Sports

Skenes highlights MLB opening day starter list as youngest since ’14 to take mound to begin season 2014.

Published

4 days ago

March 27, 2025

Pittsburgh right-hander Paul Skenes, the reigning National League Rookie of the Year award winner, will be the youngest pitcher in 11 years to start a season opener when he takes the mound for the Pirates next week.

Skenes will be 22 years and 302 days old on March 27 when Pittsburgh plays at Miami. José Fernández of the Marlins was 21 years and 243 days old when he opened the 2014 season. In its annual announcement of the opening day starters, most of which had been already informally confirmed by their clubs during spring training, Major League Baseball also revealed Tuesday that Skenes will be the fastest first overall draft pick to make an opening day start.

Skenes was drafted by the Pirates in 2023. Mike Moore was the first selection by Seattle in 1981 and started opening day for the Mariners in 1984, and Stephen Strasburg was the top pick by Washington in 2009 and made his first opening day start for the Nationals in 2012.

Three natives of Japan got the nods for their openers, the most in MLB history. Shota Imanaga of the Chicago Cubs and Yoshinobu Yamamoto of the Los Angeles Dodgers were the starters for the grand opener in Tokyo earlier Tuesday, a 4-1 win for Yamamoto and the Dodgers. Yusei Kikuchi will also start for the Los Angeles Angels on March 27 against the Chicago White Sox. Seven other Japanese-born players have previously started season openers: Shohei Ohtani, Yu Darvish, Kenta Maeda, Masahiro Tanaka, Hiroki Kuroda, Daisuke Matsuzaka and Hideo Nomo.

Two teams have yet to declare their opening day starter: Arizona and Cleveland. Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo said he’s deciding between newcomer Corbin Burnes and Zac Gallen for the road game against the Cubs. Guardians manager Stephen Vogt has yet to commit, but all signs point to Tanner Bibee, who pitched in a Cactus League exhibition game on Monday that lines up his rest schedule to be ready for the March 27 game against Kansas City.

With the Cubs and Dodgers getting a head start, the 28 other teams will open on March 27. Four of the opening day starters will make their debuts with a new team: Garrett Crochet with Boston, Clay Holmes with the New York Mets, Luis Severino with the Athletics and Kikuchi with the Angels.

The others are Carlos Rodón (New York Yankees), Freddy Peralta (Milwaukee), José Berríos (Toronto), Zach Elfin (Baltimore), Nathan Eovaldi (Texas), MacKenzie Gore (Washington), Zach Wheeler (Philadelphia), Cole Ragans (Kansas City), Framber Valdez (Houston), Hunter Greene (Cincinnati), Logan Webb (San Francisco), Michael King (San Diego), Chris Sale (Atlanta), Sean Burke (Chicago White Sox), Sandy Alcantara (Miami), Sonny Gray (St. Louis), Pablo López (Minnesota), Tarik Skubal (Detroit), Logan Gilbert (Seattle), Shane McClanahan (Tampa Bay) and Kyle Freeland (Colorado).

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/MLB

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Sports

NBA Owners Still Looking To Form A European Circuit

Published

2 hours ago

March 30, 2025

Austin Reed

David Stern wanted a NBA Europe conference two decades ago.

The league is exploring options.

The National Basketball Association’s Board of Governors, also known as the 30 franchise owners, has apparently decided to go ahead and try to figure out how to establish an NBA circuit in Europe. About two decades ago then NBA Commissioner David Stern was exploring a way to create a European conference but Stern concluded at the time, Europe lacked early 21^st century state-of-the-art venues and that the league could not succeed. The NBA Board of Governors will work with FIBA, the international governing body of basketball, in an attempt to build a league. But the timing of an American-owned sports league in Europe is coinciding with a possible trade war between the United States and the European Union. There are people protesting in Europe about the views of the present American administration. An American-owned league might be a difficult sell in countries with the population centers needed for the circuit. Those countries include France and Germany where the NBA presumably would like to place franchises in cities like Paris, Berlin, Frankfurt or Munich.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is of the thought that the NBA could build a league of 16 teams, with 12 permanent members and four spots available to play into or be tossed out of the group each season. There is nothing set in stone at this point and Silver admitted that. “One of the things I’m fascinated in exploring,” Silver said, “is to the extent we have the ability to create a league from scratch. How would we do things different based on 79 years of learning in the NBA and based on decades of learning for FIBA?” There is an established Europe league and established well known European teams. Building a league might be easy but jumping over the hurdle of geopolitics might not be as simple.

Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191

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Sports

SiriusXM has some new baseball programing worth checking out.

Published

20 hours ago

March 30, 2025

Austin Reed

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The 2025 Major League Baseball is entering the weekend of the season and also marks the 20th year that SiriusXM has been the home for every major league home radio broadcast. MLB and SiriusXM fans have enjoyed hours of baseball talk, which has no equal in any other outlet not just during but year round.

There are some exciting additions to the lineup of talent for the SiriusXM MLB Network Radio show this season. Some of the new expert voices that fans will hear include former Marlins and Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez, and former major league players Stephen Piscotty, Ryon Healy, AJ Ramos and Cole Tucker. They’ll all be hosting.

They join an MLB Network Radio roster that features former GMs Jim Bowden, Jim Duquette and Steve Phillips, former players David Aardsma, Kevin Frandsen, Chris Gimenez, Jensen Lewis, Trevor May, CJ Nitkowski, Eduardo Pérez, Xavier Scruggs, Ryan Spilborghs and Mike Stanton, and former manager Kevin Kennedy. The channel is also home to shows hosted by national baseball writers Tyler Kepner and Jon Morosi, as well as baseball insiders Robert Brender, Jenny Cavnar, Mike Ferrin, Dan Graca, Jeff Joyce, Jim Memolo, Grant Paulsen, Ed Randall and Dani Wexelman.

SiriusXM and MLB Network also recently announced that MLB Network will simulcast the final hour of SiriusXM’s daily morning show, “The Leadoff Spot,” which is hosted by Steve Phillips, Xavier Scruggs, and Eduardo Pérez. “The Leadoff Spot” airs live on SiriusXM weekdays from 7 to 10 am ET. MLB Network viewers can watch the show live each morning from 9 to 10am ET.

For a schedule of MLB games on SiriusXM go to SiriusXM.com/Sports.

Throughout the season, fans can also hear regularly scheduled interviews with several MLB managers on MLB Network Radio. These include: Torey Lovullo (Diamondbacks), Matt Quatraro (Royals), Stephen Vogt (Guardians), Ron Washington (Angels), Pat Murphy (Brewers), Rocco Baldelli (Twins), Brandon Hyde (Orioles), Alex Cora (Red Sox), Mark Kotsay (Athletics), Mike Shildt (Padres), Bob Melvin (Giants), Derek Shelton (Pirates), John Schneider (Blue Jays), AJ Hinch (Tigers) and others.

As for the action on the field, with SiriusXM, fans can get every one of their team’s 162 regular season games, plus every playoff game, in their cars or anywhere they go with the SiriusXM app.

Additionally, the SiriusXM app features 30 dedicated MLB team pages where fans can find their team’s official radio broadcast for each game, plus SiriusXM programming and podcasts that are specifically focused on that team.

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Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov power the Lightning to a 5-3 win over the Islanders

Published

20 hours ago

March 30, 2025

Austin Reed

Tampa Bay Lightning right wing Nikita Kucherov (86) skates around the goal during a timeout during an NHL hockey game against the Dallas Stars in Dallas, Thursday, March 20, 2025. (AP Photo/Gareth Patterson)

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Brayden Point scored twice and Nikita Kucherov had a goal and an assist as the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the New York Islanders 5-3 on Saturday.

Nick Perbix and Jake Guentzel also scored for the Lightning. Jonas Johansson made 35 stops.

Marc Gatcomb, Anthony DeAngelo and Ryan Pulock scored for the Islanders, who lost their fourth straight game. Ilya Sorokin made 19 saves.

The Lightning won their third straight and matched the idle Florida Panthers’ 91 points atop the tight Atlantic Division, where the Toronto Maple Leafs entered Saturday night’s game against the Los Angeles Kings just a point back.

Takeaways

Islanders: At 32-20-10, New York is in fifth place in the Eastern Conference wild-card race with 74 points. The Islanders trail Ottawa (81), Columbus (75), Montreal (75) and the New York Rangers (75) with Saturday’s slate of games remaining.

Lightning: After a rematch with the Islanders on Monday in the opener of a four-game trip, Tampa Bay is at Ottawa, Buffalo and the Rangers, through a week from Monday.

Key moment

Kucherov and Perbix scored in the first 7:31 of the game to give the Lightning an early advantage. Point scored late in the first and second periods to extend the advantage to four goals before the Islanders clawed back with three unanswered goals in the first nine minutes of the third, making it 4-3. Guentzel’s empty-netter sealed the win.