The MLB Draft League lived up to its name over the weekend, as seven former Mahoning Valley Scrappers players were selected in the 2026 Major League Baseball Draft, held on Saturday and Sunday. The seven included five players who were part of the Scrappers 2026 first-half roster; Nick ...
NEW YORK — Chad Tracy notices how much baseball has changed in the 13 years since he took his last big league at-bat. “You watch a Triple-A game, most everybody that’s coming out of the bullpen left-handed or right-handed is throwing 95-plus,” the Boston Red Sox manager said. “Back in the day, it was you’d get a lead and you’d get to the lower part of a bullpen and you’d see some guys coming out throwing 88.” Heading into the All-Star break, velocity is on track to set a record for the sixth straight season. Four-seam fastballs averaged 94.7 mph through Saturday, ...
Josh Allen doesn’t need to win a Super Bowl to be No. 1. The Buffalo Bills’ franchise player was voted the NFL’s top quarterback by The Associated Press in a preseason survey. The 2024 AP NFL Most Valuable Player beat out Patrick Mahomes, who earned the top spot each of the three previous seasons. Allen received five first-place votes from a panel of eight AP pro football writers, who ranked the top five quarterbacks entering the 2026 season. First-place votes were worth 10 points. Second through fifth-place votes were worth 5, 3, 2 and 1 points. Allen appeared on all eight ...
PHILADELHIA — Don Mattingly felt a tinge of awkwardness when he was offered the chance to serve as a coach under Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts at the All-Star Game. Mattingly passed on a guaranteed spot in the AL dugout when he left his job as Toronto’s bench coach to manager John Schneider after the World Series, which the Blue Jays lost in seven games to the Dodgers. A six-time AL All-Star, Mattingly thought at the time he was finished with baseball. He’s not only still in the game — he’s now the interim manager for the Philadelphia Phillies and has them back ...
PHILADELPHIA — Kyle Schwarber of the host Philadelphia Phillies will lead off for the National League in Tuesday night’s All-Star Game as the replacement for designated hitter Shohei Ohtani, who is skipping the showcase to have a knee procedure ahead of the season’s second half. Detroit Tigers outfielder Riley Greene and two New York Yankees, first baseman Ben Rice and outfielder Cody Bellinger, gained American League starting spots because of injuries. Rice, third in the major leagues with 29 home runs behind Schwarber (32) and the Houston Astros’ Yordan Alvarez (31), starts ...
PITTSBURGH — Paul Skenes won his second straight start after going winless for nine in a row as the Pittsburgh Pirates scored 10 runs in the fourth inning to rout the Milwaukee Brewers 14-5 Sunday and head into the All-Star break with a three-game sweep. What was slated to be a ...
