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Wednesday was baseball’s annual salute to Jackie Robinson and his breaking of the color barrier on April 15, 1947, with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Fifty years later in 1997, then commissioner Bud Selig formally retired Robinson’s No. 42, which is now worn only on April 15 by every MLB player. Reigning AL MVP Mike Trout had a day that would have made Robinson proud. Trout was 3 for 4 with two runs scored, a walk, an RBI and a stolen base in a 10-2 win over the Rangers....

Conventional wisdom says if a sports book continually holds less on baseball and usually always wins in football, that it would make more sense for a bettor to keep banging the book at its weakness. But even though we’ve all been betting baseball since April on a daily basis, there’s something embedded in our brains that says once football starts, we’ve got to have a piece of the action. It’s a huge part of our entertainment world, and with Week 1 of the NFL season underway, we can’t get enough of it....

MLB odds: Current baseball lines from Vegas During the first few weeks of the season, it appeared the Red Sox were going to be involved in a lot of 8-7 games with weak starting pitching and a power-packed lineup. As things have unfolded, only half of that is true. The starting pitching is as weak as expected with a 5.05 ERA – third-worst in baseball – but the offense has disappeared....

This pandemic-influenced season brings an altered postseason format, with 16 teams getting a nod and with each team opening in a best-of-three round to determine who plays in the LDS. Factor in that the later rounds will be played at neutral-site bubbles, and not much will seem normal. MORE: MLB playoff bubbles, explained Making playoff predictions in baseball is always a fool’s game, given the crapshoot nature of it all, but it’s a fun fool’s game....

Nationals manager Dusty Baker chose those words before NLDS Game 3 to characterize Max Scherzer’s return start after a hamstring injury, but he might have also been describing — with some accidental prescience — Stephen Strasburg’s start Wednesday in Game 4 against the Cubs. MORE: Three takeaways from Nationals’ Game 4 win After being sick for days and trying various antibiotics to kick it, Strasburg said he woke up Wednesday morning, called pitching coach Mike Maddux and told him he was ready to go....

The Cubs, obviously, haven’t won a World Series since 1908. Cleveland last claimed the title in 1948. The Dodgers haven’t won since 1988 and the Blue Jays haven’t won since 1993. The Nationals/Expos franchise has never won the championship (though the Washington Senators took the Fall Classic in 1924). It’s kind of refreshing to enter the league championship series without one of the recent Big Four — the Yankees, Cardinals, Giants and Red Sox — in the mix for the second year in a row....

Some of those sound like comic-book sound effects, but they’re actually just baseball stats, which you surely knew, fair reader. But with San Diego ComicCon wrapping up, it brings out the nerd in (most of) us. Baseball in 2019 can best be described as superhero movies pre-2000: There’s a lot of mediocrity with some treats thrown in. It seems like there have been a few dominant squads and the rest of baseball has been just eh at best....

We feel pretty confident you won’t mind. And so we won’t delay. Onto the rankings. MORE: Shohei Ohtani makes history on the mound in latest start 1. New York Yankees May 1 ranking: 3Why they’re here: This team was 9-9 after losing a home game to the Blue Jays on April 20, and to some Yankees fans (at least some vocal ones on Twitter), the sky was falling. Aaron Boone didn’t know what he was doing....

Major League Baseball reportedly had planned to send out a memo Monday reminding teams to consider minorities for high-level positions in their organizations but did so Sunday night instead after the Brewers became the seventh team to go that route. According to FOX Sports, MLB quickly dispatched the missive to teams overnight so it wouldn’t look like a direct reaction to the Brewers’ rapid-fire change. Milwaukee announced at 10:17 p....

The reigning World Series champs pretty clearly aren’t done, though. Remember, unlike many teams considered Series contenders looking for trade upgrades (hi, Astros!), the Cubs aren’t locked into a playoff spot. They still have to make the postseason, though it’s worth noting that they were 5.5 games behind the Brewers in the NL Central when they made the trade with the White Sox, and now they’re only 1.5 back in the division....

A video from the official Major League Baseball (MLB) Twitter earlier this week showed a group of players for the Milwaukee Brewers using the stadium’s jumbotron to play Fortnite. Sitting in the seats on the other side of the field, one player holds a DualShock 4 controller while the action is displayed on-screen. The round doesn’t seem to be very successful though, as the video closes out with the player’s character being taken out....

Atlanta has shown interest in Reds outfielder Yasiel Puig, according to a report from MLB Network’s Jon Heyman. Puig would be a rental since he is a free agent after the season. It may surprise some people that the Braves would pursue an outfielder with Ronald Acuna Jr., Ender Inciarte and Nick Markakis in the outfield, but Markakis suffered a wrist injury in recent days, so this interest may indicate that he may be out for a little while at least....

When it comes to pitches in the strike zone, Judge is already at a disadvantage. Standing at 6'7", he has the largest strikezone out of every MLB player. The traditional strike zone ranges from the player’s shirt letters down to his knees. Anything that misses high or low should be called a ball. Since Aaron Judge is so tall, it is most likely somewhat difficult for umpires to get a proper reading of his zone....

Former Sweden captain Ibrahimovic took his tally to 499 as the Galaxy drew 1-1 against city rivals Los Angeles FC on Friday. In a career including spells with Manchester United, Paris Saint-Germain, AC Milan, Barcelona, Inter and Juventus, Ibrahimovic opened the scoring after 15 minutes at Stubhub Center. The 36-year-old appeared to poke the ball over the line but the referee did not award the goal, until a video review overturned the decision....

All 22 teams are in action this weekend, and while teams like Toronto FC, Houston and Sporting Kansas City cope with multiple international call-ups, other teams are hoping to take advantage of the aforementioned absences. Arena: ‘U.S. saving no one for Mexico’ Two teams that were considered the best in MLS at one point earlier in the season head into the break eager to halt lengthy winless slides. The Portland Timbers went from looking unstoppable in March to registering a single point in May, while FC Dallas went from being the league’s lone unbeaten to riding a four-match winless slide while also having to cope without both starting center backs....

On the other hand, eventual NL MVP Bryce Harper was already hitting in the .340 range and AL Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel was cruising along with an ERA a shade above 2.00. MORE: SN 50: Ranking baseball’s 50 best players Sometimes, it’s hard to know who’s going to win the year-end awards in June. Sometimes, you have a pretty good idea what guys are the favorites. With that second thought in mind, let’s take a look at the current front-runners in each of the primary three categories for each league....

For 47 days the White Sox (29-30, -2.11) were AL Central leaders, but now they’re in fourth-place and last night’s 11-4 loss to the Nationals put them under .500 for the first time this season. MORE: MLB live odds page The Nationals (36-23, +5.58 units), meanwhile, have been blistering the ball, scoring in double digits during their three-game winning streak and look for the sweep at U.S. Cellular Field on Thursday to close out a successful nine-game road trip (6-2)....

TV COVERAGE: MLB will hold Day 1 of the draft at MLB Network’s Studio 42 in Secaucus, N.J. The draft will begin live on MLB Network and MLB.com at 7 p.m. ET. MLB Network will cover the first 77 picks of the draft. MLB DRAFT 2016: Mock draft | Top 10 prospects | Every team’s biggest draft regret Before the start of the draft, MLB Network will air a preview show, also simulcast on MLB....

Jackie Robinson was born Jan. 31. So was Ernie Banks. So was Nolan Ryan. Pretty impressive top of the list. That got us wondering what other days looked like, so here’s a list of the best players born on each day in February. Some days are top-heavy — look at Feb. 5 — and others are, well, lighter. MORE: Every team’s worst regular-season memory, revisited Let’s take a look at the best players born every day in February, shall we?...

Volquez has signed with the American League champions for two years and $20 million, according to CBS Sports’ Jon Heyman. MORE: Top 10 free-agent pitchers | Royals add Alex Rios | KC turns to Kendrys Morales The veteran right-hander went 13-7 last season with the Pirates while logging 192 2/3 innings, the most since he won 17 games and was named an All-Star for the Reds in 2008. Volquez’s 3....