Category: Baseball

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Clayton Kershaw is in “a holding pattern” and there are currently no plans for the Dodgers‘ three-time Cy Young Award winner to face hitters as he tries to overcome a toe injury.

“I don’t think there’s been improvement,” Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said Tuesday before his NL West-leading team opened a crucial three-game series against second-place San Diego. “Him not facing hitters this week is pretty telling in itself.”

The 36-year-old left-hander went on the injured list Aug. 31 with a bone spur in his left big toe. Kershaw didn’t pitch until July 25 after having offseason shoulder surgery.

He was 2-2 with a 4.50 ERA in seven starts before getting hurt.

The 10-time All-Star played catch Tuesday but “there’s something that’s holding him up from progressing to face hitters,” Roberts said. “Hopefully in the next few days we’ll get a little more clarity on how he’s feeling.”

[Related: Ben Verlander’s latest MLB Power Rankings]

Kershaw signed one-year contract in February plus a 2025 player option worth $5 million, which if he is healthy at the end of this season can escalate by $15 million based on criteria involving starts or relief innings.

“He’ll do whatever he can to be available whenever he’s needed,” Roberts said.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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Austin Riley’s broken right hand will keep him sidelined for the playoffs if the Atlanta Braves get there.

A CT scan Monday revealed that the slugging third baseman’s injury had not healed sufficiently.

“It just wasn’t healing enough to think that he could come back this year,” Braves manager Brian Snitker said Tuesday.

Riley was hit by a 97 mph fastball from Jack Kochanowicz of the Los Angeles Angels on Aug. 18. He was projected to miss the rest of the regular season, but there was hope if the Braves advanced deep enough into the playoffs, Riley could return.

“He’s still in a cast, so realistically, it was going to be pretty tough for him,” Snitker said. “We’d have to go pretty deep in the playoffs. It is not where the doctors wanted it to be.”

The Braves entered the final week trailing Arizona for third NL wild card spot by 1 1/2 games.

[Related: Who will claim the final wild-card spots?]

Riley had 19 homers, 56 RBIs and a .256 average in 110 games one season after hitting 37 homers and driving in 97 runs. The two-time All-Star had averaged 159 games the previous three seasons.

Snitker said Riley is expected to be fully healed before spring training.

Third baseman Gio Urshela, who was waived by the Tigers the day Riley was injured, was signed by the Braves and has hit .270 with three homers in 30 games for Atlanta.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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Mets shortstop Francisco Lindor is out of the starting lineup with a sore back for the eighth straight game as New York opens a pivotal three-game series with the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday.

Lindor met with reporters before the game wearing a heavy heat wrap on his back and said he would work out before the game to determine if he was healthy enough to come off the bench in the series opener. Lindor had a bone scan Monday that revealed no structural damage to his back, which he said meant there would likely be no further threat of injury if he tried to play.

“He’s going to try to push it again and he’s going to let me know if he is available for today or not,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “That was the case on Sunday, and after the workout, he said he was not there yet. He’s going to be very honest with us. He’s not going to put himself at risk or the team at risk.”

The Mets have gone 6-1 without Lindor and enter the final six games of the season in position for the second National League wild card, two games in front of the fourth-place Braves.

Lindor said he would be willing to return as a DH if the team felt that was best. He said he needs to get to the point where if he feels pain when playing, it does not remain.

[Related: Who will claim the final wild-card spots?]

“It is more important for me, that the pain comes, and then goes,” Lindor said. “Before, when I hit the ball and started running, it wasn’t letting go. It can’t be that constant, ‘I can’t move, I can’t move, I can’t move.’ That will put me in a spot where I can’t do what I need to do.”

Rookie Luisangel Acuna has replaced Lindor in the lineup and fared well, batting .379 with three home runs since being called up on Sept. 14.

Reporting by The Associated Press.

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Deion Sanders knows a thing or two about being a uniquely gifted athlete. He also knows how hard it is to hit home runs and steal bases at the MLB level.

So it turned heads when the Colorado head football coach spent part of his midweek press conference showering praise on Shohei Ohtani, the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar who last week became the first player in MLB history to hit 50 home runs and steal 50 bases in the same season. 

“Ohtani, he’s incredible, man,” Sanders said Tuesday. “You can compare him to the [Michael] Jordans and … Tom Bradys of the world. That’s who he is. He’s doing things that we haven’t fathomed.”

[Check out our hub for all things Tom Brady here!]

Sanders may be fully part of the college football world now as “Coach Prime.” But perhaps no other college football coach is as qualified to speak on Ohtani as Sanders, who — in addition to his Hall of Fame NFL career — played in the MLB with the Atlanta Braves, New York Yankees, Cincinnati Reds and San Francisco Giants.

Sanders was primarily a speedy outfielder as a baseball player and stole five bases during the 1992 World Series with the Braves. Despite decent career numbers — a .263 batting average over 641 career games — Sanders has previously described hitting a baseball as his most difficult challenge in sports, which probably helps explain why he has such admiration for Ohtani.

When asked specifically about Ohtani’s historic 50-50 mark, Sanders expressed sheer awe.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Sanders said. “I think the only person[s] [I played against] who probably could have done that was [Jose] Canseco or Barry Bonds.”

Canseco and Bonds are considered two of the best hitters in MLB history, but both players’ legacies are tainted through their use of performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs) during their careers. Ohtani, meanwhile, has recorded 53 home runs and 55 stolen bases entering Tuesday night in an era when MLB has cracked down on PED use. 

Ohtani is also a pitcher, making him one of the rare MLB players to both pitch and hit on a regular basis (though Ohtani is not pitching this season as he recovers from Tommy John surgery).

Regardless, comparing Ohtani to Jordan and Brady — the men widely regarded as the NBA and NFL GOATs, respectively — is a massive compliment. That’s especially the case coming from someone like Sanders, who was a legendary (and legendarily versatile) athlete in his own right.

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