Worldwide Sports News

Major League Baseball says it has no concerns about Dodgers and Rams head team physician Dr. Neal ElAttrache working with players.

ElAttrache was questioned by MLB on June 12 following a detailed report by the New York Times that the renowned surgeon and sports medicine expert supported the therapeutic use of performance-enhancing drugs by UFC star Conor McGregor.

“MLB took our responsibility to conduct due diligence in this matter seriously. We interviewed Dr. Neal ElAttrache last week, covering multiple topics, and he answered our questions thoroughly,” MLB said in a statement obtained by The Times Tuesday night.

“Based on our interview, the review of relevant records, Dr. ElAttrache’s long history of support for and cooperation with the Joint Drug Program and the fact that no Therapeutic Use Exemption requests of this nature have been submitted by Dr. ElAttrache or anyone else, we do not have any concerns regarding Dr. ElAttrache’s treatment of MLB players, or his adherence to the Joint Drug Programs and related rules.

“We consider this matter closed.”

Read more:Dodgers, Rams physician Neal ElAttrache explains referring UFC star Conor McGregor to steroids specialist

ElAttrache performed surgery on McGregor in July 2021, inserting a rod, plates and screws into his left leg after the fighter broke his tibia and fibula during a mixed martial arts bout against Dustin Poirier in Las Vegas.

McGregor’s recovery was lengthy and arduous. ElAttrache told the New York Times that while he did not prescribe steroids for McGregor, he referred him to a specialist who did. Furthermore, ElAttrache wrote a letter supporting McGregor’s request for a therapeutic use exemption from UFC drug policies.

“I felt it would be appropriate to consult other physicians with expertise in bone healing/bone metabolism,” ElAttrache told the New York Times via text. “I recommended the consultations but not the course of treatment.”

ElAttrache said he told McGregor to check with UFC drug testers about prescriptions the consultant gave him. “I purposely wasn’t involved with his evaluation by the consultant nor with prescribing medication,” ElAttrache said.

Read more:Surgeon Neal ElAttrache helps Rams and Dodgers get back on the field after injuries

The exemption request was denied by the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency, the drug testing organization the UFC used at the time, triggering a split between the two organizations. McGregor withdrew from the UFC anti-doping program shortly thereafter and no longer was required to undergo testing for banned substances.

The report prompted MLB to talk with ElAttrache about his approach to treating players.

ElAttrache, operating primarily out of the Cedars-Sinai Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles, has performed elbow or shoulder surgeries on prominent Dodgers past and present, including Shohei Ohtani, Clayton Kershaw, Tony Gonsolin and Walker Buehler as well as former Rams stars Cooper Kupp and Cam Akers.

Among the hundreds of surgeries performed over three decades by ElAttrache, his patients include the four 2024 MLB most valuable player and Cy Young Award winners — Ohtani, Aaron Judge, Chris Sale and Tarik Skubal. ElAttrache’s patients include 18 of 29 players who won the MVP or Cy Young awards over the past 10 years.

“I have spoken with MLB and I am very comfortable with the process that the league and I will complete to assure the public that I have followed every rule and regulation in my medical treatment of athletes without exception,” ElAttrache said in a statement to the Los Angeles Times earlier this month. “My record is completely clean, including in this case.”

Times staff writers Steve Henson, Bill Shaikin, Sam Farmer and Gary Klein contributed to this report.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Red Sox 5, Rockies 2

Leverage index and box score

Graphics via FanGraphs.

Sonny Skies: Sonny Gray, +0.34 WPA

Nothing’s Free, man: Tyler Freeman, -0.18 WPA 

Game thread comment of the day

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MINNEAPOLIS — They don’t homer, they don’t win.

That’s normally the case for the Dodgers.

Tuesday was an exception.

In their 12-3 victory over the Minnesota Twins, the Dodgers built their lead in unorthodox fashion.

They piled up hits.

Of their 17 hits, only one was a home run and it didn’t come until the ninth inning when Alex Call launched a sinker by reliever Taylor Rogers over the left-field wall at Target Field.

How unusual was this?

The Dodgers are 7-17 in games in which they don’t homer.

In games they do?

They’re 44-12.

Freddie Freeman led the Dodgers’ balanced attack, as he was 3-for-4 with a walk and was involved in the team scoring in three separate innings.

Freeman doubled in the third inning and scored when Tommy Edman reached base on a throwing error by Twins second baseman Luke Keaschall. The run tied the game at 2-2.

A single by Freeman drove in the second of the three runs the Dodgers scored in the fourth inning to move in front, 5-2.

Freeman doubled again in the sixth inning to drive in Andy Pages and extend the Dodgers’ lead to 6-2.

Justin Wrobleski provided the majority of the pitching, limiting the Twins to two runs and five hits over seven innings. Wrobleski improved his record to a team-best 9-2 and lowered his earned-run average to 2.71.

What it means

The Dodgers’ record of 51-29 is the best record in baseball.

Last year, the Dodgers finished the regular season with the third-best record in the NL, which complicated their World Series title defense.

Because they weren’t one of the two NL teams to receive a first-round bye, they had to play the Cincinnati Reds in a best-of-three wild-card round. In each of the next three rounds of the postseason, including the World Series, their opponents had home-field advantage.

This year, they could do what they did in 2024 when they enjoyed a first-round bye and home-field advantage throughout the postseason.

Who’s hot

Journeyman Chuckie Robinson started at catcher in place of Dalton Rushing, who was tested before the game to rule out a concussion.

Robinson entered the game 0 for 11 on the season.

His fourth-inning single was his first hit in the major leagues since Sept. 14, 2024. He finished the game 2 for 4 with a run scored and a run batted in, making this his first multi-hit game since Oct. 4, 2022. 

The series marks a homecoming for outfielder Alex Call, who grew up about 40 minutes away in River Falls, Wisc.

With Kyle Tucker sidelined with back spasms, Call was 2-for-4 with a homer, two walks and three runs. In the series opener on Monday, Call pinch-ran for Tucker in the second inning and went on to collect two hits in that game.

Who’s not

The Twins remain within striking distance of a wild-card spot, but they might as well be sellers at the trade deadline. Even if they reach the postseason by some miracle, they simply don’t have the team to compete in October. Their bullpen is terrible, and based on their performance so far in this series, their lineup can’t do anything against half-decent pitching. In their two games against the Dodgers, the Twins have scored only three runs.

Up next

The Dodgers will close out their three-game series against the Twins on Wednesday. Shohei Ohtani (7-2, 1.47 ERA) will start for the Dodgers and take on All-Star Joe Ryan (5-3, 2.99 ERA). who had his start pushed back by a day because of illness.

Kendry Rojas got the start tonight in lieu of Joe Ryan who was sick (he’ll pitch tomorrow, it sounds like), and immediately walked the first two Dodgers. Then, after a couple strikeouts, Tommy Edman hit a liner up the middle, past the glove of Luke Keaschall, to score LA’s first run.

It was a fairly clean, scoreless inning for Rojas in the 2nd, with Victor Caratini hitting a solo HR for the Twins first run in the bottom half.

Newly called up Austin Voth took over for Rojas and allowed a 1-out double to Freddie Freeman. Edman hit a grounder to 2nd and despite Keashcall, Voth, and Lewis converging at first base, no out was recorded, allowing Freeman to score on the error.

In the bottom of the 3rd, Byron Buxton hit a double to left-center with Austin Martin at 1st, who was thrown out at home. However, Josh Bell was able to tie the game up at 2 with a bloop single to center, scoring Buxton.

It did not stay tied for very long, as Alex Call singled, then Chuckie Robinson singled and moved Call to 3rd, then Shohei Ohtani hit a sac fly RBI, then 3 more singles scored 2 more after that, putting the Dodgers up 5-2.

Meanwhile, the Twins bats started faltering against the lefty Justin Wrobleski, earning just a single and a walk in innings 4 through 7. The Dodgers did not stop scoring, with single runs in the 6th and 7th, as well as 5 in the 9th against Taylor Rogers, making this one not even close.

Oh, Brooks Lee hit a solo homer in the 9th, cool. 12-3 is your final.

Studs:

Brooks Lee: 1-4, HR (13)

Victor Caratini: 1-4, HR (6)

Travis Adams: 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, BB, 4 K

Duds:

Austin Voth: 4 IP, 11 H, 6 R, 5 ER, BB, 2 K

Taylor Rogers: 1 IP, 5 H, 5 ER, 2 BB, HR

Luke Keaschall: 0-2, BB, Error

The Dodgers scored early and often to beat the Minnesota Twins 12-3, picking up a second victory in as many days at Target Field in Minneapolis.

After the start of the game was delayed 28 minutes, the first two Dodgers hitters were walking in the rain against rookie reliever Kendry Rojas. Two outs later, Tommy Edman pushed a single off the glove of second baseman Luke Keaschall for the game’s first run, the third straight game the Dodgers have scored in the first inning.

Rojas was the opener for the Twins bullpen and needed 50 pitches to get through his two innings, only half of them for strikes, with three total walks. But the Dodgers scored just once off of him.

Justin Wrobleski was much more economical, keeping with his theme this season, including three flyouts to right field in a perfect first inning — 9, 9, 9 in your scorecard — on just nine pitches.

Minnesota evened things up in a second inning reminiscent of Monday night’s game, with a solo home run, this one by catcher Victor Caratini.

The Dodgers tapped the Edman-to-Keaschall pipeline for another run in the third, on an easy-peasy would-be inning-ending groundout, but Keaschall’s underhand toss toward first base was way offline, allowing Freddie Freeman to scamper home with a gift run after his 18th double of the season.

Call and response continued with Mookie Betts make an error of his own to open the bottom of the third. Byron Buxton nearly cashed it in with a double to the left center field gap, but Andy Pages cut the ball off quickly then started an 8-6-2 putout with Betts that erased Austin Martin at the plate.

Pages has eight outfield assists this season, most in the majors. This one briefly kept the Dodgers ahead, but Josh Bell quickly singled home Buxton to keep the back-and-forth going.

First things first

Three runs in the fourth inning broke the game open, thanks to five singles — three with two outs — and a sacrifice fly off Austin Voth. The second of those five singles was by Chuckie Robinson, forced into a heavier workload with Will Smith on the injured list and Dalton Rushing exiting Monday to enter concussion protocol. The single was Robinson’s first time reaching base in 16 plate appearances as a Dodger over the last two seasons, and the first major league hit for the 31-year-old since September 21, 2024 while with the Chicago White Sox (off then-Padre Tanner Scott).

For good measure, Robinson singled again in the fifth for the second two-hit game of his career. He also had two hits, including a home run as a Cincinnati Reds rookie on October 4, 2022. Robinson even added a squeeze bunt in the seventh inning for his first major league RBI since that 2022 game.

Wrobleski, who nearly allowed three more runs of his own in the third inning on a Brooks Lee drive with home run distance but maybe a few feet foul down the left field line. Lee, who bat-flipped that near-home run, instead flew out later in the at-bat to end the frame and strand a pair of runners on base.

Staked to a three-run lead, Wrobleski retired 10 his final 12 batters faced, and threw 92 pitches in his seven innings, the fifth time he’s pitched at least that long this season. Ten of his 13 starts have lasted at least six frames.

Five runs in the ninth inning doubled the Dodgers’ lead, an inning that saw Alex Call’s first home run of the season and a two-run double by Max Muncy.

Notes

• Freeman tied his season high with three hits, including another RBI double in the sixth inning. Freeman’s 566 career doubles passed Carlos Beltrán for 29th-most in MLB history.
• Austin Voth was the second Twins pitcher of the game and took the brunt of the damage, allowing six runs while recording 12 outs. His 11 hits allowed tied Mike Mikolas on April 3 in Washington D.C. for most Dodgers hits against one pitcher in a game this season.
• Brock Stewart, activated off the injured list on Monday, appeared in his first game for the Dodgers since May 8. He allowed a solo home run, the only tally against him in the ninth inning.
• The Dodgers have won 18 of their last 21 games against the Twins, dating back to 2014, including 9-1 at Target Field during that span.

Tuesday particulars

Home run: Alex Call (1); Victor Caratini (6), Brooks Lee (13)

WP — Justin Wrobleski (9-2): 7 IP, 5 hits, 2 runs, 2 walks, 3 strikeouts

LP — Austin Voth (0-1): 4+ IP, 11 hits, 6 runs (5 earned), 1 walk, 2 strikeouts

Up next

The Dodgers go for the sweep in the series finale (4:40 p.m. PT, SportsNet LA), with Shohei Ohtani making his seventh consecutive Wednesday pitching start, against Twins ace Joe Ryan.

The Mets’ nightmare of a season somehow got worse Tuesday night, and not just because they lost another game at Citi Field or got another bad start from Kodai Senga that might cost him his spot in the rotation.

Juan Soto left their 9-6 loss to the Cubs prior to the top of the fifth with what the team called left-side back tightness.

Carlos Mendoza said the left fielder was day to day after being removed from their third straight defeat because his back locked up and he was in discomfort.

The game itself was no better, as Senga took another step toward potentially pitching himself out of the rotation, as he allowed seven runs in 3 ²/₃ innings in his second start back from the IL.

Mendoza indicated he would speak with team president David Stearns about how they would handle his spot.

“David [Stearns] was pretty clear before the game that performance matters and having outings like this is not gonna cut it,” the manager said. “You get to a point where you have to go out and earn it.”

So much for Francisco Lindor coming to save the day.

The shortstop played perhaps his final minor league rehab game with Triple-A Syracuse on Tuesday, having been sidelined since April with a strained left calf.

Now, having both Lindor and Soto in the lineup together again may be in jeopardy.

Soto flied out in both of his at-bats before leaving the game, with Jared Young moving from first base to take Soto’s spot in left, while Mark Vientos entered at first base.

• CHECK OUT THE LATEST MLB STANDINGS AND METS STATS

By then, the Mets already trailed by five runs, thanks to another clunker from Senga.

Stearns said the rotation would be evaluated “turn by turn,” and Senga brought a 14.59 ERA over his past four starts into Tuesday.

The situation did not improve.

Senga struck out the side in order in the first, dominating with his fastball, but fell back into poor habits in the second, walking Seiya Suzuki to open the inning.

A single by Ian Happ and a hit by pitch by Matt Shaw loaded the bases with no one out.

Senga whiffed Nico Hoerner before walking Carson Kelly to force in a run. Dansby Swanson followed with a sacrifice fly before former Mets prospect Pete Crow-Armstrong’s three-run homer made it 5-0.

Afterward, Senga said through an interpreter, “I’ll continue to prepare to pitch in this league.”

But Mendoza was mystified by Senga falling apart in the second.

“That’s the frustrating part,” Mendoza said. “We were in the dugout saying, ‘What’s going on here?’ It’s hard to explain.”

They could get a boost this weekend, with Christian Scott expected to return from his IL stint, but Senga is part of a list that includes Freddy Peralta, David Peterson and Sean Manaea as significant disappointments.

With the rotation a mess and the Mets so far unable to fix it, they can hardly afford another blow to the lineup, especially involving Soto.

While the rest of the team has fallen apart, Soto recovered from the calf injury well enough to enter Tuesday leading the team in most offensive categories, with a .974 OPS — second only to the Dodgers’ Shohei Ohtani in the National League.

He’s been extremely durable throughout much of his career and missed just five games over the previous three seasons.

Now, the Mets are facing more time without Soto — and perhaps with Senga, despite his continued issues on the mound.

“I’ve never experienced something like this in my career,” Senga said.

Welcome to the 2026 Mets.

Sometimes past results do not predict today’s performance.

Shane McClanahan came into the night having allowed only two home runs over his last 56.0 innings pitched. Six pitches into Tuesday night’s game, he allowed two more.

The game didn’t immediately start with doom and gloom. Taylor Walls made a diving play on a grounder from Lane Thomas to open the game. Then Nick Loftin hit a solo homer to left. Then, Tampa native, Jac Caglianone followed with one to right. Two swings, two runs, and suddenly the Royals had a 2-0 lead. McClanahan recovered enough to strike out Salvador Perez and get Carter Jensen to fly out, but the damage was immediate and jarring. Tropicana Field has been kind to McLanahan lately, winning his previous five starts. This inning, an ultimately game, was not.

The Rays didn’t just concede defeat; they tried to fight back. Yandy Díaz was hit by a pitch, Jonathan Aranda singled, and Junior Caminero lined a run-scoring single to center to make it 2-1. It started to feel like the Rays were on a path to tie the game or maybe even take a lead. Instead, Richie Palacios got caught stealing to end the frame.

Building momentum and losing it became a theme of the night.

In the second, Jonny DeLuca and Chandler Simpson were walked, and after a Taylor Walls flyout and a Simpson stolen base, the Rays had runners at second and third with just one out. A tie game felt right there, practically waving from 90 feet away. Then Hunter Feduccia and Diaz struck out and took the hope back into the dugout with them.

In the third, Cedric Mullins drew a walk, but Caminero lined into a double play.

The disappointment continued in the fourth, the Royals tried to give the game away again, or at least leave the door cracked. DeLuca reached on a little pop-up single that would have been a foul ball, but the Royals touched it while it was bouncing foul. Simpson reached on a fielder’s choice, and Walls walked once again, putting runners on base. Feduccia struck out again, and it was still a 2-1 game.

McClanahan, meanwhile, had steadied himself after the strange first inning, but the fifth turned the game from frustrating to decisive. Michael Massey opened with a double, and Tyler Tolbert’s sacrifice bunt became a run when McClanahan threw it away, literally. The throwing error made it 3-1. McClanahan nearly limited it from there. Kameron Misner struck out. Thomas lined out. One more out and the Rays are still within two.

They did not get that out cleanly. Loftin, already responsible for the first homer of the night, singled home Tolbert. Then Caglianone launched his second homer of the game, a two-run shot to left-center. Just like that, 3-1 became 6-1, and the chances of the Rays winning were floating away like a helium balloon unintentionally released.

The Rays’ offense did little to change the course of the game. They went down in order in the fifth, got a Palacios single in the sixth but nothing around it, and wasted a Díaz walk in the seventh. Steven Cruz and Matt Strahm did exactly what Kansas City needed from the bullpen to keep the Rays’ bats cool.

Steven Matz gave Tampa Bay a clean seventh, but the eighth got away from him in a hurry. Loftin singled, Caglianone singled, and Perez doubled both of them in. Jensen singled, Starling Marte added a sacrifice fly, Misner doubled home another run, and a wild pitch brought in one more. It was 11-1 by the end of the inning after the entire Royals lineup came to the plate.

Caminero gave the Rays a small spark in the bottom of the eighth with a solo homer off the catwalk, his 16th, and the ninth inning brought a little late pride and surrender.

Ben Williamson gave us a position player pitching appearance and allowed an RBI double to Josh Rojas in the top half of the ninth. Then the Rays put together their best rally of the night, just a little too late. Simpson walked, Walls singled, and after two strikeouts, Aranda, Mullins, and Caminero delivered three straight RBI singles. That trimmed it to 12-5 and at least made the final score look somewhat more respectable. Palacios flew out to end it, sealing a 12-5 Royals win.

The visiting team has now won the last nine games in this Rays-Royals series, dating back to July 4, 2024. We will see if that streak continues tomorrow when Griffin Jax takes the mound for the Rays.

By the end of this week, the Mets will have played more than half their schedule and they still carry the worst record in the NL East.

But if you’ve been waiting for them to blow up the roster and start over, you’re going to have to wait a while longer.

Still, while Francisco Lindor’s impending return from the calf strain that’s sidelined him since April figures to help an ailing offense, it won’t do anything for what’s been a hugely disappointing rotation or get other injured high-profile players back on the field.

But David Stearns said that with the Aug. 3 trade deadline nearly six weeks away, Lindor and the rest of the cellar-dwelling team will get a chance to show that what they’ve done over the first nearly three months of the season isn’t who they really are.

“We have a period of time here before we have to make a finite decision about the trade deadline,” the team’s president of baseball operations said Tuesday at Citi Field. “We’re also in a period of time where we’ve got to start playing better baseball.”

That’s putting it mildly.

Despite their awful record (34-44), Stearns said, “We’re going to continue to give this team time to prove that we can get back in this in a very legitimate sense.”

But then Juan Soto left Tuesday’s 9-6 loss to the Cubs with what was termed left side back tightness.

Stearns, speaking at his usual homestand availability — which he has kept up even as the season is crumbling around him — noted that it’s impossible to blame their poor play on any one part of the team.

At different times in the press conference, he pointed to the starting rotation’s inability to stay healthy or pitch deep into games, the lineup’s failure to produce runs and the organization so far not being able to get many of their players to play to their potential.

Asked about the disappointing rotation, Stearns said, “We clearly have been inconsistent in that facet of the game. We’ve been inconsistent at various times in all segments of the team. It’s why we have the record we have.”

They’ve resorted to using openers on a frighteningly regular basis and high-profile addition Freddy Peralta has had a nightmarish season, which Stearns blamed in part on mechanical issues that might be impacting his location.

The acquisitions on offense haven’t been much better, with Bo Bichette still waiting to get going and Jorge Polanco and Luis Robert Jr. not close to returning from injuries.

And more inexperienced players haven’t developed, outside of Carson Benge and A.J. Ewing.

“Both run-scoring and the starting rotation have to be more consistent going forward to go on the type of run of prolonged quality play we need to have,” Stearns said.

But he remains confident in the group he put together.

Asked if he could “fix” the roster during the season, Stearns said, “The word ‘fix’ is not something I’m thinking about. I think it’s about how to get players to play up to their potential. For a large segment of the roster, I don’t think we’ve seen that this year.”

Even with that lack of progress, Stearns said he was “pleased” with the processes of the coaching staff, much of which was overhauled during the offseason.

The Mets entered Tuesday six games out of the final wild-card spot in the National League and 14 ½ games behind Atlanta atop the NL East. All this from a team that owner Steve Cohen said during the spring needed to make the postseason this year.

“I think Steve wants us to, certainly, be better than we are,” Stearns said. “He’s frustrated. We’re all frustrated. Steve expects us to do better than this. I expect us to be better than this.”He, like me, is gonna withhold judgment on a trade deadline strategy til have to make a decision closer to that time.”

The clock is ticking.

There’s a running joke in one of my group chats that Cole Young looks like a Disney prince who decided to play baseball instead (show me the lie). In tonight’s series opener against the Pirates, Young Prince Cole had a game fit for a golden era Disney film. Making his first-ever appearance as a big-leaguer in PNC Park, where the Pittsburgh-born Young grew up attending games, and in front of a host of friends, family, and former coaches – including his coach at North Allegheny High, Andrew Heck – Young had a go-ahead homer that would be the game-winner for the Mariners in a narrow 3-2 victory over the Pirates.

The Mariners scored all their runs via the longball tonight, even though only two made it over the fence: they made 11 outs in the air, along with a pair of hard-hit lineouts, but the balls consistently died at the warning track. Meanwhile, the Pirates managed to scrape out a lead on George Kirby, first going up 1-0 in the second on a combination of an Endy Rodríguez double and a Marcell Ozuna RBI single, both hits coming on four-seamers that caught too much plate.

Pittsburgh would add on another run in the bottom of the third, although this wasn’t as much Kirby’s fault. Brandon Lowe singled on a curveball that was well-located, and then would come around to score on a weakly-hit ball off the bat of Nick Gonzales that J.P. Crawford couldn’t field cleanly. Today was the first day Crawford has looked shaky at third after being impressive in his first few turns at the position, but he was far from the only one performing some shaky defense, as even the normally sure-handed Colt Emerson threw one away, and Josh Naylor struggled to corral some of those wilder throws.

To his credit, Kirby was able to navigate around those hiccups and also some self-inflicted traffic. He and Cal Raleigh made a good adjustment after the first couple of innings, realizing the Pirates were keyed in on his fastball, and Kirby found the command over his sweeper, which had been somewhat all over the place in the early innings. Kirby leaned heavily on the sweeper over the rest of his outing, throwing it 46% of the time – normally he uses the pitch under 30% of the time, while halving the use of his fastball. All five of his strikeouts today came on the sweeper.

“It seemed like they had a pretty good gameplan of swinging first pitch, and I don’t blame ’em,” said Kirby. “But I feel like I settled in pretty good once I got that slider working.”

The Mariners offense has been stingy with giving Kirby run support, but Cal Raleigh came through with his first homer after coming back from his stint on the IL, punishing a mistake slider Pirates starter Mitch Keller hung on the plate and finally getting a ball over the fence at PNC Park, a 393-footer to right center.

The Mariners would do just enough to get past the Pirates in the seventh inning, spurred on by the hometown kid, Cole Young. Luke Raley led off with a hustle double, lacing a sinker into center and running hard enough to beat Jake Mangum’s throw in. He needn’t have hustled quite so hard, though. With Young due up, 0-for-2 on the day so far with a pair of groundouts (including an inning-ending GIDP), the Pirates elected to leave in the righty Keller instead of going to the bullpen. Keller made a mistake pitch, leaving a sweeper right in Young’s lefty loop zone, and Young – who said he was just trying to hit a single into right to score the run – instead hit play on a highlight reel that will be replayed at every family gathering to come for years, crushing a go-ahead home run that went right past the section of his family and friends.

“I knew I got it good, so it had a chance,” said Young postgame. “t’s really special. I got my whole family, all my friends in the stands…It was a super surreal moment. It was great. I just kind of blacked out a little bit.”

“Just glad I got the job done,” he added, because once the son of a blue-collar rust belt city like Pittsburgh, always the lunchpail-toter.

The Mariners couldn’t add on after that despite some more traffic on the bases, leaving the back end of the bullpen just one measly run to work with. José A. Ferrer was terrific, putting down his assigned hitters in the seventh 1-2-3, Eduard Bazardo had to work a little harder, but was able to work around a single from lefty Ryan O’Hearn and a semi-intentional walk to Marcell Ozuna to keep the score intact. He might not have had a clean inning, but he did pick up a Pitching Ninja highlight:

Armed with that same one-run lead, Andrés Muñoz had the ninth and looked maybe the best he has all season: his fastball was up a full two ticks, averaging 100.7 and touching 102. He struck out the side, including Spencer Horwitz, who walks more than he strikes out, and ended his night on a filthy bit of sequencing to Brandon Lowe where he went down with a slider for a foul followed by high heat.

But tonight belongs to the Prince of Pittsburgh, Cole Young. In a season that’s been plagued by injuries, Young has been the Mariners’ iron man, playing every day. He’s been the steady lighthouse in an infield that’s been beset by injuries and mistakes both rookie and veteran, even flexing back to shortstop when needed despite the difficulties he experienced making the full-time shift to second base last year. Because of his availability and steady hand at the keystone, he’s essentially been unbenchable, meaning that as teams load up on lefties to serve the Mariners a bottomless buffet of southpaws, Young hasn’t been granted the day off, even as he’s gone through fallow periods with the bat.

Tonight, in front of friends and family and the high school baseball coaches who helped shape the player he is today, Young was rewarded with a fairy-tale moment. His high school coach even got the home run ball. Heck offered to give it back to Cole, but Cole told him to keep it, because what matters even more than the happily ever after are the people who helped you get there in the first place.