Major League Baseball

Major League Baseball

Manager Terry Francona was Ken Macha's bench coach in 2003, and his first base coach is former Oakland outfielder Collin Cowgill. As for players, the Reds had utilityman Miguel Andujar (acquired in mid-season from the Sacramento A's, so he'll go down as the first Oakland/Sacramento Athletic to appear in a playoff game) and reliever Emilio Pagan, appeared in 55 games with the A's in 2018 after being acquired from the Mariners for Ryon Healy.

Defensive Runs Saved oscillated between giving Alonso positive and negative grades earlier in his career but has soured on him more recently. He was credited with a -3 score last year and -9 this season, bringing him down to -7 for his whole career. Outs Above Average has been more consistently down on him, as 2021 is the only year that metric had him above average. He's at -33 for his career overall, including -8 in 2024 and -9 in 2025.

"Ben, I know you've got an opinion on this: Panthers three-peat this year? What do you think?" Brown inquired. "If you say so. I mean, good luck to 'em," McDonald replied. "Are you asking if I'm going to be watching?" "No, you'll be watching, of course, because you work for ESPN, and you'll be watching," Brown said, attempting to steer McDonald back to a network-friendly dialogue. "There is zero chance I'll be watching," McDonald said starkly. "I'm just going to be honest with you."

This, citizens, is why you put your kids into youth sports and then spent all those extra hours yelling at other parents' children. This is why you bought all those unnecessary rounds at the tavern and needed to leave your car behind to get home. This is why you blocked out all those Sundays and didn't attend family gatherings because there were games into which you needed to immerse yourselves. All for this, a day with three win-or-go-golfing games in succession.

I'm not going to speculate on any individual player,

This week, host Darragh McDonald is joined by Orioles president of baseball operations Mike Elias to discuss... Elias's promotion from general manager to president of baseball operations (1:45) Why the Orioles underperformed in 2025 (3:30) The club's lack of investment in free agent pitching (5:25) The decision making about playing time for prospects when they don't find immediate big league success (9:20)

After a number of conversations, we decided it is time for me to step aside and make way for a new voice to guide the club's baseball operations,

The Pirates are making several changes to their coaching staff. Pitching coach Oscar Marin will not have his contract renewed, as first reported by Jon Heyman of The New York Post. Assistant pitching coach Brent Strom and third-base coach Mike Rabelo will also not be returning, per Jason Mackey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. It was earlier reported that GM Ben Cherington and manager Don Kelly would remain in their current roles.

The Braves announced today that five players have been sent outright to Triple-A Gwinnett. The five are outfielder Jarred Kelenic, right-handers Alexis Díaz and Dane Dunning, catcher and infielder Luke Williams. This indicates that all five players have cleared waivers in recent days. Atlanta's 40-man roster count drops to 35 for now, though they have 11 guys on the 60-day injured list.

The Padres selected Martín Maldonado back onto the 40-man roster on Tuesday morning. That was required to carry him as the backup catcher for their Wild Card Series against the Cubs. Reliever , who is out for the season with a quad injury, was transferred to the 60-day injured list. Maldonado was in the organization on a minor league deal after being released from the MLB roster in August.

As we've been tracking for a few weeks: The September Dodgers pitching staff did indeed set a new all-time best for "lowest batting average allowed in a month." https://t.co/936p7BwAt1 All the flaws of batting average being noted: that's pretty cool. pic.twitter.com/JcUwGilcwR - Mike Petriello (@mike_petriello) September 29, 2025

"It's really cool. Any kind of support is awesome. I know it comes in waves. This game is hard, so when you get support, it means a lot, it's really cool," Rortvedt told DodgerBlue.com.

"It was just the ankle," Roberts said after the game. "It's something that's going to be ongoing. Whenever we can get him off of it to get him ready to the next day, that's what we're going to do. So that was kind of the thought."

Welp. Pulled this one out again, and given Sale's injury history, a season of anguish is probably more likely than a repeat of 2024. Unfortunate. We'll say accurateish here. Sale did suffer an injury that kept him to 125 innings and 20/21 starts, but those were very high-quality innings. He was still worth about 3.5 wins, and he had an FIP under 3.00.

The Pirates may have been abysmal again but have remained appointment viewing thanks to Paul Skenes, whose highlight reels make you question physics. It's not just his raw pace, throwing 100mph+ deep into games, but his mastery of late-moving variations that mean batters can't pick whether it's a sweeper or a splinker until it's already behind them.

This season, the cityless A's saw an average of 9,487 fans at every home game, per the AP, which is even lower than the low average of 11,529 per game last year at the Oakland Coliseum. And that was even lower than another team playing in temporary digs, the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, who saw an average of 9,713 attendees at their games being played at the Yankees' spring training grounds, Steinbrenner Field due to damage from Hurricane Milton to their Tropicana Field.

Upon logging into Ticketmaster, their policy states the following: "Yankee Stadium is located in Bronx, New York. Sales to this event will be restricted to residents of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania. Residency will be based on credit card billing address. Orders by residents outside New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and Pennsylvania will be canceled without notice and refunds given."