BOSTON — Fenway Park has been around for well over a century, but the 36,021 fans who came out for Monday’s Labor Day matinee may well have witnessed the strangest home run in the ballpark’s long history.

Leading off the bottom of the sixth, Trevor Story sent a fly ball the opposite way to the base of Pesky’s Pole in right field. The ...Read more

HOUSTON — The Angels were having a good day for about 10 minutes.

Zach Neto and Jo Adell hit a pair of home runs in a span of four batters in the fourth inning, giving the Angels a brief one-run lead.

Everything that happened before and after that was bad, as the Angels lost to the Houston Astros, 8-3, on Monday afternoon.

The Angels (64-73...Read more

LOS ANGELES — Sunday was gut-check time for the Dodgers.

A day where, as a clearly frustrated Dave Roberts put it before the game, the team needed to "not get embarrassed" in the face of a potential three-game sweep by the Arizona Diamondbacks, and play with a level of "pride" that had been missing the previous two nights.

"Whatever it is, ...Read more

SAN FRANCISCO — Justin Verlander has used Eminem’s “Till I Collapse” as his walk-out song for roughly his entire career. The track has always resonated with Verlander, less of an anthem and more of a mantra.

‘Til I collapse, I’m spillin’ these raps long as you feel ’em,

‘Til the day that I drop, you’ll never say that I’m...Read more

HOUSTON — Everything good that happened during the Angels’ 3-0 victory over the Houston Astros on Sunday seemed much less significant in an instant.

The entire direction of the day changed the moment that Taylor Ward crashed into the left-field fence at Daikin Park, suffering injuries that resulted in him being carted off the field and into...Read more

DENVER — The Colorado Rockies owned it, blew it, then walked it off on a crazy Sunday afternoon at Coors Field.

Mickey Moniak‘s ninth-inning triple drove in Ryan Ritter to lift the Rockies to a 6-5 win over the Chicago Cubs, snapping the Rockies’ four-game losing streak. Moniak drove reliever Daniel Palencia’s slider into the right-...Read more

CHICAGO — Lenyn Sosa entered his eighth inning at-bat against Tim Hill with the approach of “just stay calm.”

“My main thought was just to take advantage of a good pitch,” Sosa said through an interpreter, “and I was able to do that.”

Sosa hit a tiebreaking solo home run to center, helping to propel the Chicago White Sox to a 3-2...Read more

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Considering how things started on this trip — three messy losses to the Athletics in Sacramento — the Detroit Tigers are coming home with an 80-58 record, giving back only one game in the standings.

That feels like a success.

"To put it lightly, we had kind of a (lousy) series in Sacramento," said catcher Jake Rogers, ...Read more

NEW YORK — Just as their season seemed to be getting on track, the New York Mets disappointed in a four-game set against the Miami Marlins.

A series after a huge sweep of the Phillies, Kodai Senga was roughed up once again as the Mets fell 5-1 to Miami, dropping three out of four at Citi Field. Senga tossed 4 2/3 innings, allowing five runs ...Read more

CINCINNATI — With a chance to leapfrog the Cincinnati Reds in the standings, the St. Louis Cardinals got enough pitching to keep the game within reach but not enough offense to close the gap.

A day after a rare win when their pitchers did not strike out a batter, the Cardinals lineup struck out 15 times, including 10 times from the bottom ...Read more

BOSTON — The Red Sox have had a hard time scoring recently, and Jarren Duran’s struggles have been among the reasons why. Entering Sunday the outfielder was batting .205 over the past two weeks, a stretch where he’s primarily batted third.

Fortunately, as manager Alex Cora often says, speed doesn’t slump.

Duran broke out in a big way ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS — There isn’t much left to be decided for the Minnesota Twins this season, but this might be one thing: Who is the Twins’ MVP of 2025?

Byron Buxton and Joe Ryan were the Twins’ representatives at the All-Star Game in July, and they are the team’s runaway leaders in Wins Above Replacement through five months. By Baseball ...Read more

CLEVELAND — Julio Rodríguez wasn’t going to let the baseball beat him to the bag. He couldn’t make the third out of the inning and strand J.P. Crawford at third and Cole Young at second base.

He exploded from the batter’s box as his soft ground-ball off the end of the bat bounced slowly up the middle and was gloved just behind the ...Read more

WASHINGTON — Brandon Lowe’s second-inning grand slam sparked the Tampa Bay Rays to a 7-4 win on Sunday and a three-game sweep of the lowly Washington Nationals.

The Rays improved to 67-69 as they head home for series against the Seattle Mariners, who hold the third American League wild-card spot; and Cleveland Guardians, who are one of ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — A year after Walker Buehler threw the clinching pitch of the World Series, the Phillies have enlisted his help to win the National League East — and maybe more.

Buehler agreed to terms Sunday on a deal with the Phillies, according to a major league source. Because he signed before Sept. 1, the 31-year-old righty will be ...Read more

NEW YORK — There’s no getting around this. The 2025 baseball season in New York has been one of the most exasperating, confounding experiences that anyone can remember for both Yankees and Mets fans.

Maybe one of them has experienced such a roller-coaster ride — think the Yankees in 2017 falling out of first place on Aug. 1, never to ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers have won 71 games since Tyler Glasnow earned his last victory.

That was March 31, 152 days ago. The season was six games old then. No other pitcher with at least 13 major league starts has gone longer without a win this season.

Yet Glasnow was never deserving of a better fate than he was Saturday, when he took a no-...Read more

DENVER — The work done by the Rockies' pitchers while in peril was admirable, but how they got there was the problem and they couldn’t escape enough times to scratch out a victory.

Chicago couldn’t find a knockout punch Saturday night, but Kyle Tucker’s run-scoring single in the top of the sixth inning was the difference in a 4-3 win ...Read more

CLEVELAND — The Mariners can continue to “battle” and “show plenty of fight,” but at some point soon, they need to start executing and winning in games not played in T-Mobile Park. Remember, fight and battle aren’t categories for postseason qualification.

And achieving that playoff goal, once almost seeming like a given, is growing ...Read more