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Kyle Dubas doesn’t know whether he’ll return as general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs. But it’s the only position he would consider taking in the near future.

Dubas is on an expiring contract that’s yet to be renewed — in part by Dubas’ own choice. He spoke candidly about approaching the next chapter of his career during the Maple Leafs’ end-of-season media availability on Monday and how it won’t include a change of address.

“I definitely don’t have it in me to go anywhere else,” Dubas said. “It’ll either be here or it’ll be taking time to recalibrate, reflect on the seasons here. You won’t see me next week pop up elsewhere. I can’t put (my family) through that after this year.”

Having conversations and getting feedback from loved ones — Dubas is a married father of two — will play a primary role in how he proceeds from here.

“It requires me to have a full family discussion,” Dubas said of making his decision. “My family is a hugely important part of what I do, so for me to commit to anything without having a fuller understanding of what this year took on them, it’s probably unfair for me to answer. It was a very hard year on them.”

Dubas said he would speak further with Leafs’ president Brendan Shanahan in the coming days to gauge where the organization is at as well in terms of moving forward. The 37-year-old joined the Leafs’ front office in 2014 as an assistant GM and was promoted by Shanahan to his current role in 2018, replacing Lou Lamoriello in the process.

“I’ve had a good, long relationship here with Brendan and the owners. I’ll speak to them in the coming days. It’s been a very taxing year (on my family) and that’s obviously very important to me. And then we’ll all make our decisions and roll from there.”

Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe was also brought on by Dubas after the general manager fired Mike Babcock in 2019. Dubas was GM of the Ontario Hockey League’s Sault Ste. Marie Greyhounds in 2011, when he originally hired Keefe to coach that team. Dubas then brought Keefe to Toronto as coach of the Toronto Marlies, the AHL affiliate, and finally over to the job with the Maple Leafs.

Keefe said on Monday he was giving Dubas space in figuring out his next path.

“Kyle and I have a lot of history,” he said. “I believe in a lot of the things he’s done here that have put us in positions to succeed. I’m hopeful that [contract] gets worked. Out of respect to him, I’ve left him alone and let him really sort through the things he needs to sort through and go through the process himself.”

Toronto has a long offseason to contemplate what went wrong. The Maple Leafs were ousted from postseason contention last week by the No. 8-seeded Florida Panthers in the Eastern Conference semifinals, a series in which Toronto fell behind 3-0 before losing in five games. It was a crushing disappointment given the Maple Leafs had advanced in the playoffs for the first time in nearly 20 years after topping the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round. Toronto had previously made six consecutive first-round exits from the postseason.

The sting of how things ended clearly remained with Dubas, and he pledged to learn from another bout of frustration.

“Perhaps the path needs to shift slightly,” he said. “It needs to be adapted slightly. And you get in between persistence and full belief versus being a little too staunch and rigid. And I think that’s the question I would take the time for myself in reflecting on the year.”

Dubas has remained staunchly behind the Maple Leafs’ core of talented forwards — largely Auston Matthews, Mitchell Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander — for years. He’s repeatedly defended them against lagging playoff performances, which resurfaced again in the series against Florida.

Matthews and Tavares each failed to score a goal vs. the Panthers, while Nylander and Marner combined for three goals and six points. The Maple Leafs failed to tally more than two goals in any game against the Panthers, a primary factor in their early exit.

It’s long been a topic of discussion in Toronto about whether the time has come to trade a piece of Toronto’s core to help reshape the roster. Dubas was asked about that possibility again on Monday and shared it wasn’t out of the question.

“I would consider anything with our group here that would allow us a better chance to win the Stanley Cup,” Dubas said. “I would take nothing off the table at all. And I think everything would have to be considered.”

That assumes, of course, that Dubas returns to call the shots. Right now, he’s in limbo. But Dubas does have the support of Toronto’s longest tenured player to stay on.

“I think the world of Kyle,” said defenseman Morgan Rielly, who’s spent his entire 10-year career with the Maple Leafs. “I thought what he did for our team this year, whether it be his first meeting in training camp through the trade deadline right through to when I spoke to him three minutes ago, he’s a world class GM. I’m not in charge of what happens with his contract but everything he did was in the team’s best interest, and he put us in a position where we had a chance to play and to win and to succeed and ultimately the players are the ones that were on the ice at the end of the season.”

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Rays’ 8-run comeback largest in MLB this season

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Rays' 8-run comeback largest in MLB this season

TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Rays overcame an eight-run deficit to beat the Baltimore Orioles 12-8 on Wednesday night in the largest comeback in the majors this season.

Tampa Bay matched the biggest comeback in franchise history. The Rays also rallied from eight down in a 10-8 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Aug. 18, 2012, and in a 10-9 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on July 25, 2009.

It tied the Orioles’ largest blown lead over the past 50 seasons. Baltimore last gave away an eight-run lead on April 28, 2017, against the New York Yankees. The Orioles led that game 9-1 entering the bottom of the sixth inning before losing 14-11 in 10 innings.

Baltimore had an eight-run second inning on Wednesday. Colton Cowser smacked a three-run home run, Cedric Mullins added a solo shot, Gunnar Henderson had an RBI single and Ramón Laureano hit a three-run homer.

Tampa Bay’s Christopher Morel hit an RBI double in the third, and Jake Mangum‘s two-run single cut it to 8-3. Curtis Mead hit a two-out triple in the fourth and scored on a Junior Caminero single. Brandon Lowe‘s two-run homer in the fifth made it 8-8. And Jonathan Aranda had a two-run single in the Rays’ four-run seventh.

Lowe has at least a hit and a run in seven consecutive games, the longest active streak of its kind in the majors. He is batting .464 (13-of-28) with two home runs, five RBIs and eight runs during that span.

Caminero had four hits and two RBIs for the Rays.

Entering Wednesday, teams were 0-134 when trailing by eight or more runs at any point this season.

“It’s a tough game,” Orioles manager Tony Mansolino said. “It really hurts. But tomorrow, we’ll have to bounce back and try to figure out how to win a game.”

Three teams came back from eight runs behind last season in the majors. Pittsburgh was the most recent team to rally from more than that, erasing a nine-run deficit in a 13-12 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Nov. 23, 2023.

ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Yanks finally score, otherwise sputter in latest loss

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Yanks finally score, otherwise sputter in latest loss

NEW YORK — The good news for the Yankees on Wednesday was they scored a run after 30 consecutive scoreless innings. The bad news was they again didn’t score enough to win.

The Yankees fell to the Los Angeles Angels 3-2 to extend their season-high losing streak to six games. The Angels will look to complete a four-game sweep Thursday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees, whose lead in the AL East has shrunk to 1½ games, will look to emerge from an offensive funk that has produced seven runs in seven games.

“That’s baseball,” Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge said. “We know what we signed up for. You’re going to play 162. You’re going to hit a little rut like this, but you can’t give up. You can’t mope about it. You just got to show up the next day and you got to be ready to play.”

Jazz Chisholm Jr. ended the Yankees’ scoreless innings streak in the second inning with a moonshot solo home run down the right-field line, giving New York its first run since the ninth inning Saturday against the Boston Red Sox. Two innings later, Cody Bellinger launched another solo shot to give the Yankees their first lead since last Thursday when they defeated the Kansas City Royals 1-0.

But the Yankees mustered only one other hit — a ground ball from Bellinger in the sixth inning that was ruled a single after it bounced off Trent Grisham as he ran to second base for the inning’s second out. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he believed his team’s at-bats Wednesday were better than they were Tuesday — when he said he noticed his players pressing — and pointed to four walks as progress.

But the Yankees went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position and are 5-for-48 (.104) with 12 strikeouts, four walks and three RBIs in such situations over their past seven games.

“We just got to break through now like we’re capable of offensively,” Boone said.

Judge, the two-time AL MVP who is a heavy favorite to win a third this season, has gone 1-for-19 with 11 strikeouts, two intentional walks and a home run over the past five games. He went 0-for-4 on Wednesday with two strikeouts, a 94.7 mph groundout and 107.9 mph flyout.

“Guys are pitching, they’re doing their job,” Judge said. “Sometimes we’re faltering on doing our job. But it’s tough to say. I think it just comes down to us not executing, us not doing our job. Maybe a little passive in certain situations. But all we can do is show up tomorrow ready to go.”

The Angels broke through to retake the lead in the eighth inning Wednesday without a hit when, after three walks, shortstop Anthony Volpe mishandled a ground ball on what should’ve been a routine, inning-ending double play. Volpe, a Gold Glove winner in 2023, was charged with his ninth error of the season, the second most among shortstops across the majors.

“Right off the bat, I got to be aggressive, go get the ball, make the play,” Volpe said. “As far as that, that’s all it is. It’s the first read off the bat.”

The lack of execution trickled to the offensive side in the bottom of the inning. The Yankees appeared ready to mount a rally when Jasson Dominguez walked and Oswald Peraza was hit by a pitch to begin the inning. But they were left stranded as Grisham, who was given the green light to swing away with one strike after failing to drop down a bunt, popped out, before Judge flied out and Bellinger popped out to extinguish the threat.

“When we’re not scoring a lot of runs, we got to execute on the highest level on the little things,” Boone said. “And we haven’t done that this week a handful of times when we had some opportunities.”

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Singer defied Dodgers, belted anthem in Spanish

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Singer defied Dodgers, belted anthem in Spanish

Latin singer Nezza said that she is “super proud” of performing the national anthem in Spanish at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night and that she has “no regrets.”

Her surprising 90-second rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ game against the Giants — and a behind-the-scenes video she shared on social media of team representatives discouraging it beforehand — quickly went viral. It has become a flashpoint for Dodgers fans frustrated by the team’s lack of vocal support for immigrant communities impacted by the deportation raids across the U.S., including numerous neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles.

“This is my moment to show everyone that I am with them, that we have a voice and with everything that’s happening it’s not OK,” Nezza, 30, told The Associated Press. “I’m super proud that I did it. No regrets.”

Nezza said she hadn’t yet decided whether to sing in English or Spanish until she walked out onto the field and saw the stands filled with Latino families in Dodger Blue. Before that, as shown in the singer’s TikTok video, a Dodgers employee had told Nezza, “We are going to do the song in English today, so I’m not sure if that wasn’t transferred or if that wasn’t relayed.”

The Spanish-language version Nezza sang, “El Pendón Estrellado,” is the official translation of the national anthem and was commissioned in 1945 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt from Peruvian American composer Clotilde Arias.

Nezza says her manager immediately received a call from an unidentified Dodgers employee saying their clients were not welcome at the stadium again, but the team denied that in a statement to the AP.

“There were no consequences or hard feelings from the Dodgers regarding her performance,” the Dodgers said in the statement. “She was not asked to leave. We would be happy to have her back.”

Despite the Dodgers’ statement, Nezza said she does not think she will return to the stadium but said she hopes her performance will inspire others to use their voice and speak out.

“It’s just shown me, like, how much power there is in the Latin community,” Nezza said. “We’ve got to be the voice right now.”

The Dodgers have not gone on the record regarding the arrests and raids made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the areas just a short drive from Dodger Stadium, but player Enrique Hernández posted about it on Instagram over the weekend.

“I am saddened and infuriated by what’s happening in our country and our city,” Hernández posted in English and Spanish. “I cannot stand to see our community being violated, profiled, abused and ripped apart. ALL people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and human rights.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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