NASA, college football and the UCF-Houston battle for the skies
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Dave Wilson
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Dave Wilson
ESPN Staff Writer
- Dave Wilson is an editor for ESPN.com since 2010. He previously worked at The Dallas Morning News, San Diego Union-Tribune and Las Vegas Sun.
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Ryan McGee
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Ryan McGee
ESPN Senior Writer
- Senior writer for ESPN The Magazine and ESPN.com
- 2-time Sports Emmy winner
- 2010, 2014 NMPA Writer of the Year
ON A WARM September night last year, after a 27-10 UCF win over Georgia Tech, the crowd hung around to see something that only happens at the Bounce House.
Shortly after the game ended, a SpaceX Falcon 9 lifted off from the Kennedy Space Center, about 35 miles due east from campus in Cape Canaveral, Florida, at NASA’s Launch Complex 39A.
Fans in the stadium got a perfect view of the launch because, by design, UCF’s 50-yard-line sits on the same latitude as the launch pad. As Elton John’s “Rocket Man” played over the stadium speakers, the video board showed a close-up of the spacecraft as it left the Earth’s atmosphere, with fans cheering along. Just another day at SpaceU.
UCF is all-in on space. Founded in 1963 as Florida Technological University with the motto “Reach For The Stars,” it opened in 1968 with an emphasis on providing talent for America’s ambitious space program. Now, with UCF grads making up about 30% of all Kennedy Space Center employees, the university is proudly touting its space connections.
To celebrate that legacy, the football team has played a wildly popular “Space Game” every year since 2017, featuring alternate uniforms with their own distinct color — called Canaveral Blue to reflect the coastal skies and water — and a small nod to the school’s original mascot, the Citronaut, a Florida orange wearing a space suit. It’s one of the coolest modern traditions in college football.
But it did raise the eyebrows of a new conference foe.
“Some blue unis … Some Space City thing,” Houston coach Dana Holgorsen said last week during his radio show. “I thought we were Space City.”
Houston, which is playing its first season in the Big 12 alongside UCF, represents a city that has long taken pride in its role as NASA’s nerve center at Johnson Space Center. Around the same time that UCF was being constructed, Houston was building the Astrodome, home to the Astros and another newfangled invention, Astroturf. (The Houston Rockets were actually named while the franchise was based in San Diego, oddly enough.)
So you’ll forgive Holgorsen if he needs to be educated when he’s told that UCF’s claim as a space hub is due to its proximity to NASA’s Launch Control Center, when Houston is home to Mission Control, the site of one of the most famous lines in the history of the space race.
“They don’t say ‘Orlando, we’ve got a problem,'” Holgorsen said.
With the upcoming departures of Texas and Oklahoma, two of the most storied teams in college football, the Big 12 is desperately in need of some new squabbles. Arizona and Arizona State will arrive next year with the Territorial Cup on the line. BYU, a new addition this year, will reunite with Utah next year in a rivalry that’s been played 101 times.
But while UCF and Houston might not ever become a heated rivalry due to their geographic separation on Earth, there’s a whole other frontier in the heavens. There is real school pride at stake. UCF fans are still rolling their eyes over the short-lived so-called “Civil ConFLiCT” that was forced upon them by UConn and essentially ended when the trophy went missing after two games.
While Houston and UCF have played each other 10 times, none before 2005, this one means something due to their connective tissue with the space program, not to mention they’re now conference opponents.
“We’re embracing it now,” UCF coach Gus Malzahn said earlier this year. “Every one of our roads on campus is named after a galaxy. The first month I got the job, I actually spoke to NASA on leadership and they had me Zoomed in to both groups [in Florida and Texas].”
And the eye in the sky is watching them as well.
“NASA has Space Act agreements with both schools,” said Wayne Saxer, the agency’s lead for sports engagement. “We work collaboratively with universities nationwide that bring innovative solutions and fresh perspectives to some of our biggest challenges.”
To celebrate both schools’ roles supporting America’s space agency, NASA flew a newly minted medallion featuring the logos of each school on opposing sides on CRS-29, a SpaceX mission to the International Space Station a couple of months ago.
Launched from Florida, guided by Houston, the medallion will come back to Earth, where it will be framed and presented to the winning team.
Welcome to the Space Wars.
THE TENSION BETWEEN the folks in Houston and Orlando nearly predates the cities themselves. It reaches back almost a century before the United States entered space with the launch of the Explorer I satellite on February 1, 1958, from Cape Canaveral Launch Complex 26.
In 1865, Jules Verne published “From the Earth to the Moon”, a tale of post-Civil War Americans who construct a spacecraft and launching device to fling a trio of travelers off this mortal coil and toward our nearest celestial neighbor. The French novelist was renowned for his imagination, but also for the research that kept his stories rooted in fact. He always included just the right amount of actual science to make his fantastical fiction seem plausible.
The book’s 10th chapter is titled “Florida and Texas.” Why? Because Verne predicted that the best location for a launch site would be between the equator and the 28th parallel, keeping it best in line with the Moon’s orbital path. Plus, the launch site would need to be built alongside a large body of water, so that debris wouldn’t fall into populated areas in the case of an accident.
With all that in mind, Verne writes about sparring would-be locations in Galveston Bay and “Tampa Town,” complete with lobbying of the government to land the launch pad, protests and rallies in the streets and barbs publicly traded between the two states.
Verne imagined Florida newspapers writing of Texas: “A fine bay; half-choked with sand!” And Texas responding: “Choked yourselves!”
Everything Verne wrote from his home in northern France became a reality nearly 100 years later and 5,000 miles away. NASA was founded after that Explorer I launch and established its primary launch location at the Cape, where the first version of Mission Control was housed in bunkers around the spaceport.
“It was basically a bunch of monitors and microphones in a pillbox,” John Glenn, an original seven Mercury astronaut-turned-U.S. Senator, recalled in 2014. “When we were assigned to CapCom, to talk to our colleague inside the spacecraft, to be in there at the Cape and feel those rockets going up right there and then in front of you, it was remarkable on every level. But it was cramped for space. And yes, I realize the irony of using that word just now.”
On Sept. 12, 1962, John F. Kennedy doubled down on a challenge that he had first pitched to a joint session of Congress one year earlier, that an American should set foot on the Moon before decade’s end. He said those words — in Houston — while standing on the field at Rice Stadium, famously adding: “But why, some say, the Moon? Why choose this as our goal? And they may well ask, why climb the highest mountain? Why, 35 years ago, fly the Atlantic? Why does Rice play Texas? … We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
Once Kennedy announced his moonshot, a literal overnight fight began regarding the location of NASA’s new HQ, the spot for Mission Control. Those already living in Florida believed it should stay there — NASA could simply construct some new buildings — but they found themselves battling dozens of cities for NASA’s favor. Cities from St. Louis to Langley, Virginia, to San Francisco to Shreveport, Louisiana, submitted HQ proposals.
“My favorite was Bogalusa, Louisiana,” says Rick Houston, NASCAR sportswriter-turned-NASA historian and co-author of “Go, Flight! The Unsung Heroes of Mission Control.” “Can you imagine that one? ‘Bogalusa, we’ve have a problem.'”
As part of the region’s push to prove its worthiness, Florida governor Farris Bryant signed into law Senate Bill No. 125, creating a new state university in east central Florida with the goal of supporting the Cape. The school was named Florida Tech, and though it had no sports teams yet, it did have a mascot, a helmet-wearing Jetsons-inspired spaceman with a Florida orange for a body. They called him the Citronaut.
“I love the Citronaut,” confesses Tennessee athletic director Danny White, who served in the same capacity at the school Florida Tech became, UCF, from 2015 to 2021. White, who moved his office into the football stadium where he could watch rocket launches going up from the Cape, greenlit the Citronaut’s return for UCF’s first Space Games in 2018 and ’19. “The instant you see him, you feel like you’re back in the 1960’s Space Age.”
The end result was a punt. Launch operations would remain at the Cape and with it Launch Control at Kennedy Space Center. But that setup didn’t last for long. Beginning with the Gemini 4 flight of June 1965, communication and control shifted to Mission Control, located on the seemingly endless grounds of Johnson Space Center in Clear Lake, Texas, directly in between Houston and Jules Verne’s Galveston Bay. What made the shift happen? A lot of, well, space that was handed to NASA for free via a donation by the same school where JFK’s speech is still memorialized on a plaque that hangs in the stadium where JT Daniels will spend his weekend fighting for a sixth win and bowl eligibility against Florida Atlantic.
“I mean, I don’t want to rain on anyone’s parade here, but if we are talking about space schools, then there’s really one, right?” astronaut Shannon Walker half-joked earlier this year. Walker is a Houston native who has spent 330 days in orbit and holds three degrees from Rice, one of the school’s 13 astronauts. “Go Owls.”
When asked if there is still beef between the Cape and Houston about the decision to move Mission Control west, Rick Houston audibly huffs. “When I was working on my book and interviewing all of the NASA legends, the Florida guys all said the same thing to me. ‘Now, when are you going to write a book about the real Mission Control?'”
HOUSTON, OF COURSE, has a problem with this.
For more than 50 years, the university system has partnered with NASA, including creating a campus in Clear Lake adjacent to Johnson Space Center since its opening in 1961 “to meet a vital demand for trained engineers, physicists and mathematicians to join the U.S. space program,” according to the university.
Last year, Houston chancellor Renu Khator signed an extension with NASA for all the system’s universities to extend a partnership to “advance human spaceflight.”
“Houston is ‘Space City,’ so it’s important for students and faculty in relevant disciplines across the UH system to have opportunities to engage in and be exposed to real-world space flight-related research and technology development with NASA,” Khator said.
Dr. Olga Bannova, formerly an architect in Moscow, is the director of Houston’s Sasakawa Center for Space Architecture, the only master’s level program of its kind in the world.
“It’s obviously about human spaceflight, but also about psychology,” Dr. Bannova said. “It’s about understanding human needs and providing and thinking about the ways how we can make a human life not only sustainable in space, but also really rewarding, you know?”
One of those ways, Bannova says, is to provide “a complementary countermeasure against all these negative effects on the human physiology and psychology that’s associated with microgravity conditions.”
For those of us who don’t speak scientist, basically that means one component is the possibility of sports in space.
Adam Doll, one of Bannova’s graduate students, is already an engineer for NASA in Houston who does astronaut training and when he’s not pondering spacesuit development, is working on his master’s thesis on the idea of collaborative sports in some interstellar habitat. Nothing too rowdy. Think a collaborative rock climbing-type course with an objective to complete it as fast as possible. Not a future Cougars-Knights battle in the cosmos.
“You don’t want the games to get too competitive in space,” Doll said.
But down here, it’s all fair game.
“I don’t even know where UCF is, to be honest. And we have the astronauts in Houston,” Doll said. “That’s a big thing. They live here and train here. They just go out there [to Florida] to launch. I mean, they only use that every once in a while. Mission Control is manned 24/7. We always have people monitoring the space station.”
That would explain why legendary NASA flight director Gene Kranz, who oversaw the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs, including the first moon landing (and was portrayed by Ed Harris in “Apollo 13”), said the Florida-Texas grandstanding has evolved over the years.
“That may be a current-day rivalry, but that was not the case back through the programs that I supported,” Kranz, who is 90 and lives near Houston, said. “I think it may have come about once we started putting astronauts as center directors down at the Cape.”
No matter which side you’re on, the Knights are way ahead in embracing the SpaceU moniker. Every single sport at UCF has an alternate SpaceU/Citronauts jersey. And it’s good for business.
“Every year, people want to see when the first game is and then when the Space Game is,” said Jimmy Skiles, one of the senior athletic directors at UCF and the chief branding officer. “It’s become just this whole event in itself. I think we are the only college fan base in the country that is willing to accept an alternate mascot and alternate color and even an alternate name for the university — SpaceU — for a single game.”
It’s evident annually, seeing a split fan base wearing black and gold and another huge section of the stadium wearing blue, such as during the 45-3 upset of Oklahoma State two weeks ago.
“That’s never been one of our colors,” Skiles said. “It’s a color we created as part of our space brand. And yet we had 25,000 people wearing Canaveral Blue.” Skiles said eight of their top 10 best-selling merchandise items each year are all space-related.
The other thing fans love about the Space Game? UCF dominates every time. This year, a 4-5 UCF team that had just one Big 12 win crushed No. 15 OSU, moving to 7-0 all time in Space Games with a 202-point margin of victory. Fans switch from “Go Knights!” to “Go ‘Nauts!” for the annual event. It’s almost enough to start an identity crisis.
can ‘Naut lose
+202 point differential all-time in Space Games pic.twitter.com/MtdLIR5Kk5
— UCF Football (@UCF_Football) November 12, 2023
“Our whole fan base accepts the switch on the Space U/Citronauts thing, but so many people are like, ‘It’s time to rebrand to Citronauts full time,” Skiles said. “And then you have the Knights loyalists that are like, ‘Absolutely not, we are Knights. Our colors are black and gold.'”
Whatever they’re called, Houston isn’t giving up the Space City name, and UCF isn’t giving up the SpaceU name. And UCF is ready for Houston to hold up its end of the bargain in the burgeoning rivalry.
Skiles said in 2019, UCF approached UH to invite them to do their own alternate uniforms for UCFs’ Space Game when the Cougars visited Orlando. He knew he probably didn’t give Houston enough time to go all in, but he thought maybe they’d do a themed helmet, like UCF did with its hand-painted helmets resembling the moon’s dark and light sides, complete with craters.
“That was the 50th year of Apollo mission, the moon landing,” Skiles said. “We thought it’d be a really cool thing to have both of us do something. And it came game week and Houston didn’t do it.”
This time around, Houston is excited about visiting UCF as conference rivals, perhaps with a future trophy on the line.
“It is something we’re tracking on, trust me,” Houston athletic director Chris Pezman said. “It’s logical. It should have happened a long, long time ago. It’s something we’ve been working on for a few years. Now it’s time to get it going.”
Eric DeSalvo, UCF’s associate athletic director for content, remembers when he was a student at the school between 2005 and 2009 and could feel the ground rumble when space shuttles would launch at Canaveral. Seeing rockets launch from his own stadium never gets old, he said.
“It’s like a core memory you’ll always remember, being able to see a launch with thousands of your favorite fans,” DeSalvo said. “This season opener, we’re beating Kent State and right as the clock expired a [SpaceX] launch was going up. It’s so cool. It’s not every day you get to see that.”
So inside the building at UCF, they were excited to hear Holgorsen’s dig. It felt like liftoff for the two teams’ future in their own space race.
“Dana, where’s this been the whole time?” said Eric DeSalvo, UCF’s associate athletic director for content. “Why’d you wait until last week for that comment? We needed this.”
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Alden Gonzalez
Max Muncy returned to the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ lineup on Monday, Aaron Judge was back in the New York Yankees‘ batting order on Tuesday, and with that, the two teams that met in last year’s World Series — and had been underperforming to varying degrees in recent weeks — received valuable reinforcements for the stretch run.
They’re far from alone.
Now that the trade deadline has passed and less than two months remain in the regular season, contending teams throughout the sport are counting on key players returning from injury in the days and weeks ahead, hoping they might make the difference between missing out on October and winning it all. And given the landscape, which many consider as wide-open as ever, they just might.
Below is a look at some of the most impactful players on their way back.
Expected return date: The injury to Álvarez’s right hand has featured plenty of drama and required a lot of patience. The Astros initially diagnosed it as a muscle strain in early May and began the process of ramping him up by late June. Then came lingering pain, prompting a visit to a specialist and the revelation that the outfielder was dealing with a fractured bone. Perhaps, though, there is a light at the end of this tunnel. Álvarez resumed hitting off a tee and taking soft toss a couple weeks ago and hit on the field at the team’s spring training facility on Tuesday. The Astros are going to be really careful this time around, but there is hope he can help them down the stretch.
What he means to the team: The Astros lost Alex Bregman and Kyle Tucker over the offseason and have received just 121 plate appearances from Álvarez — and a paltry slash line of .210/.306/.340 — yet they’re on pace for their eighth American League West title in nine years. You would be hard-pressed to find a more impressive development this season. When healthy, Álvarez is on par with Judge and Shohei Ohtani among the game’s most imposing hitters. Given how well the Astros have pitched, plugging Álvarez back into the middle of their lineup — with an ascending Jeremy Peña, a better-of-late Jose Altuve and what they hope is a rejuvenated Carlos Correa — could put them in the conversation for the best team in the AL, if not all baseball.
Expected return date: Right-hander Assad, out all year with a left oblique injury he reaggravated around late April, made his third rehab start on Wednesday, looking sharp while pitching into the fifth inning. His next step could be joining the rotation. Taillon is right behind him. The 33-year-old right-hander has been dealing with a right calf strain for a little more than a month but pitched three innings in a Triple-A rehab start on Sunday. He gave up seven runs, but he also came out of it feeling healthy. That’s all that matters at this point. Cubs starters not named Matthew Boyd and Shota Imanaga have combined for a 4.63 ERA this season. And at this point, there is no outside help coming.
What they mean to the team: The Cubs did not land the controllable front-line starter they desired before the trade deadline. The starter they did acquire, Michael Soroka, pitched two innings in his debut on Monday, then landed on the injured list with right shoulder discomfort. Now, the Cubs need to make up for what they lack in their rotation internally. Assad fashioned a 3.73 ERA in 29 starts last year and was effective both out of the rotation and in the bullpen in 2023. Taillon, a proven innings eater who consistently pounds the strike zone, is probably as good a complement to Boyd and Imanaga as the Cubs can get.
Expected return date: Bieber, who had Tommy John surgery, has not taken the mound in a major league game since April 2, 2024, but the former Cy Young Award winner’s return is approaching. The right-hander made his fifth rehab start — and first since being acquired by the Blue Jays — on Sunday, striking out six batters across five innings. He’ll make another start on Saturday, then perhaps one more after that. Then the Blue Jays will see if they can get the front-line starter they envisioned when they unloaded promising pitching prospect Khal Stephen to pry Bieber from the Cleveland Guardians last week.
What he means to the team: The Blue Jays are counting on several offensive contributors returning in the not-too-distant future, including George Springer, Andrés Giménez and, they hope, Anthony Santander. But Bieber is the wild card. If he’s close to what he was even after winning the AL Cy Young Award in 2020 — a guy who put up a 3.13 ERA and struck out 459 batters in 436⅔ innings from 2021 to 2024 — he can join Kevin Gausman and José Berríos to form a really solid rotation trio in October. But the initial returns from Tommy John surgery can be tricky. Just ask Sandy Alcántara.
Expected return date: Bohm took a sinker to his left side on July 12 and later learned he had suffered a fractured rib, but the 29-year-old third baseman has been hitting ground balls and taking batting practice and will now venture out on a rehab assignment. He could return to the Phillies’ lineup this month. Nola went on the injured list for the first time in eight years because of a sprained right ankle in mid-May, then was diagnosed with a stress reaction in one of his ribs a month later. Now, Nola is finally on his way back. He went 3⅔ innings in his second rehab start on Wednesday and will make one or two more before rejoining the rotation.
What they mean to the team: Bohm and Nola have served as catalysts while these Phillies have ascended to near the top of the sport in recent years, and it’s hard not to see them having a massive say — good or bad — in October. The Phillies need them to be healthy, but they also need them to be better. Bohm was slugging just .391 before going down. Nola, meanwhile, carried a 6.16 ERA through his first nine starts — one year after receiving Cy Young votes. The Phillies’ rotation has been one of the game’s best this season, and it can handle an ineffective Nola if it absolutely has to. But the offense needs Bohm’s production.
Expected return date: Burger is navigating his second stint on the IL this season, this time because of a left quad strain, but he has played in a couple of rehab games and could return before the end of the Rangers’ current homestand. Carter, an outfielder, was shut down with back spasms on Saturday, and though there’s currently no reason to believe it’s a serious injury, it’s worrisome when you consider how back issues plagued him in 2024.
What they mean to the team: The 2025 Rangers do everything well except the one thing they felt they could do best: hit. And while the offense has been a lot better lately, the Rangers could use more production from Burger and Carter in hopes of grabbing a playoff spot in a wide-open AL. Burger has slashed just .228/.259/.401 in his first year in Texas, but could at the very least platoon with fellow first baseman Rowdy Tellez, who has been a godsend since signing a minor league deal in early July. Carter, a rookie sensation during the stretch run of the team’s championship season in 2023, was slashing just .238/.323/.381.
Expected return date: Gasser, the 26-year-old left-hander who excelled in his first five major league starts last year, is in the late stages of his recovery from Tommy John surgery. His fourth rehab start came Sunday, during which he threw 16 pitches in the game and 19 in the bullpen. The Brewers are building him back up as a starter, so he still needs to increase his pitch count. But he’s on track to join a loaded Brewers pitching staff before the end of August. So is rookie All-Star Jacob Misiorowski, who suffered a bruised left shin last week but isn’t expected to miss much more than the minimum amount of time. Outfielder Jackson Chourio, who landed on the IL with a hamstring strain last week, could be back by the end of the month, too.
What he means to the team: The Brewers acquired Gasser as part of the package that sent former closer Josh Hader to San Diego in summer 2022 and watched him shine as a rookie in 2024, putting up a 2.57 ERA with one walk in 28 innings. But then his ulnar collateral ligament gave out, triggering a long rehab that is finally reaching its conclusion. The Brewers see him as a starter long term, but there might not be room for him in the 2025 rotation. If that’s the case, he can be an impact lefty out of the bullpen. The Brewers acquired only one traditional reliever in Shelby Miller before the trade deadline, largely because they believe starters like Gasser, Chad Patrick and Tobias Myers can help them out of the bullpen when it matters most.
Expected return date: It has been a long, slow climb back for Greene and the right groin strain he suffered, for a second time, on June 3. The right-hander seemed to be approaching a return in July, but he experienced lingering pain and had to shut it down once more. Now, though, his return seems imminent. Greene navigated a third rehab start on Sunday, during which he struck out seven batters in 3⅓ innings, and is scheduled to ramp up to 80 pitches on Friday. After that, he could rejoin the rotation. With Nick Lodolo shut down with a blister that materialized on his left index finger in his Monday start, the Reds need Greene now more than ever.
What he means to the team: Here’s what Greene has done since the start of last July: 1.92 ERA, 0.86 WHIP, 133 strikeouts, 30 walks, 112⅔ innings. Those are the numbers of not just a traditional front-line starter, but of one of the best pitchers in the game. The Reds have hung around all year, getting better starting pitching than they probably anticipated, but less offense than they hoped. They’ve underperformed their projections, but they still sit just three games back of a playoff spot. Greene — and Lodolo, who might require only a minimum stint on the injured list — could make the difference.
Expected return date: For the better part of two months, questions swirled around the state of King’s health and whether he would pitch at all this season. The 30-year-old right-hander was dealing with a thoracic nerve issue in his right shoulder, an exceedingly rare injury for a pitcher. He simply had to wait for the pain to subside, with no idea when it would. Now, though, he is on the doorstep of returning to the major leagues. King threw 61 pitches in 3⅓ innings in a rehab start on Sunday, allowing six runs but also striking out five batters. His next start is expected to come this weekend against the Boston Red Sox.
What he means to the team: Padres general manager A.J. Preller put together an epic trade deadline, upgrading at catcher, adding two competent bats to the lineup and, most notably, landing another impact arm for the bullpen. His starting-pitching additions, though, were depth players; JP Sears and Nestor Cortes are not expected to make playoff starts. What the Padres need is for King — their Game 1 starter in last year’s postseason, their Opening Day starter this year and owner of a 2.59 ERA in his first 10 starts — to join Dylan Cease, Yu Darvish and Nick Pivetta in the rotation to truly make this one of the most well-rounded teams in the sport. It seems that will happen.
Expected return date: Kopech, nursing a right knee injury, has been throwing bullpen sessions and is expected to be activated once he’s eligible to come off the 60-day injured list in late August. Left-hander Scott, dealing with elbow inflammation, has also been throwing off a mound and doesn’t seem far off, either. Yates’ situation, though, is a little hazier. The 38-year-old right-hander had been dealing with lower back pain for a couple weeks before landing on the IL at the start of August. There is no timetable for his return, though it seems possible that he, too, can be back before the end of the month.
What they mean to the team: The Dodgers have once again absorbed a slew of injuries throughout their staff, having already deployed 38 pitchers — one year after setting a franchise record by using 40. Their bullpen has led the majors in innings for most of this season. At the deadline, though, the front office acted conservatively, adding just one bullpen arm, right-hander Brock Stewart, along with reserve outfielder Alex Call. The approach showed confidence in the arms the Dodgers have coming back, especially in the bullpen. But Scott and Yates, their two big offseason signings, have combined for a 4.21 ERA this season. Right-hander Kopech, meanwhile, has appeared in just eight games. They’ll have a lot to prove.
Expected return date: Optimism around Meadows emerged on Monday, with some light running in the outfield — a subtle sign he is progressing once again toward a rehab assignment. Meadows, 25, missed the first two months of the season with inflammation in his upper right arm that he later learned was a product of issues with his musculocutaneous nerve. He spent most of June and July in the lineup, then landed on the injured list once more, this time because of a right quad strain. The hope is that he can be back playing center field before the end of August.
What he means to the team: Meadows accumulated 11 outs above average in center field from 2023 to 2024 despite playing in only 119 games. In that stretch, he also stole 17 bases, provided a .729 OPS — with fairly even splits against lefties and righties — and accumulated 3.1 FanGraphs wins above replacement. As the Tigers march toward their first division title in 11 years and vie for a first-round bye, they find themselves longing for Meadows in several ways. The hope is that he’ll be a much better hitter than he showed earlier this season, when he slashed .200/.270/.296 in 137 plate appearances.
Expected return date: Megill has been absent from the Mets’ rotation since the middle of June because of a right elbow sprain but threw 20 pitches in a simulated game at Citi Field on Sunday. He is expected to extend to two innings in another session on Thursday. A rehab assignment will follow shortly thereafter, putting Megill on track to potentially rejoin the Mets’ rotation later this month. Megill was solid before going down, posting a 3.95 ERA in 14 starts, and the Mets’ rotation could really use some of that right now.
What he means to the team: When Megill got hurt on June 14, the Mets’ rotation easily led the majors with a 2.82 ERA. Since then, the group has posted a 5.12 ERA, ranked 26th. Lately, it has only gotten worse. The Mets have lost eight of their past nine games, and in that stretch, the starters have allowed 34 runs (32 earned) in 43⅔ innings. Sean Manaea, Frankie Montas, Clay Holmes and Kodai Senga have all had their struggles, to varying degrees, of late. And though Megill certainly can’t fix that alone, another capable starter would certainly be welcomed.
Expected return date: Miller, limited to just 10 starts this season, cruised through his first rehab start on Friday, tossing four scoreless innings, and is scheduled to stretch to five innings on Thursday. Given that he has gone on the IL because of right elbow inflammation twice this year, requiring a cortisone shot and a platelet-rich plasma injection, the Mariners will play it safe — Miller will make two more rehab starts before being activated. Robles dislocated his left shoulder while making an incredible catch in San Francisco on April 6 and is way ahead of schedule. He’s expected to begin a rehab assignment next week and could return before the end of August.
What they mean to the team: Robles is the Mariners’ leadoff hitter and spark plug. Over a 77-game stretch after Seattle signed him as a free agent last summer, he slashed .328/.393/.467. And if he can produce something close to that, a Mariners offense that added Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suárez before the trade deadline and has received a dominant season from Cal Raleigh will be as deep as it has been since Jerry Dipoto took over baseball operations 10 years ago. The Mariners haven’t received as much from their rotation as they would have expected this year, but a staff of Logan Gilbert, Luis Castillo, Bryan Woo, George Kirby and Miller — 12-8 with a 2.94 ERA while healthy last year — still rivals the best in the game.
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