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HOUSTON — Shaking off a foul ball he took to the mask earlier in the game, Philadelphia Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto hit a tiebreaking home run in the 10th inning, leading to a stunning 6-5 victory against the Houston Astros in Game 1 of the World Series on Friday night.

“Just ecstatic to put a good swing on that pitch, be able to give our team the lead,” Realmuto said after the dramatic win. “We did such a good job fighting back there.”

The Phillies scored six runs after trailing 5-0 early in the game, becoming the sixth team all time to overcome a five-run deficit to win a World Series game. Astros manager Dusty Baker has been on the losing end on the past two, with the other coming with the 2002 San Francisco Giants in a loss to the Angels.

The Phillies’ second time through the order Friday night against Astros ace Justin Verlander proved to be fruitful as Philadelphia scored three runs off him in the fourth and two more in the fifth to tie the score at 5. Verlander was perfect through the first three innings.

“I think the second time [through] you’ve seen it once,” Phillies manager Rob Thomson said of Verlander’s pitches. “So there’s some familiarity there. So I think that’s why we had some success off him the second time.”

The Astros jumped to a lead thanks to two home runs in back-to-back innings by right fielder Kyle Tucker. After the Phillies tied the score at 5-5 on a two-run double by Realmuto in the fifth, Thomson managed the rest of the night with urgency, beginning with his decision to bring in reliever Jose Alvarado in the fifth inning.

“I think once we scored the three you were kind of feeling it,” Thomson said. “Like, we got back in this thing, now the momentum has changed. And that’s really why I went to Alvarado in the fifth inning, which I haven’t done all year, because I thought that the momentum changed there. [It] was so important to keep that momentum, get through those guys, and we’ll figure out the rest later.”

The Phillies’ bullpen was spectacular, throwing 5⅔ shutout innings as Thomson used all of his high-leverage arms, including scheduled Game 3 starter Ranger Suarez.

“So what went into it was, today’s a side [bullpen] day for Game 3, so we thought, OK, we’ve got that one pocket, Alvarez to Tucker, that’s a pretty big pocket, and thought, we’ll put him in if that situation comes up,” Thomson said. “If not, that’s fine. And it came up.”

Thomson didn’t rule out Suarez for Game 3 after he threw just 11 pitches on Friday. His performance helped bridge the gap to the late innings, with Seranthony Dominguez getting two outs in the eighth and three in the ninth to pitch the Phillies into extras.

But a single and stolen base by Jose Altuve put the winning run on second in the bottom of the ninth. That’s when shortstop Jeremy Pena blooped a ball into right field, where Nick Castellanos made a magnificent, inning-ending sliding catch to preserve the tie.

“I felt like I read the swing pretty well, and as soon as I saw the direction of the ball I felt like I got a good jump on it,” Castellanos said.

Castellanos took a few steps in after Altuve reached second. Those extra yards proved to be helpful as he closed the gap on the ball.

“I just thought he had a better chance of trying to bloop something in there than torching something over my head,” Castellanos said. “So that was kind of my thought process there, just thought of it on the fly.”

The catch kept the game alive for Realmuto’s heroics in the 10th. He deposited a 3-2 fastball by Astros reliever Luis Garcia into the right-field stands, sending his dugout into a frenzy.

It’s a moment Realmuto said he has imagined since he was a kid.

“I mean whiffle ball games in the backyard, the whole 3-2, bases-loaded, two-out situation,” he said. “I probably had 7,000 at-bats in that situation growing up.”

It almost never came Friday after Realmuto took a foul ball to the mask, leading to a delay as the Phillies’ training staff attended to him. He stayed in the game.

“Honestly, my head wasn’t the problem,” Realmuto said. “It just smoked my jaw pretty good. It’s probably not going to be very easy for me to eat dinner tonight, but as long as my head’s OK, I’ll be good to go.”

The Astros left the tying and winning runs on base in the bottom of the 10th as Tucker struck out and pinch-hitter Aledmys Diaz grounded out.

Realmuto is the first catcher with an extra-inning home run in the World Series since Carlton Fisk’s walk-off homer in Game 6 of the 1975 series.

Castellanos was asked what the vibe in the dugout was after his team went down 5-0.

“Let’s go to work,” he said. “We’ve been there before. I think that’s what this team does so well. We know there’s no quit, really. We really respect all 27 outs and we take that seriously, and we take it personal.”

The loss was the first for the Astros this postseason.

Game 2 is Saturday night. The Astros will start lefty Framber Valdez, and the Phillies will counter with right-hander Zack Wheeler.

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Stanton won’t blame ailing elbows on torpedo bats

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Stanton won't blame ailing elbows on torpedo bats

NEW YORK — Giancarlo Stanton, one of the first known adopters of the torpedo bat, declined Tuesday to say whether he believes using it last season caused the tendon ailments in both elbows that forced him to begin this season on the injured list.

Last month, Stanton alluded to “bat adjustments” he made last season as a possible reason for the epicondylitis, commonly known as tennis elbow, he’s dealing with.

“You’re not going to get the story you’re looking for,” Stanton said. “So, if that’s what you guys want, that ain’t going to happen.”

Stanton said he will continue using the torpedo bat when he returns from injury. The 35-year-old New York Yankees slugger, who has undergone multiple rounds of platelet-rich plasma injections to treat his elbows, shared during spring training that season-ending surgery on both elbows was a possibility. But he has progressed enough to recently begin hitting off a Trajekt — a pitching robot that simulates any pitcher’s windup, arm angle and arsenal. However, he still wouldn’t define his return as “close.”

He said he will first have to go on a minor league rehab assignment at an unknown date for an unknown period. It won’t start in the next week, he added.

“This is very unique,” Stanton said. “I definitely haven’t missed a full spring before. So, it just depends on my timing, really, how fast I get to feel comfortable in the box versus live pitching.”

While the craze of the torpedo bat (also known as the bowling pin bat) has swept the baseball world since it was revealed Saturday — while the Yankees were blasting nine home runs against the Milwaukee Brewers — that a few members of the Yankees were using one, the modified bat already had quietly spread throughout the majors in 2024. Both Stanton and former Yankees catcher Jose Trevino, now with the Cincinnati Reds, were among players who used the bats last season after being introduced to the concept by Aaron Leanhardt, an MIT-educated physicist and former minor league hitting coordinator for the organization.

Anthony Volpe, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger, Paul Goldschmidt and Austin Wells were among the Yankees who used torpedo bats during their season-opening sweep of the Brewers.

Stanton explained he has changed bats before. He said he has usually adjusted the length. Sometimes, he opts for lighter bats at the end of the long season. In the past, when knuckleballers were more common in the majors, he’d opt for heavier lumber.

Last year, he said he simply chose his usual bat but with a different barrel after experimenting with a few models.

“I mean, it makes a lot of sense,” Stanton said. “But it’s, like, why hasn’t anyone thought of it in 100-plus years? So, it’s explained simply and then you try it and as long as it’s comfortable in your hands [it works]. We’re creatures of habit, so the bat’s got to feel kind of like a glove or an extension of your arm.”

Stanton went on to lead the majors with an average bat velocity of 81.2 mph — nearly 3 mph ahead of the competition. He had a rebound, but not spectacular, regular season in which he batted .233 with 27 home runs and a .773 OPS before clubbing seven home runs in 14 playoff games.

“It’s not like [it was] unreal all of a sudden for me,” Stanton said.

Yankees manager Aaron Boone described the torpedo bats “as the evolution of equipment” comparable to getting fitted for new golf clubs. He said the organization is not pushing players to use them and insisted the science is more complicated than just picking a bat with a different barrel.

“There’s a lot more to it than, ‘I’ll take the torpedo bat on the shelf over there — 34 [inches], 32 [ounces],'” Boone said. “Our guys are way more invested in it than that. And really personalized, really work with our players in creating this stuff. But it’s equipment evolving.”

As players around the majors order torpedo bats in droves after the Yankees’ barrage over the weekend — they clubbed a record-tying 13 homers in two games against the Brewers — Boone alluded to the notion that, though everyone is aware of the concept, not every organization can optimize its usage.

“You’re trying to just, where you can on the margins, move the needle a little bit,” Boone said. “And that’s really all you’re going to do. I don’t think this is some revelation to where we’re going to be; it’s not related to the weekend that we had, for example. Like, I don’t think it’s that. Maybe in some cases, for some players, it may help them incrementally. That’s how I view it.”

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Rangers’ Eovaldi gets season’s 1st complete game

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Rangers' Eovaldi gets season's 1st complete game

CINCINNATI — Nathan Eovaldi pitched a four-hitter for the majors’ first complete game of the season, and the Texas Rangers blanked the Cincinnati Reds 1-0 on Tuesday night.

Eovaldi struck out eight and walked none in his fifth career complete game. The right-hander threw 99 pitches, 70 for strikes.

It was Eovaldi’s first shutout since April 29, 2023, against the Yankees and just the third of his career. He became the first Ranger with multiple career shutouts with no walks in the past 30 seasons, according to ESPN Research.

“I feel like, by the fifth or sixth inning, that my pitch count was down, and I feel like we had a really good game plan going into it,” Eovaldi said in his on-field postgame interview on Victory+. “I thought [Texas catcher Kyle Higashioka] called a great game. We were on the same page throughout the entire game.”

In the first inning, Wyatt Langford homered for Texas against Carson Spiers (0-1), and that proved to be all Eovaldi needed. A day after Cincinnati collected 14 hits in a 14-3 victory in the series opener, Eovaldi (1-0) silenced the lineup.

“We needed it, these bats are still quiet,” Texas manager Bruce Bochy said of his starter’s outing. “It took a well-pitched game like that. What a game.”

The Reds put the tying run on second with two out in the ninth, but Eovaldi retired Elly De La Cruz on a grounder to first.

“He’s as good as I have seen as far as a pitcher performing under pressure,” Bochy said. “He is so good. He’s a pro out there. He wants to be out there.”

Eovaldi retired his first 12 batters, including five straight strikeouts during one stretch. Gavin Lux hit a leadoff single in the fifth for Cincinnati’s first baserunner.

“I think it was the first-pitch strikes,” Eovaldi said, when asked what made him so efficient. “But also, the off-speed pitches. I was able to get some quick outs, and I didn’t really have many deep counts. … And not walking guys helps.”

Spiers gave up three hits in six innings in his season debut. He struck out five and walked two for the Reds, who fell to 2-3.

The Rangers moved to 4-2, and Langford has been at the center of it all. He now has two home runs in six games to begin the season. In 2024, it took him until the 29th game of the season to homer for the first time. Langford hit 16 homers in 134 games last season during his rookie year.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Source: USC flips Ducks’ Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

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Source: USC flips Ducks' Topui, No. 3 DT in 2026

USC secured the commitment of former Oregon defensive tackle pledge Tomuhini Topui on Tuesday, a source told ESPN, handing the Trojans their latest recruiting victory in the 2026 cycle over the Big Ten rival Ducks.

Topui, ESPN’s No. 3 defensive tackle and No. 72 overall recruit in the 2026 class, spent five and half months committed to Oregon before pulling his pledge from the program on March 27. Topui attended USC’s initial spring camp practice that afternoon, and seven days later the 6-foot-4, 295-pound defender gave the Trojans his pledge to become the sixth ESPN 300 defender in the program’s 2026 class.

Topui’s commitment gives USC its 10th ESPN 300 pledge this cycle — more than any other program nationally — and pulls a fourth top-100 recruit into the impressive defensive class the Trojans are building this spring. Alongside Topui, USC’s defensive class includes in-state cornerbacks R.J. Sermons (No. 26 in ESPN Junior 300) and Brandon Lockhart (No. 77); four-star outside linebacker Xavier Griffin (No. 27) out of Gainesville, Georgia; and two more defensive line pledges between Jaimeon Winfield (No. 143) and Simote Katoanga (No. 174).

The Trojans are working to reestablish their local recruiting presence in the 2026 class under newly hired general manager Chad Bowden. Topui not only gives the Trojans their 11th in-state commit in the cycle, but his pledge represents a potentially important step toward revamping the program’s pipeline to perennial local powerhouse Mater Dei High School, too.

Topui will enter his senior season this fall at Mater Dei, the program that has produced a long line of USC stars including Matt Leinart, Matt Barkley and Amon-Ra St. Brown. However, if Topui ultimately signs with the program later this year, he’ll mark the Trojans’ first Mater Dei signee since the 2022 cycle, when USC pulled three top-300 prospects — Domani Jackson, Raleek Brown and C.J. Williams — from the high school program based in Santa Ana, California.

Topui’s flip to the Trojans also adds another layer to a recruiting rivalry rekindling between USC and Oregon in the 2026 cycle.

Tuesday’s commitment comes less than two months after coach Lincoln Riley and the Trojans flipped four-star Oregon quarterback pledge Jonas Williams, ESPN’s No. 2 dual-threat quarterback in 2026. USC is expected to continue targeting several Ducks commits this spring, including four-star offensive tackle Kodi Greene, another top prospect out of Mater Dei.

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