Author: rincon

NEW YORK — For Jose Caballero, coming through in clutch situations is normal. It’s what he has expected of himself since he grew up playing baseball in Panama. 

So, all these years later, three years to the day since he made his Major League Baseball debut, nothing has changed. The stakes are higher, with Caballero taking charge as the starting shortstop for the New York Yankees. But his mentality is always the same. 

“I like the pressure,” Caballero told me on Wednesday in the Yankees clubhouse after he seized yet another opportunity at the plate. “I like the big moments. I like to contribute to the team. And I did it.”

Two days after scoring the deciding run in a thrilling come-from-behind win, Caballero again was at the center of it all, delivering a two-run walk-off double off Angels closer Jordan Romano, leading to a 5-4 win on Wednesday in the Bronx.

Caballero is getting an extended runway as the starting shortstop while Anthony Volpe continues to work his way back from an offseason shoulder surgery. But, the way he’s been hitting lately, there should be no question about his playing time. 

Caballero battled against Romano, eyeing a couple of sliders before connecting on the third and lacing it to center field. The crowd was trying to match Yankee Stadium’s loud sound system, but for Caballero, the world seemed to quiet around him. The 29-year-old was locked in, patiently waiting to do damage on an offspeed pitch in the zone.

Nearly an hour after the final out, long after he received an ice-cooler bath on the field, Caballero didn’t even realize reporters were waiting to talk to him. He sat in his chair in front of his locker for several minutes, decompressing after the adrenaline rush of hitting the game-winning hit. The Yankees electric infielder didn’t seem to understand that what he did was special and worth unpacking. For him, it’s the standard.

“I’m living for those at-bats,” Caballero said. “I want those at-bats every time I step into the box. It’s the at-bat that the team needs, and it’s the at-bat that I really want.”

Even as “it’s not easy” for the Yankees right now, as manager Aaron Boone said, Caballero’s unshakeable confidence is exactly what the team needs. 

The Yankees have lost seven of their last nine games, and eight of their last 11. Their series against the Angels was a seesaw, highlighted by Aaron Judge and Mike Trout trading home runs throughout the four-game set. Trout launched five home runs, while Judge went yard four times. Two future first-ballot Hall of Famers one-upping each other wasn’t enough to cover up some of the Bombers’ weaknesses. Yankees pitchers combined to cough up 32 runs in the Angels series, with 21 of those coming on home runs. 

Caballero, meanwhile, has turned it on after a slow start. He’s hitting .348 (8-for-23) in his last six games, with the majority of his at-bats coming from the eight-hole. 

“He loves the action,” Boone said. “And he’s really confident. That’s one of his biggest strengths. He thinks he’s the best player on the field. And that’s an important thing to have and play the game with. It does seem like the bigger the stakes, the more he’s able to dig in.”

If Caballero keeps hitting like this, his recent resurgence just might force the Yankees to make a somewhat difficult decision because …

Volpe Is Closing In On His Season Debut

The shortstop played in a baseball game on Tuesday for the first time since his October surgery to repair a torn labrum. Volpe, who went 0-for-2 in a minor-league game against the rehabbing Zack Wheeler, is continuing to ramp up with the Double-A Somerset Patriots for now. He’s expected to build up his at-bats and test his shoulder throughout the next week in the minor leagues. Volpe will play in back-to-back games on Thursday and Friday, rest on Saturday, and play again on Sunday.

He’s viewing this workload build-up as an opportunity to assess how comfortable his shoulder feels while diving for plays in the dirt, stealing bases and throwing to first. 

“I wish I could play more to test it more, but it felt amazing,” Volpe said this week while joining the Yankees on an off-day in his rehab schedule. “I’m not thinking about testing it, but then after the fact, you think about how it felt. And it just feels normal.”

Volpe feeling normal will help the Yankees evaluate whether he can be an impactful hitter in the Bronx. The team has maintained that his season was derailed due to his shoulder injury last year, when he slashed a mediocre line of 212/.272/.391 in 153 games. As much as the Yankees will argue that Volpe is capable of being better than that, his 82 OPS+ in 2025 was nearly identical to his production in 2024 (86 OPS+) and 2023 (81 OPS+). 

Boone announced last weekend in Tampa, Fla. that when Volpe returns from rehab, he will be the Yankees starting shortstop. But at that time, Caballero was ice-cold at the plate. Now, he’s actually making it a tougher debate. Still, there’s no question the Yankees need more pop from the left side of the infield. The .529 OPS from their shortstops is ranked 27th in MLB, and the .607 OPS from their third basemen is ranked 20th. 

That’s part of why Volpe will receive every opportunity to get settled in at the plate this season. The Yankees have an influx of infielders on the roster, and someone between Amed Rosario, Ryan McMahon, and Caballero is likely to be the odd-man out after Volpe returns. 

Deesha Thosar covers Major League Baseball as a reporter and columnist for FOX Sports. She previously covered the Mets as a beat reporter for the New York Daily News. The daughter of Indian immigrants, Deesha grew up on Long Island and now lives in Queens. Follow her on Twitter at @DeeshaThosar.

Link to Original Article - on Fox Sports

Landen Roupp allowed one hit in six innings and Matt Chapman had an RBI double to spark a three-run rally in the seventh and help the San Francisco Giants beat the Cincinnati Reds 3-0 on Thursday.

Roupp (3-1) didn’t allow a hit until No. 9 batter P.J. Higgins led off the sixth with a single. That ended up being the Reds’ only hit of the day.

Roupp hit TJ Friedl with a pitch, but Matt McLain struck out and Elly De La Cruz grounded into a double play to end the threat. Roupp walked two, struck out six and left after 87 pitches.

Ryan Walker pitched the seventh and Keaton Winn struck out two in the eighth. Erik Miller struck out the side in the ninth for his first career save.

Miller’s impressive ninth inning ended with controversy. After he struck out Reds’ budding star Sal Stewart to seal the game, he and Stewart exchanged pleasantries as Miller screamed at him. 

In response, both dugouts cleared, pitchers and coaches ran out of each bullpen to join the fracas. There were no physical altercations, but a rivalry could be brewing between two NL teams with playoff hopes. 

The Giants rallied when Luis Arraez reached on an error by De La Cruz at short leading off the seventh against reliever Brock Burke (1-1). Arraez scored from first on Chapman’s two-out double off the wall in left-center field. Jung Hoo Lee followed with an RBI single. Connor Phillips entered and walked Heliot Ramos before Casey Schmitt singled in a third unearned run.

Reds rookie Chase Burns allowed two hits and a walk, but still faced the minimum through six scoreless innings. He struck out four and left after throwing 87 pitches.

Phillips was ejected in the eighth for intentionally hitting Willy Adames with a pitch after Roupp plunked Spencer Steer in the second.

The Reds had homered in seven straight games.

The win snapped a four-game skid and helped the Giants avoid a three-game sweep.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Link to Original Article - on Fox Sports

There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves.

Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball:

The Cubs wrecked the Phillies

Things started out so well for the Phillies on Wednesday. Look, shortstop Trea Turner hit a leadoff home run and everything.

The problem was that the game didn’t end right then and there. Good news for Cubs fans, not so much for Philadelphia, which didn’t score again until the ninth inning. In between, Chicago dropped 11 runs on them. Three in the third wasn’t insurmountable, but then the scoring just kept going: two more in the fifth, and then four in the sixth. Second baseman and leadoff hitter Nico Hoerner was responsible for quite a bit of the damage, as he drove in five runs and scored twice himself with his 3-for-5 performance.

Phillies’ starting pitcher Jesus Luzardo bore the brunt of it, giving up nine runs — eight earned — in 5.1 innings of work. He struck out four batters and walked just one, but he was way too hittable throughout, allowing an even dozen knocks to Cubs’ hitters. And while there was an error that let a run score, Luzardo also didn’t help himself there: another run that same inning actually crossed the plate because he had a wild pitch to let it in.

Things settled down a bit after Luzardo left, but not entirely, as the Cubs plated a couple more over the next few innings. Shortstop Dansby Swanson got them to double digits with a dinger off of lefty reliever Kyle Backhus.

And Philly just stopped using actual relievers before the end, putting second baseman Dylan Moore in to pitch the ninth instead. Not the kind of game that feels great.

The W moved the Cubs back to .500 for the season, at 9-9, while the Phillies continue to waste the Mets’ early season struggles — Philadelphia is just 8-10, leaving them all of 1.5 up on the Mets in the NL East despite New York having lost eight in a row. And while the Mets are being brought up here as they were (and are!) expected to contend, both are behind the Braves, which look nothing like last year’s disappointment and are second in run differential to the defending champion Dodgers, on top of being 12-7 and in first in the East. Philly isn’t building much of a lead on one competitor, but it’s also already 3.5 behind another. And there’s a whole lot of season left — we’re halfway through April and all — but this is the kind of stretch you look back on in September and curse.

Padres come from behind, walk it off

There was just a tad more drama in the second game of the now-annual Vedder Cup between the Padres and Mariners. It didn’t seem particularly dramatic at first, though. Instead, it looked like it might be going to similar places to Cubs-Phillies, since Seattle dropped six unanswered runs on San Diego in the first five innings.

And nearly more than that, too, if not for some acrobatics out in center field by Jackson Merrill. Mariners’ center fielder Julio Rodriguez nearly went deep, but the ball hung up there long enough for Merrill to get under it and time a jump over the fence to bring it back in, keeping the score at 2-0. Temporarily, anyway.

Third baseman Brendan Donovan would single in a pair the next inning, and then right fielder Luke Raley would hit a ball where Merrill couldn’t reach it — 434 away — to make it 6-0 Mariners in the fifth.

The Padres would finally answer back in the sixth, when shortstop Xander Bogaerts picked up his third dinger of the year to make it 6-2. Then, in the bottom of the ninth against Seattle’s closer, Andres Munoz, San Diego’s bats finally got going for real. Third baseman Manny Machado opened things up with a walk, then designated hitter Gavin Sheets doubled him over to third. Right fielder Nick Castellanos struck out swinging, but first baseman Ty France would then hit a single to load the bases. Fernando Tatis Jr. would pinch-hit for Jake Cronenworth, and hit a sacrifice fly to bring the Padres to within three.

Luis Campusano, who had come in to replace starting catcher Freddy Fermin after Fermin was struck in the mask by a foul ball and had to be tested for a concussion — he was negative for one, by the way — singled in Sheets and advanced France to third. Left fielder Ramon Laureano would then single in another run, putting Campusano at second. The Mariners would swap pitchers, bringing in Jose A. Ferrer with San Diego just one down and the tying run on second, but up came Jackson Merrill, whose catch earlier in the game was a big part of why the Padres were even within one at this moment.

Merrill would double in both runners on a 97.8 mph sinker that stayed up and away, after fouling off two that fell lower in the zone.

The Padres walked it off, thanks to Merrill’s huge moments on both sides of the ball. And thanks to the dub and the five-run rally that generated it, we get to see one heck of a win-probability chart.

The Padres were down 6-0 after five, and 6-2 in the ninth. San Diego managed to rally long enough to get the Mariners’ closer out of the game, though, then pounced on his replacement for the W. They now lead the six-game Vedder Cup series 2-0 against the defending champs.

More like Longesteliers

A 467-foot homer is truly a long ball. And Athletics’ catcher Shea Langeliers launched one exactly that far on Wednesday against the Rangers. Texas’ right-handed reliever Cole Winn threw a 94-mph sinker that did not sink, and it came off of Langeliers’ bat going 112 mph.

 Sometimes you know a ball is gone the second you see it connect, and this was one of those — Winn knew without even turning around, given his body language, but he still eventually finished his spin to admire the shot. Well, not admire, but you get it.

That’s the furthest anyone has hit a dinger in 2026, and it sure looked the part. The A’s would end up defeating the Rangers, 6-5, as a late homer from first baseman Jake Burger wasn’t enough to overcome the deficit Texas faced.

Mike Trout homered again

Mike Trout is on one right now. The Angels’ center fielder hit another dinger, his fourth in three games, all against the Yankees. This wasn’t as much of a moonshot as the others this series, but he still took a 95.3 mph fastball and launched it back 383 feet in the other direction at a higher speed.

The homer is also a nifty one, statistically. Trout, per MLB’s Sarah Langs, is just the second visiting player to homer in three-straight games at this iteration of Yankee Stadium, joining Tigers’ legend Miguel Cabrera, who pulled it off in 2013.

This is a four-game series, though, meaning that, per Langs again, Trout has a chance to become the first-ever visiting player to hit a homer in four consecutive games against New York, in any version of Yankee Stadium. If he goes yard once more, he would also join another small crew, as just the fourth-ever player with five homers in a series against the Yankees: most recently George Bell in 1990, Darrell Evans in 1985 and all the way back in 1933, Hall of Fame slugger Jimmie Foxx. The Yankees and Angels conclude the series on Thursday afternoon, so, we won’t have to wait long to find out if he pulls it off.

But Romano blew it again

The Angels will be attempting a series split, though, despite Trout’s performance, because closer Jordan Romano just can’t seem to get it together. Romano got DH Giancarlo Stanton to line out to start the ninth, but then second baseman Jazz Chisholm singled and stole second and catcher Austin Wells walked. Then, shortstop Jose Caballero would double in both Chisholm and Wells, giving the Yankees the walk-off, come-from-behind win.

While there was a challenge on the play before anything was official, with the Angels thinking that backstop Logan O’Hoppe got Wells at the plate, the call was upheld and the game was over. Romano now has an 8.44 ERA, which seems like a small sample size thing until you remember it’s a continuation of last year’s 8.23 mark over 42.2 innings, itself the sequel to a disaster 13.2 innings the year before: he has a 7.88 ERA since 2023 over 61.2 innings, which, given the time involved, feels less and less like a blip every time he goes out there.

Sal Stewart goes 2×3

Reds’ first baseman Sal Stewart is a rookie, but you wouldn’t know it from the way he’s been playing. He’s leading the National League in slugging percentage, at .726, thanks to hitting two homers in four trips to the plate on Wednesday against the Giants. Even better, they were both three-run shots, so he pulled in six RBIs, or three-quarters of the Reds’ total for the day.

The first came against right-hander Tyler Mahle in the first inning, and saw him drive a 94.5-mph four-seamer on the outside of the zone to right-center field, 387 feet away.

The second, his seventh dinger of the young season, came in the very next inning. With Mahle still on the mound, he hit another 95-mph four-seamer to right-center, this one 383 feet. Within four feet of each other, on the same kind of pitch at the same speed and both three-run shots? Now that’s consistency.

Stewart is batting .323/.434/.726 with seven homers and 17 RBIs, and he has four doubles and three steals in three chances, to boot. Just a great run for the rookie to start the year, and if he keeps on slugging it will help solve a big problem with the lineup of the 2025 Reds. It certainly helped on Wednesday, when Cincinnati took down San Francisco, 8-3.

Well that was fast

Not every homer is a towering flyball that you can describe as majestic. Sometimes, they are lasers. Orioles’ second baseman Jeremiah Jackson had an excellent example of the form against the Diamondbacks. Look at this thing go.

It had a launch angle of just 18 degrees, but an exit velocity of 110.4 mph. That thing got out of there in a hurry, in just under three seconds — a little under half the time it took for the camera to realize that Langeliers’ shot had landed… somewhere outside the stadium.

Sadly for Baltimore, this laser was a highlight to remember, but the game as a whole was not: the Orioles lost to Arizona 8-5 in extra innings, as the Diamondbacks dropped three runs on Tyler Wells in the 10th.

Parkour!

It’s not just the leap and the bounce, but also the holding onto the ball afterward that ties it all together, you know? A great grab by left fielder Brandon Lockridge there.

And hey, it helped: the Brewers would win against the Blue Jays, 2-1 — every out matters in a game with a margin that narrow.

Javier Baez knew the score

Come for the incredible slide into home, stay for the finger wag from Javier Baez.

Ohtani finally allowed a run, but it didn’t matter

Two-way superstar Shohei Ohtani didn’t play that way on Wednesday. Sorry, he still played like a star, but he wasn’t doing the two-way thing despite taking the mound: he got his first day off from hitting while pitching since 2021, thanks to a bruised right shoulder from a hit by pitch. That shoulder didn’t keep him from throwing a gem, however: Ohtani limited the Mets to one run over six innings while striking out 10 and giving up two walks and hits a piece.

Alas, that run — scored in the fifth inning on a ground-rule double after Ohtani handed out both of his free passes for the day — meant the end of his scoreless inning streak, which dated back to 2025’s regular season. It ended at 32.2 innings, but it did go long enough that, per MLB, he was able to join Hall of Famer Babe Ruth as one of just two players to ever produce a 30-game on-base streak and a 30-inning scoreless streak over a career. Oh, and Ohtani’s 48-game on-base streak? That’s still active, too: only one other player ever managed 30 of each at any point in their career, and Ohtani was doing both simultaneously.

While Ohtani exited with the game still close at 3-1, the Dodgers added all kinds of insurance in the eighth with a five-run inning powered by a Dalton Rushing grand slam.

The Dodgers’ designated hitter — playing there instead of Ohtani — has appeared in just five games and logged 18 plate appearances for Los Angeles in 2026, but he has made the most of them: Rushing is batting .529/.556/1.353 with six of his nine hits of the extra-base variety. He’s got two doubles and four homers, which is a pretty good run for a backup catcher.

Link to Original Article - on Fox Sports

The Los Angeles Dodgers shattered Major League Baseball’s spending record with a combined $515 million in payroll and luxury tax last year en route to their second straight World Series title, according to final figures compiled by the commissioner’s office, and Los Angeles is projected for the highest total again in 2026.

Los Angeles’ 2025 spending included records for payroll at $345.3 million and tax of $169.4 million for a total of $514.6 million. Despite several contracts discounted to reflect deferred payments, the Dodgers’ total was seven times the $68.7 million payroll of the Miami Marlins, the lowest-spending team, and more than the payrolls of the bottom-six clubs combined.

Spending by the Dodgers last year topped the previous high of $430.4 million by the 2024 New York Mets — and Los Angeles’ total didn’t include the $6.5 million signing bonus given pitcher Roki Sasaki as part of a minor-league contract.

The Mets and Dodgers combined to spend $948.3 million. The ratio of the five highest spenders to the five lowest increased from 3.6 in 2021 to a record-high 4.7 last year.

The Dodgers in 2025 ended the Mets’ three-year streak as the top payroll, boosted by $8.5 million in earned bonuses by retiring ace Clayton Kershaw.

Los Angeles’ total would have been about $71 million higher but for the use of deferred money for seven players that resulted in discounting for their payroll calculations. Shohei Ohtani counts at $28.2 million because $68 million of his $70 million salary last year isn’t due until 2035.

The Mets finished second in payroll at $342.1 million and, with tax, had a total spend of $433.7 million.

In the first five seasons after owner Steve Cohen bought the team, the Mets spent $1.44 billion without winning a title: $1.11 billion in payroll and $320 million in tax.

Both the Mets and Dodgers exceeded the previous record-high payroll set by the 2024 Mets at $333.3 million.

Los Angeles is projected as of MLB’s opening-day figures to lead in 2026 spending with a $323.3 million payroll for its 40-man roster and a $163.7 million tax for a $487.1 million total. The Mets began with a record payroll at $358.4 million and have a projected tax of $124.1 million for a $482.5 million spend.

The Cleveland Guardians have the lowest opening day 40-man payroll this year at $75.5 million.

Total spending, based on regular payrolls, rose 3.1% to $5.32 billion last year from $5.16 billion in 2024 and has increased 31.3% in four seasons under the current labor contract from $4.05 billion in 2021.

Those figures do not include the $50 million annual pre-arbitration bonus pool that began in the 2022 collective bargaining agreement or allocations for benefits, which are included in MLB’s luxury tax payrolls.

Among luxury tax payrolls, eight teams began 2026 over the $244 million tax threshold. The Dodgers ($415.2 million), Mets ($379.2 million) and New York Yankees ($339.6 million) were followed by the Toronto Blue Jays ($319.5 million), Philadelphia Phillies ($315.2 million), Boston Red Sox ($263.7 million), San Diego Padres ($260.1 million) and Atlanta Braves ($247.9 million).

The Chicago Cubs started $25,000 under and the Detroit Tigers $2.5 million below. Payrolls increase and decrease during the season due to trades and roster moves.

The Yankees finished 2025 with the third-highest regular payroll at $301.5 million, followed by Philadelphia ($291.9 million), AL-champion Toronto ($253.1 million), the Houston Astros ($236.4 million) and the Texas Rangers ($229.9 million).

Four of the top five spenders reached the playoffs, except the Mets, along with teams whose payrolls ranked ninth, 10th, 12th, 15th, 17th, 22nd, 23rd and 25th.

The Dodgers boosted payroll the most in 2025 at $74.4 million. Other teams with big 2025 increases were Detroit ($61.9 million), the Baltimore Orioles ($60.2 million to $165.6 million), San Diego ($45.6 million to $217.6 million), Philadelphia ($42.8 million) and Toronto ($34.7 million).

Fifteen teams cut payrolls from 2024 to 2025, led by the Chicago White Sox (by $66.1 million to $87.9 million), the St. Louis Cardinals ($39.3 million to $139.1 million), Miami ($29.4 million to $68.8 million) and the San Francisco Giants (by $28 million to $182.9 million). The Cardinals have further slashed payroll to $102.3 million on opening day this year, and that includes about $47.4 million attributable to trades involving three players no longer with the Cardinals: Nolan Arenado, Sonny Gray and Willson Contreras.

The Yankees cut payroll by $9.4 million from 2024 to 2025 and have raised it to $302.8 million this year.

Eleven teams topped $200 million in 2025, matching the record set in 2023. Five teams were below $100 million, one more than the record-low in 2024.

Regular payrolls for last year are based on 2025 salaries, earned bonuses and prorated shares of signing bonuses and non-cash compensation for 40-man rosters. Deferred salaries and bonus payments are discounted to present-day values, and termination pay, option buyouts and cash transactions among clubs are accounted for.

MLB calculated the average salary as of Aug. 31, the last day before active rosters expanded to 26, at $4,611,595. The players’ association, using a slightly different methodology, arrived at $4,721,393,

Luxury tax is based on payrolls with average annual values that include benefits and the pre-arbitration bonus pool. The players’ association doesn’t think tax payments should be used in measuring disparity, because half the tax money goes to a commissioner’s discretionary fund distributed among teams eligible to receive revenue-sharing money which has grown their non-media local revenue.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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Dodger Stadium (Los Angeles) – In the aftermath of the Mets’ sixth straight defeat Monday night, shortstop Francisco Lindor sat reclined in a chair, jersey off, chatting quietly with Luis Robert Jr. The only audible noise in the visiting clubhouse at Dodger Stadium came from the scraping of dirt off cleats by the clubhouse attendants.

“It sucks going through it, whether it’s early, middle of the season, late,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “You know that at some point during the regular season of 162, you’re going to face adversity, and here we are, pretty early, facing adversity. You’ve just got to find a way to get through it.”

Instead, it only got worse from there as the Mets’ losing streak stretched to eight games after getting swept by the Dodgers on Wednesday night. New York was outscored 14-3 over its three games in Los Angeles.

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Here are my takeaways from the series:

1. The Juan Soto-less Mets offense looks lifeless

On Wednesday night, Francisco Alvarez was halfway up the line on a soft groundout to Dodgers second baseman Alex Freeland in the seventh inning when he spiked his bat into the ground, a sign of the growing frustration from a remade offense that has been one of the worst in baseball to this point.

The Mets entered the series finale at Dodger Stadium having been outscored by 26 runs over a seven-game losing streak during which they were hitting .182 with a .215 on-base percentage as a team. No other team in that span had an on-base percentage lower than .255.

It was a short sample, but up until the Mets lost Soto to a calf injury on April 3, their offense ranked 14th in OPS. They now rank 29th, and the losing streak is up to eight.

This week in Los Angeles, New York’s offense was held down by stars and supporting cast members alike. On Monday night, Dodgers starter Justin Wrobleski threw a career-high eight shutout innings in the longest outing of his professional career. The next night, Francisco Lindor greeted Yoshinobu Yamamoto with a leadoff home run before Yamamoto retired the next 20 batters he faced. By night’s end, the Mets had scored one run in their last 29 innings. 

That drought stretched to one run over 33 innings until an RBI double by MJ Melendez in the fifth inning on Wednesday off Shohei Ohtani. It was the only run the Mets scored off Ohtani in an 8-2 loss.

2. No two-way Shohei, but Ohtani’s shoulder looks fine on the mound

In the Dodgers’ first at-bat of the series on Monday night, Mets starter David Peterson plunked Ohtani with a 94-mph, 0-2 sinker directly behind the four-time MVP’s right shoulder. Ohtani was in clear discomfort, but he remained in the game and finished the night 0-for-4 with a run scored.

After going 0-for-3 with a walk on Tuesday, there came a surprise on Wednesday: For the first time since 2021 — before the “Ohtani rule” was created, allowing two-way players to remain in the game as a hitter even after their pitching outing ends — Ohtani was not in the lineup as a hitter on his start day on the mound.

Manager Dave Roberts said Ohtani was still dealing with some soreness behind his shoulder, and he wanted Ohtani to just focus on pitching Wednesday night. He did that job expertly, holding his velocity and cranking his four-seamer up as high as triple digits while striking out 10 batters and allowing just one run in six innings.

That one run, which scored on a ground-rule double from MJ Melendez, was the first earned run Ohtani has allowed in the regular season since Aug. 27 of last season.

The plan is for Ohtani to return to his usual two-way duties for his next start on the mound. His on-base streak — 48 games, the longest active streak in MLB — is still ongoing.

3. The Dodgers still have plenty of pop from the DH spot without Ohtani

Having Ohtani serve only as a pitcher Wednesday night gave backup catcher Dalton Rushing an opportunity to get into the lineup as the DH. He took advantage, breaking the game open with a grand slam in the eighth.

Rushing has taken advantage of his few chances as the catcher behind Will Smith. The 2022 second-round pick is 9-for-17 with four home runs. He has recorded a hit in all five games he has played in this year and has homered in three of them.

The hit prevented closer Edwin Díaz from appearing against his former team. He was held out of Tuesday’s game after throwing a bullpen session earlier in the day after reporting some discomfort in his knee, but he insisted he was fine. He was warming up, getting ready to enter before Rushing’s grand slam.

4. The Dodgers’ supporting cast is thriving; the Mets’ newcomers … are not

Even with Mookie Betts and Blake Snell on the shelf and Kyle Tucker not yet performing to his capabilities, the Dodgers look every bit the juggernaut expected. 

As Rushing’s power display demonstrated, the supporting players on their roster are helping pick up the slack. Andy Pages ranks fifth among all qualified MLB hitters in OPS and mashed a three-run homer in the opener. Hyeseong Kim, who was playing shortstop Wednesday night with Betts out, started the scoring on Wednesday with a two-run homer after Rushing doubled.

The support continues on the pitching staff. Wrobleski, the Dodgers’ sixth starter, spun a gem on Monday. With Díaz down on Saturday, Alex Vesia struck out the side in the ninth to secure the save.

As a team, the Dodgers’ offense ranks first in OPS and home runs while their pitching staff ranks second in ERA.

The Mets, with Soto down and Lindor struggling, meanwhile, have not received much help from their supporting cast. 

Bo Bichette has started the first year of a three-year, $126 million deal with a .575 OPS. Marcus Semien is batting .182. Jorge Polanco is banged up and hitting .179. Rookie Carson Benge is hitting .151. Luis Robert Jr. has been one of the bright spots, but his .716 OPS isn’t enough to carry the sputtering offense, which was inevitably going to have a spotlight on it after this winter’s obliteration of the team’s nucleus of players.

The early results are … not promising.

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Link to Original Article - on Fox Sports

DODGER STADIUM (Los Angeles) — As Miguel Rojas rounded third base after his improbable season-saving World Series Game 7 home run last October, the cameras cut briefly to his manager. Dave Roberts, who decided to ride with the light-hitting veteran infielder with the Dodgers’ season on the line, screamed in excitement before briefly raising his arms in the air. 

He then immediately placed his hands on his head, closed his eyes and exhaled.

 The emotional gamut Roberts experienced — elation, disbelief, relief, all in a matter of seconds — offered a glimpse into the pressure of his high-stakes job, though Roberts believes he has gotten better over the years at handling and masking the stress. Deep breathing exercises and an unwavering belief in his process have helped. So has golf. He takes his clubs on the road and tries to sneak in time to play during the season as a way to “balance out this crazy life of managing the Dodgers.” 

Of course, winning three championships in six years has also lightened the load that once existed, quieted the criticisms that were once pervasive and helped the man with the highest winning percentage of any manager in modern AL/NL history find more delight in a journey that was once, amid unfulfilled October expectations, less joyful. 

“I can honestly say that, at times, the joy has been taken out because of the cynicism from the eyes looking in at my job or the job I’ve done,” Roberts told me last weekend during a reflective 12-minute conversation from his office at Dodger Stadium. “But I do think that that has considerably dissipated after winning in 2024.”

Even before that World Series victory earned Roberts a four-year extension, the 2024 triumph brought more jubilation than the championship four years prior, when a 2020 pandemic-shortened World Series title snapped a 32-year drought for the Dodgers but failed to stifle the noise around their manager. 

“2020 was just a relief,” Roberts explained. “I still felt that, I don’t know, whatever, the unease, or just kind of not as joyful, and it was unfortunate because I love this game so much. I love our city. I love our players. But unrealistic expectations are hard to kind of realize all the time, right?

“And that’s the job I signed up for, which I completely understand, but it did at some points take away the joy. So I’ve had to intentionally, consciously, enjoy moments. Because the question is, if you can’t enjoy moments, then what am I doing this for?”

After back-to-back World Series wins, he no longer has to question that.

‘Just trying to slow down time’ 

Roberts has grown accustomed to short offseasons after leading the Dodgers to the World Series in five of the last nine seasons. So when the pressure of October gives way to a calmer November, he tries to take advantage of every second, detaching from the game and keeping a busy itinerary.  

“I think I’ve done a very good job of getting away,” Roberts said, “and our front office does a great job of kind of letting me get away.”

This winter, Roberts took a couple of trips to Maui. He played more golf. He went to Japan and visited his birthplace of Okinawa. A week after celebrating his third World Series win as the Dodgers’ manager (and fourth overall, including his 2004 win as a player in Boston), he was on the sidelines in Tuscaloosa taking in his first SEC football game in an Alabama rivalry clash against LSU. 

“Coach [Kalen] DeBoer’s a good friend of mine,” Roberts explained. “I saw some UCLA games — football games, a basketball game — spent time with the family, and I think when you have two short offseasons in a row, you’re just trying to slow down time.” 

He has found that to be more challenging than slowing down a game, which has gotten easier with more experience and success. 

Roberts isn’t on social media, which protected him from some of the vitriol spewed by fans after the Dodgers lost back-to-back World Series in 2017 and 2018 and were stunned by the eventual champion Nationals in the 2019 NLDS. More acrimony followed after the 2020 success when the Dodgers were bounced in the 2021 NLCS before suffering consecutive NLDS exits against division rivals in 2022 and 2023. 

Beyond the boos from his own home crowd, he would get wind of fan sentiment another way. 

“You know how you hear about it? Is when I get texts from good friends saying, ‘Hey, we still love you,’ and, ‘It’s not that bad,’” Roberts recalled. “I’m like, shoot, it must be really bad.” 

Those messages aren’t as prevalent anymore, not after becoming the first manager to lead his team to back-to-back World Series titles since the 1998-00 Yankees. The jeers at home have turned to cheers every time Roberts is introduced. His Dodgers are the odds-on favorites to three-peat, and they’ve started the 2026 season with 13 wins in their first 17 games. 

 “The thing is, there’s no better teaching tool than experience,” Roberts said. “There really isn’t. You can always say, ‘Just enjoy it,’ right? But when you’re hearing all this stuff and the expectations are almost unrealistic, that’s hard to enjoy. But you’ve got to kind of wrap your head around that to then say, ‘The world’s not going to end, the sun is going to come up.’”

‘If that goes wrong…’

Roberts prefers to think forward, not dwell on the past. He hasn’t even taken his 2024 World Series ring out of the safe in his house, though he knows what that postseason run meant for his career. 

“If that goes wrong,” Roberts said, “there’s a chance that I could not be out here. I could not be in this job.” 

Roberts understood that at the moment, but he projected confidence despite the beleaguered state of the Dodgers’ rotation, the two elimination games his team faced against the Padres and the bullpen games that would be required to ultimately prevail. 

With the season on the line in San Diego, he told his players he believed in them more than any team he had ever coached. 

“Everyone’s aware of the noise and narratives out there,” Roberts recalled, “but I didn’t want anyone to feel that.”

That postseason was Roberts’ masterpiece. He pushed all the right buttons as the Dodgers rebounded to shut out the Padres in Games 4 and 5 in an NLDS victory that many on the team considered a turning point in the franchise’s history. 

On a personal level, it was around that time when Roberts felt the full buy-in and trust of his players, which he credits in part to the support of veterans Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Blake Treinen, who has found it easy to open up to Roberts.

“As a manager, there are times where he’s in the right and he could easily come in barking at people, but he doesn’t,” Treinen told me. “He meets them where they’re at, gains understanding, and he’s willing to listen to people. That’s why he’s such a great leader.”

Roberts doesn’t think much about the “what-ifs” from that 2024 run unless someone else brings them up. But the widespread criticisms of his past October bullpen decisions ended with that potentially make-or-break postseason. 

“No one likes to hear bad things about them,” Roberts said. “No one does. Every single day, you’re opening yourself up to criticism with my job. And it’s hard not to take things personal, but I’ve realized as time has gone on, it’s like, it’s really not about me. There’s a lot of miserable people in this world with a platform. Anyone that has a phone or some account, they have a voice. And a lot of people are never around, have their own issues personally, and they’re lashing out. For me, it’s like, I actually have grace for them.”

Who helped him get to that place? 

“More self-reflection,” Roberts said. 

Winning didn’t hurt, either. 

Roberts has led the Dodgers to the postseason in each of his first 10 years as the team’s manager, something no other National League skipper has done before, but the postseason success of the last two years has put him on a different pedestal. 

In 2024, his prudent bullpen decisions shielded a shorthanded rotation. Last year, he leaned on his starting pitchers to protect a shoddy bullpen and relied on the players he trusted with the season on the brink. 

The result, one of pure elation, put him on a track toward Cooperstown and helped remove any doubt that might have existed before about why he’s doing this. 

“Not everyone that’s involved in this game loves it,” Roberts said. “I love this game. I feel like I want to be a steward for this game, and I love players, and I feel like that’s what keeps me joyful — because I feel like I’m impacting the game in a positive way.” 

Rowan Kavner is an MLB writer for FOX Sports. He previously covered the L.A. Dodgers, LA Clippers and Dallas Cowboys. An LSU grad, Rowan was born in California, grew up in Texas, then moved back to the West Coast in 2014. Follow him on X at @RowanKavner.

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The Minnesota Twins and Major League Baseball are investigating Jarren Duran‘s allegation that a fan he pointed his middle finger at during a game had told the Boston Red Sox outfielder to kill himself.

Duran made the gesture as he returned to the dugout after a fifth-inning groundout in Boston’s 6-0 loss to Minnesota on Tuesday night at Target Field.

“We were made aware of the situation late last night and are looking into it,” Twins senior vice president of communications and public affairs Dustin Morse said. “There’s no place in our game for conduct like that.”‘

MLB confirmed its own investigation, per standard practice of reviewing the conduct of both the player and the fan before determining any potential discipline.

“Somebody just told me to kill myself. I’m used to it at this point, you know?” Duran said after the game, adding that he “shouldn’t react like that, but that kind of stuff is still kind of triggering.”

Duran discussed bouts with severe depression and a suicide attempt in a Netflix documentary series that debuted last year.

“Honestly, it’s my fault for talking about my mental health because I kind of brought in the haters. So I’ve just got to get used to it,” Duran said. “I was just trying to hold it in and not really bring that up to the team. I mean, we’re trying to win a game. I shouldn’t even bring that up to anybody. … It just happens.”

Red Sox manager Alex Cora said after the game he hadn’t witnessed the confrontation or reviewed video of it, but he shared his thoughts with reporters ahead of the series finale on Wednesday.

“I know the Twins are all over the case and trying to find out who he was, and hopefully they find the person,” Cora said, adding that, if found “it’s probably the last big-league game that that person is going to attend.”

“We have Jarren’s back. Like I said last year, for him to open up, he saved lives,” Cora added. “And it’s not easy. It’s not easy because, like he said, we’re in the business of winning games, and he doesn’t want to be a distraction. And he’s not a distraction. He’s not. He’s just a player that plays for the Red Sox and has our full support.”

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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There is always baseball happening — almost too much baseball for one person to follow themselves.

Don’t worry, we’re here to help you by figuring out what you missed but shouldn’t have. Here are all the best moments from last night in Major League Baseball:

Trout goes yard again

On Monday, Angels’ center fielder Mike Trout hit a pair of homers, giving him four for the season. And on Tuesday, also against the Yankees, Trout went yard yet again. He picked up his fifth long ball of the year in the first inning against New York starter Ryan Weathers, hitting a 94.7 mph four-seam fastball down in the zone 432 feet to center. Trout crushed this one.

The Angels would hit five dingers to beat the Yankees, 7-1, with four of those homers and five of those runs coming against Weathers — including in a back-to-back-to-back sequence following Trout’s homer, where right fielder Jo Adell and designated hitter Jorge Soler also went deep.

Per MLB’s Sarah Langs, that was the sixth time in his career that Trout has been part of a  back-to-back-to-back homer run, tied for the most since at least 1961. Or, to put it another way, as far back as there is reliable play-by-play data for. The players Trout is tied with? Hall of Fame third baseman Adrian Beltre, and former outfielder J.D. Drew. Which means that, should Trout have another back-to-back-to-back sequence in his career, he’ll be alone atop that particular all-time leaderboard.

On top of that, Trout is off to a great start to the year: sure, he’s batting just .222, but his batting average on balls in play is unsustainably low, so that’s more likely a blip than a continuation of last season’s uneven performance. More importantly, he’s got a .388 on-base percentage and is punishing plenty of pitches, as he’s slugging .508. He might not be hitting everything to where they ain’t just yet, but he’s constantly driving the ball, hard.

Jansen moves up the all-time list

Another bit of history was made last night, as Tigers’ closer Kenley Jansen, in his 17th season in the majors, recorded the 479th save of his career. He is not only the active leader in saves, but now ranks third all-time, behind only Hall of Famers Trevor Hoffman and Mariano Rivera.

It wasn’t a gimme save by any means, either: Jansen came in to protect a 2-1 Tigers lead over the Royals in the ninth, one earned in the bottom of the eighth when catcher Dillon Dingler doubled in rookie infielder Kevin McGonigle, who got the start at third base on Tuesday. Jansen had to face the heart of the Royals’ order, with number-three hitter and left fielder Lane Thomas leading off the frame with a single before stealing second. Catcher Salvador Perez grounded out but moved Thomas 90 feet from tying the game; that’s as close as Kansas City would get to forcing extras, however. First baseman Vinnie Pasquantino grounded out without advancing Thomas, and then right fielder Starling Marte harmlessly flied out to center. Save No. 479 was in the books, breaking a tie with Lee Smith for the third-most ever.

Jansen has had a hell of a career. In 931 career innings and 938 games — the most among active pitchers — he has racked up those 479 saves while pitching for five different teams, including four different ones in the last four seasons. He’s been remarkably consistent, as well: he struck out 13.7 batters per nine as a 22-year-old rookie with the Dodgers, and until last season was still whiffing double-digit batters per nine. He made an All-Star team at 35 with the Red Sox in 2023, and this season is off to a strong start outside of allowing a home run.

Getting any higher up the leaderboard seems unlikely, barring Jansen not only deciding to refuse to hang ‘em up for a while yet but also continuing to pitch at a high level for another four years, minimum — Hoffman has a 122-save lead on him — but hey. We’ll see how 2026 goes for the 38-year-old mainstay.

Dodgers push Mets losing streak to seven

Things aren’t going the Mets’ way right now, that’s for sure. The last game that star outfielder Juan Soto played in was on April 3 — he went to the IL a couple of days later with a calf strain. While New York managed to win the first three games without his tremendous bat in the lineup, since then, the Mets have dropped seven in a row, including a 2-1 defeat against the Dodgers on Tuesday. New York has been outscored 36-10 in this stretch, and while the pitching has settled down and allowed just one, four and two runs in the last three contests, the Mets were shutout twice and scored a single run in the other.

The only reason the Mets weren’t shut out a third game in a row was because shortstop Francisco Lindor hit a leadoff home run off of Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Tuesday.  

That’s right, the Mets scored on the third pitch of the game, a 95.3 fastball middle-middle that Lindor punished, and then did nothing the rest of the way. They picked up just three more hits against Yamamoto, who lasted 7.2 innings in part because he gave up just one walk, and had a stretch where he retired 18 Mets in a row. The Los Angeles bullpen then blanked the Mets the rest of the way, with no baserunners nor runs allowed.

Now, the Mets’ pitching was rolling, too: New York held the Dodgers to just one run on a ground out in the first for seven innings, with Nolan McLean going seven innings with just two hits allowed and two walks — he was every bit as dominant as his counterpart. New York’s bullpen faltered, however, with Brooks Raley coming on in relief and immediately walking pinch-hitter Miguel Rojas, then giving up a single to score him against right fielder Kyle Tucker following an intentional walk to DH Shohei Ohtani.

New York just can’t seem to get everything working at the same time, but hey, Juan Soto won’t be gone forever.

Marlins play pinball to get the out

The important thing is that the Marlins got the out in the end. This play is perfectly legal, and also extremely funny. Well, not if you’re on the Braves, but hey, Atlanta won in the end so it’s all good now, right?

Anyway: ping ping ping. Second baseman Ozzie Albies hit a ball right back up the middle against Marlins’ starter Max Meyer, which went directly under his glove while taking a couple of bounces on the mound. It then struck the glove of shortstop Otto Lopez in mid-air and changed direction, toward second baseman Xavier Edwards, who managed to corral it with a snag and make the throw to first just in time, with a little help from Liam Hicks stretching to receive it. 

It’s incredible that baseball has been played for as long as it has, and you still see something like this just happen on a random Tuesday in April.

Denzel Clarke is still robbing dingers

More predictable than the Marlins’ defensive plays? Athletics’ center fielder Denzel Clarke, and what he’s going to do when a fly ball tries to become a homer on his watch.

And hey, that wasn’t the only defensive gem for the A’s on Tuesday. Check this move by shortstop Jacob Wilson to make the mid-air, mid-spin throw in time to get the out.

Beautiful stuff. And the A’s would end up winning against the Rangers, 2-1, thanks very much to this kind of defensive performance from these players.

Inside-the-park… grand slam!

This is the minors, not the majors, but it’s worth shouting out here. Inside-the-park homers are rare, sure, but they happen a few times per year. An inside-the-park grand slam, though? Oh yeah, that’s the good stuff. Here’s a clip of that very thing from Tuesday’s Oklahoma City Comets game against the Albuquerque Isotopes, a Triple-A matchup in the Pacific Coast League.

That was left fielder and leadoff hitter Zach Ehrhard with the drive to center that ricocheted off the wall just right to give the outfielders trouble, and allow for him to just keep on running all the way home. The Comets — a Dodgers’ affiliate — wound up winning 9-6.

Schultz debuts

The White Sox rolled out rookie left-hander Noah Schultz to start last night’s game against the Rays, and it was a bit of a mixed bag for the southpaw. However, he’s a well-regarded pitcher who stands 6-foot-10, so some patience is warranted. The Rays also just had it going on Tuesday, too: they scored four runs off of Schultz in his 4.1 innings of work, and then another four off of the Chicago bullpen.

The Rays ended up winning 8-5, pushing the White Sox to 6-11, but it’s worth pointing out that most of Schultz’s trouble came in the first, where he allowed three of those four runs and two of his four walks. As with most things White Sox, it’s going to be a work in progress, but at least there might actually be some.

Blue Jays make it happen in extras

It took 10 innings to do it, but the Blue Jays defeated the Brewers. Milwaukee was in control for much of the game, as they were in the lead from the fourth inning until midway through the ninth, when Toronto finally did better than a run here and there by scoring three in the same frame. Third baseman Kazuma Okamoto tied the game at four with a single to left, then shortstop Andres Gimenez knocked another run in with a ground out.

Second baseman Ernie Clement would add another run on a single to left, giving the Jays a 6-4 lead heading into the bottom of the ninth. The Brewers, though, were not done: Milwaukee scored two to tie things back up and force extras, thanks to second baseman Brice Turang (RBI single) and left fielder Brandon Lockridge — who had entered earlier as a pinch-runner — hitting an RBI double.

Toronto had another three runs in them in the top of the 10th, however, starting with first baseman Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ripping an RBI double to left to drive in Clement. DH Ernie Straw — who also entered originally as a pinch-runner — would double home both Guerrero and outfielder Jesus Sanchez to make it 9-6.

The Brewers only managed one run in the bottom of the inning, and Toronto would get the come-from-behind, extra-innings W.

Guardians just miss, Cardinals win

That wasn’t the only extra-innings thriller. The Guardians and Cardinals had a back-and-forth affair, too. With the game tied up 2-2 in the eighth — all four runs scored on solo home runs, all in the first three innings — Cleveland reopened the scoring on a double by right fielder George Valera.

Outfielder Angel Martinez would then open things up more with a two-run double, but that wasn’t enough. Cardinals’ second baseman JJ Wetherholt struck back in the bottom of the eighth with his second dinger of the day…

…and then St. Louis would tie things up in the bottom of the ninth while down to their last out, on an RBI double off the bat of DH Yohel Pozo. 

Still tied up 5-5 in the bottom of the 10th, the Cardinals got a gift when Guardians’ reliever Tim Herrin threw a wild pitch, moving Thomas Haggese, the runner placed on second to begin the frame, over to third. Center fielder Nathan Church, who had come into the game earlier to replace a pinch-runner in the field, launched a flyball to center, just deep enough to score Haggese. And that “just” is no exaggeration: look how close this play at the plate was.

The Guardians lost by that much, but credit to the Cardinals for fighting back late.

Buxton, Abel power Twins

The Twins blanked the Red Sox, 6-0, for two reasons. The first was the performance of starting pitcher Mick Abel, who struck out 10 for Minnesota in a dominating seven-inning, four-hit, no-walk affair.

The second was center fielder Byron Buxton, who went 4-for-5 from the leadoff spot with two solo homers and four runs scored. The first came on a Sonny Gray pitch right down the middle, but the second one, Buxton golfed that a bit — 438 feet to left-center.

Absolutely crushed. Buxton had a slow start to the year, but he’s course-correcting in a hurry the last few days.

Duck!

If you respond with “Where?” then you’re going to get hit with the throw. Unlike Rangers’ first baseman Jake Burger, who hit the deck to avoid that fate on a throw from lefty pitcher MacKenzie Gore.

Getting his head down was actually heads up. You can call that one “ground beef”. Since Jake Burger drove in the Rangers’ only run on Tuesday, you could say he was on a roll.

Alright sorry, we’re done. Well done that is.

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Jackie Robinson had a forever impact on baseball.

On April 15, 1947, Robinson, who was 28, made his MLB debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In doing so, he officially broke MLB’s racial barrier, becoming the first black player to compete in the sport in modern history.

And what followed was Robinson becoming one of the best infielders of all time, having a Hall of Fame career and MLB honoring his legacy with “Jackie Robinson Day” every April 15, which sees players wear his No. 42.

Here’s Robinson’s 10-year MLB career (1947-56) by the numbers.

1A: Robinson won the 1949 National League MVP in a campaign that saw him lead the NL in batting average (.342), wins above replacement (9.3) and stolen bases (37), while totaling a career-high 203 hits and 124 RBIs.

1B: He won the 1947 NL Rookie of the Year Award in a season that saw Robinson post a .297/.383/.427 slash line (batting average, on-base percentage and slugging percentage), steal an NL-high 29 bases and post 4.1 wins above replacement. 

2: Robinson led the NL in stolen bases twice: 1947 and 1949.

3A: The infielder is third in Dodgers’ history with 61.8 wins above replacement.

3B: Robinson led the NL in wins above replacement in three seasons: 1949, 1951 and 1952.

4A: He finished top-10 in NL MVP voting in four seasons: 1947, 1949, 1951 and 1952.

4B: Robinson is fourth in Dodgers’ history with a career .409 on-base percentage.

6: Robinson is sixth in Dodgers’ history with 740 walks.

7A: Robinson is seventh in Dodgers’ history with 947 runs scored.

7B: He earned an All-Star nod in seven of his 10 seasons in the sport.

40: Robinson recorded just 40 strikeouts in 1952, which would be the most strikeouts he posted in a single season.

132: He finished with a career 132 OPS+.

145: Robinson made 145-plus starts at four positions: second base, first base, third base and left field. He also made 33 starts at shortstop.

311: Robinson finished his Dodgers’ career with a combined .311/.409/.474 slash line.

440: He led the NL with a .440 on-base percentage in 1952.

500: Robinson posted a slugging percentage of at least .500 in five of his 10 MLB seasons.

1955: He was part of the Dodgers’ 1955 World Series triumph, the first in franchise history.

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