Live to fight another day. That was likely what Barcelona coach Ronald Koeman was thinking around the hour mark on Tuesday when, 2-0 down at home and on the way to defeat against Bayern Munich, he hooked veterans Sergio Busquets and Sergi Roberto and did the football equivalent of a bedraggled basketball coach emptying his bench.
On came Gavi and Yusuf Demir, two guys who are a combined 35 years old, have played a total of 47 first-team minutes and probably would not be recognised by many Barca fans if they showed up at the front door to deliver a pizza.
Koeman went even further fewer than 15 minutes later, when he replaced Jordi Alba with Alejandro Balde, an 18-year-old making his debut for the club.
It’s not uncommon for managers to blood youngsters towards the end of a blowout win (bask in the glory) or a blowout defeat (fans tend not to boo kids). But the circumstances here were odd. Sure, Barca were being outplayed — they had not managed a shot on target — but the deficit was just two goals, one of them a craven deflection when Thomas Muller’s shot caromed off Eric Garcia’s backside.
A comeback was unlikely, but not unthinkable, and then there was the weight of history. Barcelona had not lost a Champions League home opener… ever. And no team that lost on Matchday 1 of the group stage has ever won the competition in the same season. But no matter; Koeman evidently is not superstitious.
Or, if he is, he knows the power of narrative. It’s not a coincidence that the three guys who came off are all Catalans and club legends — with some 1300 senior games between them — who spent time in Barcelona’s vaunted academy. And the three guys who replaced them are all kids born in the third millennium, tasked with keeping the club’s glorious history alive.
Corny? A little bit. But not untrue. Bringing players through La Masia has been, historically, Barcelona’s strength and will need to be so again. On this night it made no difference; the replacements had little impact and Robert Lewandowski subsequently added his second goal to put the seal on Bayern’s emphatic win.
Sure, if you were of a more cynical nature, you could just conclude that all this was Koeman’s way of saying: “What the heck am I supposed to do? A bunch of players are unavailable and I got nothing on the bench?”
And he would have had a point there. Among the established pros on his bench were a guy returning from injury (Sergino Dest), a guy who hasn’t played since last season (Riqui Puig), a guy who hadn’t played at all since 2020 (Philippe Coutinho) and a guy Barcelona tried to offload in the summer but couldn’t, because he earns so much (Samuel Umtiti).
This is Barcelona’s reality. Sure, it might change a little if Ansu Fati returns to full fitness and lives up to the hype (but, remember, he hasn’t played in 10 months and is still just 18; loading unrealistic expectations on a kid his age is both unfair and foolish) and if Ousmane Dembele comes back and avoid injury (he has never started more than 22 league games in his career).
But, beyond that, you’re grasping at straws if you think the cavalry is going to come out of the infirmary and turn the Blaugrana into contenders.
Who are we talking about? Sergio Aguero, who is 33 and was signed to be Lionel Messi’s sidekick when it looked like Barca might be able to afford to keep their legendary forward, hasn’t played since June, has missed the best part of the last two seasons and struggled when he did get on the pitch in that time? Martin Braithwaite? Great attitude, blue-collar hero, but if he’s the answer, you’re asking the wrong questions.
Koeman understands this. He gets the trauma of the past six weeks, the tearful farewell to Messi, the flirtation with insolvency, the realization that the club is the third, if not fourth, force in LaLiga. On a night like this, against a Bayern side who — despite not being irresistible, were streets ahead – it was no contest.
Best to recognize it, figure out how to finish ahead of the other two teams in the group — Benfica and Dynamo Kiev — and shoot for a top-four finish in LaLiga. That would secure a return to the Champions League next season and, just as important, keep some of that prize money flowing into the Camp Nou coffers.
Barca fans understand the severity of the situation and know it’s the only way to stop the rot. Indeed, perhaps they would rather see kids like Gavi, Demir and Balde try to make the grade, than watch the heroes of yesteryear on the end of a home spanking.
Harper went deep off Giants rookie Mason Black, spoiling the major league debut of the right-hander, who pitched into the fifth inning against the team he grew up rooting for.
“I hope he enjoyed it with his family and his teammates and everything else, because you only get one debut,” Harper said.
This season’s Phillies are winning as much as the teams Black cheered for as a kid.
The major-league-leading Phillies (25-11) won their sixth straight and have won 10 of 11 and 17 of 20 to open a three-game lead over Atlanta in the NL East. It’s the team’s best 36-game start to a season since 1993, when Philadelphia won 97 games and reached the World Series, according to ESPN Stats & Information research.
The Phillies have also won 10 straight games at Citizens Bank Park, just two wins shy of matching the team record set in 2012. Philadelphia also set a franchise record with 11 straight wins against NL West opponents.
“I feel like we’re winning in different ways every night. And it’s a different player coming up huge, whether it’s a hitter, a pitcher. It’s never the same guy, which is nice,” catcher J.T. Realmuto said. “There’s not too much pressure on one player. We all feel like we play really well together and we have a lot of fun, and guys contribute on a nightly basis.”
Harper homered for the second straight game, and his eighth of the season made it 4-0 against Black (0-1). Black made his major league debut in front of his parents, younger brother, girlfriend and scores of friends and relatives who made the trip to watch him pitch against his boyhood favorite team.
The 24-year-old Black — named the seventh-best prospect in baseball, per MLB.com — was the Giants’ third-round pick in the 2021 draft out of Lehigh University. Black recorded a 1-2-3 first inning that included strikeouts of Realmuto and Harper, the latter caught looking at an 88 mph changeup.
Black gave up 8 hits, 5 runs and 3 walks. He struck out four in 4⅓ innings.
Wheeler (4-3) showed the rookie how it was done. He rebounded from an 0-3 start — he allowed six runs total in his first three starts — to win his fourth straight start. Wheeler allowed one run, walked one and lowered his ERA to 1.64.
“Wheels today did what Zack kind of does every time he goes out there. It was fun to watch and kept us in the game,” Harper said.
Matt Strahm tossed a scoreless eighth, and Orion Kerkering pitched the ninth to complete the five-hitter.
With shortstop Trea Turner out at least six weeks with a left hamstring strain, his replacements are starting to fill the void. Bryson Stott moved from second base to shortstop and made a great grab on a grounder by Wilmer Flores in the first to start an inning-ending double play. Whit Merrifield started at second and gave the Phillies a 1-0 lead with an RBI single in the fourth.
Harper had a three-run shot in the fifth, and Nick Castellanos, who hit 37 doubles last season, hit his first one of the year later in the inning for a 5-0 lead.
Phillies third baseman Alec Bohm went 0-for-4, ending his hitting streak at 18 games.
CHICAGO — When Justin Steele was injured on Opening Day, the big question for the Chicago Cubs centered on the state of their rotation without their ace left-hander.
That concern faded away over time.
Steele returned to one of baseball’s best rotations on Monday night, starting the opener of a three-game series against the San Diego Padres, and pitched into the fifth inning. He allowed three hits while striking out two Padres before exiting with two outs in the inning and the game tied at 0-0. It was Steele’s first major league appearance since he strained his left hamstring while making a play on a sacrifice bunt at Texas on March 28.
The 28-year-old Steele was a breakout performer last year, going 16-5 with a 3.06 ERA in 30 starts. He made the NL All-Star team for the first time and finished fifth in balloting for the NL Cy Young Award.
Steele made a rehab start with Triple-A Iowa on Wednesday, allowing three runs and six hits in 3 1/3 innings. He was working on a pitch count against San Diego, and when he was removed, he had thrown 68 pitches, 43 for strikes. The Padres’ offense took over from there en route to a 6-3 victory.
Keegan Thompson was optioned to Iowa to make room on the Chicago roster. Thompson is 1-0 with a 3.38 ERA in seven relief appearances for Chicago this season.
The Cubs had a 21-14 record going into the series against the Padres, more than holding their own while Steele was out.
The rotation has played a key role in Chicago’s fast start. Shota Imanaga, who pitches on Tuesday night, is 5-0 with a 0.78 ERA in his first big league season after signing with the Cubs in January. Jameson Taillon (3-0, 1.13 ERA) and Javier Assad (3-0, 1.66 ERA) have been terrific, and young right-handers Hayden Wesneski and Ben Brown also have provided some valuable innings.
“I think our starting pitching has been excellent,” manager Craig Counsell said. “Obviously some of the guys that were in the rotation all year, Shota and Javy, have been brilliant, and Jameson Taillon’s been excellent, and then Hayden and Ben have come up and been really important.”
Going into the matchup with San Diego, the starting staff had a 2.61 ERA in the team’s past 21 games going back to April 14 — the second-best mark in the NL over that stretch, trailing only Philadelphia (2.53).
“I think all those guys have stepped up and really produced for us,” president of baseball operations Jed Hoyer said. “And that’s what you need to get through injuries.”
ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.
LOS ANGELES — The Dodgers placed another one of their high-leverage relievers on the injured list Monday, when Joe Kelly went down with what the team described as a posterior strain in his right, throwing shoulder.
Kelly, whose IL placement was the corresponding move for activating Walker Buehler ahead of his start against the Miami Marlins, joins fellow late-game relievers Ryan Brasier and Evan Phillips on the shelf, all of whom have suffered their injuries over the past six days.
Brasier (calf strain), Phillips (hamstring strain) and Kelly have accounted for more than a quarter of the Dodgers’ bullpen innings this season. Brusdar Graterol, one of the Dodgers’ primary setup men last year, has yet to make his 2024 debut while recovering from shoulder inflammation, but Blake Treinen returned from a prolonged absence on Sunday.
Kelly, 35, has a 4.73 ERA in 15 appearances this season and was last used to record the final out of the seventh inning in Sunday’s win over the Atlanta Braves.
