BALTIMORE (AP) — There might come a time when Brandon Hyde wakes up in the morning, grabs a newspaper and finds the Baltimore Orioles in the standings.For now, the rookie manager simply can't bear to look.The rebuilding Orioles limped into the All-Star break with a major league worst 27-62 record. During a particular brutal stretch in late June, Baltimore showed its youth and inexperience while losing 13 of 14 games — including blowouts of 12-3, 13-2, 16-2 and 13-3.Asked at that point to present his goal for this season, Hyde replied, "I'll be honest with you — I have no idea what our record is. I don't even want to look at it. Right now, it's about developing these guys and how we play. Eventually, I'm going to be looking at the standings and it's going to be about wins and losses."Until then, Hyde will have to grit his teeth when his outfielders throw to the wrong base, players get picked off and his pitching staff gets rocked. Baltimore is allowing a major league high 6.07 runs per game... [More]

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Joe Maddon didn't let the free time created by a rare ejection go to waste.Shortly after getting tossed by home-plate umpire Joe West on July 4 following an outburst in which the Chicago Cubs' manager appeared ready to take on any and all comers from the Pittsburgh dugout after taking exception to the way the Pirates kept pitching up and in to his players, Maddon retired to the visiting manager's office at PNC Park. He eased into a chair, opened a bottle of wine, flipped on the television and watched his wildly uneven team put the finishing touches on an 11-3 victory that avoided a four-game sweep.Veteran move. Opportunities to relax over the next two-plus months will be scarce in the most competitive division in the majors.The National League Central enters the second half with the first-place Cubs and last-place Cincinnati separated by just 4 1/2 games, an outlier during an otherwise yawn-inducing first half in which five divisions reached the All-Star break with at... [More]

First the players, now the ball. Home runs are skyrocketing, and once again Major League Baseball officials claim they don't know the reason why.Then again, it might be that they're just not looking hard enough.Unlike the players, the ball still looks the same. Commissioner Rob Manfred said it tests much the same as before, too, though he conceded there might be less drag on the ball than there was in the past.So why are batters teeing off at a rate nearing three home runs a game, a 19 percent increase from a year before? Why are hitters on a pace to hit 1,000 more home runs than the Steroids Era high mark of 5,693 in 2000?Good question, Manfred says, but it's not because anyone juiced the ball."Manipulation of the baseball is a great conspiracy theory," Manfred said Tuesday at the All-Star Game in Cleveland. "How you manipulate a human-dominated handmade manufacturing process in any consistent way, it's a smarter human being than I."Don't tell that to pitchers like Justin Verlander, who... [More]

YORK, Pa. (AP) — "Robot umpires" have arrived.The independent Atlantic League became the first American professional baseball league to let a computer call balls and strikes Wednesday night at its All-Star Game. Plate umpire Brian deBrauwere wore an earpiece connected to an iPhone in his pocket and relayed the call upon receiving it from a TrackMan computer system that uses Doppler radar.He crouched in his normal position behind the catcher and signaled balls and strikes."Until we can trust this system 100 percent, I still have to go back there with the intention of getting a pitch correct because if the system fails, it doesn't pick a pitch up or if it registers a pitch that's a foot-and-a-half off the plate as a strike, I have to be prepared to correct that," deBrauwere said before the game.It didn't appear deBrauwere had any delay receiving the calls at first but players noticed a big difference."One time I already had caught the ball back from the catcher and he signaled strike," said... [More]

CHICAGO (AP) — Work crews have begun extending the protective netting to the foul poles at Guaranteed Rate Field, a step the Chicago White Sox are taking following a couple of high-profile injuries this season.The White Sox say the majority of the work should be completed Wednesday and the netting will be in place when the team returns home July 22 to host the Miami Marlins.The White Sox are the first major league team to take the step after a liner by Cubs outfielder Albert Almora Jr. struck a 4-year-old girl in Houston in May. A woman was hit by a foul ball off the bat of White Sox slugger Eloy Jiménez in Chicago on June 10.Commissioner Rob Manfred has said extending protective netting down foul lines is a ballpark-to-ballpark decision because of differing configurations. Major League Baseball mandated ahead of the 2018 season that netting extend to the far end of each dugout.The Pittsburgh Pirates, Texas Rangers and Washington Nationals are among the other teams that have announced they'll extend netting.

CHICAGO (AP) — Work crews have begun extending the protective netting to the foul poles at Guaranteed Rate Field, a step the Chicago White Sox are taking following a couple of high-profile injuries this season.The White Sox say the majority of the work should be completed Wednesday and the netting will be in place when the team returns home July 22 to host the Miami Marlins.The White Sox became the first major league team to take the step after a liner by Cubs outfielder Albert Almora Jr. struck a 4-year-old girl in Houston in May. A woman was hit by a foul ball off the bat of White Sox slugger Eloy Jiménez in Chicago on June 10.Commissioner Rob Manfred has said extending protective netting down foul lines is a ballpark-to-ballpark decision because of differing configurations. Major League Baseball mandated ahead of the 2018 season that netting extend to the far end of each dugout.The Pittsburgh Pirates, Texas Rangers and Washington Nationals are among the other teams that have announced they'll extend netting.

CHICAGO (AP) — Francisco Lindor and the Cleveland Indians, looking up at Nelson Cruz and the surprising Minnesota Twins. Matt Chapman and the Oakland Athletics, trying to run down José Altuve and the Houston Astros. Max Scherzer and the Washington Nationals, chasing Ronald Acuña Jr. and the Atlanta Braves.Baseball ramps up again this weekend, and a handful of contenders have a lot of work to do.Five of the majors' six divisions feature deficits of at least 5½ games as play resumes after the All-Star Game, in which the American League beat the National League 4-3 Tuesday night. Life is pretty good for two iconic franchises, with Cody Bellinger and the Los Angeles Dodgers in control of the NL West again and Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees looking down on the rest of the AL East despite a rash of injuries."This team is capable of some great things," Yankees pitcher James Paxton said. "You've got some really talented players here, guys with a lot of drive, great leadership. We're set up... [More]

CHICAGO (AP) — Francisco Lindor and the Cleveland Indians, looking up at Nelson Cruz and the surprising Minnesota Twins. Matt Chapman and the Oakland Athletics, trying to run down José Altuve and the Houston Astros. Max Scherzer and the Washington Nationals, chasing Ronald Acuña Jr. and the Atlanta Braves.Baseball ramps up again this weekend, and a handful of contenders have a lot of work to do.Five of the majors' six divisions feature deficits of at least 5½ games as play resumes after the All-Star Game, in which the American League beat the National League 4-3 Tuesday night. Life is pretty good for two iconic franchises, with Cody Bellinger and the Los Angeles Dodgers in control of the NL West again and Aaron Judge and the New York Yankees looking down on the rest of the AL East despite a rash of injuries."This team is capable of some great things," Yankees pitcher James Paxton said. "You've got some really talented players here, guys with a lot of drive, great leadership. We're set up... [More]

WASHINGTON (AP) — Seven weeks ago, the Washington Nationals didn't have much to dance about.They were 12 games below .500 with the fourth-worst record in baseball. They weren't giving ace Max Scherzer and Co. enough run support, and the bullpen was a ticking time bomb to another deflating loss."Any way we could lose a game, we found a way to do it," first baseman Ryan Zimmerman said. "Then you go to New York and get swept, lose four games in a row, you feel like you're at rock bottom."Since waking up at rock bottom on May 24, the Nationals have gone a major league-best 28-11 to vault into playoff contention. With its combination of power hitting, stellar starting pitching and some dance parties in the dugout, Washington can legitimately think about playing into October and challenging the Atlanta Braves for NL East supremacy."We know the guys in this clubhouse are very talented," Scherzer said. "When we can go out there and play our best baseball and play mistake-free baseball, we're a... [More]

CLEVELAND (AP) — Baseball players' union head Tony Clark says a poor job has been done of marketing Boston Red Sox outfielder Mookie Betts, the reigning AL MVP."Mookie should be a household name," Clark told the Baseball Writers' Association of America on Tuesday. "Mookie should be a one-name guy. You say Ronaldo. You say Messi. You say Mookie. You should know who Mookie is, and outside of the baseball world, I don't know how many do."Betts earned his fourth straight All-Star selection after helping Boston win the World Series last year."In the grand scheme of things with respect to players that should be at the forefront of every conversation and should be in conversations even with non-baseball fans, Mookie is one of them," Clark said. "No doubt about it. And unless or until we fix that, it's going to be difficult for others to be a part of that conversation, too."Clark said baseball Commissioner Rob Manfred probably would be in position to answer what is required to increase Betts' recognition."I... [More]

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Latest on baseball's All-Star Game (all times local):10 p.m.Carlos Carrasco hopes to strike out cancer.The Indians right-hander, who was recently diagnosed with a form of leukemia, was saluted in the fifth inning of the All-Star Game during Major League Baseball's "Stand Up to Cancer" campaign.The 32-year-old stood in the third-base coach's box, flanked by four All-Star teammates and Indians manager Terry Francona. Carrasco held a sign that read "I Stand'" while Lindor's said: "Cookie," which is the pitcher's nickname.Carrasco had been feeling fatigued in May, and was diagnosed with chronic myeloid leukemia following an exam at the Cleveland Clinic.He has been cleared to resume conditioning and throwing activities to the extent he can tolerate them. Carrasco could pitch a bullpen session later this week and believes he'll return to the team at some point this season.He had been scheduled to start against Minnesota on June 5, when the Indians issued a statement saying... [More]

CLEVELAND (AP) — Faced with a record onslaught of home runs that has convinced many pitchers that baseballs are juiced, Commissioner Rob Manfred says the sport has been unable to find any changes in the manufacturing process.A May 2018 report to Major League Baseball by professors specializing in physics, mechanical engineering, statistics and mathematics concluded there was less drag on the ball, causing more home runs. MLB still has not figured out why, and Manfred denied accusations by AL All-Star starter Justin Verlander and other pitchers that baseballs deliberately had been altered."Baseball has done nothing, given no direction for an alteration in the baseball," Manfred told the Baseball Writers' Association of America on Tuesday. "The biggest flaw in that logic is that baseball somehow wants more home runs. If you sat in an owner's meeting and listened to people talk about the way our game is being played, that is not the sentiment among the owners for whom I work. There is no desire... [More]

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Latest on baseball's All-Star Game (all times local):8:55 p.m.Two Cleveland baseball mainstays, whose careers are forever linked, were saluted before the All-Star Game.For CC Sabathia, it was a final bow. For Michael Brantley, it was welcome back.Sabathia, who will retire at the end of this season, threw out the ceremonial first pitch, a fitting tribute for the 38-year-old Yankees left-hander who began his career with the Indians in 2001.One of just 14 pitchers to record 250 career wins and 3,000 strikeouts, Sabathia said he cried when he was traded by the Indians to Milwaukee in 2008 — for Brantley."I wanted to stay here," Sabathia said. "It's just one of those cities."Brantley received a loud ovation when the Houston outfielder was introduced with the other AL players. Brantley spent 10 seasons with the Indians, who elected not to re-sign him as a free agent last winter.He later gave the AL a 1-0 lead with an RBI double in the second."I know the relationships that... [More]

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Latest on baseball's All-Star Game (all times local):8:15Late Los Angeles Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs is being honored at the All-Star Game by two grieving teammates — and all of baseball.Superstar outfielder Mike Trout and infielder Tommy La Stella are both wearing No. 45 — Skaggs' jersey number — in Tuesday's game. The 27-year-old Skaggs died unexpectedly on July 1. He was found unresponsive in the team's hotel in Texas, hours before the Angels were scheduled to play the Rangers."It's been a difficult last couple of days for all of us," Trout said. "Being at the field — at my home — really helps."A moment of silence was held before the game and players on both squads wore black patches with Skaggs' number in white.His death sent a shockwave through baseball and deeply affected the Angels. He was one of the team's most popular players, liked by everyone for his engaging personality."There is a saying, 'You don't realize what you have until you lose it.' It's spot-on,"... [More]

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Latest on baseball's All-Star Game (all times local):5:25 p.m.Commissioner Rob Manfred insists Major League Baseball did not make a deal with the Cleveland Indians about banning their contentious logo, Chief Wahoo.The club agreed to remove the hotly debated, smiling caricature from its caps and jerseys starting this season, a decision that came after Cleveland was awarded the 2019 All-Star Game.The timing was curious, but Manfred said there was no link between the two."The All-Star Game was awarded to Cleveland by Commissioner (Bud) Selig before I even had one conversation about Chief Wahoo," Manfred said. "You can write that as fact."Although Wahoo, which has been around since the 1940s, is no longer on the field, the mascot is as popular as ever as fans continue to wear all kinds of merchandise bearing his image.___1:55 p.m.The weather forecast is calling for clear skies and temperatures in the upper 70s at Progressive Field. A perfect night for the All-Star Game... [More]

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Latest on baseball's All-Star Game (all times local):1:55 p.m.The weather forecast is calling for clear skies and temperatures in the upper 70s at Progressive Field. A perfect night for the All-Star Game — players and fans hope it's not perfect for midges, too.Midges are tiny, flying insects that live around Lake Erie and swarm when it's warm. They don't bite, but they're pesky. They made their mark on baseball during the 2007 AL Division Series when bunches of the bugs descended on the neck of Yankees pitcher Joba Chamberlain during Game 2 against Cleveland on a humid October night.The midges miffed Chamberlain, and the rattled reliever threw two wild pitches in the eighth inning that let the Indians score the tying run. Cleveland won in 11 innings, and won the series in four games.Just in case anyone forgot, there's a small sticker that serves as a reminder in the windows of the hotel where many Major League Baseball officials and media members are staying this week,... [More]

CLEVELAND (AP) — For a day, Will Smith was in for quite a treat — teammates with Clayton Kershaw, Freddie Freeman and Christian Yelich.Soon, the San Francisco reliever could be playing with one of them for real.Smith went into the All-Star Game on Tuesday night well aware his days with the last-place Giants might be dwindling."If I get traded, it'll be the fourth time," the left-hander said. "After the first one, you're kind of numb to it."Fellow All-Star pitchers Marcus Stroman, Shane Greene and Brad Hand also are possible trade targets as the July 31 deadline approaches.Hand is an old hand at this. The San Diego Padres sent the left-hander to Cleveland just two days after the 2018 All-Star Game, during the break."I didn't really think I was going to get traded last year," Hand said Monday. "It's part of what we signed up for. ... There's really nothing you can do about it unless you have a no-trade clause.""I mean obviously there's a select handful of guys whose names are always thrown... [More]

CLEVELAND (AP) — His free agency delayed a year because the Chicago Cubs kept him in the minor leagues for one extra day, Kris Bryant is the shining example of why players are agitating for change in their labor contract.Baseball has had labor peace following eight work stoppages from 1972-95, but the relationship between Major League Baseball and the union is strained as the current deal approaches its expiration in December 2021."I think people are prepared. I think we've very well educated," Bryant said Monday as NL All-Stars gathered in a room. "The problems are out on the board and I think the sides are kind of working towards not getting to that point. But I think everyone here in this room knows what's going on. There has to be change, and I think there will be."Bryant debuted on April 17, 2015, leaving him one day shy of the service time needed to become a free agent after the 2020 season, The players' association filed a grievance in 2015, but the case has not been argued.Houston... [More]

CLEVELAND (AP) — The Latest on the All-Star Game (all times local):6:25 p.m.Even though he's not on the roster, CC Sabathia was looming large around Progressive Field.The 38-year-old Yankees pitcher is playing his final season. He was invited by Major League Baseball to take part in this week's festivities, and was set to be honored for his contributions on and off the field."I'm just having a good time, being a fake All-Star here," he said, laughing. "When the Yankees asked me to announce my retirement, I was like, 'Announce what? I'm not Derek Jeter. No one will care.' But this whole deal has been pretty cool."Sabathia began his big league career in Cleveland and stayed in town until being traded to Milwaukee during the 2008 season. He still maintains close connections to the city.The lefty is 5-4 with a 4.03 ERA this season. Overall, the six-time All-Star has 251 wins and 3,057 strikeouts."I'm on my way out, I only have three more months, but as a fan, I love offense. There is definitely... [More]

CLEVELAND (AP) — Sitting next to Justin Verlander, American League manager Alex Cora cheekily declared "we've got the opener" as he described his pitching plans.Touché!Houston's ace has been among the players most critical of some teams' practice of using relief pitchers as ersatz starters for an inning or two.Verlander will be making his second All-Star start on Tuesday night. Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts selected Hyun-Jin Ryu from his own staff to make his first start for the National League.A 36-year-old right-hander, Verlander is 10-4 with a 2.98 ERA this year for the Houston Astros, striking out 153 in 126 2/3 innings.He allowed five runs in the first inning during the 2012 All-Star Game at Kansas City, including the first bases-loaded triple in All-Star history, to Pablo Sandoval."I kind of halfway blame it on Prince Fielder," Verlander said. "He was at first base, and he kept whispering at me, 'Ver, Ver, Ver, throw 100.' OK, Prince, here we go. So that was back then."Verlander,... [More]