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Every minute of the past three years Shohei Ohtani spent on the baseball field was a gift. The most perfect ball-playing specimen ever to wear a uniform, simultaneously one of the best hitters and pitchers in a sport that for a century had demanded players choose one track or the other, Ohtani recalibrated what the game could be. He was baseball at its zenith. He is baseball, period.

What everyone took for granted, as he launched majestic home runs and unfurled unfair pitches, was the Faustian bargain underpinning it all — that as Ohtani trafficked in the impossible, he was relying on a wholly imperfect vessel to deliver it. Ohtani’s most formidable opponent was never the pitchers or hitters he faced. It was his body and its capacity to withstand everything he asked of it. Ligaments do not care about legend.

Ohtani being Ohtani, he reacted to the news that he had suffered a tear in the ulnar collateral ligament of his right elbow in Game 1 of a doubleheader Wednesday by batting second for his Los Angeles Angels in Game 2. Ohtani will not pitch again this season. He might need another Tommy John surgery. His already-complicated free agency, just two months away, is now even more confusing. And Ohtani knew all of it in the second game, which, in hindsight, makes a moment that looked so wholesome at the time so heartbreaking now.

In the fifth inning, Ohtani doubled — you can still swing the bat with a UCL tear — and awaiting him at second base stood Cincinnati shortstop Elly De La Cruz, a 6-foot-5, switch-hitting, homer-crushing, 21-year-old rookie wunderkind who also happens to be the fastest man in baseball. A full-blown unicorn. And even to him Ohtani is something different altogether. To introduce himself, De La Cruz extended his right index finger and poked 29-year-old Ohtani on the arm five times, chuckling, as if to say: Are you even real?

It’s the sort of question anyone who watched Ohtani asked constantly. And Wednesday’s lesson was that he’s all too real — not a baseball automaton sent from the future to transfix but flesh and blood. Like any ballplayer, always one pitch, one swing, one stride away from a muscle or tendon or bone or ligament failing. Ohtani took on more than any other player: starting for the Angels once a week and serving as their designated hitter nightly. The job and its level of stress chipped away, little by little. And even then, Ohtani never accepted training at a reduced rate to give himself a break. Why would he? The work got him to this place.

And what a place it was. His native Japan served as the petri dish for Ohtani’s two-way experiment, and almost immediately upon his arrival to Major League Baseball as a 23-year-old in 2018, he cut a transcendent figure, his bat an awfully good sidekick to his vaunted arm. Then his UCL gave out that first season, and rehab didn’t heal it. The subsequent Tommy John surgery in October 2018 kept him off the mound in 2019 and might as well have in 2020.

It’s not that his return to form in 2021 was surprising — because to be surprised by Ohtani is a user error — but it was glorious. It could be done for a full season: 46 home runs in 155 games played, 130⅓ innings of 3.18 ERA ball over 23 starts, one unanimous American League MVP Award. And then, he showed it could be done two seasons in a row, with 2022 a little worse at the plate, a little better on the mound, undeniably MVP-worthy if not for Aaron Judge.

And now this year. Even by Ohtani’s standards it has been singular. He has been the best hitter in baseball, leading the big leagues in home runs (44), triples (7), OPS (1.069) and total bases (310). He has held opposing hitters to a .184 batting average, the lowest of all 146 pitchers who have thrown at least 70 innings. He entered 2023 with prospective suitors wondering whether he’d live up to earning the first $500 million free agent contract in baseball history, and by the middle of the season, a half-a-billion-dollar bid was liable to get a team laughed out of the room.

Perhaps the most fully formed version of Ohtani was the one we saw this spring: captain of World Baseball Classic-winning Team Japan, capper of the tournament with a strikeout of his friend and Angels teammate Mike Trout. It was a moment upon which baseball fans can reflect, perhaps wistfully, fearful that peak Ohtani has passed. It’s possible. Age is undefeated. The greatest predictor of a future arm injury is a past arm injury. Nobody, not even Ohtani, can avoid all aphorisms.

Now come questions. How bad is the tear? Will Ohtani try platelet-rich plasma again in an attempt to heal it, or is surgery a fait accompli? Regardless of Ohtani’s approach to fixing his elbow, he might not miss games for long. In 2019, seven months after surgery, Ohtani returned to DH full time as he did his Tommy John rehab for pitching. Back then, doctors considered it safe. But the demand on Ohtani’s arm far exceeds that of the typical hitter, and a second procedure leaves the elbow that much more fragile. The discussion on what’s best for Ohtani’s future will come into focus in the coming days as the Angels wind toward another playoff-free season and the expiration of his contract.

What the injury means for his future as a pitcher is bound to play a part in his free agency. The failure rate is overwhelming for players who have undergone the Tommy John procedure twice in a five-year span: Jameson Taillon, the most successful, returned and signed a four-year, $68 million free agent contract this winter. Daniel Hudson closed out a World Series. Drew Rasmussen grew into an elite starter — only to blow out a third time. Cole Ragans, a wildly talented 25-year-old, is looking the part for Kansas City but hasn’t thrown even 100 big league innings.

Of course, Ohtani does the things others can’t. He is not an outlier. He is the outlier. If he wants to be a starter again, he will be a starter again. He has earned that, and if one team doesn’t concur, Ohtani will find another that does. Because as much as the ligament tear muddies the valuation on Ohtani, whatever team is lucky enough to land him will get the biggest star in the game since Ken Griffey Jr., regardless of how many pitches he throws again. The past three years vaulted Ohtani to that rarefied place few baseball players go. He is, a century later, in achievement and prestige, Babe Ruth. And in talent, Ruth pales to Ohtani.

Ruth, remember, never played every day and pitched full time. He didn’t think it possible. Ohtani proved it so, hefty though the cost might have been. “It is a wonder he held up this long,” a person familiar with Ohtani’s routine said early Thursday morning, after the announcement of Ohtani’s UCL tear from Angels general manager Perry Minasian sent an off-hours thunderclap through the sport. The chatter was all the same, more or less. Why him? Why now? Why at all?

Totally fair questions all, but their implication — their negativity — didn’t seem to be of interest to the one person who had the right to ask them. If you really want to know who Shohei Ohtani is, and what he’s made of, look at his reaction when De La Cruz poked him. He could’ve turtled away, glowered, snapped, and he would’ve been well within his right to do any considering what he was now facing. Instead, Ohtani smiled and returned the compliment, marveling at De La Cruz’s incredible talent — a kid from Japan and a kid from the Dominican Republic conversant in the language that binds them: baseball.

Optimism is Ohtani’s choice. The last time he was at this juncture, he returned and evolved into the greatest baseball player anyone has seen. Doubt him at your peril.

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Volpe toss hits Judge as sloppy Yanks fall again

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Volpe toss hits Judge as sloppy Yanks fall again

NEW YORK — A blunder that typifies the current state of the New York Yankees, who find themselves in the midst of their second six-game losing streak in three weeks, happened in front of 41,401 fans at Citi Field on Saturday, and almost nobody noticed.

The Yankees were jogging off the field after securing the third out of the fourth inning of their 12-6 loss to the Mets when shortstop Anthony Volpe, as is standard for teams across baseball at the end of innings, threw the ball to right fielder Aaron Judge as he crossed into the infield from right field.

Only Judge wasn’t looking, and the ball nailed him in the head, knocking his sunglasses off and leaving a small cut near his right eye. The wound required a bandage to stop the bleeding, but Judge stayed in the game.

“Confusion,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “I didn’t know what happened initially. [It just] felt like something happened. Of course I was a little concerned.”

Avoiding an injury to the best player in baseball was on the Yankees’ very short list of positives in another sloppy, draining defeat to their crosstown rivals. With the loss, the Yankees, who held a three-game lead over the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League East standings entering June 30, find themselves tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for second place three games behind the Blue Jays heading into Sunday’s Subway Series finale.

The nosedive has been fueled by messy defense and a depleted pitching staff that has encountered a wall.

“It’s been a terrible week,” said Boone, who before the game announced starter Clarke Schmidt will likely undergo season-ending Tommy John surgery.

For the second straight day, the Mets capitalized on mistakes and cracked timely home runs. After slugging three homers in Friday’s series opener, the Mets hit three more Saturday — a grand slam in the first inning from Brandon Nimmo to take a 4-0 lead and two home runs from Pete Alonso to widen the gap.

Nimmo’s blast — his second grand slam in four days — came after Yankees left fielder Jasson Dominguez misplayed a ball hit by the Mets’ leadoff hitter in the first inning. On Friday, he misread Nimmo’s line drive and watched it sail over his head for a double. On Saturday, he was slow to react to Starling Marte’s flyball in the left-center field gap and braked without catching or stopping it, allowing Marte to advance to second for a double. Yankees starter Carlos Rodon then walked two batters to load the bases for Nimmo, who yanked a mistake, a 1-2 slider over the wall.

“That slider probably needs to be down,” said Rodon, who allowed seven runs (six earned) over five innings. “A lot of misses today and they punished them.”

Jazz Chisholm Jr.’s throwing woes at third base — a position the Yankees have asked him to play to accommodate DJ LeMahieu at second base — continued in the second inning when he fielded Tyrone Taylor’s groundball and sailed a toss over first baseman Cody Bellinger’s head. Taylor was given second base and scored moments later on Marte’s RBI single.

The Yankees were charged with their second error in the Mets’ four-run seventh inning when center fielder Trent Grisham charged Francisco Lindor’s single up the middle and had it bounce off the heel of his glove.

The mistake allowed a run to score from second base without a throw, extending the Mets lead back to three runs after the Yankees had chipped their deficit, and allowed a heads-up Lindor to advance to second base. Lindor later scored on Alonso’s second home run, a three-run blast off left-hander Jayvien Sandridge in the pitcher’s major league debut.

“Just got to play better,” Judge said. “That’s what it comes down to. It’s fundamentals. Making a routine play, routine. It’s just the little things. That’s what it kind of comes down to. But every good team goes through a couple bumps in the road.”

This six-game losing skid has looked very different from the Yankees’ first. That rough patch, consisting of losses to the Boston Red Sox and Los Angeles Angels, was propelled by offensive troubles. The Yankees scored six runs in the six games and gave up just 16. This time, run prevention is the issue; the Yankees have scored 34 runs and surrendered 54 in four games against the Blue Jays in Toronto and two in Queens.

“The offense is starting to swing the bat, put some runs on the board,” Boone said. “The pitching, which has kind of carried us a lot this season, has really, really struggled this week. We haven’t caught the ball as well as I think we should.

“So, look, when you live it and you’re going through it, it sucks, it hurts. But you got to be able to handle it. You got to be able to deal with it. You got to be able to weather it and come out of this and grow.”

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Former White Sox pitcher, world champ Jenks dies

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Former White Sox pitcher, world champ Jenks dies

Bobby Jenks, a two-time All-Star pitcher for the Chicago White Sox who was on the roster when the franchise won the 2005 World Series, died Friday in Sintra, Portugal, the team announced.

Jenks, 44, who had been diagnosed with adenocarcinoma, a form of stomach cancer, this year, spent six seasons with the White Sox from 2005 to 2010 and also played for the Boston Red Sox in 2011. The reliever finished his major league career with a 16-20 record, 3.53 ERA and 173 saves.

“We have lost an iconic member of the White Sox family today,” White Sox chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said in a statement. “None of us will ever forget that ninth inning of Game 4 in Houston, all that Bobby did for the 2005 World Series champions and for the entire Sox organization during his time in Chicago. He and his family knew cancer would be his toughest battle, and he will be missed as a husband, father, friend and teammate. He will forever hold a special place in all our hearts.”

After Jenks moved to Portugal last year, he was diagnosed with a deep vein thrombosis in his right calf. That eventually spread into blood clots in his lungs, prompting further testing. He was later diagnosed with adenocarcinoma and began undergoing radiation.

In February, as Jenks was being treated for the illness, the White Sox posted “We stand with you, Bobby” on Instagram, adding in the post that the club was “thinking of Bobby as he is being treated.”

In 2005, as the White Sox ended an 88-year drought en route to the World Series title, Jenks appeared in six postseason games. Chicago went 11-1 in the playoffs, and he earned saves in series-clinching wins in Game 3 of the ALDS at Boston, and Game 4 of the World Series against the Houston Astros.

In 2006, Jenks saved 41 games, and the following year, he posted 40 saves. He also retired 41 consecutive batters in 2007, matching a record for a reliever.

“You play for the love of the game, the joy of it,” Jenks said in his last interview with SoxTV last year. “It’s what I love to do. I [was] playing to be a world champion, and that’s what I wanted to do from the time I picked up a baseball.”

A native of Mission Hills, California, Jenks appeared in 19 games for the Red Sox and was originally drafted by the then-Anaheim Angels in the fifth round of the 2000 draft.

Jenks is survived by his wife, Eleni Tzitzivacos, their two children, Zeno and Kate, and his four children from a prior marriage, Cuma, Nolan, Rylan and Jackson.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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In search of infield options, Yanks add Candelario

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In search of infield options, Yanks add Candelario

NEW YORK — The New York Yankees, digging for options to bolster their infield, have signed third baseman Jeimer Candelario to a minor league contract and assigned him to Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, the affiliate announced Saturday.

Candelario, 31, was released by the Cincinnati Reds on June 23, halfway through a three-year, $45 million contract he signed before the start of last season. The decision was made after Candelario posted a .707 OPS in 2024 and batted .113 with a .410 OPS in 22 games for the Reds before going on the injured list in April with a back injury.

The performance was poor enough for Cincinnati to cut him in a move that Reds president of baseball operations Nick Krall described as a sunk cost.

For the Yankees, signing Candelario is a low-cost flier on a player who recorded an .807 OPS just two seasons ago as they seek to find a third baseman to move Jazz Chisholm Jr. to second base, his natural position.

Candelario is the second veteran infielder the Yankees have signed to a minor league contract in the past three days; they agreed to terms with Nicky Lopez on Thursday.

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