ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the Washington Wizards from 2014 to 2016 and the Washington Nationals from 2016 to 2018 for The Washington Post before covering the Los Angeles Dodgers and MLB for the Los Angeles Times from 2018 to 2024.
TORONTO — The Blue Jays chose rookie Trey Yesavage to start Game 1 of the World Series against the defending champion Dodgers but have not decided whether to carry shortstop Bo Bichette on their roster, manager John Schneider said Thursday.
Bichette has not played since spraining his left knee Sept. 6 in a collision with Yankees catcher Austin Wells. He attempted to return for the American Championship League Series against the Mariners, but he could not run the bases without substantial pain on Oct. 11, the day before rosters were due for submission.
Nearly two weeks later, Bichette, a two-time All-Star who finished second in the majors with a .311 batting average in a bounce-back season, has made substantial progress.
“Feeling good enough,” Bichette said Thursday.
Bichette took groundballs at second base and faced live pitching Wednesday. Schneider said he was scheduled for a similar routine Thursday “with a little bit more attention to detail from a defensive standpoint.”
Schneider said Toronto is considering Bichette, 27, for shortstop, second base, or designated hitter. He could also start the series strictly in a pinch-hitting role. Bichette last played second base in April 2019 in Triple-A.
“We’re kind of coming right down to the wire with it,” Schneider said. “I could see all three of those things happening, to be honest with you. Just kind of have to talk to him after the workout today, see how comfortable he felt doing everything and make the best decision.”
The decision for Toronto’s Game 1 starter came down to Yesavage or Kevin Gausman. Ultimately, Toronto chose to give Gausman at least another day of rest after he threw 19 pitches in a scoreless inning of relief in Game 7 of the ALCS on Monday. Yesavage was informed of his assignment Wednesday.
Schneider said Gausman will start either Game 2 in Toronto on Saturday or Game 3 in Los Angeles on Monday. Shane Bieber and Max Scherzer are the other expected starters for the Blue Jays against a loaded Dodgers lineup led by three future Hall of Famers.
The Dodgers will counter Yesavage with two-time Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is slated to start Game 2.
“We tried to talk to all the guys and see how they’re doing physically, see what we have done historically in terms of rest, what it may look like later in the series for certain guys,” Schneider said. “And then how each one of them matches up against the Dodgers.”
Yesavage, 22, will make his seventh career start Friday in Game 1, which will mark the Blue Jays’ first World Series appearance since 1993. He will be the first rookie to start Game 1 of the World Series since 2006, when Cardinals rookie Anthony Reyes started opposite Tigers rookie Justin Verlander.
Yesavage made his major league debut just over a month ago, on Sept. 15, and two more regular-season starts before being thrust into the postseason fire.
Yesavage has not wilted under the pressure behind a splitter-fastball combination from an extraordinarily high arm angle and release point that perplexed two of baseball’s best offenses.
In his postseason debut, the right-hander held the Yankees hitless with 11 strikeouts and no walks in Game 2 of the AL Division Series. He rebounded from a rocky outing in Game 2 of the ALCS, when he gave up five runs across four innings, to limit the Mariners to two runs over 5⅔ innings in Game 6 with the Blue Jays facing elimination.
“I’ve been able to go through this and handle it as diligently as possible,” Yesavage said. “With this being my rookie season and having these high-pressure games, I try to treat it as if it’s not as high pressure as it is mentally, but I know it’s there, so I think I’ve just developed it over time.”
Yesavage was selected in the first round with the 20th overall pick out of East Carolina in last year’s draft. He began this season — his first full professional campaign — pitching for the Low-A Dunedin Blue Jays. He issued six walks in 3⅔ innings in his season debut against the Jupiter Hammerheads on April 8, when the announced attendance was 327.
He ascended to High-A Vancouver, then to Double-A New Hampshire, then to Triple-A Buffalo over the next four months, emerging not just as a top prospect across the sport but as a potential weapon for the surging Blue Jays in October. He arrived in mid-September with, he joked, his Toyota Tundra looking like a mobile home. He checks in and out of hotel rooms every time the Blue Jays go on the road and return. On Friday, he’ll take the mound the franchise’s first World Series game in 32 years.
“It’s really special,” Yesavage said. “I’ve got guys from Dunedin to Vancouver, New Hampshire, Buffalo that are in my text texting me, congratulating me. But it’s just a testament of how together this whole entire organization is, even in different parts of the country. This organization is run very well and everybody’s awesome here.”
Texas quarterback Arch Manning left the game after his helmet appeared to bounce off the ground at the end of a 13-yard run on the first play of overtime in the No. 22 Longhorns’ 45-38 victory at Mississippi State on Saturday.
Manning dropped back to throw on the play but scrambled up the middle when he couldn’t find an open receiver. As Manning dove while being tackled by safety Isaac Smith, he was hit from behind by defensive lineman Kedrick Bingley-Jones.
Texas right tackle Brandon Baker tried to help Manning up, but the signal-caller struggled to get on his feet and sat on the field, sending trainers out to get him. Manning was in the medical tent at the end of the contest.
Longhorns coach Steve Sarkisian didn’t have an update on Manning after the game, telling reporters, “We’ll find out more when we get back to Austin.” Sources confirmed to ESPN that Manning suffered a concussion.
Backup quarterback Matthew Caldwell came in and threw a 10-yard touchdown to Emmett Mosley V to finish the Longhorns’ stunning comeback, in which they rallied from a 17-point deficit in the fourth quarter to send the game into overtime.
According to ESPN Research, the Longhorns were the first SEC team to rally from a 17-point deficit in the fourth quarter to win since South Carolina came back from 17-0 down to beat Missouri 27-24 in two overtimes in 2013.
After a slow start, Manning had perhaps his best performance at Texas, completing 29 of 46 passes for a career-high 346 yards and three touchdowns with one interception. He also ran for a score. He went 12-for-20 for 166 yards and two touchdowns in the fourth quarter, becoming the first Texas quarterback with at least 150 passing yards and two touchdowns in the fourth quarter since Sam Ehlinger in 2019.
Trailing 38-21, Manning gave the Longhorns some life when he threw a 21-yard touchdown to Mosley to cut Mississippi State’s lead to 38-28 with 9:34 to go.
Texas’ defense came up with two sacks to force a three-and-out on the Bulldogs’ next possession, and the Longhorns reached the MSU 5-yard line. Texas had to settle for Mason Shipley‘s 26-yard field goal that made it 38-31.
After another three-and-out from the Bulldogs, Texas’ Ryan Niblett returned a punt 79 yards for a touchdown to tie the score at 38 with 1:47 left in regulation.
The Longhorns will host No. 10 Vanderbilt next week.
Eli Lederman covers college football and recruiting for ESPN.com. He joined ESPN in 2024 after covering the University of Oklahoma for Sellout Crowd and the Tulsa World.
NORMAN, Okla. — Six days after his team squandered a fourth-quarter lead on the road at Georgia, Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said he spent Friday night speaking to his players at length about “overcoming adversity” ahead of the No. 8 Rebels’ Week 9 visit to Oklahoma.
Adversity struck again at Oklahoma-Memorial Stadium on Saturday afternoon. This time, Ole Miss responded and flipped the script, riding a resurgent defense and a fourth-quarter scoring drive led by quarterback Trinidad Chambliss to a crucial 34-26 win over the 13th-ranked Sooners.
“We’re up two scores last week at Georgia — where they never lose except Alabama — and we didn’t finish it off,” Kiffin said afterward. “We got knocked down. And so that same situation happens today on the road; [ranked] team, No. 1 defense in the country. Can we be stronger in those situations, especially defensively? For that to happen, it’s really cool.”
Blanked in the fourth quarter at Georgia a week ago, the Rebels outscored Oklahoma 9-0 across the last 15 minutes, allowing just 84 yards of offense over that span and forcing Sooners quarterback John Mateer into incompletions on 10 of his final 15 throws, including a Hail Mary attempt that failed to reach the end zone in the closing seconds.
The victory marks Ole Miss’ first road win over a ranked SEC opponent under Kiffin. The Rebels are also 6-0 following a loss since the start of the 2023 seasons, according to ESPN Research.
Chambliss, in his sixth start for Ole Miss, completed 24 of his 44 pass attempts for 315 yards and accounted for 53 rushing yards on 12 carries. According to ESPN Research, the outing marked Chambliss’ fourth game of 300 passing yards and 50 rushing yards this fall, leaving him tied with former Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel (2012) for the second most such performances by an SEC player over the past 30 years.
With the Rebels trailing 26-25 in the early minutes of the fourth quarter, Chambliss orchestrated an 11-play, 75-yard drive that drained 4:31 of game clock, capped by his eight-yard touchdown pass to tight end Trace Bruckler with 11:39 remaining. The Rebels never trailed again.
“We just didn’t want to feel how we felt last week,” Chambliss said of the win. “We made it that we don’t want to feel that again and that’ll never happen again. We just need to finish games.”
Chambliss and Ole Miss mounted their late comeback only after the Rebels dissected Oklahoma coach Brent Venables’ vaunted defense unlike any team before it this fall across the first half.
The Sooners had not allowed a first-quarter touchdown before Ole Miss running back Kewan Lacy broke free for a 28-yard scoring run. Lacy, who ran for 78 yards on 27 attempts, found the end zone again to hand the Rebels a 22-10 lead with 46 seconds remaining in the first half. Behind the legs of Chambliss and Lacy, Ole Miss accounted for more first-half points and yards (258) than Oklahoma had allowed in a single half in the 2025 season.
The Rebels’ control of the game, however, slipped after halftime. A failed fourth-down attempt on Ole Miss’ opening drive of the second half gifted Oklahoma a field goal, and the Sooners burst to a 26-25 third-quarter advantage on a pair of touchdowns from running back Xavier Robinson, highlighted by the sophomore’s 65-yard rushing score. Overall, Oklahoma outgained the Rebels 99-9 on the ground and outscored the visitors 16-3 in the third quarter.
After fumbling its commanding lead, Ole Miss might have seen a familiar script entering the fourth quarter. Instead, less than 24 hours after his Friday night team talk, Kiffin saw the Rebels’ newfound resolve.
“When you’ve had something happen to you previously in a season, seven days ago, and that same feeling comes back today,” Kiffin said. “[It’s] here we go: We’re ahead … games kind of in our control. Oh wait, now they’re scoring a lot easier. We’re not moving like we were. Same Georgia feeling. Crowd started coming alive. And then obviously a much different response by us. And I didn’t feel like they ever kind of freaked out. They had each other’s backs.”
Following Chambliss’ go-ahead touchdown throw, an Ole Miss defense led by junior defensive end Princewill Umanmielen — who logged career highs with six tackles and 1.5 sacks — clamped down. The Sooners gained only nine rushing yards in the final quarter and converted on only two of their final seven attempted conversions on third and fourth down.
“We just took [the Georgia game] as a learning experience,” Umanmielen said. “Unfortunately, we had to take a loss to learn from it. We just took it as a learning experience and got the W today.”
Now, Kiffin & Co. are back on track, returning home at 7-1 (4-1 in conference) and well-positioned to secure the program’s first College Football Playoff appearance later this year.
After downing Oklahoma (6-2, 2-2), Ole Miss will embark on a homestand with matchups against three teams with losing records — South Carolina, The Citadel and Florida — before closing the regular season with a trip to Mississippi State. According to ESPN’s Playoff Predictor, the Rebels hold the seventh-best odds of reaching the 12-team field among FBS programs, vaulted by Ole Miss’ fourth-quarter 180 on the road Saturday afternoon.
“Very different fourth quarters as a team,” Kiffin said. “This was a big win. It was hard.”
Jake Trotter is a senior writer at ESPN. Trotter covers college football. He also writes about other college sports, including men’s and women’s basketball. Trotter resides in the Cleveland area with his wife and three kids and is a fan of his hometown Oklahoma City Thunder. He covered the Cleveland Browns and NFL for ESPN for five years, moving back to college football in 2024. Previously, Trotter worked for the Middletown (Ohio) Journal, Austin American-Statesman and Oklahoman newspapers before joining ESPN in 2011. He’s a 2004 graduate of Washington and Lee University. You can reach out to Trotter at jake.trotter@espn.com and follow him on X at @Jake_Trotter.
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — No team in college football had won a conference game by 50 or more points this season — other than Indiana.
On Saturday, the second-ranked Hoosiers accomplished the feat for a second time.
One month after destroying Illinois by 53 points, Indiana hammered UCLA56-6.
“We try to play every play like it’s nothing-nothing, game on the line, regardless of the competitive circumstances,” said coach Curt Cignetti. “That’s kind of our mentality.”
Indiana linebacker Aiden Fisher picked off Bruins quarterback Nico Iamaleava on the second snap of the game and returned it for a touchdown.
The Hoosiers led 35-3 at halftime, then opened the second half with a 10-play, 75-yard touchdown drive before resting many of their starters.
Star quarterback Fernando Mendoza sat the rest of the half, as his younger brother, freshman Alberto Mendoza, replaced him at quarterback.
“UCLA is a very capable team,” said Fernando Mendoza, who threw for 168 yards and totaled four touchdowns to remain atop the Heisman conversation. “Teams are always looking for … ‘Hey, do we have that spark? Are we going to be able to come back from this game?’ And so right from the jump, we knew we needed to have an impressive drive … to (douse) their flame and impose our will.”
The Bruins arrived in Bloomington on a three-game winning streak, highlighted by an upset over then-seventh-ranked Penn State on Oct. 4.
But after Mendoza threw an interception off a tipped pass at the line of scrimmage on Indiana’s first offensive possession, the Hoosiers scored touchdowns on seven of their next eight drives.
Cignetti said the combination of Indiana’s running game, producing 262 rushing yards, and its defense, which allowed UCLA to muster only 201 yards total, ultimately broke the Bruins’ will.
“You start to see a team wave the white flag,” Cignetti said. “It usually happens sometime in the third quarter. It may have been what happened here.”
Indiana is the first Power 4 school with two 50-point conference wins in a single season since Clemson in 2018, according to ESPN Research.
The Tigers finished that year 15-0 and won the national championship.