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Pittsburgh Pirates' pitcher Chris Devenski has been suspended three games for intentionally throwing at Cincinnati Reds infielder Sal Stewart during Saturday's game at PNC Park, MLB announced May 5.

Chris Devenski was ejected without warning following this pitch in the 6th ⬇️😨 pic.twitter.com/8Fxkt4Xj71

— SportsNet Pittsburgh (@SNPittsburgh) May 2, 2026

Though the pitch missed Stewart, multiple umpires determined that the pitch was meant to hit him. Devenski was ejected from the game.

In addition, Pirates manager Don Kelly will serve a one-game suspension for his involvement in the incident.

Stewart has been one of the biggest reasons for the Reds' early surge to a 20-15 record. He is currently slashing .252/.338/.504 with nine home runs in 35 games. That is good for a 129 OPS+, the second-highest of any Red with at least 25 games played this year (Elly de la Cruz, 147).

When will Chris Devenski's suspension begin?

Devenski's suspension will begin May 5 as the Pirates begin a road series against the Arizona Diamondbacks. Kelly will also serve his suspension during the same game.

Sal Stewart's comments on Chris Devenski

Following the May 2 game, Stewart was asked about the incident, to which he said he was glad someone (the umpires) still cared about his safety. He said he was glad the umpires took care of it.

"It was pretty blatantly obvious," Stewart said. He added, "Literally, I have no clue [why]. No one said anything."

"I saw that there was 17 seconds [on the pitch clock], so I just waited a second, you know, called time. Next thing you know, ball was just running through my ribs. I really don't know what happened."

MLB suspensions this year

Since the start of the MLB season, only one other situation has led to suspensions. An early April scuffle between the Los Angeles Angels and Atlanta Braves wound up getting pitcher Reynaldo Lopez and slugger Jorge Soler suspended for seven games each.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Chris Devenski suspended three games for throwing at Reds' Stewart

Cincinnati Reds righty Chase Burns is fresh off a brilliant outing Sunday against the Pittsburgh Pirates. In it he pitched through a career-best 7.0 IP, held the Bucs scoreless, and lowered his season ERA to a tiny 2.20. He owns a 201 ERA+, 1.024 WHIP, and is striking out a wonderful 10.1 batters per 9 innings pitched.

When the stats were tallied by Baseball Reference overnight and run through their supercomputer’s extensive modeling system, it turns out that Burns currently sits atop the National League leaderboard for WAR accrued by pitchers so far in 2026 at 1.8.

It’s a testament to Burns, obviously, who at just 23 years of age seems to be putting all his immense tools together and lead this rotation. It’s also a testament to the Reds themselves, who have spent the entire season so far without ace Hunter Greene and rock-solid starter Nick Lodolo yet still boast a starting pitcher who’s atop the Wins Above Replacement leaderboard in their league.

The fun part is that I feel quite confident that this won’t be the last time we get a leaderboard update that has Burns atop the list in WAR. He’s got every tool needed to completely dominate this sport, and we’re getting an early glimpse of it right now despite him still having just 15 career starts under his belt.

Keep crushin’ it, Chase!

I asked y’all in the FEED about who has impressed you so far this season and the LL hive mind did not disappoint! Thanks to everyone who weighed in. Since there were many similar answers, I’m going to start with the top three players that were named and then I’ll break it down a bit more with my Trademarked Mariners Hot Take Ranking System:

Okay let’s break it down by the numbers here.

Your third most popular response for which Mariners starter has impressed you so far is….

A two-way tie between George Kirby and Randy Arozarena!

Two mainstays of the team that had sorta down seasons in 2025, Kirby in particular, but are now off to very positive starts in 2026. Randy is leading the team in fWAR with Kirby right behind him. Kirby is running a HR/9 rate and BABIP in line with his 2022-2024 seasons and is certainly the team’s most reliable starter at this moment given Woo’s recent volatility and Gilbert’s very bad slider issues.

Randy, occasional defensive and base running lapses aside, has quietly been very reliable at the plate. He’s walking more and striking out less than the last 2 seasons and is currently running his highest wRC+ (130) since he joined the Mariners. And occasionally he’ll make a catch like this one:

Next up, your second most popular response for which Mariners starter has impressed you so far is….

Emerson Hancock!

What a blessing our boy Emerson Hancock has been this season. With Bryce Miller out for a still undetermined amount of time, Hancock stepped into the rotation and has pitched like a dad 3 beers deep mowing down 8-year-olds in wiffleball. Just racking up K’s with movement previously thought impossible from this lad. He also got Felix’d for the first time this past Saturday on Randy Johnson number retirement night, chucking 14(!!!) K’s and getting a no-decision, which was all sorts of poetic. Hancock is truly a Mariners starting pitcher now. Welcome to the party, pal.

And now, your most popular response for which Mariners starter has impressed you so far is….

Cole Young!

I need to fill out an apology form for Yung Cole because given what I saw from him last season, I never saw this coming. Perhaps I was too quick to judge, and people smarter than me (Kate, et al) were all aboard the Cole-Train coming into the season and they were right! There have been many games this season so far where I was suddenly only looking forward to Cole Young at-bats because he was the most reliably professional and patient hitter in the lineup many nights. He doesn’t swing out of his shoes, he takes pitches, and he’s hitting for average and slugging .375, too. Delightful!

Now to highlight some other assorted takes!

Poster qrtqrt2 says: “All right. My real take: Rob Refsnyder. Initially I couldn’t warm to him. His name sounded too much like Rob Schneider who I don’t like. And Refsnyder? Sounded like someone jammed referee and John Schnider’s name together. Then he started saying nice things about the fans. And talking about the difficulties adjusting to a platoon role. And hitting home runs. And now he’s just “Ref” to me and I’m rooting for him to become another favorite son on this team on their way to a World Series win.”

Rob Schneider does suck and has never actually been funny. But our guy, Ref? By all accounts he’s a great teammate, nice person, takes the game very seriously, and knows his time in MLB is nearly up and is trying his damnedest to stay afloat. Did you see how the dugout reacted to his home run that only happened because he correctly challenged a pitch? That’s the clearest sign that Ref being an occasional contributor will produce a vibes boost of immense volumes. I rate this take an Iwakuma because there’s a lot of truth here, but he’s ultimately an underdog with an uphill battle.

Poster chicagomariner says: “Yes, Cole — hoorah, Emerson — and Randy has been a rock. But you want a scalding hot take? Julio! He has shaken off the offseason rust quicker than usual, and I predict we’ll get ¡Julio de agosto en mayo!”

Yesssss, Julio Haters are in SHAMBLES as our guy has been quietly smacking the ball all over the field and into the stands. “But what about his declining defense?!?!” Hey. Shut up. He’s still young, he’ll bounce back. A grounder through the 5-hole is unfortunate but very fixable. I rate this take as BRASH because it’ll incense every fan who thinks just because Julio has a “large” contract that he should be hitting like steroids-era McGwire and fielding like early to mid 90’s Ken Griffey, Jr.

Poster wishfuleephus says: “I was impressed by Cole Young in spring training and a believer from then. But I’d like to give some love for Jose Ferrer. After a start with some bad luck, he’s stepped up to be a reliable reliever in middle or even late innings. If Brash goes on the IL, I think it will be Ferrer who takes his place and has been played as Brash’s left-handed role counterpart already.”

This was posted before Brash went on the IL and so Ferrer has definitely seen more higher-leverage spots since then. His bad BABIP luck has unfortunately continued, but I think he will regress to his normal level of production soon. New team, no longer in the NL, no longer pitching for a team no one was watching…it’s all a big adjustment. I rate this take (sadly ironically) as BRASH because while I think Ferrer will get better results going forward, they will not be on the level of Matt Brash and honestly few pitchers are.

All right, thanks for all the participation, friends! I’ll be back with another prompt in the FEED soon. Go Mariners.

Six years ago, I embarked on a Star Wars Day tradition, diving into the historical archives to discuss the close relationship between the New York Yankees and arguably the most famous villain in science fiction history, the Evil Empire. That year, I looked at the term itself, and sought to find when it was first used to refer to the baseball team from the Bronx. The following year, I considered the rising payroll parity within the sport and posed the question, “Can the Yankees still claim to be baseball’s Evil Empire?” 2022 saw me complete the trilogy by looking at how the Evil Empire years shaped how people have viewed the sport and how its shadow contributed to the most recent lockout.

After a three-year hiatus, I channeled the spirit of George Lucas and opted to write a prequel, returning once more into the archives to study the history of previous Yankees nicknames. To begin, we looked at the story behind Murderers’ Row, and how either a prison in New York City or a street in Soho created the nickname, which was then applied to power-hitting lineups for New York baseball teams before being enshrined forever as the name for the ‘27 Yankees. Murderers’ Row, however, is not the only nickname to come out of those Babe Ruth/Lou Gehrig squads. At some point during this time, the Yankees became known as the Bronx Bombers.

These days, the Bronx Bombers nickname is so intertwined with the New York Yankees that the Wikipedia page “List of baseball team nicknames” does not even cite a source for the Bronx Bombers — something that, technically speaking, isn’t supposed to happen in encyclopedias such as Wikipedia, but occasionally can happen when a particular fact is so well-known that it is considered common knowledge.

Unfortunately, as anyone who has studied history knows, historical facts that are “common knowledge” can be difficult to track down, and the origin of the Bronx Bombers is no exception. The BR Bullpen has the following entry on the term:

The Bronx Bombers is a nickname commonly given to the New York Yankees. The name dates back to the 1920s and refers to the location of Yankee Stadium, in the Bronx section of New York City, and to the team’s line-up laden with power hitters such as Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

The nickname has stuck through the years and is still commonly used in the 21st century.

That’s it: no sources cited, no references, no nothing. On what authority do they say the term dates to the 1920s? While I generally tend to trust the Bullpen, in this instance, their version of events isn’t the only one out there. A website called The Forkball, for example, claims the nickname dates back to a boxing match at Yankee Stadium in 1936, in which boxer Joe “the Brown Bomber” Louis fought. Meanwhile, Frank Thomas, writing for FanGraphs’ The Hardball Times, refused to take a stand on the issue in 2013, saying only “For sure it wasn’t before Yankee Stadium opened in 1923” — because, you know, the team played in Manhattan until then. Writing for The Ithacan (Ithaca College’s student newspaper) back in 2016, Angela Weldon investigated the origins of Ithaca College’s Bomber nickname, dating their nickname to 1938 and suggesting that it may have come when the college’s baseball team “people compared the college team to the New York Yankees.”

Faced with such a disparate set of popular discussions, I did the only thing a historian with access to the New York Times archives can do: head into the archives, and search for “Bronx Bombers.” And the first instance of the newspaper using the term comes from September 30, 1936, in an article about betting on the World Series matchup between the Yankees and the Giants. Within, writer Roscoe McGowen uses the term just once, saying, “Even so, the Bronx Bombers were a jovial lot on the even of hostilities.”

So what we have here is a terminus ante quem for the use of Bronx Bomber in relation to the Yankees. But we can also conclude from this that, even if this is the first use in the Times, this is not the origin of the term. McGowen does not explain the term, and already has it capitalized, suggesting that his audience would have been familiar with the term. If we expand our search from just the New York Times to all historical newspapers from the state of New York (shoutout to Andrew Mearns for having access to that database), we get two earlier uses of the term “Bronx Bomber.” The first, in 1930, refers to a boxer from the Bronx named Al Singer. More interestingly, the second use — on August 7, 1935, in The Glens Falls Times — refers to… Detroit Tigers first baseman Hank Greenberg, who was born in Greenwich Village, attended James Monroe High School on East 172nd St., attended NYU after rejecting a contract offer from the Yankees (who already had Lou Gehrig manning first), and ultimately signed with the Tigers after the Giants opted not to give him a contract.

This would mean that the term predates the Joe Louis fight, but that its first use was unrelated to the Yankees, which ultimately means we can’t disprove the theory, but it does cast some doubt on it. It does, though, make the BR Bullpen account seem unlikely, as it seems hard to believe that, given how the term Murderers’ Row was treated, a nickname associated with those dominant squads would have been transferred to a player who never played for the Yankees.

So where does this leave us? Unfortunately, it seems that we can’t truly find the origin of the Bronx Bomber name, at least using the online databases that I have been able to gain access to. This is, alas, the reality of history as a field: sometimes, the evidence only exists after something comes into existence, not at its moment of creation. We can use the evidence we found to limit the parameters — the term could not have existed before 1923, exists in the baseball world in 1935, may or may not have ties to boxing, and is a known nickname of the Yankees by the 1936 World Series. But to get any more specific than that? Well, if you find anything, by all means, please let us know!

Chris Clarke had gone the traditional route, pitching for three years at USC after starring at Newbury Park High, then toiling for six more seasons in the Chicago Cubs' minor league system after being a fourth-round draft pick in 2019.

But his big-league dream abruptly became a wake-up call last August when the Cubs released him a week before his wife gave birth to their first child. No more paychecks. No more health insurance.

So imagine how jarring it was for Clarke to take the mound in front of a record 102,000 fans in the Texas A&M football stadium Saturday, which had been converted to accommodate (sorry Dodgers) the most popular team in baseball: the Savannah Bananas.

"It was surreal," Clarke said. "In fact, it was so incredible, I didn't feel anything. My body went numb. There was a moment in the third inning when everybody was screaming. I couldn't hear myself talk."

It was the most people ever crammed into Kyle Field, the nation's fourth-largest college stadium, trailing only Michigan (107,601), Oregon (106,572) and Ohio State (102,780).

Texas A&M is ROCKING hours before the Savannah Bananas and Texas Tailgaters start the game at 8pm ET pic.twitter.com/FoY7ydGuwN

— Banana Ball (@BananaBall_) May 2, 2026

Clarke pitched for the opposing team, the Texas Tailgaters, one of five squads created by Bananas founders Jesse and Emily Cole that serve as touring partners to face the yellow-clad star attraction. All six teams practice at a complex in Savannah, Ga.

The game in College Station attracted the largest crowd in the Bananas' six-year history, and Clarke shined, striking out five in four innings. He also entertained, as all players in the Banana Ball Championship League are cheerfully required to do.

"The amount of joy it brings to fans and even people online, it's really something," Clarke said. "There definitely is a winner and a loser — which holds some weight — but for the most part, fans are there because it's a really good show."

Clarke, a 6-foot-7 right-hander, was the third overall pick in the inaugural Banana Ball draft held in November. Tailgater coaches contacted him beforehand to gauge his interest and he told them, "Pick me."

That level of bold fits right in. Banana Ball is fast-paced, hilarious and maximizes fan engagement. It features innovative rules: Fouls caught by fans count as outs, for example, and batters who walk get to run the bases until all nine defensive players have touched the ball. Choreographed dances, acrobatic tricks, a pitcher on stilts and other antics keep the entertainment flowing.

"I like to think of every game as a stepping stone to the next show," Clarke said. "Whether it goes well or is terrible, we will make it better for next time. Banana Ball is a relaxed culture, so when it comes to the entertainment stuff, there is no fear of failure. We are seeing what works and what doesn't."

Read more:Going bananas: Why Savannah Bananas tickets cost more than a Dodgers-Yankees rematch

Guest stars are frequent and on Saturday, the Bananas sent Texas-grown YouTube sensation Tyler Toney, a member of the sports comedy troupe Dude Perfect, to the plate as a pinch-hitter. Clarke struck him out on four pitches: a called strike, a swinging strike, a ball Clarke purposely launched high into the stands for laughs, then strike three swinging on a cut fastball.

It was a rare humbling moment for Toney, who, with fellow Dude Perfect members Cody Jones, Garrett Hilbert, and twins Cory and Coby Cotton, generates more than $20 million annually from YouTube, merchandise and tours.

Clarke had watched Dude Perfect videos religiously when he was at USC and was starstruck to meet them in person.

"Dude Perfect is the reason I failed econ twice," he said. "I watched every single Dude Perfect video. To meet them and shake their hands was fun. It was the only moment in my life where I was a fanboy."

He's also a breadwinner again for his family. The burgeoning popularity of Banana Ball has made the gig more lucrative than playing in the minor leagues.

Read more:Banana Ball gets 'biggest partnership to date' with ESPN and Disney, including a trip to Disneyland

"I'm making five times as much and playing half the time," Clarke said. "My contract is also for 12 months of the year. In affiliated baseball, it's only six months. So, there's that. I've never met anyone in baseball who has had the luxury to spend time with a newborn child. To come to Banana Ball and actually feel like there is respect, a culture and guidelines, that was something I hadn't experienced."

It is also giving him notoriety. Twenty-five Banana Ball games this year are being streamed on the ESPN app and Disney+, with select games airing across ESPN networks and ABC. The first Bananas broadcast on ABC will take place at Autzen Stadium in Eugene, Ore., June 27 and 28. The games have been sold out since October.

Highlights from Saturday's game flooded social media and traditional outlets alike. Family friends and former teammates reached out to Clarke. What was it like pitching in front of 100,000 people? Are you improving your dance moves?

"The entertainment side of it takes pressure off performance," he said. "Performing well is still very much there, but there is a level of relaxation that makes it easier."

Clarke admits he thinks back to USC and the 2019 season, when he posted a stellar earned-run average of 1.03. He also occasionally misses the heightened competition and quest to make the major leagues of affiliated baseball.

He pitched two seasons in triple A and is only 27. Would he leave Banana Ball next year if an MLB team offered him an invite to spring training?

"I'm not in a situation to close any doors," he said. "That's the mindset that got me here. I wanted to investigate Banana Ball and I told them I'd give them a full year for us both to evaluate it. Either way, I think it's a win. Just comes down to what's best for my family."

Meanwhile, more games in packed stadiums await. In addition to a handful in football stadiums against the Bananas, the Tailgaters will play three games a week against other Banana Ball League teams throughout the summer, mostly in minor league baseball stadiums from Tulsa, Okla., to El Paso, Texas, to Nashville, Tenn., to Charlotte, N.C.

Exponentially larger crowds than those venues are accustomed to are a given.

Get the best, most interesting and strangest stories of the day from the L.A. sports scene and beyond from our newsletter The Sports Report.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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The Boston Red Sox will look to make it two in a row as they continue their road series against the Detroit Tigers on Tuesday night.

Framber Valdez takes the mound for Detroit, and I’m counting on him to give his team the edge in my Red Sox vs. Tigers predictions below.

Read on to see my full analysis and get my free MLB picks for Tuesday, May 5.

Who will win Red Sox vs Tigers today: Tigers -1.5 (+137)

The Detroit Tigers are struggling with injuries to their pitching staff, but they still have a healthy Framber Valdez to take the mound tonight.

Valdez is a solid 2-1 with a 3.35 ERA so far in his first season in Detroit, and the Tigers are 5-2 in his starts this season.

The Boston Red Sox will use open Jovani Moran tonight. And while that’s fine on the surface, the fact that Brayan Bello (1-4, 9.12 ERA) will try to pick up the bulk of the innings is concerning given his struggles so far this season.

With a massive advantage on the mound at home, I’m taking Detroit to cover the run line.

COVERS INTEL: The Red Sox are fifth in the majors in batted ground ball percentage at 45.7%, which should play into the hands of Valdez, who has averaged a 61.2% ground ball rate in his career.

Red Sox vs Tigers Over/Under pick: Under 8.5 (-115)

The Red Sox have struggled to score runs all season long. At 3.86 runs per game, Boston is one of just five teams in the majors averaging less than four runs per contest, and its .671 OPS ranks 27th in the league.

If Valdez can handle his business against the Red Sox, it will come down to Detroit to carry this total. But the Tigers have averaged only 4.28 runs per game over their last seven games, so it’s far from certain they’ll put up huge numbers tonight either.

The total of 8.5 runs is close to correct, but given reason trends, the Under is my play.

Red Sox vs Tigers odds

• Moneyline: Boston +140 | Detroit -155
• Run line: Boston +1.5 (148) | Detroit -1.5 (+134)
• Over/Under: Over 8.5 (+105) | Under 8.5 (-116)

Red Sox vs Tigers trend

The Tigers are 4-1 overall in Valdez’s last five starts. Find more MLB betting trends for Red Sox vs. Tigers.

How to watch Red Sox vs Tigers and game info

Red Sox vs Tigers latest injuries

Red Sox vs Tigers weather

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In 2001, the Cubs were coming off a 97-loss season. The Dodgers were good, but hadn’t made the playoffs in four years.

That was the backdrop to what began as an ordinary Saturday afternoon at Wrigley Field. The Cubs, off to a good start that year, entered the day at 17-11, two games in the lead in the NL Central. They had shut out the Dodgers the day before, 4-0, led by seven strong innings by Kevin Tapani. The Dodgers were 17-12, also in first place in the NL West.

And the game was fairly ordinary — for a while. Sammy Sosa and Todd Hundley hit two-run homers in the fourth off Darren Dreifort for a 4-0 lead. The Dodgers were shut out by Julian Tavarez for five innings before future Cub Eric Karros hit an RBI single in the sixth to make it 4-1.

That’s where things stood going to the bottom of the seventh. A perfectly ordinary game…

Damon Buford and current Cubs radio announcer Ron Coomer singled, followed by an RBI single by Eric Young Sr.., making it 5-1. Ricky Gutierrez attempted a sacrifice bunt (remember those?), but wound up safe on a fielder’s choice, loading the bases.

Bill Mueller singled in a pair of runs, now it’s 7-1. RBI hits by Sammy Sosa and Rondell White made it 9-1. Hundley struck out, but Julio Zuleta smashed a three-run homer and the Cubs had an eight-run inning, leading 12-1 heading to the eighth.

In the bottom of the eighth, Gutierrez hit a one-out double, followed by a walk by Mueller. A comebacker by Sosa to Dodgers pitcher Jose Nuñez was thrown away, with Gutierrez scoring and runners winding up on second and third. Another walk loaded the bases and Hundley struck out.

Now there are two out, the bases loaded and the Cubs with a 13-1 lead.

Cubs pitcher Courtney Duncan walked, forcing in a run. Buford singled in two runs, now it’s 16-1. Another single by Coomer re-loaded the bases again, and Augie Ojeda hit a grounder to third that could have ended the inning, but it was booted by Dodgers third baseman Dave Hansen (another guy who briefly played for the Cubs). Two runs scored on the error, making it 18-1.

A single by Gutierrez, batting for the second time in the inning, scored Coomer to make it 19-1. Mueller walked, loading the bases, and Sosa drew a walk, scoring the 20th run.

The Dodgers went out meekly in the ninth and the Cubs had their 20-1 victory, with back-to-back eight-run innings. Sadly, no extensive highlights survive from this game, though the first minute or so of this highlight video from that day show a few plays from the game:

It was just the eighth time the Cubs had scored 20 or more runs in a game since the 1945 pennant season (and, of course, they lost one of those, the famous 23-22 game against the Phillies in 1979). It would be more than 20 years before they’d do it again, a 21-0 win over the Pirates April 23, 2022. The Cubs have scored 20+ runs once since then, a 20-9 win over the Reds Aug. 1, 2023.

The Cubs swept that 2001 series against the Dodgers, winning the final game 3-2 on a walkoff hit by Hundley, and eventually led the NL Central by 3.5 games before losing eight in a row later in May. They followed the eight-game losing streak with a 12-game winning streak, going back into first place where they’d stay until mid-August. Their final record of 88-74 was a 23-game improvement over the previous year, but they missed the then-single wild card spot in the NL by five games.

The Cubs’ 20-1 blowout of the Dodgers happened 25 years ago today, Saturday, May 5, 2001.