MLB

7:00 AM ET For the first time ever we get eight MLB playoff matchups in a single day! Whether you are a National League fan waiting for your series to start or an American League fan seeing if your team can move on (or stay alive) — or just a baseball fan ready to sit

6:21 PM ET MLB InsidersESPN The 2020 MLB playoffs began Tuesday with four American League Wild Card Series. The Chicago White Sox beat the Oakland A’s as Lucas Giolito flirted with perfection. The Houston Astros, who finished the 2020 season with a losing record, topped the Minnesota Twins to extend Minnesota’s record playoff losing streak

1:21 PM ET CHICAGO — Cubs right-hander Kyle Hendricks will start Game 1 of their NL Wild Card Series against the Miami Marlins on Wednesday, manager David Ross announced. The decision was between Hendricks and Cy Young contender Yu Darvish. Darvish will take the ball in Game 2. “I [feel] like I have two aces,”

7:00 AM ET Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” Someone asked about the best thing I saw in the 2020 Major League Baseball regular season, and my answer was baseball. Not a titanic Ronald Acuna Jr. home run or a dazzling

4:46 PM ET Yankees manager Aaron Boone announced Monday that Kyle Higashioka — not Gary Sanchez — will catch Gerrit Cole in Game 1 against the Indians on Tuesday. Cole had a 1.00 ERA in four starts this season with Higashioka behind the plate, but posted a 3.91 ERA in eight starts with Sanchez. “He

12:55 PM ET The Washington Nationals did not make it into this year’s MLB playoffs, so Major League Baseball will crown a different team as champion in 2020. Can the Los Angeles Dodgers get over the final hurdle and take home their first championship since 1988? Or could the Tampa Bay Rays win their first

7:00 AM ET MLB InsidersESPN It’s time for the MLB playoffs! After a wild sprint to the finish that needed every day of the regular season to determine the seeding, the real fun begins. For the first time, 16 teams will enter the postseason and just a few short days later half of them will

7:15 PM ET It will be a Major League Baseball postseason like we’ve never seen before: 16 teams, no fans, played in neutral-site ballparks after the first round of the MLB playoffs with a World Series at a new stadium that most players have never seen hosted by a franchise that has never won a

10:40 AM ET Jeff PassanESPN Close ESPN MLB insiderAuthor of “The Arm: Inside the Billion-Dollar Mystery of the Most Valuable Commodity in Sports” Welcome to the most potentially chaotic day in baseball history. It’s easy to fall prey to the moment and hyperbolize, but, no, what Sunday has in store is legitimately mad. When Major

10:05 PM ET ESPN News Services NEW YORK — DJ LeMahieu is on the verge of a first in more than a century of Major League Baseball: the first player to win undisputed batting titles in both the American and National Leagues. Luke Voit is about to become a more common name atop the leaderboards

8:25 PM ET The Los Angeles Angels were mathematically eliminated from postseason contention at Dodger Stadium on Friday night, which means that in nine full seasons in the major leagues, Mike Trout — considered by many the game’s greatest player for most, if not all, of those seasons — has made the playoffs only once.

3:09 PM ET Veteran outfielder Hunter Pence announced his retirement Saturday, bringing an end to a 14-year MLB career. “Nothing can really prepare you for this part of your career, when you have say, ‘I am retiring from baseball,'” Pence said in a video on Twitter. “I’ve given it everything I possibly can, and the

7:15 AM ET Sam MillerESPN.com Close ESPN baseball columnist/feature writerFormer editor-in-chief of Baseball ProspectusCo-author of “The Only Rule Is It Has To Work” As we conclude another season in which Mike Trout will get a bunch of MVP votes and won’t play in the postseason, here’s a question for you: Whose career would you rather

12:47 AM ET CHICAGO — Tempers flared here Friday night after catcher Willson Contreras was plunked by White Sox hurler Jimmy Cordero in the seventh inning of the Cubs’ 10-0 victory. The hit by pitch came several innings after Contreras threw his bat high into the air to celebrate a three-run homer as he began

7:00 AM ET When Rob Friedman — better known as PitchingNinja to his quarter-million followers on Twitter — watches a game and sees something that sticks out, he checks his gut before tweeting a highlight. In the seasons since he began posting the nastiest pitches in baseball, he’s developed an intuition about when something might

7:25 PM ET The Los Angeles Dodgers activated Walker Buehler, who has been dealing with a blister on his right index finger for about a month, off the injured list Thursday for one final tuneup start before the postseason. Buehler, 26, was placed on the IL because of that blister for the second time in

10:32 PM ET ESPN News Services BUFFALO, N.Y. — Hyun-Jin Ryu pitched seven shutout innings and the Toronto Blue Jays clinched their first postseason spot since 2016, beating the Yankees 4-1 Thursday night and further damaging New York’s chances of hosting a first-round playoff series. New York lost for the fourth time in five games

12:22 PM ET Kansas City Royals outfielder Alex Gordon, a seven-time Gold Glove winner and one of the longest-tenured players in club history, is retiring from baseball. The Royals announced Gordon’s retirement Thursday but did not indicate whether the three-time All-Star would play in their four remaining games this season. After 14 years of hard