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The New York Mets‘ Buck Showalter was named National League Manager of the Year on Tuesday night, becoming just the third person to win a fourth award and the first to win with four different franchises.

Showalter, the first Mets manager to win the award, received eight of 30 first-place votes, 10 second-place votes and 77 total points, edging Los Angeles Dodgers skipper Dave Roberts, who finished second. Roberts also earned eight-first-place votes but had just four second-place votes for 57 points. Atlanta‘s Brian Snitker, who won the award in 2018, finished third with 55 points. He received seven first-place votes.

The voting was done by a Baseball Writers’ Association of America panel and conducted before the postseason.

Showalter, 66, has now won Manager of the Year in four different decades, his previous awards coming with the New York Yankees (1994), Texas Rangers (2004) and Baltimore Orioles (2014). The other four-time winners are Hall of Famers Bobby Cox and Tony La Russa.

“The game has changed,” Showalter said of his four awards in four decades. “But in a lot of ways it’s stayed the same.”

Under Showalter, the Mets made the postseason for the first time since 2016, losing in the wild-card round to the San Diego Padres.

After three seasons away from the dugout, Showalter led New York to 101 wins, the most of any team he has managed over 21 seasons. The 101 wins were also the Mets’ highest total since the club won 108 games in 1986. New York finished in a first-place tie with the Braves in the NL East, though the Braves won the division crown on the head-to-head tiebreaker.

Five different managers received multiple first-place votes — Showalter (8), Roberts (8), Snitker (7), Oliver Marmol of the St. Louis Cardinals (5) and the Philadelphia Phillies‘ Rob Thomson (2).

Roberts, 50, guided the Dodgers to a franchise-record 111 wins, a high-water mark for an organization that has made the postseason in each of Roberts’ seven seasons in the dugout, including six NL West titles.

Roberts, who was named NL Manager of the Year in 2016, owns a career .632 regular-season winning percentage. That’s the highest percentage all-time among managers from one of baseball’s extant leagues.

Only Bullet Rogan, Vic Harris and Rube Foster, all of whom managed in the Negro Leagues, own higher lifetime winning percentages.

Snitker, 67, has gone from a career coach and minor league manager to a fixture atop annual NL Manager of the Year voting.

The Braves’ 101 wins in 2022 were their most during Snitker’s six-plus seasons with the franchise for which he has worked since 1977. Atlanta extended its streak of NL East titles to five.

The past two seasons have seen Snitker help Atlanta withstand disappointing starts only to catch fire late in the season. In 2021, the Braves’ late-season hot streak culminated in a World Series championship.

The Braves didn’t get that far in 2022, losing in the NLDS to a red-hot Phillies team. Still, Atlanta trailed the Mets in the division race by seven games on Aug. 10 before coming all the way back to win the division.

Snitker has finished in the top four in NL Manager of the Year balloting in five straight seasons.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Springer’s 7 RBIs help Jays pile on Yankees late

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Springer's 7 RBIs help Jays pile on Yankees late

George Springer had a career-high seven RBIs, including his ninth grand slam, and the Toronto Blue Jays celebrated Canada Day by beating the Yankees 12-5 on Tuesday and closing within one game of American League East-leading New York.

The seven RBIs are tied for the second most by any Blue Jays player in a home game, behind Edwin Encarnación (nine RBIs in 2015), according to ESPN Research.

Andrés Giménez had a go-ahead, three-run homer for the Blue Jays, who overcame a 2-0 deficit against Max Fried. After the Yankees tied the score 4-4 in the seventh, Toronto broke open the game in the bottom half against a reeling Yankees bullpen.

Springer went 3-for-4, starting the comeback with a solo homer in the fourth against Fried and boosting the lead to 9-5 with the slam off Luke Weaver after Ernie Clement‘s go-ahead single off shortstop Anthony Volpe‘s glove. Springer has 13 homers this season.

Toronto won the first two games of the four-game series and closed within one game of the Yankees for the first time since before play on April 20.

New York went 2-for-17 with runners in scoring position, dropping to 3-for-24 in the series, while the Blue Jays were 5-for-7. After going 13-14 in June, the Yankees fell to 10-14 against AL East rivals.

The Associate Press contributed to this report.

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Astros’ Alvarez to see hand specialist after setback

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Astros' Alvarez to see hand specialist after setback

DENVER — Houston Astros slugger Yordan Alvarez has experienced a setback in his recovery from a broken right hand and will see a specialist.

Astros general manager Dana Brown said Alvarez felt pain when he arrived Tuesday at the team’s spring training complex in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he had a workout a day earlier. Alvarez also took batting practice Saturday at Daikin Park.

He will be shut down until he’s evaluated by the specialist.

“It’s a tough time going through this with Yordan, but I know that he’s still feeling pain and the soreness in his hand,” Brown said before Tuesday night’s series opener at Colorado, which the Astros won 6-5. “We’re not going to try to push it or force him through anything. We’re just going to allow him to heal and get a little bit more answers as to what steps we take next.”

Alvarez has been sidelined for nearly two months. The injury was initially diagnosed as a muscle strain, but when Alvarez felt pain again while hitting in late May, imaging revealed a small fracture.

The 28-year-old outfielder, who has hit 31 homers or more in each of the past four seasons, had been eyeing a return as soon as this weekend at the Los Angeles Dodgers. Now it’s uncertain when he’ll play.

“We felt like he was close because he had felt so good of late,” Brown said, “but this is certainly news that we didn’t want.”

Also Tuesday, the Astros officially placed shortstop Jeremy Peña on the 10-day injured list with a fractured rib and recalled infielder Shay Whitcomb from Triple-A Sugar Land.

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Ohtani’s 30th HR before break ties Dodgers mark

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Ohtani's 30th HR before break ties Dodgers mark

Shohei Ohtani reached 30 homers for the fifth straight season, hitting a fourth-inning drive after fouling a pitch off the plate umpire, and the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Chicago White Sox 6-1 on Tuesday night.

Ohtani fouled the ball off Alan Porter’s right knee in the fourth. Ohtani checked on the umpire and stood by watching until Parker got up under his own power. The three-time MVP then hit a 408-foot shot to center, snapping an 0-for-6 skid and extending the lead to 6-1. He tied Cody Bellinger in 2019 for most home runs before the All-Star break in Dodgers history; Bellinger won National League MVP that year.

Ohtani joined Seattle‘s Cal Raleigh (33) and Aaron Judge of the Yankees (30) as players with at least 30 homers by the All-Star break; it marks the fifth season that three players have reached the 30-homer threshold before the break (2019, 1998, 1994, 1969).

As for Ohtani, this is his third season hitting at least 30 home runs before the break, tying Ken Griffey Jr. for third most in MLB history (Judge and Mark McGwire each did so for four seasons).

During the seventh-inning stretch, Ohtani walked over and checked on Porter again before leading off.

Los Angeles scored its most runs this season in support of Yoshinobu Yamamoto (8-6), staking the Japanese right-hander to a 4-0 lead in the first inning.

The Dodgers won for the 13th time in 16 games and opened a season-high, eight-game NL West lead. They are 16-5 (.762 win percentage) since June 8, the best record in MLB during that span.

Every run Tuesday night was scored with two outs.

Yamamoto allowed one run and three hits in seven innings, struck out eight and walked one.

White Sox rookie Shane Smith (3-6) got two quick outs in the first before walking Will Smith and Max Muncy back-to-back. Teoscar Hernández followed with an RBI single, Andy Pages hit a run-scoring double and Michael Conforto had a two-run single.

Chicago’s lone run came on Lenyn Sosa‘s RBI single in the third.

ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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