Baseball

April behind them, the Detroit Tigers kicked off the month of May with a much-needed homestand victory. Jim Leyland and crew defeated the Kansas City Royals 9-3 at Comerica Park following Monday's rain out, which shortened the series to two games.

The Oakland A's put runs on the board early and Jarrod Parker made them stand up. But it took Jordan Norberto to bail out scuffling Grant Balfour as the A's defeated Boston 5-3 tonight at Fenway Park.

Parker went a solid 6 2/3 innings. He allowed a single run on four hits and two walks while striking out four. The key was getting ahead in the count and Parker threw 59 strikes in 98 pitches.

On a night that saw Bryce Harper and Stephen Strasburg run onto the same major league field for the first time, it was Matt Kemp that once again put his stamp on the moniker of  “best player in the game."

Major League Baseball has started its annual All-Star voting campaign for the July 10 event in Kansas City. Over the years, I have been strongly opposed to having the voting start so early.

However, the voting for the starters is more of a popularity contest where Yankees fans would probably vote for Derek Jeter 25 times if he were hitting .200.

Jeremy Affeldt is in the final year of his contract with the San Francisco Giants. As an effective left-handed reliever who will turn 33 this year, Affeldt figures to find continue his major league career, whether it's with the Giants or another team.

When the Colorado Rockies' Todd Helton dug into the batter’s box on a bright Sunday afternoon, everybody was thinking it, but nobody dared believe it.

All 36,690 fans at Coors Field stood in anticipation as their longtime leader stared in the face of a dream situation: bases loaded, late in the ballgame, trailing by four. Oh, and he’s the pinch hitter.

It’s been a rough week for the Tampa Bay Rays, and it’s only Tuesday.

Earlier today we learned that Evan Longoria could miss six to eight weeks after injuring his hamstring during an awkward slide on Monday night. 

Around lunchtime on Tuesday, a report surfaced that Tampa Bay third baseman Longoria would miss six to eight weeks with a partial hamstring tear, a seemingly crippling blow to the Rays' chances of making the American League playoffs this year.

Once upon a time, before CNN was born, Larry King hosted an all-night radio talk show. The show originated in Washington, D.C., and was syndicated across the USA. As far as over-night radio on the AM dial, Larry was the king of the airwaves.

The Larry King back then was not the kind and gentle, heart-healthy Larry King who we see on television today. The radio version of Larry was a curmudgeonly, sarcastic man who ate lots of pastrami and corned beef at Duke's Deli (a D.C. legend) daily, while seemingly divorcing wives annually. 

Milwaukee Brewer Ryan Braun did something pretty remarkable at Petco Park on Monday night. The left fielder blasted three home runs and hit a triple, resulting in six RBI and 15 total bases.

We've seen players hit three home runs in a game before. Heck, Curtis Granderson did it less than two weeks before Braun.