MLB

8:00 AM ET ARLINGTON, Texas — Clay Bellinger sat in Section 122 at Globe Life Field alongside his wife Sunday when Cody Bellinger came to bat with the score tied in the bottom of the seventh. Clay began to tell himself the same thing he tells himself every time his son digs into the batter’s

7:00 AM ET I’m ready. Ready for Mookie Betts to play right field. Ready for Tyler Glasnow‘s fastball. Ready for Corey Seager‘s swing and Willy Adames‘ glove and Dustin May‘s hair and Ji-Man Choi‘s smile. Yes, ready for another trip with Clayton Kershaw in the World Series pressure cooker. We made it through the shortened

11:55 PM ET Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” ARLINGTON, Texas — Comebacks complete, crises averted, the Los Angeles Dodgers are back in the World Series, determined to do what they couldn’t the last two times they tried: end a championship

9:30 AM ET Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” ARLINGTON, Texas — Get used to this. The Los Angeles Dodgers and Atlanta Braves, who will play a winner-take-all Game 7 on Sunday for the privilege of moving on to the World

8:30 AM ET MLB InsidersESPN Because the baseball gods are feeling generous in the 2020 MLB playoffs, we get a second Game 7 this weekend, as the Dodgers and Braves play a win-or-go-home game for the National League pennant and a trip to the World Series against the AL champion Rays. With so much at

12:15 AM ET The Tampa Bay Rays, a team of anonymous stars, are headed the World Series after holding off baseball’s most infamous team. The Rays held on to beat the Houston Astros 4-2 in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series on Saturday, ending Houston’s bid to become the second team in baseball

8:30 AM ET Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” ARLINGTON, Texas — In 1790, when the United States held its first census, one surname stood above all others. Nearly 6,000 white families, and more than 33,000 people, were called Smith. Today,

2:54 AM ET ARLINGTON, Texas — Mookie Betts‘ third-inning shoestring catch altered the momentum and Will Smith‘s sixth-inning home run off his namesake proved to be the difference, but all throughout, there was Corey Seager, a forgotten man on this star-studded Los Angeles Dodgers team, producing like he has through the entirety of his resurgent

11:45 PM ET Pedro GomezMLB Close ESPN’s Pedro Gomez covered the Oakland A’s home and away nearly every day from 1992-97 for the San Jose Mercury News and Sacramento Bee and then became the national baseball writer and later a general columnist at the Arizona Republic before becoming an ESPN bureau reporter in 2003. SAN

7:00 AM ET At the end of every day during the baseball postseason, I run a set of simulations to estimate the updated probabilities for each series and the ultimate outcome of the bracket. I add the newest results to a log and send them in to Bristol HQ for inclusion in our ongoing coverage

2:36 AM ET ARLINGTON, Texas — The settings change, the circumstances evolve, and yet it always seems to come down to Clayton Kershaw getting stretched a little too far, a promising bullpen failing to pick him up, a high-powered offense coming up small, a well-oiled machine breaking down at the worst possible time. The backdrop

3rd Ríos homered to right (399 feet). 1 0 4th Ozuna homered to left (422 feet). 1 1 6th Freeman doubled to right, Acuña Jr. scored. 1 2 6th Ozuna doubled to deep center, Freeman scored. 1 3 6th Swanson doubled to third, Albies scored and Ozuna scored. 1 5 6th Riley singled to center,

7:00 AM ET ARLINGTON, Texas — Clayton Kershaw‘s 2020 season at times seemed to resemble a dreamscape. There was the vintage summer, which saw him tap back into the type of stuff that seemed to be lost forever. And the dominant postseason opener, a stark reminder of the flaws in the narrative of his playoff

1:20 AM ET Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” ARLINGTON, Texas — Before conducting the autopsy of the blowout that was Game 3 of the National League Championship Series on Wednesday night, a reminder: There is no physical prize for winning

7:03 PM ET ARLINGTON, Texas — The Los Angeles Dodgers were hoping to ride whatever momentum they built in Tuesday’s ninth inning into Game 3, and they wound up doing so in unprecedented fashion. The Dodgers, losers of the first two games of this best-of-seven National League Championship Series, scored 11 runs in Wednesday’s first

7:00 AM ET Pedro GomezMLB Close ESPN’s Pedro Gomez covered the Oakland A’s home and away nearly every day from 1992-97 for the San Jose Mercury News and Sacramento Bee and then became the national baseball writer and later a general columnist at the Arizona Republic before becoming an ESPN bureau reporter in 2003. SAN

2:50 AM ET Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” ARLINGTON, Texas — For a National League Championship Series that seems to relish bringing the improbable to life, even this was outlandish. It was the ninth inning of Game 2, and Atlanta

The Rays just keep following the same formula over and over. After beating the Astros 4-2 in Monday’s ALCS Game 2, that formula has the Rays half way to the second pennant in franchise history. All it took was two Houston mistakes: A Jose Altuve error that kept the Rays’ first-inning rally alive, and the