we’ll see is closer to the guy who was a solidly league average hitter in 2025.

Davis Schneider takes the fall to make room. It’s been a rough start for him, with a .127/.295/.211 line through 89 PA. He’s not barreling the ball up as often as he usually does, accounting for the collapse in his power production, and while he still works an absolute ton of walks it hasn’t been enough to overcome a nearly 35% strikeout rate. He’s shown no signs of breaking out of his slump, either, with May numbers worse than what he posted in March and April. Hopefully some everyday time in Buffalo gets him straightened out. It’s worth remembering that he’s been prone to horrific slumps for his entire career, and has always bounced back eventually to post solid overall production, so there’s every reason to hope he can get right.

I’m not sure I agree with Wilner that Lenyn Sosa would have been the alternative. It’s true that he’s somehow been even worse, with a 29 wRC+ on the season and 25 since he became a Blue Jay, but he’s out of options and this front office is loathe to give a guy up for nothing if they have any belief in him left at all. I can’t say I have any faith in a guy who’s below replacement level through four and a quarter MLB seasons, but the Jays just acquired him and I’m not surprised that 76 horrendous PA aren’t enough for them to give up on whatever they think they see there.

In other minor news, it’s the first roof open night of the year:

And Today In Injuries: Dylan Cease told John Schneider he expects to make his next start before going in for an MRI on the sore leg that knocked him out of yesterday’s game. He also apparently told Vladimir Guerrero jr. that he thought it was just a cramp. I’ll believe it when I see it, and obviously everything is up in the air pending the results of the MRI, but it still seems like they probably avoided a major injury here.

Regarding Vlad, the same story notes that x-rays on his elbow were negative. He came out of the game because he couldn’t feel his hand, but apparently experienced the same feeling after a similar HBP last year and played the next day. He’s not in tonight’s lineup, but hopefully it won’t be more than a day or two.

Texas Rangers lineup for May 25, 2026 against the Houston Astros: starting pitchers are Kumar Rocker for the Rangers and Tatsuya Imai for the Astros.

The Rangers return home and will try to break a three game losing streak. Josh Jung is still sitting due to his shoulder issue.

The lineup:

Pederson — 1B

Osuna — LF

Nimmo — DH

Duran — 3B

Carter — CF

Foscue — 2B

McCutchen — RF

Jansen — C

Helman — SS

6:05 p.m. Central start time. The Rangers are -125 favorites.

The Nationals have won 3 of their last 4 series and have taken over 2nd place in the National League East as we enter the end of May. After coming excruciatingly close to sweeping the Atlanta Braves, they now finish their quick road trip with a 3-game set against the Cleveland Guardians.

Cleveland has been dominating the middling American League Central, sitting 9.0 games over .500. They’ve gone 8-1 over their last 9 contests, and their pitching staff has been absolutely on point. Opposing offenses haven’t been able to string together anything of substance, and their offense has continually done just enough to close out a victory.

Game 1 – Monday 6:10 PM EST

WSH: RHP Zack Littell (3-4, 5.83 ERA)

CLE: RHP Tanner Bibee (0-6, 3.75 ERA)

Littell will look to finish his month of May on a high note, after posting an impressive 2.55 ERA in his last 4 starts. His season-long mark has dropped over 2 full points since the start of the month, and he’s looked much more like the steady veteran the Nationals signed in the offseason. Chasing whiffs hasn’t been his pathway to success, with just 7 strikeouts in 17.2 innings in May, but limiting hard contact has fueled a healthy stretch of productive outings. PJ Poulin will actually open this one, but Littell will get the bulk of the action

Don’t let the record fool you, Bibee has been a more-than-serviceable pitcher through 11 appearances. While he has racked up a few more Ks, he’s another contact-first arm who seems to never get shelled. He’s coming off the best start of the season to date, throwing 8.0 innings of 1-run ball against the Detroit Tigers on May 20th, allowing just 4 hits and 1 walk in the process.

Game 2 – Tuesday 6:10 PM EST

WSH: RHP Cade Cavalli (2-3, 3.86 ERA)

CLE: LHP Joey Cantillo (4-1, 3.05 ERA)

Similar to Bibee, the best Cavalli has looked all year came the last time he was on the mound. He ripped through the New York Mets’ lineup on May 21st, cruising through 7.0 innings with just 2 runs surrendered and 9 total strikeouts. The stuff continues to come in waves for the righthander, and it’s impossible not to continue to believe in the ceiling he has. He’s still looking for his first scoreless outing of the season, and a weaker Cleveland lineup could give him the chance to do just that if he can replicate the success of his arsenal last time around the rotation.

Cantillo was a reliable swing starter for the Guardians in 2025, and he’s taken it to the next level in 2026. He’s parlayed a 2.70 ERA in April with a 3.16 ERA in May, allowing 1 or fewer runs in 3 of his 5 starts this month. When he’s been beat, teams have capitalized on the few hits he tends to give up, making timely hitting of utmost importance for the Washington lineup in Game 2.

Game 3 – Wednesday 1:10 PM EST

WSH: RHP Miles Mikolas (1-3, 6.17 ERA)

CLE: RHP Gavin Williams (7-3, 3.25)

I don’t think anyone is fully gung-ho on Mikolas quite yet, but the redemption arc has certainly been exciting to watch. The ERA remains above the 6.00 mark, but it had sat around the 8.00 range for a handful of starts earlier in the year. He’s been attacking hitters with well-timed sequencing of his pitches, and his command has looked far better with just 3 walks this month. He doesn’t quite inspire confidence, but if the results can continue to come, the Nats’ rotation would benefit in a major way.

Aside from a rough run where he gave up 5 or more runs in 3 of 4 starts, hitters haven’t figured out Williams on a consistent basis. He delivered one of the best starts of any pitcher against Philadelphia a couple of days ago, outdueling Cy Young candidate Cristopher Sanchez with 8.0 shutout innings and 11 strikeouts. Unlike their other arms, when hitters make contact against him, it’s usually around the barrel. His Average Opposing Exit Velocity, Barrel%, and Hard-Hit% are all under the 10th percentile, something the Nats will need to capitalize on.

What started out as a good week for the Yankees turned into a tossup, as they opened with two straight wins against the Blue Jays before dropping the next two to split the series and then opened their second meeting with the Rays in embarrassing fashion blowing the lead late. They got rained out on Saturday prompting another chance to force a split and they took it, but not before going through eight scoreless innings of play that had everyone wondering where the offense was. Thankfully, Aaron Judge took it upon himself to end it, crushing a two-run walk-off homer to finally get one on Tampa Bay.

The Yankees did get some undeniably good news this week, getting Gerrit Cole and José Caballero back from the IL on Friday. Cole jumped back into the rotation and proved that he didn’t need one more tuneup, tossing six innings of shutout ball before the inevitable bullpen blowup. Can they rely on Cole to be the ace of old right away, and will they need him to be with the way the offense has been frozen over of late? Will Judge’s blast end up kicking him out of his stupor at the plate? If you have questions like these, or anything else on your mind, send ‘em in for a chance to be featured in our Yankees mailbag.

Answers will run on Friday afternoon. All questions received by the night of May 28th will be considered. You can leave your submissions in the comment section below or by e-mail to pinstripealleyblog [at] gmail [dot] com.

KANSAS CITY – For the first time this season, Anthony Volpe and José Caballero were in the same lineup on Monday afternoon.

Volpe started at shortstop while Caballero slid over to third base as the Yankees faced Royals right-hander Michael Wacha, who has reverse splits, at Kauffman Stadium.

Caballero had started all 41 of his games this season at shortstop before moving off the position Monday. Aaron Boone wanted to get an extra righty bat in the lineup against Wacha, who has been tougher on left-handed hitters, which meant Ryan McMahon was relegated to the bench.

“I just wanted to at least have a little bit more of a righty presence today against Wacha, who’s historically tougher on lefties,” Boone said before the game. “We can’t avoid having some lefties in there, obviously, and I like the ones we have in there. But felt like getting another righty bat in there and the athleticism and defense and everything. Felt like today was a good day to have him in the lineup as well.”

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Volpe had been out of the lineup in Caballero’s first two games back from the injured list before getting back in on Monday, at his regular position. The Yankees plan to have Volpe work out at second base before games he is not starting, though there is no indication he is close to being an option there.

Caballero, meanwhile, could get a start in the outfield during this series against the Royals, which would give Volpe another day in the lineup.

“Whenever I’m in there [the lineup], I’m happy,” Caballero said Monday.

Caballero, who has plenty of history playing other positions, indicated he would only need some pregame work on the days he plays other positions to feel ready there again.

“Between the lines, I feel comfortable,” he said. “I like to be in the lineup, that’s all.”