Clayton Kershaw returned to the mound on Monday, but not for his beloved Los Angeles Dodgers. 

The three-time Cy Young Award winner, who retired on top after the 2025 season, was on the mound throwing a bullpen session for Team USA’s practice ahead of the World Baseball Classic, which begins later this week. 

Kershaw rode off into the sunset following back-to-back World Series titles for the Los Angeles Dodgers, punctuated by a dramatic Game 7 triumph over the Toronto Blue Jays. But before Cooperstown comes a calling, Kershaw wanted to scratch one more thing off his bucket list: wearing the red, white, and blue on the mound for Team USA. 

Kershaw sat down with ESPN television host Pat McAfee on Monday during Team USA’s practice to talk about his decision to retire, to return for the WBC, and also share insights on being in the locker room with Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto. 

Following the conversation, Kershaw and McAfee took turns facing off on the mound and at the plate for charity. 

#ESPN’s @PatMcAfeeShow before taking live at-bats vs Team USA’s Clayton Kershaw. McAfee said his plan was to swing and probably get hurt. My advice was to use a reasonable bat, line 33-31 or 33-30. pic.twitter.com/feLWSV8DUa

— Troy Renck (@TroyRenck) March 2, 2026

“My arm told me it was time,” Kershaw said, seated across from McAfee, reflecting on why he walked away. 

Still, he’s available to pitch for the next three weeks. “I’ll throw zero. I’ll throw every game. It doesn’t matter,” he told Team USA manager Mark DeRosa. He called the WBC a bucket-list dream, describing its atmosphere as October with a national anthem wrapped around it.

Kershaw later grinned and said he thought he still had “enough” to get McAfee out on the mound.

McAfee, for his part, looked like a man who’d just challenged a mountain when he decided to face off with the former MVP. Aaron Judge had offered him advice beforehand: “aim for the mountain beyond the outfield.” It didn’t help. MLB’s teaser clip showed McAfee spiking a pitch into the opposite batter’s box before muttering, “There’s no way I’m going to throw it over the plate.”

View this post on Instagram

Upon seeing the video above, McAfee tweeted his respect for Kershaw, and admitted he had “no idea where the ball was going. IT ALL HURT SO BAD.”

This was an absolute blast..@ClaytonKersh22 is the absolute man. A legend. An icon.. and a gentleman.

I had no idea where the ball was going

IT ALL HURT SO BAD https://t.co/9Wm2R7L1Ki

— Pat McAfee (@PatMcAfeeShow) March 3, 2026

The full results of the face off between McAfee and Kershaw have yet to be released publicly, but the California Post will publish them here once they do. 

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It may’ve taken Randal Grichuk longer than expected to find a new home in free agency, but the veteran outfielder is happy with how things played out. 

Grichuk, of course, landed with the Yankees on a minor league deal late last week. 

He revealed on Sunday that New York was one of his most aggressive suitors over the winter, but the thing that drew him to the Yankees the most was their status as a World Series contender. 

“I’m glad it worked out the way it did,” he told Greg Joyce of the NY Post. “I know it’s getting late in my career, at this point I'm more towards the end than the beginning and I want to win -- there’s no better place to do it.”

Grichuk’s been to the playoffs just three times over his 12-year big-league career. 

While the 34-year-old is coming off one of his worst offensive showings to this point, he still feels there were signs that could lead to a bounce back at the plate. 

"The underlying metrics were still there," the slugger said. "Barrels went up. Exit velo went up. Swing and miss went down. All of that stuff stayed similar or went up -- I know it’s balls in play, a lot of luck is involved. 

"The baseball card numbers weren’t there, but the underlying metrics made me feel good -- hopefully the baseball card numbers will look a bit better this year."

The Yanks are certainly hoping the same.

While Grichuk is a bit behind in camp having just arrived on Sunday, he seems to have an inside track for the team’s fourth outfielder spot with career-long success against left-handed pitching. 

Jasson Dominguez is also in the mix for the spot with his strong start on the spring, but he's struggled in that area in the majors and the team has already stated that they feel he'd be better off receiving consistent playing time. 

Grichuk, on the other hand, has taken kindly to being more of a platoon player after adjusting to the role. 

“It was tough in the beginning because I had never been in that type of role,” the veteran admitted. “It’s not an easy role, but it’s one that’s gotta be done -- if you can do it mentally, I think it’s a pretty good role to be in."

He is a career .268 hitter with a .819 OPS against opposing southpaws. 

PORT ST. LUCIE — There still has been only one female on-field coach in major league history.

Rachel Folden isn’t positive she’s looking to be next, but she knows she wants to make a difference in the game.

And her next stop is with the Mets, as the 39-year-old was hired this offseason to be the organization’s Double-A hitting coach at Binghamton.

The move comes after Folden spent the previous six seasons in the Cubs organization.

Folden got her first job with Chicago in November 2019, the same month Rachel Balkovec was hired by the Yankees to be a roving minor league hitting coach. 

At the time, Folden was the lead hitting lab technician, as well as a coach for the Rookie-level Arizona League Cubs.

She worked her way up to become the hitting coach for Chicago’s Triple-A Iowa affiliate before her contract was up and she headed to the Mets.

“It was a good fit,’’ Folden said. “Six years with an organization is a long time and when my contract ended, I thought it was time to try a new organization. I’ve been told you don’t really learn in baseball until you’ve worked for another organization and I’m finding that out already.”

The Mets have had other female coaches in the minors — including Gretchen Aucoin and Bree Nasti, who were both in uniform — but Alyssa Nakken, a major league coach with the Giants from 2020-24, is still the only woman to have an on-field coaching job in the majors.

“I don’t know if getting to the majors is my ultimate goal,” Folden said. “If a big league job came calling, I don’t think I’d turn it down. But I just really love working in baseball and am very passionate about working in the minor leagues. I really do enjoy it. I just like making players better, whatever level that’s at.”

Folden was a star catcher in college at Marshall and played some professional softball before getting into coaching baseball.

“I wasn’t sure if I was gonna like it, to be honest,” Folden said. “I love coaching and once I got into the atmosphere of baseball, I just really enjoyed it. I love coaching full-time and there are very few positions [in college] where you can do that and not have to recruit at the same time.”

She’s already made an impression on some of the younger Mets players.

“We see eye-to-eye on hitting,” top outfield prospect A.J. Ewing said. “We’ve talked about approach and she’s a good communicator.”

And since players like Ewing have already worked with female coaches in the Mets system, there’s not even an adjustment.

“She’s just a coach who’s trying to make us better,” Ewing said.

And that’s why Folden believes she’s been accepted wherever she’s gone.

“If a player thinks you can help them, it doesn’t matter who you are,” Folden said. “They just want to be helped. It just becomes about building relationships, building trust. All of those things are pretty genderless and then everything comes together quickly.”

The bigger adjustments can come from above.

“With staff members and the organization, there’s always a level of skepticism whenever a woman is hired into a male-dominated field — and for good reason, I think,’’ said Folden, who credits Balkovec — now the director of player development for the Marlins — for breaking down barriers in the sport. “Inherently, they want to make sure it’s a comfortable environment for us and also a comfortable environment for the players.”

David Stearns, Mets president of baseball operations, hired Folden not to make a statement, but because “I think she’s a good coach.”

Folden came recommended by Andy Green, the Mets senior vice president of player development, who worked with Folden in Chicago.

“I do think women throughout baseball at different positions are becoming more commonplace,” Stearns said. “I think we’re eager to get to the point where having an on-field woman coach is not a story. I recognize it is one right now. But she’s impacted hitters throughout her career and earned the position. Players respect knowledgeable coaches and that’s what she is.”

Team USA manager Mark DeRosa has set his rotation for the World Baseball Classic. 

It won’t be either of the reigning Cy Young award winners taking the ball in the pool play opener on Friday night in Houston against Team Brazil, rather Giants ace Logan Webb.  

Tarik Skubal and Paul Skenes will then go back-to-back in Games 2 and 3, respectively. 

Mets young right-hander Nolan McLean is currently penciled in to follow them as the starter in the pool play finale against the Italians, but it remains to be seen if he will be ready. 

McLean was expected to join the club in Arizona for Monday’s team workout session, but he instead remains with the Mets as he fights through an illness, per NY Post's Joel Sherman. 

DeRosa still doesn’t know if he’ll have to readjust things ahead of the March 10th meeting.

“We’ll reassess that day-to-day,” he told reporters including ESPN’s Jesse Rogers. 

If USA is able to advance past pool play, Skenes, Webb, and McLean have already said they'll make two appearances.

Skubal, on the other hand, is only expected to pitch once. 

It also remains to be seen exactly how Clay Holmes will be used as well, as the Mets stretched him out to four-ups and 60 pitches in his second start of the spring on Sunday. 

The Cincinnati Reds took on the Chicago Cubs for the first time this spring on Monday afternoon, and when the dust settled the back of just about every hitter’s baseball card looked as rosy as could be.

Chief among the batting culprits on the day was one Matt McLain, he of the .220/.300/.343 line in 577 PA during the 2025 season. Now another year removed from his 2024 shoulder/oblique surgery, McLain swatted two more homers during the Reds 17-9 drubbing of their NL Central rivals, and has begun to more and more look the part of the guy who broke out as Cincinnati’s best hitter in 2023 prior to his injury.

The question manager Terry Francona has been asking of his lineup since he came to Cincinnati was who would hit in the #2 spot in the order. McLain, based on his pre-injury work, was precisely the kind of hitter who profiled as Tito’s go-to hitter there, someone who could break up the lefty-heavy top of TJ Friedl and Elly De La Cruz (from his strong side). Last year, it just didn’t work, and McLain found himself dropped to the bottom of the order, his excellent glovework the lone real reason why he didn’t lose more chances later in the season.

From what we’ve seen early on this spring, though, his efforts to get back to the player he was before surgery have paid off in spades. As Charlie Goldsmith noted after the game today, McLain has not only picked up a longer bat with which to attack sliders away from him better, he’s been putting in countless hours of work to protect that part of the plate (and his swing) with both approach and positioning within the box. And if it keeps up at all akin to what we saw today (and within the last week), the Reds will be in a much, much better position to stomach Ke’Bryan Hayes in the lineup everyday as a glove-only guy.

One of those you can have. Two, you cannot.

Monday’s action against the Cubs also featured a Noelvi Marte dinger, another Sal Stewart blast, two-times on-base for Friedl (with a pair of runs scored), a Rece Hinds tater, and a 2-hit, 3-ribbie outing from Hayes that was good enough for me to probably shut up for at least a day or so about his struggles to hit. All that after starter Brady Singer became the latest Reds starter to get shelled in his first outing of the spring, something that’s not at all concerning…just yet.

The Reds will have the day off on Tuesday before taking on Team Cuba on Wednesday in an exhibition for the latter’s ramp up to the upcoming World Baseball Classic. We don’t yet know who will start that game for the Reds, or exactly how we’ll be able to follow it (aside from audio-only on 700 WLW), but we do know first pitch will take place at 3:05 PM ET at Goodyear Ballpark.

PHOENIX — New York Yankees slugger Aaron Judge walked into Team USA’s clubhouse Monday morning, stared at his uniform, and felt his heart race when he put it on over his massive shoulders.

So, this is what it means to represent the United States of America.

While players like Bryce Harper, Alex Bregman, Bobby Witt Jr. and Pete Crow-Armstrong have already played a handful of times in international tournaments for the USA, this is the first time Judge has ever played for his country.

“Several of us probably have people who serve in the military or people we know that served in the military,’’ said Judge, captain of Team USA. “That was the first thing I thought of was there's individuals out there that have sacrificed everything for this country to allow me to have my wife safe at home and my daughter safe at home. And I get a chance to come out here and play a kid’s game.

“So that was really just floating through my head, just the history of this country, what it's been through, and the people that have sacrificed the biggest sacrifice. So even now there's conflict going on, people are sacrificing. ... A lot of things are happening in the world right now, you know. So, I just count my blessings every day I get a chance to come out here and play the game that I love.’’

4

We’re about halfway through spring training, and if you’ve read anything I’ve written before, you know I’m not in the business of overreacting to one Grapefruit League box score. One game means nothing. Two games mean nothing. Even a week can be misleading.

But at some point, the sample size stops whispering and starts talking.

So here’s the question, Astros fans: What is your drop-dead date for Dana Brown to show you he’s willing to fix this outfield before Opening Day?

Because whether anyone wants to admit it or not, there’s a logjam of mediocrity forming and it’s getting harder to ignore.

The Outfield Problem No One Wants to Call a Crisis

I have been consistent on one point: I am not in favor of trading Isaac Paredes just to make a move. That’s not strategy, that’s panic.

The only way dealing Paredes makes sense is if you’re acquiring a legitimate, everyday corner outfielder, preferably one who hits from the left side and lengthens this lineup immediately. And that’s a tall order this late in the spring.

But here’s the uncomfortable reality:
The current outfield mix isn’t exactly forcing Brown’s hand in the opposite direction.

Between:

• Zach Dezenzo
• Joey Loperfido
• Cam Smith
• Shay Whitcomb
• and an abbreviated spring from Jake Meyers

“Disappointing” might actually be too generous.

The bats have been quiet. Too quiet. And while spring numbers shouldn’t dictate roster decisions in a vacuum, trends matter, especially when they mirror what we’ve already seen.

Cam Smith and the Patience Question

The most glaring concern? Cam Smith.

After a rough second half to his rookie season, this spring was supposed to be about confidence, adjustments, growth. Instead, the same inconsistencies are resurfacing.

So now the real question becomes:
How long are the Astros willing to let him figure it out at the big-league level?

Development is important. Patience is necessary. But so is contending.

If this team still views itself as operating within the Golden Era window, then “learning on the fly” can’t come at the expense of wins in April and May.

The Jake Meyers Dilemma

Meyers is a fascinating case study.

He was reportedly on the trade block all offseason, and clearly, Brown didn’t find a deal he liked. So here we are, as long as he is healthy, he remains the incumbent in center field, although Smith has seen some time there as well.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: last season felt like a career year. The time to move him was when his value peaked.

If his bat regresses, and history suggests that’s possible, the window to extract meaningful value shrinks fast. Betting on internal improvement is one thing. Betting against regression is another.

Sugar Land Seems Imminent, At Least For Some

Loperfido. Whitcomb. Dezenzo.

All intriguing. All talented. All probably starting the year in Sugar Land.

There’s nothing wrong with that. Development matters. But let’s not confuse “interesting depth” with “reliable production.” If this team is counting on one of these young players to suddenly stabilize the outfield by Opening Day, that’s a gamble, not a plan.

The Jesús Sánchez Ripple Effect

Then there’s the undercurrent to all of this: the decision to move on from Jesús Sánchez.

Reports out of Toronto Blue Jays camp suggest coaches there believe Sánchez was misused in Houston, that adjustments to his plate approach limited his power in an effort to prioritize on-base production.

Those coaches are gone now. The dugout has changed. The philosophy may be shifting, but the dammage is done.

Here’s the risk: if Sánchez rediscovers his left-handed power stroke elsewhere, something he flashed with the Marlins, and the Astros are still searching for outfield stability in May, that trade will be scrutinized heavily.

Brown clearly believed last season’s sample size was enough to move on. Time will tell if that conviction was foresight or miscalculation.

So When Is the Deadline?

That’s the heart of it.

Is it:

• The final week of spring training?
• The last exhibition game?
• Or are you willing to give it two weeks into the regular season?

Because the clock is ticking.

This isn’t about making a move just to win the back page. It’s about recognizing that instability in the outfield can snowball quickly, especially in a division that won’t wait around for you to figure it out.

Paredes’ name will surface in trade talks. Meyers could be included in the right deal. But the real evaluation won’t be who the Astros are willing to give up.

It will be who they are able to bring in and whether that player meaningfully upgrades this roster.

So I’ll leave you with the same question:

Astros fans, what’s your drop-dead date?

Because if this is still a championship-caliber organization, the answer shouldn’t be “whenever.”

The San Francisco Giants entered the offseason with a lot of young starting pitchers who were equal parts exciting and unproven. Pitchers who could break camp with the team and prove to be a vital asset in the bullpen and critical rotational depth, like Hayden Birdsong was in the first half of last year. But also, pitchers who could show that they’re just not ready to contribute at the Major League level yet, like Hayden Birdsong in the second half of last year.

As the Giants poked around the trade market, it seemed that some of those pitchers could end up being on the way out. But ultimately, it was just the one at the back of the pecking order — Kai-Wei Teng — who didn’t make it to Scottsdale. The rest of the crew is there, fighting for bullpen jobs, backup starting jobs, and spots on the AAA Sacramento rotational totem pole.

Perhaps the biggest story of the Giants spring has been the divergent paths we’ve seen those pitchers take. Trevor McDonald, for instance, has been nothing short of brilliant: in three innings he’s yet to allow a hit or a walk, while striking out five. Birdsong, on the other hand, has been a disaster: in his two outings, he’s allowed 10 baserunners and eight earned runs, while recording just four outs. And Blade Tidwell? He’s thrown gas, and looked emphatically like one of the team’s 13 best pitchers.

Two other young pitchers had only made one appearance going into Monday’s game, a 6-5 win over the Chicago White Sox that pushed the Giants to 8-2 in Cactus League play. And, yet again, we saw them take very different paths.

Incumbent starter Landen Roupp took the bump to start the game. Roupp had been strong in his first outing of the year, and he was even stronger in this one. He struck out Chase Miedroth to open the first, then struck out Luisangel Acuña immediately afterwards, en route to a 1-2-3 first inning. His second inning was just as strong: while he didn’t have any strikeouts, he needed just 12 pitches to set down the side in order, inducing two ground balls and a soft liner.

That was it for Roupp, and it provided reason to think that his spot in the rotation is secure, as it should be. He needed just 25 pitches to cruise through two perfect innings, and was completely control.

Unfortunately, you can probably tell that this is a setup for something less happy — the proverbial other hand of the young pitching performances. Which brings us to the third inning, when Carson Whisenhunt took the mound. Whisenhunt had a hot-and-cold act in his first game of the spring, pitching one dominant inning and then falling apart in the next. In this game, unfortunately, he skipped past the first act.

Whisenhunt allowed a single to Jarred Kelenic on the first pitch he threw, and it was a moment that would, unfortunately, set the tone. He was able to get a fairly soft ground ball from Kelenic, hit right to the shortstop position. But with the Giants shifting, the ball found a hole for a tough-luck, seeing-eye single.

That was bad luck, but the rest of the outing was self-inflicted. After striking out the next batter, Whisenhunt allowed a 106.3-mph double to Korey Lee to score the first run. With two outs, Acuña scorched a 106.6-mph single for a second run.

Still, Whisenhunt got through the inning, and was awarded a second one. He started it by walking old friend LaMonte Wade Jr., then allowed a double to Lenyn Sosa. Immediate trouble. A sacrifice fly scored a third run, and then Kelenic again struck, this time not needing the shift to help him out: he smoked a 110.6-mph double — the hardest-hit ball of the day — to score the fourth and final run that Whisenhunt would allow. He would strike out the next batter, then get pulled from the game.

As in his first outing, Whisenhunt showed both greatly improved velocity, and velocity that couldn’t hold. Early in his outing, he threw five straight fastballs and averaged 96.7 mph with them. His final five fastballs, on the other hand, averaged just 94.9.

Ultimately, it was a case of nothing quite working for Whisenhunt, other than that early increase in velo. He only threw 28 of 46 pitches for strikes, and his signature changeup wasn’t able to be a weapon. He threw it just nine times, and it resulted in four balls, three swinging strikes, a foul ball, and a double.

It’s early. Not just for Whisenhunt and Birdsong, but also for the pitchers who are performing well. But we’re certainly seeing a divergence in the early goings.

On offense, the Giants — who sent a B-squad to Camelback Ranch — did the bulk of their damage with a White Sox-assisted rally in the third inning. It started when Buddy Kennedy and Jesús Rodríguez drew back-to-back one-out walks. That led to Parks Harber coming through with a big hit: an RBI double. Admittedly, it was a double that was hit right at the center fielder Acuña but, as we’ve seen so many times this spring, it simply wasn’t caught. On the other hand, Harber scorched it at 105 mph, so he deserved some good things out of it.

That only scored one run, but Christian Koss would follow with a two-run single to cap a three-run inning.

After falling behind 5-3, the Giants would get close in the sixth inning with a small ball rally, when Bo Davidson, Grant McCray, and Jake Holton hit back-to-back-to-back singles. Excitingly, Davidson and McCray absolutely smoked their hits, which registered 110 and 106.5 mph, respectively.

San Francisco would tie it in the eighth in the most unexpected way: a solo home run from Nate Furman. The second baseman brings a lot of skills to the Giants, but power certainly is not one of them. In 194 Minor League games, he’s hit just 12 home runs.

But he figured out the way to do it in the desert though, with metrics you won’t see on many home runs in Major League games: a 95.9-mph exit velocity, a distance of 365 feet, and an expected batting average of .210.

They would take the lead in the ninth inning on another solo home run, this time from a slightly more expected source: Kennedy, who had his first big hit since coming to camp as a Minor League free agent. And that was enough for a 6-5 win, helping the Giants avoid their first tie of spring.

A few more notes:

• Rodríguez had quite a utility player game. He started at second base, and later moved to left field for a few innings. The Giants only used him as a catcher following July’s trade with the Yankees, but have been using him all over the field this spring.
• Victor Bericoto continued his tremendous spring, hitting 1-2 with a loud double while starting in right field.
• Speaking of starting in the outfield, with Harrison Bader dinged up and Jung Hoo Lee in Korea, Luis Matos got the start in center field. It will be interesting to see if the Giants trust him there, which definitely opens up pathways to make the Opening Day roster, which is a necessity if the Giants want to keep him around, since he’s out of options. Matos has been swinging a hot bat this spring, though he went 0-2 in this game, though his first out required a very nice defensive play.
• Jerar Encarnación, who started in left field, and Tyler Fitzgerald, who came off the bench to play third base, continued their tough springs. Both batters hit 0-2, with Encarnación striking out in both at-bats, and Fitzgerald having a strikeout and a pop out. Encarnación is 3-19 with seven strikeouts, no walks, and no extra-base hits this preseason; Fitzgerald is 2-17 with five strikeouts, no walks, and two doubles, though one of his hits was a pop up that the defense neglected to catch.
• Spencer Bivens had a bit of a hiccup. He gave up three hits, two walks, and a solo home run in 1.2 innings, with one strikeout, and threw 20 of 35 pitches for strikes.
• Nick Margevicius, on the other hand, had a nice day. He tossed 2.1 scoreless innings, with three hits, no walks, and no strikeouts.
• Darien Smith came over from Minor League camp to record the save with a perfect ninth inning, with one strikeout. That’s always fun to see!
• The Giants didn’t use any hard throwers in this game: Whisenhunt had the nine hardest-thrown balls of the game for San Francisco. The hardest throw by a non-Whisenhunt Giants pitcher was a 95.7-mph sinker from Bivens.
• The five hardest-hit balls of the day for the Giants: Davidson’s single (110 mph), an Osleivis Basabe line out (107.9), McCray’s single (106.5), a Casey Schmitt single (105), and Harber’s double (105). Rodríguez’s single, Kennedy’s home run, Bericoto’s double, and a Harber ground out also cleared the 100-mph mark.
• The Giants now get a break from Cactus League play to host Team USA as they prep for the World Baseball Classic. That game is Tuesday at 12:05 p.m. PT, and you can watch it on ESPN. Tidwell is expected to start.