
It’s elimination Monday! Answering the questions that will decide ALCS Game 7 and NLCS Game 6
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1 year agoon
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adminIt’s elimination Monday in the championship series round of the 2023 MLB playoffs.
First, the Arizona Diamondbacks will attempt to stay alive against the Philadelphia Phillies as the National League Championship Series shifts back to Citizens Bank Park for Game 6. Then, it’s time for the two best words in sports: Game 7! This time, it’s Texas style, with the Texas Rangers and Houston Astros meeting one more time with a World Series trip on the line in the American League Championship Series.
To get ready for all of the excitement in Philly and Houston, we asked the ESPN MLB experts covering these series to answer the biggest question for each team vying to make it through to the Fall Classic.
Arizona Diamondbacks vs. Philadelphia Phillies
NLCS Game 6, 5:07 p.m. ET (Merrill Kelly vs. Aaron Nola)
What can the D-backs do to avoid being overwhelmed by the atmosphere in Philly?
David Schoenfield: Well, the easy answer is to score in the top of the first inning and then keep the Phillies off the board in the bottom of the first. In Game 1, Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper homered in the first inning. In Game 2, Trea Turner homered in the first off Merrill Kelly, who gets the ball again in Game 6. But the noise is going to be there regardless.
If there is a key for the Diamondbacks, I’m looking at Corbin Carroll. He’s just 2-for-19 with one walk in the series, and after going 54-for-59 in stolen bases in the regular season, he hasn’t attempted a steal in the NLCS. He needs to get on base and needs to be aggressive. The Diamondbacks aren’t going to win two games here playing it safe.
Jeff Passan: Get back to who they are. During the regular season, the Diamondbacks’ offense thrived when it dared opponents to stop its running game. So far in the NLCS, Arizona has swiped just one bag — by Lourdes Gurriel Jr. in Game 3. Neutralizing Arizona’s base-stealing presence — especially from Corbin Carroll, who took 54 bags in the regular season — has been a priority of the Phillies and one they’ve executed well, from their pitchers’ fast times to the plate and quickened deliveries to the play of Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto, whose pop times are the best in the big leagues.
The Diamondbacks usually won’t outslug the Phillies, so when they get runners on, they need to do their best to beat Philadelphia and better embody the word they’ve embraced all year: chaos.
Jesse Rogers: Learn from Games 1 and 2. It has to mean something having been through it already. Really, it all comes down to Merrill Kelly. The D-backs have been down early in games way too often in this series. This isn’t the Milwaukee Brewers they’re playing here. Kelly has to give them three to five solid innings in Game 6, and then Arizona’s lefty relievers simply have to shut down some of the best left-handed sluggers on the planet. If ever the cliché “one inning at a time” applies, it’s now. And it starts with Kelly.
How should the Phillies set up their bullpen for the rest of this series?
Schoenfield: It seems pretty clear that Craig Kimbrel has probably pitched himself out of high-leverage situations. It’s not just that he lost Games 3 and 4 with poor outings, but even including four earlier scoreless appearances in the postseason, he has induced just nine swinging strikes out of 111 pitches, a very low total for a high-leverage reliever. Rob Thomson still has plenty of good options, though, and he’ll rely on Jeff Hoffman and lefties Matt Strahm and Jose Alvarado as his top three guys, with Seranthony Dominguez and Gregory Soto as deeper reserves. That’s still a lot of depth to deploy.
Thomson should use Alvarado and Hoffman against the top half of the order, matching up lefties with Carroll as he’s been doing, and use them as needed based on the situation and allow Strahm or Soto to close if necessary. A good manager is flexible with the bullpen, and Thomson should proceed with closer-by-committee at this point. That group has been good this postseason: In 25 innings, just one home run and five runs allowed.
Passan: With duct tape and superglue. Yes, Kimbrel and Orion Kerkering would be going on two days’ rest if they take the mound in Game 6, but does Rob Thomson trust either? If not, it’s likely going to be the Aaron Nola Show for as long as possible, with Hoffman entering if a leverage situation reveals itself early — Thomson has used him in a fireman role — and likely a heavy dose of Alvarado in the late innings.
Thomson seems to trust left-hander Strahm and right-hander Dominguez, so if he needs to match up, he’s got options. But the prospect of throwing Taijuan Walker or Michael Lorenzen for the first time this postseason in Game 6 of the NLCS seems reserved for only if they’re behind and need innings eaten to preserve those in the circle of trust for a potential Game 7. Ranger Suarez, the projected starter for a Tuesday game, is not an option out of the bullpen in Game 6, Thomson said Sunday.
Rogers: Unlike the Diamondbacks’ bullpen, the Phillies don’t have to play the matchup game all that often. Other than perhaps making sure Carroll faces Alvarado or Strahm, Thomson can deploy his righties as he sees fit while staying away from Kimbrel. And frankly, if there’s a time to send Walker or Lorenzen to the mound, it should come in Game 6. Not that the Phillies can mess around, but it seems like Thomson has missed an opportunity or two to utilize them so far. He wouldn’t have that luxury in a win-or-go-home Game 7, but with a one-game cushion, it’s a possibility — especially if Aaron Nola has a shorter-than-expected start. Kerkering could probably use a high-leverage moment off as well. Otherwise, it’ll be Hoffman, Dominguez, Strahm and Alvarado to bring home the pennant.
Texas Rangers at Houston Astros
ALCS Game 7, 8:03 p.m. ET (Max Scherzer vs. Cristian Javier)
What will be Bruce Bochy’s plan for his pitchers?
Bradford Doolittle: Nathan Eovaldi getting into the seventh on Sunday was huge as it allowed Bruce Bochy to deploy his standard late-inning contingent without overextending any of them. Now for Game 7, he hopes to do the same thing — only the path from Inning 1 to Inning 7 is likely to be less clear than letting Eovaldi roll three times through the Houston lineup. Max Scherzer will be on a short leash, and even if he’s on — around his typical velo, with a better slider than in Game 3 — you’d think 80-85 pitches would be his ceiling.
Bochy has a number of rested options to get from Scherzer to his high-leverage crew. Sorting out who matches up best with who, well, that’s an open question, but it’s one that Bochy has answered correctly so many times during his playoff career. If Scherzer’s outing is short, then it gets dicey and Bochy will have to get multiple innings from someone, whether it’s Cody Bradford, Martin Perez, Jon Gray or somebody else. Gray, for one, is someone I thought might play a little more of a role than he has in the ALCS, so maybe Game 7 will be his time.
Alden Gonzalez: That top of the ninth, when Adolis Garcia hit the grand slam that sent Astros fans filing for the exits, was one of the best things that could have happened for the Rangers — it meant Jose Leclerc didn’t have to return for the bottom half to record three more outs. It has become increasingly clear as this postseason has played out that Bochy doesn’t trust much of his bullpen. It was never more evident than in Game 6, when he had Eovaldi begin to tackle the Astros’ lineup a fourth time and then turned to Josh Sborz and Leclerc for the rest of the game (not even using Aroldis Chapman to face Yordan Alvarez). Leclerc and Sborz will probably be counted on heavily again in Game 7. And if the Rangers need a big out against Alvarez, it’ll be interesting to see whether Bochy turns to fellow lefty Jordan Montgomery, who started Game 5 — recording 16 outs and throwing 82 pitches — but could technically make a relief appearance rather than his typical between-starts bullpen session.
Buster Olney: It’s true, the circle of trust for Rangers manager Bruce Bochy seems to be small, and what occurred in Game 6 really sets him up well to respond if Scherzer struggles. If he needs to summon a reliever mid-inning, maybe he calls on Sborz. If he needs a reliever to face Kyle Tucker, maybe that’ll be Chapman. If he needs multiple innings, he could give Jordan Montgomery the ball at the start of an inning after Scherzer departs. And it seems Bochy will not hesitate to use Leclerc for three to six outs, either — and keep in mind that no manager has manipulated a bullpen with more success over the past 15 years than Bochy.
Can the Astros turn around their offensive woes at home?
Doolittle: They can — but their home offensive woes don’t really make any sense, so who knows? There are a lot of struggling hitters in Houston’s lineup right now, which makes it a lot easier to navigate if you can survive the Jose Altuve–Alex Bregman-Alvarez gauntlet. I’m guessing we’ll see a tight game that will be decided by two or three key sequences, as most postseason games are. But these being the Astros, would we really be shocked if they hang five runs on Scherzer right off the bat and roll on from there? I just don’t think Houston’s bizarre home-road inversion is anything more than an interesting fluke. Still, the way these teams are coming out of Game 6, the Rangers seem more explosive right now. Houston needs to change this narrative, whether it’s real or not.
Gonzalez: It’s more so about certain hitters getting right for the Astros — and nobody represents that better than Kyle Tucker, who will get some down-ballot MVP love this year but has struggled mightily throughout the postseason, with five hits in 35 at-bats and one RBI through 10 games. Tucker, Jeremy Pena and Martin Maldonado — the Nos. 6, 8 and 9 hitters in the Astros’ Game 6 lineup, respectively — have combined to slash .165/.277/.206 in these playoffs and have accumulated eight hits in 56 at-bats in this series, only two of them for extra bases. The Astros need more production from the bottom half of their lineup. But Tucker is the one who can change the dynamic of their offense. And one at-bat in Game 6 might have provided a window into his confidence at the moment. There were runners on first and second with none out, with the Astros trailing by two, and Tucker squared to bunt for a hit on the first pitch from Eovaldi, whom he had already seen twice. The next pitch produced a half-swing that resulted in a harmless ground out. This is far from the Tucker who surged through the summer — but it can turn at any minute.
Olney: Scherzer believes that his slider was better than portrayed in Game 3, but the bottom line is that if he does not have that pitch, he will be extremely vulnerable to the Houston hitters, who figure to be very aggressive against him. Regardless of Scherzer’s feel, the Rangers will be very wary of Altuve, Bregman and Alvarez, so there will likely be some opportunity for those who follow them: The key hitters in this lineup might turn out to be Jose Abreu and Tucker. Tucker has gotten some hits and drawn some walks in this series, but he hasn’t looked at all close to the sort of confident, dangerous hitter that he was during the regular season. As Dusty Baker has said, that could all change with one swing.
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Sports
First impressions from the Athletics’ new home opener
Published
55 mins agoon
April 4, 2025By
admin
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Tim KeownApr 3, 2025, 12:45 PM ET
Close- Senior Writer for ESPN The Magazine
- Columnist for ESPN.com
- Author of five books (3 NYT best-sellers)
A local television news crew was stationed outside the Sawyer Hotel in downtown Sacramento on Sunday night, ready to catch every nuance of the magical moment the bleary-eyed Chicago Cubs stepped off their bus to enter the lobby. This was the first time a major league baseball team had arrived in Sacramento to play a legally sanctioned regular-season game, and no story was too small. If you ever wondered what Ian Happ looks like walking toward a hotel and being surprised by the presence of a camera and a reporter, CBS-13 was the channel for you.
“That was different,” Cubs pitcher Matthew Boyd said. “But it’s the first time a big league team has come to Sacramento, and they’re excited. Baseball’s that cool thing that brings everyone together.”
It was quite a week for Sacramento — more specifically, West Sacramento, the place with the street signs declaring it “The Baseball Side of the River.” It got to host the first three games of the Athletics’ expected three-season interregnum between Oakland and Las Vegas, and it got to call a big league team its own, even if the team has decided to declare itself simply the Athletics, a geographically nonspecific generic version of a Major League Baseball team.
It’s tough to explain the vibe at Sutter Health Park for the first series. It looked like big league baseball and sounded like big league baseball; it just didn’t feel like big league baseball. The crowds were mostly sedate, maybe because there’s room for only about 14,000 fans, and maybe because the Athletics were outscored 35-9 over the course of the three games, the first and third of which could have been stopped for humanitarian reasons.
This is a team that is supposed to be better this season, and three games shouldn’t change that expectation. It spent some money nobody knew it had on a free agent contract for Luis Severino and extensions for Brent Rooker and Lawrence Butler, moves that assured a payroll high enough to abide by the revenue-sharing rules of the collective bargaining agreement, but moves that improved the team nonetheless. (You’ve got to spend money to make money is an adage that, for the first time, appealed to owner John Fisher.) The A’s have a universally respected manager in Mark Kotsay, several promising young players from recent drafts and the confidence that came from playing really good baseball over last season’s second half. There is a creeping suspicion that they could be building something that could make West Sacramento proud.
It’s a long, maybe even interminable season that will contain every iteration of peak and valley. Three games can end up being the equivalent of one breath over the course of a lifetime. But still, it’s impossible to deny the Athletics brought back a lot of their old classics for their Sacramento debut: They walked 10 batters in Monday night’s home opener; they kicked the ball around enough for four unearned runs in three games; they walked seven more Wednesday afternoon. The crowds were mostly quiet; the numerous Cubs fans were noisy until it felt mean, but the A’s fans, when they found something cheer-worthy, reacted as if they were cheering for someone else’s kid at a piano recital. As first impressions go, it could have been better.
The A’s players, in their defense, are going through an adjustment period. When I asked closer Mason Miller how he likes Sacramento, he starts counting on his fingers and says, “I’ve literally spent five nights here.” They’re young, wealthy and accustomed to living in a new place every season as they progress through the minor leagues, and they’re trying to view their new home as an opportunity to bond over experiencing something together for the first time.
“We’re all new here,” rookie second baseman Max Muncy says, “so even though I’m a rookie, I can earn some cred if I find a good restaurant and let everyone know.” I mention the toughest reservation in town, a Michelin-starred, fixed-price restaurant less than 2 miles away.
“That sounds like a two-month wait,” he says.
“Not if you tell them who you are,” I joke.
“Yeah, I can’t imagine doing that,” he says. “Besides, if I say, ‘Max Muncy,’ when I show up they’ll say, ‘Oh great, we got this one.'”
The A’s bigger concern is playing the next three seasons in a minor league ballpark and sharing it with a minor league team, the Triple-A Sacramento River Cats. It’s kind of like a senior rooming with a freshman; the senior has dibs on just about everything, but he still has to deal with the roommate. For the A’s, that means wondering how the field will hold up over the course of the 155 games it’ll wear this season, and figuring out how to cope with having a clubhouse beyond the outfield wall, disconnected from the dugout.
Severino made his first home start for the A’s on Tuesday night, and he had to tweak his routine to account for the new reality: Once he left the clubhouse, there was no going back. It was cold and windy, so he had to make sure his jacket made it to the dugout with him. The notes he likes to reference during the game had to be there, too. His usual practice of popping into the clubhouse to watch the game on television while his team hits (“It looks easier and more fun on TV,” he says with a laugh) is on hold for home starts for the foreseeable future. He had to sit there with his teammates whether he pitched well or not — on Tuesday: not — and know that every one of his emotions would be picked up by at least five cameras.
“You just have to stick it out,” Severino says. “You can’t have all the stuff you have in a normal stadium. When you go out there, you have to bring everything with you. You have to try to stay warm and find out a different routine. It’s not the same, but the thing is, it doesn’t matter because it’s happening, and we need to get used to it. Just treat it like spring training, because it feels like spring training.”
Players coming off the bench to pinch-hit or play defense have nowhere to get loose. In any other park, they’d jump into the cage behind the dugout and take some swings or stretch out and run a few sprints. Here, they have to do whatever they can do within the confines of the dugout. “Just do some arm circles and maybe run in place,” Cubs infielder Jon Berti says. “Make it old-school.”
Just one of the three games sold out, an unexpected development after months of civic backslapping and grand proclamations about Sacramento cementing its status as a major league city. Tickets for Wednesday’s game, which drew 9,342 fans, were selling on the secondary market for $20 about 30 minutes before first pitch. The A’s have the highest median ticket prices — $181 — in baseball, according to data compiled by the ticket app Gametime. The idea was to employ the time-honored scarcity=demand concept to seize maximum profits from minimal opportunities, but one sellout — the opener, which also included roughly 2,000 comped tickets — in the first three games shows the A’s remain capable of straining even the most fundamental economic concepts.
It’s probably not fair to judge Sacramento’s worth as a baseball town based on its willingness to support a team that won’t be identified by the city’s name during its time here. And it’s definitely not fair to judge a region based on the number of fans eager to hand money to an owner who pulled the team out of Oakland after 57 years and is on his way to Las Vegas.
In the days after Kings/River Cats owner Vivek Ranadive joined with Fisher to bring the A’s to Sacramento, someone identified to me as “as Sacramento as it gets” sent a text that illustrates the conflict that lives within the Sacramento sports fan:
So many thoughts as I’ve been following this:
1) I hate it in that we are just bailing out Fisher
2) I hate that we are basically acting as Seattle a decade ago with regards to the Kings and poached the A’s away from Oakland. That’s an awful feeling I wish on no one
3) I am interested to see if this actually goes anywhere other than just bailing out Fisher for 3 years while he waits out whatever magic is gonna happen in LV
4) Reeeeeally wish Vivek read the room on this one
5) We could buy $30 lawn seats and catch a ball from Mike Trout or even better, [Austin] Slater, on a Wednesday night in Sac. That would be wild
The A’s are quick to point out that there weren’t many crowds of 10,000 on Tuesday nights in Oakland. (There was just one last year, during the final homestand of the season.) Still, Sacramento is a city attempting to use this three- to four-year run to audition for its own big league team. And if the A’s can’t sell out a minor league stadium in an area with established fans of the team, what does that foretell for their eventual move to Las Vegas, where the team is forecasting sellout crowds, including nearly 5,000 tourists per game — in a 33,000-seat stadium in an area with no connection to the A’s?
But that’s someone else’s problem, some other day. Three trips this week to Sutter Health — Sunday for the River Cats, Monday and Wednesday for the A’s — was a chance to watch big league baseball in a quaint, intimate ballpark. I thought it might be like venturing back in time, maybe what it felt like to watch a Philadelphia A’s game in 1907 at Columbia Park if Columbia Park had a state-of-the-art video screen that looks like an 86-inch television hanging from the wall of a studio apartment. This would be baseball back when games were just games and big league ballparks didn’t feel obligated to stock luxury suites with $300 cabernet and fist-sized prawns. Back to when every concession stand sold pretty much the same thing (at Sutter Health, each vendor has a set menu and one or two “specialty” items, like the pizza at Pizza & Pints) and fans could bring a chair or sit on the grass out in right field and dream of Mike Trout or Austin Slater.
Its charms are undeniable, but sustainable? The workers in the ballpark are all genial and helpful, thrilled with having major league baseball in their humble yard, but maybe we should check back in August. At the River Cats’ game Sunday, I spoke with an employee working in the team store who laid out the process of turning it from a River Cats’ store to an Athletics’ store over the course of roughly 24 hours. Starting at 5 p.m. Sunday, three overlapping shifts worked through the night and well into Monday, folding and packing and hauling out all the minor league gear, storing it somewhere she isn’t privy to, while hauling in all the big league gear, unpacking it, unfolding it and displaying it nicely enough that someone might feel compelled to forfeit $134.99 for an authentic JJ Bleday jersey.
As she detailed the process, and the time constraints, knowing this River Cats-to-A’s and vice versa conga will take place roughly every 10 days to two weeks over the next six months, I was beginning to feel stressed just looking at every cap, sock, T-shirt, bobblehead, Dinger the mascot doll and performance men’s half-zip pullover sweatshirt that awaited their attention.
“Will it get done?” I asked her.
She laughed.
“I guess it has to,” she said, “but I’m off tomorrow.”
And poof, just as there was no sign of the A’s on Sunday, there was no sign of the River Cats on Monday. Everything brick red and gold was replaced by something kelly green and gold. Even the sign proclaiming Sacramento’s Triple-A championships was replaced by one proclaiming the A’s nine World Series wins, five in Philadelphia and four in Oakland. But, like everything else involving the 2025 Athletics, there is no geographic designation. As the A’s know better than most, you are where you are until you’re where you want to be.
Sports
What are torpedo bats? Are they legal? What to know about MLB’s hottest trend
Published
7 hours agoon
April 3, 2025By
admin
The opening weekend of the 2025 MLB season was taken over by a surprise star — torpedo bats.
The bowling pin-shaped bats became the talk of the sport after the Yankees’ home run onslaught on the first Saturday of the season put it in the spotlight and the buzz hasn’t slowed since.
What exactly is a torpedo bat? How does it help hitters? And how is it legal? Let’s dig in.
Read: An MIT-educated professor, the Yankees and the bat that could be changing baseball
What is a torpedo bat and why is it different from a traditional MLB bat?
The idea of the torpedo bat is to take a size format — say, 34 inches and 32 ounces — and distribute the wood in a different geometric shape than the traditional form to ensure the fattest part of the bat is located where the player makes the most contact. Standard bats taper toward an end cap that is as thick diametrically as the sweet spot of the barrel. The torpedo bat moves some of the mass on the end of the bat about 6 to 7 inches lower, giving it a bowling-pin shape, with a much thinner end.
How does it help hitters?
The benefits for those who like swinging with it — and not everyone who has swung it likes it — are two-fold. Both are rooted in logic and physics. The first is that distributing more mass to the area of most frequent contact aligns with players’ swing patterns and provides greater impact when bat strikes ball. Players are perpetually seeking ways to barrel more balls, and while swings that connect on the end of the bat and toward the handle probably will have worse performance than with a traditional bat, that’s a tradeoff they’re willing to make for the additional slug. And as hitters know, slug is what pays.
The second benefit, in theory, is increased bat speed. Imagine a sledgehammer and a broomstick that both weigh 32 ounces. The sledgehammer’s weight is almost all at the end, whereas the broomstick’s is distributed evenly. Which is easier to swing fast? The broomstick, of course, because shape of the sledgehammer takes more strength and effort to move. By shedding some of the weight off the end of the torpedo bat and moving it toward the middle, hitters have found it swings very similarly to a traditional model but with slightly faster bat velocity.
Why did it become such a big story so early in the 2025 MLB season?
Because the New York Yankees hit nine home runs in a game Saturday and Michael Kay, their play-by-play announcer, pointed out that some of them came from hitters using a new bat shape. The fascination was immediate. While baseball, as an industry, has implemented forward-thinking rules in recent seasons, the modification to something so fundamental and known as the shape of a bat registered as bizarre. The initial response from many who saw it: How is this legal?
OK. How is this legal?
Major League Baseball’s bat regulations are relatively permissive. Currently, the rules allow for a maximum barrel diameter of 2.61 inches, a maximum length of 42 inches and a smooth and round shape. The lack of restrictions allows MLB’s authorized bat manufacturers to toy with bat geometry and for the results to still fall within the regulations.
Who came up with the idea of using them?
The notion of a bowling-pin-style bat has kicked around baseball for years. Some bat manufacturers made smaller versions as training tools. But the version that’s now infiltrating baseball goes back two years when a then-Yankees coach named Aaron Leanhardt started asking hitters how they should counteract the giant leaps in recent years made by pitchers.
When Yankees players responded that bigger barrels would help, Leanhardt — an MIT-educated former Michigan physics professor who left academia to work in the sports industry — recognized that as long as bats stayed within MLB parameters, he could change their geometry to make them a reality. Leanhardt, who left the Yankees to serve as major league field coordinator for the Miami Marlins over the winter, worked with bat manufacturers throughout the 2023 and 2024 seasons to make that a reality.
When did it first appear in MLB games?
It’s unclear specifically when. But Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton used a torpedo bat last year and went on a home run-hitting rampage in October that helped send the Yankees to the World Series. New York Mets star Francisco Lindor also used a torpedo-style bat last year and went on to finish second in National League MVP voting.
Who are some of the other notable early users of torpedo bats?
In addition to Stanton and Lindor, Yankees hitters Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt have used torpedoes to great success. Others who have used them in games include Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero, Minnesota’s Ryan Jeffers and Toronto’s Davis Schneider. And that’s just the beginning. Hundreds more players are expected to test out torpedoes — and perhaps use them in games — in the coming weeks.
How is this different from a corked bat?
Corking bats involves drilling a hole at the end of the bat, filling it in and capping it. The use of altered bats allows players to swing faster because the material with which they replace the wood — whether it’s cork, superballs or another material — is lighter. Any sort of bat adulteration is illegal and, if found, results in suspension.
Could a rule be changed to ban them?
Could it happen? Sure. Leagues and governing bodies have put restrictions on equipment they believe fundamentally altered fairness. Stick curvature is limited in hockey. Full-body swimsuits made of polyurethane and neoprene are banned by World Aquatics. But officials at MLB have acknowledged that the game’s pendulum has swung significantly toward pitching in recent years, and if an offensive revolution comes about because of torpedo bats — and that is far from a guarantee — it could bring about more balance to the game. If that pendulum swings too far, MLB could alter its bat regulations, something it has done multiple times already this century.
So the torpedo bat is here to stay?
Absolutely. Bat manufacturers are cranking them out and shipping them to interested players with great urgency. Just how widely the torpedo bat is adopted is the question that will play out over the rest of the season. But it has piqued the curiosity of nearly every hitter in the big leagues, and just as pitchers toy with new pitches to see if they can marginally improve themselves, hitters will do the same with bats.
Comfort is paramount with a bat, so hitters will test them during batting practice and in cage sessions before unleashing them during the game. As time goes on, players will find specific shapes that are most comfortable to them and best suit their swing during bat-fitting sessions — similar to how golfers seek custom clubs. But make no mistake: This is an almost-overnight alteration of the game, and “traditional or torpedo” is a question every big leaguer going forward will ask himself.
Sports
St. Pete to spend $22.5M to fix Tropicana Field
Published
7 hours agoon
April 3, 2025By
admin
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Associated Press
Apr 3, 2025, 12:48 PM ET
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — The once and possibly future home of the Tampa Bay Rays will get a new roof to replace the one shredded by Hurricane Milton with the goal of having the ballpark ready for the 2026 season, city officials decided in a vote Thursday.
The St. Petersburg City Council voted 7-1 to approve $22.5 million to begin the repairs at Tropicana Field, which will start with a membrane roof that must be in place before other work can continue. Although the Rays pulled out of a planned $1.3 billion new stadium deal, the city is still contractually obligated to fix the Trop.
“We are legally bound by an agreement. The agreement requires us to fix the stadium,” said council member Lissett Hanewicz, who is an attorney. “We need to go forward with the roof repair so we can do the other repairs.”
The hurricane damage forced the Rays to play home games this season at Steinbrenner Field across the bay in Tampa, the spring training home of the New York Yankees. The Rays went 4-2 on their first homestand ever at an open-air ballpark, which seats around 11,000 fans.
Under the current agreement with the city, the Rays owe three more seasons at the Trop once it’s ready again for baseball, through 2028. It’s unclear if the Rays will maintain a long-term commitment to the city or look to Tampa or someplace else for a new stadium. Major League Baseball has said keeping the team in the Tampa Bay region is a priority. The Rays have played at the Trop since their inception in 1998.
The team said it would have a statement on the vote later Thursday.
The overall cost of Tropicana Field repairs is estimated at $56 million, said city architect Raul Quintana. After the roof, the work includes fixing the playing surface, ensuring audio and visual electronics are working, installing flooring and drywall, getting concession stands running and other issues.
“This is a very complex project. We feel like we’re in a good place,” Quintana said at the council meeting Thursday.
Under the proposed timeline, the roof installation will take about 10 months. The unique membrane system is fabricated in Germany and assembled in China, Quintana said, adding that officials are examining how President Donald Trump’s new tariffs might affect the cost.
The new roof, he added, will be able to withstand hurricane winds as high as 165 mph. Hurricane Milton, one of the strongest hurricanes ever in the Atlantic basin at one point, blasted ashore Oct. 9 south of Tampa Bay with Category 3 winds of about 125 mph.
Citing mounting costs, the Rays last month pulled out of a deal with the city and Pinellas County for a new $1.3 billion ballpark to be built near the Trop site. That was part of a broader $6.5 billion project known as the Historic Gas Plant district to bring housing, retail and restaurants, arts and a Black history museum to a once-thriving Black neighborhood razed for the original stadium.
The city council plans to vote on additional Trop repair costs over the next few months.
“This is our contractual obligation. I don’t like it more than anybody else. I’d much rather be spending that money on hurricane recovery and helping residents in the most affected neighborhoods,” council member Brandi Gabbard said. “These are the cards that we’re dealt.”
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Bank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway