MLB

7:00 AM ET ESPN.com Staff With a third of the 2020 MLB season already gone, it’s time to acknowledge that some of the bottom-tier teams that have had stunning turnarounds in the standings may well stick in the playoff picture the rest of the way. We knew the 60-game schedule was going to create some

5:27 PM ET Associated Press CHICAGO — St. Louis Cardinals reliever Roel Ramirez became the first pitcher to allow four straight home runs in his major league debut when the Chicago White Sox hit him around in the fifth inning Sunday. Yoan Moncada, Yasmani Grandal, Jose Abreu and Eloy Jimenez connected during a six-run inning,

3:54 PM ET The Toronto Blue Jays placed shortstop Bo Bichette on the 10-day injured list Sunday with a sprained right knee. Bichette “felt something” in his knee during Saturday night’s game against the Tampa Bay Rays while stretching, according to manager Charlie Montoyo. Bichette was then sent for an MRI. Bichette leads the Blue

9:32 PM ET ESPN News Services NEW YORK — AL batting leader DJ LeMahieu was pulled from the New York Yankees‘ 11-5 win over the Boston Red Sox on Saturday night with a sprained left thumb. He will undergo imaging, according to the team. LeMahieu whiffed on a pitch from Nathan Eovaldi in the fourth

10:15 PM ET CHICAGO — It’s the stuff they might write a movie about someday as the St. Louis Cardinals returned to a Major League Baseball field in dramatic fashion Saturday, sweeping the Chicago White Sox in a doubleheader, after the team had missed the past 19 days of competition because of a coronavirus outbreak

10:29 AM ET Saturday’s game between the Reds and Pirates has been postponed after a Cincinnati player tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, a source told ESPN’s Buster Olney. The teams were informed of the positive test after Friday’s game in CIncinnati. The Athletic first reported that a Reds player had tested positive. The Reds

1:08 AM ET Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” A Cincinnati Reds player tested positive for COVID-19 on Friday, jeopardizing the team’s game Saturday against the Pittsburgh Pirates and reigniting fear of another outbreak in the sport after a pair of

7:00 AM ET Marly RiveraESPN Writer Close Marly Rivera is a writer for ESPNdeportes.com and ESPN.com. Aaron Judge spent his rookie season in 2017 hitting baseballs in ways no one had done before. The New York Yankees‘ slugger, who would go on to be named American League Rookie of the Year, stood at the top

8:46 AM ET The Toronto Blue Jays are in the midst of their first homestand of the 2020 season at Sahlen Field, their new home away from home in Buffalo, New York. Jays fans from Buffalo, less than a two-hour drive from Toronto, and around New York showed up to take in the home opener

10:25 PM ET ESPN News Services The St. Louis Cardinals‘ series opener against the Chicago White Sox has been postponed to Saturday, giving the Cardinals an extra day to recover from a coronavirus outbreak. The Cardinals, who haven’t played since July 29, were set to resume their season Friday night in Chicago. But the series

5:07 PM ET Associated Press CLEVELAND — Indians pitcher Zach Plesac feels he and teammate Mike Clevinger have been unfairly portrayed as “bad people” in the aftermath of the pitchers being quarantined by the team for violating COVID-19 protocols last weekend in Chicago. Plesac said he posted a six-minute video on his Instagram page Thursday

7:00 AM ET The Aug. 31 trade deadline is still nearly three weeks off, but let’s take an early look at some of the factors that will influence what might happen. Or won’t happen. It’s possible this year’s deadline will be a dud for several reasons: lack of talent available, more teams in the playoff

12:20 AM ET The Chicago Cubs don’t want to think about it as taking advantage of another team’s situation, but the evidence keeps mounting: While opponents struggle to deal with coronavirus-related issues, the first-place team in the NL Central standings continues to be a model for the league off the field while dominating the competition

6:21 PM ET Los Angeles Dodgers hard-throwing reliever Joe Kelly has had his eight-game suspension for throwing at Houston Astros players reduced to five on appeal, sources told ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Kiley McDaniel. Kelly initially was handed an eight-game punishment by MLB after his erratic pitches and demonstrative taunts sparked a benches-clearing situation at

7:00 AM ET Yes, there would an asterisk. Charlie Blackmon acknowledges it. Everyone in Major League Baseball acknowledges it. If Ted Williams were alive, you can be damn sure he would say hitting .400 over 60 games is a terrific feat but not the same accomplishment as doing it over a full season. In Blackmon’s

7:00 AM ET The numbers stand out more than they normally would after 16 Major League Baseball games — for reasons we are all too familiar with that involved banging garbage cans and other Houston Astros-related nonsense in 2017 and into the 2018 season: Jose Altuve: .183George Springer: .182Alex Bregman: .224 Those were the batting

2:56 PM ET Oakland Athletics outfielder Ramon Laureano has been suspended 6 games and Houston Astros hitting coach Alex Cintron has been suspended 20 games for their roles in Sunday’s benches-clearing incident between the teams, according to ESPN and multiple reports. After being hit by a pitch for the third time in the series and

7:00 AM ET On May 23, 1885, a dispatch from Montana by a New York Sun correspondent went national, declaring that the American buffalo had been hunted into extinction. The writer went on to describe the thundering herds that once roamed the great expanses of the plains as far as the eye could see but