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ARLINGTON, Texas — As arguably the two best right-handed pitchers of their generation, the relationship between the Texas RangersMax Scherzer and the Houston AstrosJustin Verlander has taken many forms.

It also has evolved from some early career friction as young teammates with the Detroit Tigers, mostly thanks to their brief time as teammates with the New York Mets.

“Looking at each other now through a different lens,” Verlander said, “it’s two guys who, we do go about things differently, but there’s more than one way to be successful. I can’t speak for Max, but for myself, this time around, I think we had good conversations about the way he sees things, the way I see things and how that can be beneficial.”

In Detroit, the two future Hall of Famers were in competition with each other as well as opponents. They’ve also been on teams that competed against each other for playoff spots and championships. In New York, they were teammates again, but older and wiser.

On Wednesday, the relationship will take a form it never has before: opposing pitchers on the mound.

Hard as it is to believe, Scherzer and Verlander will go head-to-head for the first time in their careers when the Rangers and Astros play at Globe Life Field on Wednesday in the finale of a key three-game series.

“That’ll be fun,” Scherzer said. “First time facing him. My whole career, I’ve got to face all the best guys in the world and I’ve got to play with all the best guys in the world. So I got to play with [Verlander] for a while. Now it’s going to be fun to actually go up against him.”

The matchup would be compelling in any context, but there are extra layers. When the Mets’ season fizzled, New York dealt both pitchers at the trade deadline, sending them to cross-state rivals in the midst of a heated divisional and wild-card playoff race.

While their time together in New York was short, Verlander said it allowed their relationship to grow.

“A lot has been talked about our past,” Verlander said. “I think it was a bit blown out of proportion. But you know, there was some tension there. And I think we both decided to make an effort coming in to just move past that.”

Scherzer went 9-4 with a 4.01 ERA for the Mets; Verlander was 6-5 with a 3.15 ERA for New York before going back to the Astros, with whom he won a World Series last season.

“It was good to get back with him,” Scherzer said. “He’s obviously one of the great competitors of our time, so it was good to be back with him and really get a download of how he is as a pitcher, and how he’s evolved.

“The game has changed over the seven or eight years we were apart. It was good to get back with him and get inside his pitching mind and how he attacks hitters.”

The Rangers and Astros are locked in a three-way battle with the Seattle Mariners for supremacy in the AL West, with those clubs also battling the Toronto Blue Jays in the wild-card chase.

Yet even the pitchers’ future Hall of Fame managers can’t help but marvel at what they might see Wednesday.

“I’ve said this many times,” Rangers manager Bruce Bochy said. “I’ve got a great seat to watch some really great players play. To see matchups like this, I enjoy it, to see guys who have had tremendous careers like they’ve had and how competitive they are.”

In addition to managing Verlander with the Astros, Houston’s Dusty Baker was Scherzer’s skipper with the Washington Nationals for two seasons.

“[It’s a challenge] to continue to manage and not become a spectator,” Baker said. “They’re different but they’re similar in their determination and their competitiveness.”

You can’t blame the managers for being a little excited. The two aces rank in the top three of all major career categories among active pitchers. In strikeouts, they are 1-2, with Scherzer topping the list with 3,361 and Verlander just 50 back at 3,311.

A meeting between two pitchers this accomplished is a rare thing, especially in this era of reduced starting pitcher workloads. According to Elias, Verlander and Scherzer’s 467 combined career wins will be the most by opposing starters over the past 15 seasons. It will be the first time since CC Sabathia and Mark Buehrle squared off in 2015 that there has been a meeting of two starters with at last 200 career wins.

Only 11 pitchers have won at least three Cy Young Awards; two of them will square off on Wednesday.

“I think it’s exciting,” Verlander said. “It’s not too often in baseball anymore you get matchups between two guys who have had the careers like him and I have had. I think it’s exciting for baseball.”

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Cindric wins at Talladega, dons victory wreath

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Cindric wins at Talladega, dons victory wreath

TALLADEGA, Ala. — Austin Cindric celebrated his first win of the season by wearing Talladega’s Superspeedway traditional victory wreath all around the track.

A wreath like he just won the Indianapolis 500.

He thought so, too.

“Feels like I just won the Indy 500,” he said of Sunday’s NASCAR race. “I’m trying to walk on the plane with this.”

Cindric wasn’t even concerned how such a gesture might be received by Team Penske teammate Joey Logano, who raged on his radio after the second stage when Cindric didn’t push him and it allowed Bubba Wallace in a Toyota to win the segment and its valuable bonus points.

“Way to go Austin,” seethed Logano, who used multiple expletives in his anger over his Penske radio. “You just gave it to him. Gave a Toyota a stage win. Nice job. Way to go … put that in the book.”

Cindric was unconcerned by the idea Logano might take issue with the wreath on the Penske plane.

“I think that would be very immature,” Cindric said. “I don’t see him doing that. We’ll see.”

It was a celebratory day for Cindric, who gave Team Penske its first NASCAR victory of the season by holding off a huge pack of challengers over the closing lap in a rare drama-free day at Talladega Superspeedway.

“Rock on, guys,” Cindric said over his radio. “Rock and roll. Let’s go!”

Ford drivers went 1-2, with Ryan Preece finishing second. But Preece and Logano were disqualified following postrace inspections because of spoiler infractions. Logano had crossed the finish line in fifth.

After the DQ’s, Kyle Larson moved up to second and William Byron third for Hendrick Motorsports. The two Chevrolet drivers pushed Cindric and Preece from the second row rather than pull out of line on the final lap and make a third lane in an attempt to win.

It was Larson’s best career finish at Talladega, where drafting and pack racing is required and neither suits his style. He said he wanted to make a move to try to take the win from Cindric but there was never any room.

“I wanted to take it but I felt like the gap was too big,” Larson said. “I was just stuck inside and just doing everything I could to advance our lane and maybe open it up to where I then could get to the outside. But we were all just pushing so equally that it kept the lanes jammed up.”

Noah Gragson ended up fourth in a Ford, while Hendrick driver Chase Elliott was fifth – two spots ahead of teammate Alex Bowman, with Carson Hocevar of Spire Motorsports sandwiched in between them. Wallace was the highest-finishing Toyota driver in eighth.

Cindric led five times but for only seven of the 188 laps in an unusually calm race for chaotic Talladega. The track last fall recorded the largest crash in the NASCAR history when 28 cars were collected in a demolition derby with four laps remaining.

On Sunday, there were only four cautions — two for stage breaks — totaling 22 laps. It was the fourth consecutive Talladega race with only four cautions, the two for stage breaks and the two for natural cautions.

But, Sunday featured season-highs in lead changes (67) among different drivers (23). Only five cars failed to finish from the 40-car field, and a whopping 30 drivers finished on the lead lap.

Cindric marked the 10th consecutive different winner at Talladega, extending the track record of no repeat winners. And, by the time it was over, Logano seemed to have calmed down.

“About time one of us wins these things,” Logano said of the Penske trio. “When you think about the amount of laps led by Team Penske and Ford in general, just haven’t been able to close. To see a couple of Fords on the front row duking it out, I wish one of them was me, in a selfish way. But it’s good to see those guys running up there and being able to click one off.”

Larson sets NASCAR record for stage wins

When he won the first stage at Talladega, it was the 67th of Larson’s career and made him NASCAR’s all-time stage winner. He broke a tie with Martin Truex Jr. with the stage win.

Stages were introduced in 2017 as a way to ensure natural breaks during races that allowed fans to rush to the bathroom or concession stand without missing any action. Cars typically make a pit stop during a stage break.

Teammate-on-teammate collision

Joe Gibbs Racing drivers Christopher Bell and Denny Hamlin, who combined to win five of the first nine races this season, had a collision on a restart that ensured Bell would not win his fourth race of the season.

It happened in the first stage of the race with Bell on the front row next to Chris Buescher on his inside, and with Hamlin behind him. As the cars revved to get up to speed at the green flag, Hamlin ran into the back of Bell, which caused him to turn into Buescher and create the second caution of the race.

Bell went to the garage, where he joined Ryan Blaney, Buescher and Brad Keselowski, all betting favorites who were done for the day before the end of the first stage.

“What in the hell? Man, apologies if that’s on me,” Hamlin radioed. “We weren’t even up to speed yet. I don’t know why that would have wrecked him. When he shot down to the bottom, I wasn’t even sure I was actually on him.”

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NASCAR races next week at Texas Motor Speedway, where Elliott scored his only win of the 2024 season last April.

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Fan ejected after taunting Red Sox OF Duran

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Fan ejected after taunting Red Sox OF Duran

CLEVELAND — Jarren Duran has found plenty of support from his Boston Red Sox teammates and others since he revealed in a Netflix documentary that he attempted suicide three years ago.

However, Duran said Sunday that a fan in the front row near the Red Sox dugout in Cleveland said “something inappropriate” to him after the All-Star left fielder flied out in the seventh inning of a 13-3 victory over the Guardians.

Duran stayed on the top step of the dugout and glared at the fan as the inning played out. During the seventh-inning stretch, before the singing of “God Bless America,” Red Sox teammates and coaches kept Duran away from the area as umpires and Progressive Field security personnel gathered to handle the situation.

The fan tried to run up the aisle but was caught by security and taken out of the stadium.

“The fan just said something inappropriate. I’m just happy that the security handled it and the umpires were aware of it and they took care of it for me,” Duran said.

After the game, the Guardians released a statement apologizing to the Red Sox and Duran. The team said it had identified the fan and was working with Major League Baseball on next steps.

Duran said it was the first time he was taunted by a fan about his suicide attempt and mental health struggles since the Netflix series “The Clubhouse: A Year With the Red Sox” was released April 8.

“When you open yourself up like that, you also open yourself up to the enemies. But I have a good support staff around me, teammates, coaches. There were fans that were supporting me, so that was awesome,” he said.

Boston manager Alex Cora was in the opposite corner of the Red Sox dugout but lauded security for how the incident was handled.

Cora was even prouder of Duran’s restraint. Duran was suspended for two games last season when he directed an anti-gay slur at a heckling fan at Fenway Park when the fan shouted that Duran needed a tennis racket to hit.

“There’s a two-way street. That’s something I said last year. We made a mistake last year, and we learned from it. We grew up, you know, as an individual and as a group,” Cora said.

Sunday’s incident dampened what had been a solid game and series for Duran. He went 4-for-6 with an RBI and had at least three hits in consecutive games for the second time in his career.

In Saturday’s doubleheader nightcap, Duran had Boston’s first straight steal of home plate in 16 years.

Duran went 7-for-15 with three RBIs as Boston took two of three games in the weekend series. Six of his hits in the series came against lefties after Duran was just 3-for-31 against southpaws coming into the weekend.

“I’ve been getting some good swings on lefties lately, just hitting it right at guys. I’m trying to stay with my process, and it just happened to work good for me this series. So, I’m just going to keep at it,” said Duran, who has hit safely in 13 of his past 14 games and is batting .323 (20-for-62) with eight extra-base hits, including a home run, and six RBIs during that span.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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Sources: Tkachuk dodges discipline, will play G4

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Sources: Tkachuk dodges discipline, will play G4

Florida Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk will not receive supplemental discipline for his hit on Tampa Bay Lightning forward Jake Geuntzel in Game 3, sources told ESPN on Sunday.

Tkachuk’s hit, in the third period of his team’s 5-1 loss, received a five-minute major. According to sources, the NHL Department of Player Safety determined that was enough, considering Guentzel had recently touched the puck and Tkachuk didn’t make contact with Guentzel’s head.

The department also believed that the force in which Tkachuk hit Guentzel was far lesser than the hit Tampa’s Brandon Hagel made on Florida captain Aleksander Barkov in Game 2, which earned Hagel a one game suspension.

The plays led both coaches to trade jabs in the media. After Barkov went down in Game 2, Florida Panthers coach Paul Maurice said: “The only players we hit are the one with pucks.”

Barkov missed the end of the third period, but played in Game 3. Game 4 is Monday at Amerant Bank Arena.

At his postgame press conference, following Tkachuk’s hit on Guentzel, Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper deadpanned the exact same line as Maurice.

Tkachuk leads the series in scoring with three goals and an assist through three games. Guentzel has two goals and two assists for Tampa Bay.

The Battle of Florida is living up to the billing as one of the most contentious rivalries in hockey; either Tampa or Florida has made it to the Stanley Cup Final in each of the last five seasons.

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