
The Hypnotoad, a Mercedes and those postgame videos: 12 stories to explain TCU’s 12-0 season
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adminOne year and one day ago, on Nov. 30, 2021, Sonny Dykes landed in a helicopter at midfield of Amon G. Carter Stadium, awash in purple lights, for his arrival as the new head coach at TCU. It was a flashy introduction for the decidedly unflashy West Texan making a 40-mile trip to Fort Worth all the way from Dallas.
But 366 days later, Dykes is still adjusting to being the center of attention, because he still hasn’t lost a game in his career as TCU’s coach. His 12-0 Horned Frogs are No. 3 in the latest College Football Playoff rankings and are playing for a Big 12 championship against No. 10 Kansas State in the conference championship game on Saturday at AT&T Stadium in Arlington (noon ET, ABC/ESPN App).
It’s good to be Sonny Dykes right now. His team’s frantic, chaotic season of destiny, augmented with quite a bit of weirdness, has made the Horned Frogs a national curiosity. There’s an animated psychedelic amphibian that has captivated fans and inspired the team (“The Hypnotoad is powerful stuff,” Dykes said in an actual postgame news conference). The creative team’s bizarre postgame videos are puzzling, yet mesmerizing.
And now Dykes gets to travel all of 18 miles to play for a Big 12 title. If he didn’t feel like taking the bus, he could do that in style, too, thanks to a booster and longtime friend. Fin Ewing III, a Dallas car dealer and TCU grad who furnishes the coach’s car, came and picked up Dykes’ GMC Sierra (the Texas Edition, naturally) to swap it with a loaner befitting the coach’s lofty new status.
“I brought him a Mercedes, and he said he didn’t want anything that fancy,” Ewing said. “I said, ‘Dykes, lemme ask you a question. Are you undefeated?’ He said yeah, and I said, “Well get your ass in there.’ Now he looks like Jethro Bodine driving an S-Class.”
That’s a Beverly Hillbillies reference, but Dykes isn’t up and moving back to California anytime soon. Six seasons after Cal fired him, he has TCU on the cusp of being the first Texas team to land a spot in the playoff since it began eight years ago.
It’s been a surreal season for the Horned Frogs, full of memorable moments and storylines. Here are 12 that tell the tale of TCU’s 12-0 season.
Start of a new era
Ask any player on TCU’s team when they had a sense this year was going to be different, and you’ll get the same answer. It was that same day Dykes arrived in the helicopter, when they heard from him and strength coach Kaz Kazadi.
“The very first day — I don’t even think we’d gotten back in school yet — we get a text from Coach Kaz saying, ‘5:30 a.m. workouts, be here early at 5 o’clock,'” offensive lineman Wes Harris said. “We were like oh my gosh, no way. But I’ll tell you what, dude, it brought everybody together and kind of made everybody realize you know, we’ve always had the dudes to do it.”
Steve Avila, the Frogs’ Outland Trophy semifinalist at left guard, said Kazadi didn’t waste any time setting the tone.
“That is the last time you will ever look at me and question what I’m doing,” he told the team in that first meeting.
Kazadi is an intimidating presence, a 6-foot-2 former linebacker who was a Butkus Award semifinalist at Tulsa before playing five years of pro football. He is always watching, asking players, “You holding?” to make sure they have a bottle of water on them to stay hydrated. If they don’t, they hit the ground for push-ups.
For Dykes, Kazadi, who has a Master’s degree from Missouri in counseling psychology, is a trusted voice who spends more time with the players than anyone.
“He is so different than most strength coaches,” Dykes said. “You know how Matthew McConaughey is Texas’ Minister of Culture? I think Kaz is our Minister of Culture. At some point I got to where I completely 100% trusted his instincts. He’s trying to get the guys bigger, faster, stronger, like everybody is. But he’s got an element of sports psychology in every single workout. He sees every bit of time in the weight room as an opportunity to build the team.”
His role was crucial in earning the buy-in that first-year coaches need. Players have welcomed the accountability that he demands. And in a season when TCU has played a physical brand of football, repeatedly wearing teams out in the second half, his work has spoken for itself.
A return to SMU
Before there were any dreams of an undefeated season or a pressure-cooked playoff referendum every week, there was Dykes’ Sept. 24 return to SMU, where the feelings were still raw from his departure for their Iron Skillet rival that they’ve played 101 times. To add to the pressure, TCU was 0-11 against SMU, Kansas State, West Virginia and Iowa State since 2018, which Dykes was partially responsible for, beating the Horned Frogs in 2019 and 2021 (they didn’t play in 2020).
The game was circled by Mustangs fans, drawing 35,569, the largest crowd for a regular-season game in Ford Stadium’s 23-year history and the school’s first sellout since 2015.
The Horned Frogs escaped an SMU comeback attempt and pulled out a 42-34 win. Asked afterward if any of the booing or jeers affected him, Dykes said, “Not really. If I can’t do that, I need to go work for Ricky Chicken at Chicken Express,” a Texas fast-food chain owned by a TCU booster and board of trustees member, Ricky Stuart.
But Dykes also got emotional after the performance of quarterback Max Duggan, who completed 22 of 29 passes for 278 yards and three touchdowns in his second start of the season after beginning the year as a backup to Chandler Morris, who got injured.
“I’m probably as proud of Max as any player I’ve been around,” Dykes said after the game, choking back tears as his eyes watered. “He started 28 or 29 games coming into this season. He has a coaching change, which is hard to go through, especially when you were recruited by the staff before. He loses the job, which is really hard, he’s getting ready to be a senior. And he never blinks. He never thought of himself one time. How many people can you say that about? You can say that about Max Duggan, that’s for sure.”
Duggan breaks through
Duggan’s 278 yards against SMU came during a scorching seven-game stretch in which he topped that mark each game and threw 24 touchdowns, including throwing for 302 yards and three TDs while adding 116 and two scores rushing the next week against Oklahoma. It sparked a 55-24 win over the then-No. 18 Sooners in front of a sellout crowd at home and a nationally televised ABC game, landing Duggan on the national stage.
Duggan established career highs in yards (3,070), leads the Big 12 with 29 touchdown passes to just three interceptions (one came on a Hail Mary attempt at the end of a half), and is completing 67% of his passes, second-best in school history for a season. He is fourth nationally in efficiency rating (171.3) and tied for second in the country with 16 TD passes of more than 20 yards. He has thrived under Garrett Riley, TCU’s 33-year-old offensive coordinator and quarterback coach.
“I’m gonna let it kind of fly,” Duggan said. “I think that’s the thing that Coach Dykes and Coach Riley brought into our room and our offense as a team is just be bold, be aggressive, stop being reckless, but just go out there, don’t be afraid to make mistakes. You kind of see that on Saturdays.”
In many ways, Duggan, a former starter-turned-backup-turned-undefeated quarterback, symbolizes the unselfish nature of this year’s team.
“I’d do anything for that guy,” offensive lineman Wes Harris said. “He’s got the heart of a warrior and he’s just a leader. He’s a winner. He doesn’t care who’s playing or who makes the winning play.”
Now, Duggan, who was named the Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year on Wednesday, appears to be a lock for a Heisman invite to New York.
“It just means I’m playing with a lot of great people and under a great coaching staff,” Duggan said. “If it happened, it’d show more to those guys than it would to me.”
The Horned Frogs’ ground force
Riley and Dykes are both Texas Tech grads, and Dykes worked with Riley’s brother Lincoln in Lubbock. But that’s not what drew Dykes to the younger Riley.
“One of the things about the Air Raid that always concerned me was when we got in late-game situations,” Dykes said. “We would sometimes get in these one-score games and you get down to the nitty-gritty and you can’t get it done.”
So he hired Riley from Appalachian State, where he had been the running backs coach, because, Dykes said, he always admired the Mountaineers’ detailed approach to the running game. He said he wanted Riley specifically because he viewed things differently than he did and wanted to “combine those sensibilities.” While Dykes is a former OC himself, he prefers to let Riley run his own show, rather than offer input during game-planning.
Kendre Miller, who became the starter at running back this year after the transfer of Zach Evans to Ole Miss, has been a dependable playmaker under Riley. He has rushed for 1,260 yards and 16 touchdowns. More importantly, he’s averaged 7.03 yards per carry in the second half when TCU has a lead and forces a missed tackle once every three carries in that situation. Only Texas’ Bijan Robinson and Illinois’ Chase Brown have forced more second-half missed tackles, both on more carries (26 more for Robinson, 70 for Brown).
TCU, which has been a big-play threat all year, has been able to pound the ball in the second half, running 56.5% of the time, more than some old-school teams like Wisconsin. Riley, in his first year as a Power 5 coordinator, was recently named a finalist for the Broyles Award, given to the top assistant coach in the country.
“That part’s been good for me, to have the kind of team that will stay patient enough to run it and to keep chipping away,” Dykes said. “All of a sudden, it seems like we’ll start to take control of games and the third and fourth quarter. There’s a confidence that comes from that.”
The secret weapon
If you look at the TCU staff directory, you’ll see Jeff Jordan’s smiling mug next to his title: assistant athletic director for player personnel. No bio, that’s it. If you see Jordan on the sideline during a game, chances are he’s within a few feet of Dykes.
That’s because he’s Dykes’ confidant on everything from strategy to clock management to analytics. During the Horned Frogs’ comeback win against Baylor, Dykes said he and Jordan plotted out the dramatic final drive before TCU got the ball back, play by play. Then they did exactly what they said they’d do, and won the game on a walk-off field goal.
After spending 29 years as a high school coach, including 15 as the head coach at Garland High, a Dallas suburb, along with 28 years as a scout and film grader for the Dallas Cowboys, Dykes said Jordan has a rare mix of expertise for his duties on the field and off.
“I think he’s the most uniquely qualified person for his position in the country,” Dykes said.
Dykes was one of the early adopters of rebuilding a roster through the transfer portal when he arrived at SMU in 2018. Jordan was a key part of that operation because of his Texas high school connections and scouting background. He estimates that while working part-time for the Cowboys, he scrubbed through 1,000 games a year for more than 25 years. Most of what his job entailed was finding diamonds in the rough at small schools and running them up the ladder.
“We found Kenny Gant, who was at Savannah State and Larry Allen, who was at Sonoma State and Eric Williams, who was from Central State of Ohio and the list just goes on and on,” Jordan said of a few of his discoveries in the Cowboys’ glory days. “I was a really young guy and you’re figuring out there’s some good football players — Hall of Fame level — everywhere.”
Now, he trains those same eyes on the transfer portal. Which brings us to…
The unheralded transfers
Dykes was impressed with the speed on the top end of the roster when he took over. But there were a few major spots that needed shoring up. Dykes said the Frogs have been more reliant on transfers than people may realize.
They addressed one area of need by signing a nuclear engineering major who originally was recruited to the Naval Academy to play lacrosse before begging the football coaches to give him a shot. Johnny Hodges, now a 6-2, 240-pound linebacker, eventually decided he wanted a change of scenery and entered his name in the portal with two games to go last season, but found no takers.
“I probably reached out to 60 college coaches, every Power 5,” Hodges said. “Not a single one responded.”
Until Jordan, who had seen him play against them at SMU, and took his tape to new defensive coordinator Joe Gillespie.
“He was a guy that I think a lot of people just kind of got scared off of, because they thought he was the stereotypical Navy kid,” Jordan said. “He’s not gonna be able to run, he’s not gonna be athletic enough. If you sat and watched his film, you’re like, this guy’s a lot more athletic than people give him credit for being.”
Hodges is now TCU’s leading tackler with 76, including 7.5 for a loss, with one of those being a key solo tackle on Texas’ Bijan Robinson on fourth-and-1 in a 17-10 win. He was named the Big 12’s Defensive Newcomer of the Year.
Josh Newton, who was named to the Big 12’s first team on defense and is Pro Football Focus’ No. 1-graded corner in the conference, was a Louisiana-Monroe transfer who has emerged as a true lockdown option opposite Thorpe Award finalist Tre’Vius Hodges-Tomlinson. Newton has also become a leader in the locker room this year, reminding the Horned Frogs how fortunate they are to be in this position.
This ain’t the end… ?#GoFrogs #DFWBig12Team pic.twitter.com/TBJWJVxGXM
— TCU Football (@TCUFootball) November 25, 2022
Players from Stephen F. Austin (DL Caleb Fox), UConn (DL Lwal Uguak) and Louisiana (RB Emani Bailey) have all been key contributors.
“There’s hasn’t been a ton of schools that dip down into the Group of Five,” Jordan said. “I think spending four years [at SMU], we know there’s a lot of good players in there. You don’t ever write off a guy just because of his pedigree.”
The Believer
In offseason workouts, coaches often bring in other coaches for an outsiders’ perspective. In August, Dykes invited former Pitt, Arizona State and Hawaii coach Todd Graham, who he’s known for years, to evaluate the program for a week. He was stunned by what Graham told him, which was at odds with what everyone expected from this team, including maybe Dykes himself.
“I love talking to people that see things differently than I do,” Dykes said, noting that Graham had visited him in his first season at SMU and told him he was in trouble, before a 5-7 season.
“Todd is very direct,” he said.
This time around, however, he had a completely different view. Graham told him they were going to win the Big 12.
Dykes laughed about it this week. “I said, ‘Well, I’m not quite as optimistic as you are. But I think we have a chance to have a good team.'”
So what did Graham see that led him to that prediction?
“I go visit a lot of programs. Coach [Mike] Norvell who worked for me is at Florida State, Billy Napier at Florida, Dan Lanning at Oregon, I visited all those places,” Graham said. “You find kids are kind of guarded, like, ‘Hey, where do I fit? Do I trust these guys?’ There was none of that [at TCU]. I didn’t just watch. I went to different position meetings. I went on the field and watched each coach teach. And there’s a high level of teaching and accountability with elite discipline.”
So yes, he said he truly believed the Horned Frogs would win the conference. And he’s not surprised that they are on the cusp of doing it on Saturday after the job he’s seen Dykes do this year.
It doesn’t just happen,” Graham said. “People say, ‘Oh, he’s winning with somebody else’s players.’ That’s all a bunch of bull. That same bunch, what was their record last year?”
‘TCU is just not supposed to do that against Texas’
All season long, Dykes has compared this team to a boxer. On Nov. 12, in a hotel ballroom the night before TCU played Texas, he reminded his team that being patient and physical has been their recipe for success.
“Let’s keep swinging,” he said. “That’s why we’ve been so damn good in the second half. Punch, punch, punch, keep punching. Every one of those punches adds up. That’ll happen tomorrow if we handle our business correctly.”
It did. In one of the Frogs’ biggest tests of the season, in front of 104,203 fans — the second-biggest crowd in Texas history — they won 17-10 by stifling one of the best offenses in the country.
Under new defensive coordinator Joe Gillespie, TCU held Texas to 199 total yards, its fewest in a home game since the Big 12 began play in 1996. Robinson had just 29 rushing yards on 12 carries, his fewest in the past two seasons, and Texas was held to three offensive points (the Longhorns’ lone touchdown came on a fumble return late in the fourth quarter).
It was the type of win reminiscent of Texas coach Darrell Royal’s 1961 quote comparing the Frogs to cockroaches after a 3-0 loss spoiled the Longhorns’ perfect season,. “It’s not what they eat and tote off,” he said, “it’s what they fall into and mess up that hurts.”
“TCU is just not supposed to do that against Texas, you know?” Dykes said this week.
But they did, and Gillespie is a big reason. Dykes hired the former Texas high school coach away from Tulsa to his first Power 5 job, seeing his 3-3-5 defense as a kind of counterpart to the Air Raid offense, based mostly on repetition and flexibility.
“I think the scheme is important, but the fit on the staff, just the kind of person he is really overshadowed the scheme,” Dykes said. “Those players want to make him proud because they like him and respect him so much. He’s a huge part of this season. I think we’re just getting started. We’re going to be one of the best defenses in college football.”
The Bazooka goes boom
The Horned Frogs’ dream of a CFP berth might’ve sunk into the Brazos behind Baylor’s McLane Stadium on Nov. 19 without a play that’s oft-practiced but rarely used.
Trailing 28-26, Dykes puzzled viewers across the country by running the ball on third-and-7 at the Baylor 26 with no timeouts and 22 seconds left in the game. Then, special teams coach Mark Tommerdahl called “Bazooka,” where the field-goal unit sprints out, gets set and launches a kick all while the clock is counting down. Kicker Griffin Kell jogged out onto the field casually, and holder Jordy Sandy calmly made sure everyone was set and waited for the clock to wind down. Kell drilled the 40-yarder, and TCU survived, heading out of Waco with a 29-28 win.
THE HORNED FROGS WIN!!!! ? STAYING UNDEFEATED! @TCUFootball pic.twitter.com/MEYDSI1FT8
— FOX College Football (@CFBONFOX) November 19, 2022
Tommerdahl, who has been coaching special teams for more than 30 years, said he thinks this is the first time he’s ever called Bazooka in a game-winning situation. But he and Dykes were confident after working together for eight years at three different schools, and have always made Bazooka the first rep, run full speed, of field-goal practices on Thursday. Of the Frogs’ comeback wins this season, this one was the most frantic, even if Dykes swears it wasn’t. But it wasn’t even the most unlikely, according to ESPN Analytics’ win probabilities:
• Week 6: Kansas’ win probability was as high as 68.4% with 7:36 remaining in the third quarter when the Jayhawks took a 17-10 lead.
• Week 7: Oklahoma State’s was at 96.1% when Duggan threw an incomplete pass on third down with 13:36 remaining in the 4th and the Cowboys leading 30-16.
• Week 8: Kansas State’s was at 91.2% with the Wildcats leading 28-10 with 3:32 remaining in the 2nd.
• Week 12: Baylor had a 92.1% chance to win with 6:48 remaining in the 4th quarter and the Bears leading 28-20.
“I ain’t gonna sit here and tell you we don’t look at the scoreboard,” Harris said. “But I don’t think there’s really that much of a difference … I don’t think it would matter if we’re up by 60 or down by 60. We’re still gonna be out there swinging and givin’ it hell.”
All glory to the Hypnotoad
TCU’s brand has gone national this year. Winning helps a bunch. But the Hypnotoad helps even more.
The frog with the hypnotic eyes was born from an animated sci-fi show called “Futurama” that originally ran from 1999-2003. TCU’s athletics marketing team adopted it for videos to use as a free-throw distraction at basketball games, and several different versions to use during pregame and key moments at football games.
But this year, these new transplants into the football program fully embraced it. And why not? It’s truly been a game-changer. In the Horned Frogs’ first matchup against Kansas State on Oct. 22, the Hypnotoad made an appearance on the video boards with TCU trailing 28-24 with five minutes left in the third quarter and the Wildcats facing a third-and-6 at the TCU 30.
The psychedelic frog appeared, and the crowd immediately went nuts. K-State quarterback Will Howard attempted to run for a first down and was stopped short. On the next play, kicker Chris Tennant missed a 44-yard field goal. Four plays later, Duggan hit Quentin Johnston for a quick-strike 55-yard touchdown, to give TCU its first lead of the day. They ended up winning 38-28.
After a 34-24 victory over Texas Tech on Nov. 5, Dykes said he could feel the energy change in the stadium after the Hypnotoad appeared.
“Strangely enough, for the first time this season, I noticed it,” Dykes said in his postgame news conference. “I also noticed we made a bunch of big plays right after. I’m not a big believer in coincidence, you know what I’m saying? I think there may be something to it. Hey man, the Hypnotoad is powerful stuff.”
Those videos: ‘I don’t understand what’s going on’
Jon Petrie won’t try to make any sense of his postgame videos celebrating a victory. He can’t. TCU’s coordinator of creative video, who just moved to Fort Worth this year from Maine, just started making weird stuff, and now he’s trapped in a prison of his own creation.
“If someone wasn’t on the internet and you tried to explain it to them, you’d sound like a crazy person,” Petrie said, comparing the videos to college football’s version of Jackson Pollock paintings. “Someone will ask me, ‘Is it good this week?’ I mean, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s supposed to be good? Isn’t that what makes it good? It’s supposed to be bad.”
We won’t argue. See for yourself. Here’s Petrie’s handiwork for the victory over Baylor.
justbearly.mp4 #GoFrogs #DFWBig12Team pic.twitter.com/zvvpw2RIUK
— TCU Football (@TCUFootball) November 19, 2022
“I think it’s funny when Baylor fans will share it and say, ‘This hurts,'” Petrie said. “What should hurt is a highlight reel. Or the final kick. Not Winnie the Pooh floating into the heavens.”
Petrie has tried to rationalize why he started making them. But he gave up.
“I didn’t expect us to be this good,” he said. “It’s unexplainable to me. So it’s as if I’m expressing it. I don’t understand what’s going on. I just kind of got this job.”
Sonny finishes strong, passes Spike
With the Frogs’ bye week coming way back on Sept. 17, TCU has run the gauntlet, in Dykes’ words. They played 10 straight weeks, ending with a 4-7 Iowa State team that had lost six of its games by one score or less. It was a dangerous matchup for a team that had already clinched a spot in the conference championship, and Dykes was clearly nervous about a trap game, particularly against a team with a suffocating defense that had only allowed a high of 31 points this year and only allowed three other teams over 20 points.
For years, Dykes had been dogged by dropping games late in the season. He even raised the issue himself on Oct. 15 after a 43-40 double-overtime win over Oklahoma State.
“Historically, our team has gotten off to good starts and not finished very well,” Dykes said after the game. “So it’s going to be a challenge for us to finish down the stretch. We know that. This is a different team. It doesn’t matter what happened in the past here or where I’ve been. We’re going to write a different story.”
On Saturday, his Horned Frogs crushed the Cyclones, 62-14.
The “Sonny Swoon” was a thing of the past. TCU completed a 12-0 regular season, a first for a Big 12 team since Texas in 2009. In the process, Dykes passed his father, the late Texas Tech coach Spike Dykes, in career wins with his 83rd.
“It’s a pretty sweet deal to do it. … To go 12-0 and pass him in career wins,” Dykes said. “I kind of felt him all year with me, it seems like, a little bit with this team. I know he would certainly get a kick out of our guys and the way that they work and the kind of people that they are. Because it’s a heck of a group.”
On Wednesday, Dykes was named the Big 12 coach of the year, which his dad won in 1996. He’s the first coach in league history to win the award in his first season.
Now there’s one game left for TCU to try to claim its own Big 12 title and cement a spot in the College Football Playoff.
“When you take over a program, it’s always wait till we get my guys,” Dykes said. “Man, I think from Day 1, these guys have tried to be my guys. And they have been my guys.”
Harris said the feeling is mutual from the players’ perspective.
“I feel like we can go line up against the Dallas Cowboys and play against ’em,” he said. “I don’t know if the score would show that, but shoot, at least we think that way, right? We’ve got the same guys. It’s just they’ve instilled this mindset into us and look at where it’s taken us.”
The Horned Frogs have been charmed all year, but as they head toward the finish line, they’re securing their place as one of the biggest outliers in college football history. TCU was coming off a 5-7 season, hadn’t been to a bowl game in three years and hadn’t won more than seven games in a season since 2017.
TCU became the first current Power 5 school to have a perfect regular-season record under a new coach after finishing below .500 in the previous season since Ohio State in 1944.
And with a win on Saturday, Dykes would be just the sixth coach in major college football history to go 13-0 in a single season, behind Ryan Day (2019 Ohio State), Chris Petersen (2006 Boise State), Samuel Thorne (1896 Yale), George Washington Woodruff (1892 Penn) and Walter Camp (1888 Yale).
Those other five coaches took over teams that had lost a combined seven games the season before, and four of those were at Boise, which had won 36 games in the three seasons before finishing 9-4 in 2005, the year before Petersen took over.
It’s been a magical year for Dykes, the low-key coach who formerly was more popular among athletic directors and administrators — Texas and Oklahoma both kicked the tires on him for their openings in recent years — than fans on Twitter.
His desk is covered in letters from well-wishers, known and unknown. There was even one of those hand-written notes from legendary Kansas State coach Bill Snyder, mentioning how proud Spike was — and still is — of him.
This summer, he could go anywhere in Fort Worth, and he didn’t draw much attention. But on Sunday, after polishing off an undefeated regular season, he walked into a taco shop by campus and a kindly older woman excitedly greeted the toast of college football. As he walked away, she shouted across the restaurant:
“God bless and go Frogs!”
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Hard-throwing rookie Misiorowski going to ASG
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9 hours agoon
July 12, 2025By
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Associated Press
Jul 11, 2025, 11:17 PM ET
Hard-throwing rookie Jacob Misiorowski is a National League All-Star replacement, giving the Milwaukee Brewers right-hander a chance to break Paul Skenes‘ record for the fewest big league appearances before playing in the Midsummer Classic.
Misiorowski was named Friday night to replace Chicago Cubs lefty Matthew Boyd, who will be unavailable for the All-Star Game on Tuesday night in Atlanta because he is scheduled to start Saturday at the New York Yankees.
The 23-year-old Misiorowski has made just five starts for the Brewers, going 4-1 with a 2.81 ERA while averaging 99.3 mph on his fastball, with 89 pitches that have reached 100 mph.
If he pitches at Truist Park, Misiorowski will make it consecutive years for a player to set the mark for fewest big league games before an All-Star showing.
Skenes, the Pittsburgh Pirates right-hander getting ready for his second All-Star appearance, had made 11 starts in the majors when he was chosen as the NL starter for last year’s All-Star Game at Texas. He pitched a scoreless inning.
“I’m speechless,” said a teary-eyed Misiorowski, who said he was given the news a few minutes before the Brewers’ 8-3 victory over Washington. “It’s awesome. It’s very unexpected and it’s an honor.”
Misiorowski is the 30th first-time All-Star and 16th replacement this year. There are now 80 total All-Stars.
“He’s impressive. He’s got some of the best stuff in the game right now, even though he’s a young pitcher,” said Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, who is a starting AL outfielder for his seventh All-Star nod. “He’s going to be a special pitcher in this game for a long time so I think he deserved it and it’s going be pretty cool for him and his family.”
Carlos Rodón, Carlos Estévez and Casey Mize were named replacement pitchers on the AL roster.
The New York Yankees‘ Rodón, an All-Star for the third time in five seasons, will replace teammate Max Fried for Tuesday’s game in Atlanta. Fried will be unavailable because he is scheduled to start Saturday against the Chicago Cubs.
In his final start before the All-Star game, Rodón allowed four hits and struck out eight in eight innings in an 11-0 victory over the Cubs.
“This one’s a little special for me,” said Rodón, an All-Star in 2021 and ’22 who was 3-8 in his first season with the Yankees two years ago before rebounding. “I wasn’t good when I first got here, and I just wanted to prove that I wasn’t to going to give up and just put my best foot forward and try to win as many games as I can.”
The Kansas City Royals‘ Estévez replaces Texas’ Jacob deGrom, who is scheduled to start at Houston on Saturday night. Estévez was a 2023 All-Star when he was with the Los Angeles Angels.
Mize takes the spot held by Boston‘s Garrett Crochet, who is scheduled to start Saturday against Tampa Bay. Mize gives the Tigers six All-Stars, most of any team and tied for the franchise record.
Royals third baseman Maikel Garcia will replace Tampa Bay‘s Brandon Lowe, who went on the injured list with left oblique tightness. The additions of Estévez and Garcia give the Royals four All-Stars, matching their 2024 total.
The Seattle Mariners announced center fielder Julio Rodríguez will not participate, and he was replaced by teammate Randy Arozarena. Rodríguez had been voted onto the AL roster via the players’ ballot. The Mariners, who have five All-Stars, said Rodríguez will use the break to “recuperate, rest and prepare for the second half.”
Arozarena is an All-Star for the second time. He started in left field for the AL two years ago, when he was with Tampa Bay. Arozarena was the runner-up to Vladimir Guerrero Jr. in the 2023 Home Run Derby.
Rays right-hander Drew Rasmussen, a first-time All-Star, is replacing Angels left-hander Yusei Kikuchi, who is scheduled to start Saturday night at Arizona. Rasmussen is 7-5 with a 2.82 ERA in 18 starts.
San Diego added a third NL All-Star reliever in lefty Adrián Morejón, who replaces Philadelphia starter Zack Wheeler. The Phillies’ right-hander is scheduled to start at San Diego on Saturday night. Morejón entered the weekend with a 1.71 ERA in 45 appearances.
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Midseason grades for all 30 MLB teams: ‘A’ is for Astros, ‘F’ is for …?
Published
9 hours agoon
July 12, 2025By
admin
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David SchoenfieldJul 9, 2025, 07:00 AM ET
Close- Covers MLB for ESPN.com
- Former deputy editor of Page 2
- Been with ESPN.com since 1995
We’re past due to hand out some midseason grades, so let’s hand out some midseason grades.
As we pass the 90-game mark in the 2025 MLB season, my team of the first half isn’t the well-rounded Detroit Tigers, who do get our highest grade for owning MLB’s best record, or the explosive Chicago Cubs or Shohei Ohtani‘s Los Angeles Dodgers, but a team most baseball fans love to hate: the Houston Astros. They lost their two best players from last season and their best hitter has been injured — and they’re playing their best baseball since they won the 2022 World Series.
Let’s get to the grades. As always, we’re grading off preseason expectations, factoring in win-loss record and quality of performance, while looking at other positive performances and injuries.
Jump to a team:
AL East: BAL | BOS | NYY | TB | TOR
AL Central: CHW | CLE | DET | KC | MIN
AL West: ATH | HOU | LAA | SEA | TEX
NL East: ATL | MIA | NYM | PHI | WSH
NL Central: CHC | CIN | MIL | PIT | STL
NL West: ARI | COL | LAD | SD | SF
Tarik Skubal is obviously the headline act, but the Tigers are winning with impressive depth across the entire roster.
Javier Baez is putting together a remarkable comeback season after a couple of abysmal years and will become the first player to start an All-Star Game at both shortstop and in the outfield. Former No. 1 overall picks Casey Mize and Spencer Torkelson have put together their own comeback stories, while Riley Greene has matured into one of the game’s top power hitters.
Given their deep well of prospects and contributors at the MLB level, no team is better positioned than the Tigers to add significant help at the trade deadline.
I heard someone refer to them as the Zombie Astros, which feels apropos. Alex Bregman left as a free agent, they traded Kyle Tucker, Yordan Alvarez has been injured and has just three home runs, and the Jose Altuve experiment in left field predictably fizzled.
But here they are, fighting for the best record in the majors and holding a comfortable lead in the AL West. They’re getting star turns from Hunter Brown, Framber Valdez and Jeremy Pena, while the risky decision to start Cam Smith in the majors with very little minor league experience has paid off, as he has now become their cleanup hitter.
If we ignore the COVID-19 season, the Astros look on their way to an eighth straight division title.
This could be at least a half-grade higher based on everything that has gone right: Pete Crow-Armstrong‘s attention-grabbing breakout, Tucker doing everything expected after the big trade, Seiya Suzuki‘s monster power numbers and Matthew Boyd‘s All-Star turn in the rotation. The Cubs are on pace for their most wins since their World Series title season in 2016.
There have been a few hiccups, however, especially in the rotation with Justin Steele‘s season-ending injury and Ben Brown‘s inconsistency, plus rookie third baseman Matt Shaw has scuffled, and the bench has been weak aside from their backup catchers.
Still, this is a powerhouse lineup, and the Cubs will seek to improve their rotation at the deadline.
They just keep winning of late, going from 25-27 and seven games behind the Yankees on May 25 to taking over first place from the slumping Bronx Bombers, a remarkable turnaround over just 36 games. They went 27-9 over a 36-game stretch ending with their eighth win in a row on Sunday.
George Springer‘s recent surge has been fun to watch, a reminder of how good he was at his peak, and Addison Barger has been mashing over the past two months.
Some of the stats don’t add up to the Blue Jays being this good — they’ve barely outscored their opponents — but there might be more offense in the tank from the likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and a healthy Anthony Santander, and the bullpen, a soft spot, is the easiest area to upgrade.
Their success is best summed up by the fact that Freddy Peralta is their lone All-Star, but they have a whole bunch of players who have contributed between 1 and 2 WAR.
Brandon Woodruff looked good Sunday in his first start in nearly two years, so that could be a huge boost for the second half.
I’m curious to see how Jackson Chourio performs as well. While his counting stats — extra-base hits, RBIs — are fine, his triple-slash line remains below last season, especially his OBP. He had a huge second half in 2024 (.310/.363/.552), and if he does that again, the Brewers could find themselves back in the postseason for the seventh time in eight seasons.
The Rays started off slow, with a losing record through the end of April, but then went 33-22 in May and June to claw back into the AL East race — as the Rays usually do, last year being the recent exception.
Two key performers have been All-Star third baseman Junior Caminero, who has a chance to become just the third player to hit 40 home runs in his age-21 season, and All-Star first baseman Jonathan Aranda.
Due to the league wanting the Rays to play more home games early in the season, the July and August slate will be very road-heavy, so we’ll see how the Rays adapt to a difficult two-month stretch, especially since their pitching isn’t quite as deep as it has been in other seasons.
No, they’re not going to be the greatest team of all time. But they might win 100 games — even though Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki, their huge offseason acquisitions, have combined for just two wins in 10 starts.
The lineup, of course, has been terrific, with Ohtani leading the NL in several categories and Will Smith leading the batting race. By wRC+, it’s been the best offense in Dodgers history.
If they can get some combo of Snell, Sasaki and Tyler Glasnow healthy, plus Ohtani eventually ramped up to a bigger workload on the mound, the Dodgers still loom as World Series favorites.
They are on pace for 95 wins, mainly on the strength of Zack Wheeler, Ranger Suarez and Cristopher Sanchez, who are a combined 23-7 with 11.8 WAR. Jesus Luzardo‘s ERA is bloated due to that two-start stretch when he allowed 20 runs, but he has otherwise been solid as well.
But, overall, it hasn’t always been the smoothest of treks. The bullpen has imploded a few times and the offense has lacked power aside from Kyle Schwarber. Bryce Harper is back after missing three weeks, and they need to get his bat going. Look for some bullpen additions at the trade deadline — and perhaps an outfielder as well.
The Cardinals have been a minor surprise — perhaps even to the Cardinals themselves. St. Louis was viewing this as a rebuilding year of sorts — not that the Cardinals ever hit rock bottom and start completely over. They had a hot May, winning 12 of 13 at one point, but the offense has been fading of late, with those three straight shutout losses to Pittsburgh and six shutout losses since June 25.
The starting rotation doesn’t generate a lot of swing and miss, with both Erick Fedde and Miles Mikolas seeing their ERAs starting to climb. Brendan Donovan is the team’s only All-Star rep, and that kind of sums up this team: solid but without any star power. That might foretell a second-half fade.
All-Star starting pitchers Logan Webb and Robbie Ray, plus a dominant bullpen, have led the way, although after starting 12-4, the Giants have basically been a .500 team for close to three months now. Rafael Devers hasn’t yet ignited the offense since coming over from Boston, and the Giants have lost four 1-0 games.
These final three games at home against the Dodgers before the All-Star break will be a crucial series, as Los Angeles has slowly pulled away in the NL West.
This was an “A-plus” through June 12, when the Mets were 45-24 and owned the best record in baseball, even though Juan Soto hadn’t gotten hot. Soto finally got going in June, but the pitching collapsed, and the Mets went through a disastrous 1-10 stretch.
The rotation injuries have piled up, exacerbating the lack of bullpen depth. Recent games have been started by Justin Hagenman (who had a 6.21 ERA in Triple-A), journeyman reliever Chris Devenski, Paul Blackburn (7.71 ERA) and Frankie Montas, who has had to start even though he’s clearly not throwing the ball well. The Mets need to get the rotation healthy, but also could use more offense from Mark Vientos and their catchers (Francisco Alvarez was demoted to Triple-A).
At times it has felt like Cal Raleigh has been a one-man team with his record-breaking first half. But he will be joined on the All-Star squad by starting pitcher Bryan Woo, closer Andres Munoz and center fielder Julio Rodriguez, who made it on the strength of his defense, as his offense has been a disappointment.
The offense has been one of the best in the majors on the road, but the rotation has been nowhere near as effective as the past couple of seasons, with George Kirby, Logan Gilbert and Bryce Miller all missing time with injuries. They just shut out the Pirates three games in a row, so maybe that will get the rotation on a roll.
They’re just out of the wild-card picture while hanging around .500, so we give them a decent grade since that exceeds preseason expectations. It feels like a little bit of a mirage given their run differential — their record in one-run games (good) versus their record in blowout games (not good) — and various holes across the lineup and pitching staff.
But they’ve done two things to keep them in the race. One, they hit a lot of home runs. Two, they’re the only team in the majors to use just five starting pitchers. The rotation hasn’t been stellar, but it’s been stable.
The Padres are probably fortunate to be where they are, given some of their issues. As expected, the offensive depth has been a problem.
Not as expected, Dylan Cease has struggled while Michael King‘s injury after a strong start has left them without last year’s dynamic 1-2 punch at the top of the rotation (although Nick Pivetta has been one of the best signings of the offseason). Yu Darvish just made his season debut Monday, so hopefully he’ll provide a lift.
The Padres haven’t played well against the better teams, including a 2-5 record against the Dodgers, but they did clean up against the Athletics, Rockies and Pirates, going 16-2 against those three teams.
For now, the Reds are stuck in neutral. Leave out 2022, when they lost 100 games, and it’s otherwise been a string of .500-ish seasons: 31-29 in 2020, 83-79 in 2021, 82-80 in 2023, 77-85 in 2024 and now a similar record so far in 2025.
The hope was that Terry Francona would be a difference-maker. Maybe that will play out down the stretch, but the best hope is to get the rotation clicking on all cylinders at the same time. That means Andrew Abbott continuing his breakout performance, plus getting Hunter Greene healthy again and rookie Chase Burns to live up to the hype after a couple of shaky outings following an impressive MLB debut.
Throw in Nick Lodolo and solid Nick Martinez and Brady Singer, and this group can be good enough to pitch the Reds to their first full-season playoff appearance since 2013.
The Yankees have hit their annual midseason swoon — which has been subject to much intense analysis from their disgruntled fans — and that opening weekend sweep of the Brewers, when the Yankees’ torpedo bats were the big story in baseball, now seems long ago.
Going from seven up to three back in such a short time is a disaster — but not disastrous. Nonetheless, the Yankees will have to do some hard-core self-evaluation heading to the trade deadline.
The offense wasn’t going to be as good as it was in April, when Paul Goldschmidt, Trent Grisham and Ben Rice were all playing over their heads. So, do they need a hitter? Or with Clarke Schmidt now likely joining Gerrit Cole as a Tommy John casualty, do they need a starting pitcher? Or both?
From the book of “things we didn’t expect,” page 547: The Marlins are averaging more runs per game than the Orioles, Padres, Braves and Rangers, to name a few teams. They’re averaging almost as many runs per game as the Mets, and last time we checked, the Marlins weren’t the team to give Soto $765 million.
An eight-game winning streak at the end of June has the Marlins going toe-to-toe with the Braves for third place in the NL East even though the starting rotation has been a mess, with Sandy Alcantara on track to become just the fourth qualified pitcher with an ERA over 7.00.
Heading into the season, I thought that if any team was going to challenge the Dodgers in the NL West, it would be the Diamondbacks. The offense has once again been one of the best in the majors, but the pitching issues have been painful.
After the aggressive move to sign Corbin Burnes, he went down with Tommy John surgery after 11 starts. Meanwhile, Zac Gallen, Eduardo Rodriguez and Brandon Pfaadt each have an ERA on the wrong side of 5.00. Rodriguez was better in June before a shellacking on July 4, while Gallen remains homer-prone, so it’s hard to tell if improvement is on the horizon. Their playoff odds are hovering just under 20%, so there’s a chance, but they need to get red-hot like they did last July and August.
It feels like it has been more soap opera than baseball season in Boston, with the Devers drama finally ending with the shocking trade with the Giants.
If you give added weight that this is the Red Sox, a team that should be operating with the big boys in both budget and aspirations and instead seemed to only want to dump Devers’ contract, then feel free to lower this grade a couple of notches, even if the Red Sox are close in the wild-card standings.
On the field, the heralded rookie trio of Kristian Campbell, Roman Anthony and Marcelo Mayer hasn’t exactly clicked, with Campbell returning to the minors after posting a .902 OPS in April. A big test will come out of the All-Star break, when they play the Cubs, Phillies, Dodgers, Twins and Astros in a tough 15-game stretch.
After last season’s surprise playoff appearance, it’s been a frustrating 2025 — although I’m not sure this result is necessarily a surprise.
There were concerns about the offense heading into the season and those concerns have proven correct. They were getting no production from their outfield, so they rushed Jac Caglianone to the majors to much hype, but he has struggled and might need a reset back in Triple-A. Even Bobby Witt Jr., as good as he has been (on pace for 7.5 WAR), has seen his OPS drop 140 points.
On the bright side, Kris Bubic emerged as an All-Star starter and Noah Cameron has filled in nicely for the injured Cole Ragans, so maybe they trade a starter for some offense.
Coming off a catastrophic 2024 season, nobody was expecting anything from the White Sox. Indeed, another 121-loss season loomed as a possibility. While they’re on pace to lose 100 again, they’ve at least played more competitive baseball thanks to their pitching.
Rookie starters Shane Smith and Sean Burke have shown promise, while rookie position players Kyle Teel, Edgar Quero and now Colson Montgomery are getting their initial taste of the majors.
There has been the mix of calamity: Luis Robert Jr. has been unproductive and is probably now untradable, and former No. 3 overall pick Andrew Vaughn hit .189 and was traded to the Brewers.
The Twins are one organization that might like a do-over of the past five seasons. It feels like they’ve had the most talent in the division, but all they’ve done is squeeze out one soft division title in 2023. Now, the Tigers have passed them in talent and other factors, such as payroll flexibility.
There’s still time for the Twins to turn things around in 2025, but outside of that wonderful 13-game winning streak, they haven’t played winning baseball.
Overall, it’s been yet another bad season, despite Paul Skenes‘ brilliance. Really, do we talk enough about him? Yes, we do talk about him, but he has a 1.95 ERA through his first 42 career starts. Incredible.
Here’s an amazing thing about baseball. The Pirates are not a good team, but they recently put together one of the best six-game stretches in history. That’s not stretching the description. First, they swept the Mets — a good team — by scores of 9-1, 9-2 and 12-1. Then they swept the Cardinals — a good team — with three shutouts, 7-0, 1-0 and 5-0. They became the first team since at least 1901 to score 43 runs or more and allow four runs or fewer in a six-game stretch. And then they promptly got shut out three games in a row, making them the first to win three straight shutouts and then lose three straight shutouts.
Eighteen of our 28 voters picked them to win the AL West before the season, but it’s looking more and more like the 2023 World Series might be a stone-cold fluke in the middle of a string of losing seasons. That year, nearly everyone in the lineup had a career year at the plate, and the pitching got hot at the right time.
This year’s Rangers, though, have struggled to score runs, and while some have pointed to the offensive environment at Globe Life Field, they’re near the bottom in road OPS as well. It’s been fun seeing Jacob deGrom back at a dominating level, and Nathan Eovaldi should have been an All-Star.
Put it this way: If the Rangers can somehow squeeze into the postseason, you don’t want to face the Rangers in a short series. Indeed, if any team looms as an October upset special, it might be the Rangers.
The Nationals received superlative first-half performances from James Wood and MacKenzie Gore, while CJ Abrams is on the way to his best season. But there remains a lack of overall organizational progress, which finally led to the firings on Sunday of longtime GM Mike Rizzo and longtime manager Dave Martinez. A 7-19 record in June sealed their fate, as the rotation has been bad and the bullpen arguably the worst in baseball.
Until the Nationals figure out how to improve their pitching — or, better yet, find an owner who wants to win — they will be stuck going nowhere.
That fell apart in a hurry. Sunday’s loss was Cleveland’s 10th in a row, a stretch that remarkably included five shutouts. Indeed, the Guardians have now been shut out 11 times; the franchise record in the post-dead-ball-era (since 1920) is 20 shutouts in 1968.
There’s nothing worse than watching a team that can’t score runs, so that tells you how exciting the Guardians have been. Last year, the Guardians hit exceptionally well with runners in scoring position, keeping afloat what was otherwise a mediocre offense. That hasn’t happened in 2025 (trading Josh Naylor didn’t help either). Throw in some predictable regression from the bullpen, and this season looks lost.
We can’t give this a complete failing grade due to the emergence of All-Star shortstop Jacob Wilson (the Athletics’ first All-Star starter since Josh Donaldson in 2014) and slugging first baseman Nick Kurtz, who have a chance to finish 1-2 in the Rookie of the Year voting. Plus, we have Denzel Clarke‘s circus catches in center field.
But otherwise? Ugh. The Sacramento gamble already looks like a disaster, three months into a three-year stay. The team is drawing well below Sutter Health Park’s 14,000-seat capacity, with many recent games drawing under 10,000 fans. Luis Severino bashed the small crowds and the lack of air-conditioning.
The A’s had a groundbreaking ceremony for their new park in Vegas, renting heavy construction equipment as background props. Maybe they should have spent that money on more pitching help.
Based on preseason expectations, the Braves have clearly been the biggest disappointment in the National League — fighting the Orioles for most disappointing overall.
What’s gone wrong? They haven’t scored runs, as the offense continues its remarkable fade from a record-setting performance just two seasons ago. The collapses of Michael Harris II and Ozzie Albies lead the way, with lack of production at shortstop and left field playing a big role as well. Closer Raisel Iglesias has struggled, and the team is 11-22 in one-run games. Spencer Strider hasn’t yet reached his pre-injury level and Reynaldo Lopez made just one start before going down.
The Braves haven’t missed the playoffs since 2017, but that run is clearly in jeopardy.
The Orioles have a similar record to the Braves but have played much worse, including losses of 24-2, 19-5, 15-3 and two separate 9-0 shutouts.
They will spend the trade deadline dealing away as many of their impending free agents as possible, and then do a lot of soul-searching heading into the offseason. After making the playoffs in 2023 and 2024, will this season just be a blip? While the pitching struggles aren’t necessarily a big surprise, what has happened to the offense? Are some of their young players prospects or suspects?
After two months of Cleveland Spiders-level baseball, it would be easy to make fun of the Rockies. Especially since they recently announced Walker Monfort — son of the owner — was promoted to executive VP and will replace outgoing president and COO Greg Feasel.
On the other hand, the Rockies are doing something right: They just drew 121,000 for a three-game series against the White Sox.
Sports
White Sox unveil Buehrle statue: ‘Well-deserved’
Published
9 hours agoon
July 12, 2025By
admin
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Jesse RogersJul 11, 2025, 09:12 PM ET
Close- Jesse joined ESPN Chicago in September 2009 and covers MLB for ESPN.com.
CHICAGO — Former White Sox lefty Mark Buehrle was forever immortalized inside Rate Field as the team unveiled a statue in his honor Friday.
Buehrle, 46, played 16 years in the majors, including the first 12 with the White Sox, who he helped win a World Series in 2005. He won 214 games and pitched 200 innings or more in 14 consecutive seasons from 2001 to 2014.
“I can’t put it into words,” Buehrle said after the unveiling. “You don’t play the game for any of this. You never think of number retirements or statues. I can’t even wrap my head around it. It doesn’t make sense.”
The statue is an action shot of him throwing a pitch.
His wife and kids were in attendance and helped pull off the cover to unveil the statue while his 2005 teammates looked on. The event kicked off a weekend reunion for the World Series team which went 11-1 in the postseason, beating the Houston Astros in four games to take home the title.
Buehrle was a five-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove winner, finishing fifth in Cy Young voting in 2005.
“Well-deserved,” former right fielder Jermaine Dye said of the statue. “Great teammate. Great leader. Definitely someone you want on a ballclub to lead a pitching staff.”
The White Sox rotation — led by Buehrle — threw four complete games in the ALCS against the Boston Red Sox in 2005, missing a fifth complete game by two-thirds of an inning. It’s an unheard of accomplishment in today’s game since starters infrequently go the distance.
Besides being an innings-eater on the mound, Buehrle was a fast worker — a favorite trait of his catcher, A.J Pierzynski. And he wasn’t someone who threw a lot of different pitches. He caught it and threw it without much input from behind the plate.
“He was fast,” Pierzynski said. “We had Jermaine Dye calling pitches from right field some games. We did come crazy things you wouldn’t recommend to people to do nowadays.”
Buehrle is a notoriously low-key guy who hates the spotlight but even he was moved by the team’s decision to honor him with a statue, which joins former slugger Harold Baines in the right-field concourse.
“I joked with him when I saw him,” Dye said. “I told him ‘Man it takes you getting a statue to get you out of the house.'”
Buehrle added: “I was literally nervous as can be today. This is not my comfort zone but by no means am I taking it lightly. This is incredible.”
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