MLB: Breaking Stories and all the Latest from NBC Sports

Here is the latest Baseball News from NBC Sports.

And That Happened: Tuesday’s scores and highlights
Holy Smoak! Justin Smoak hits the game-tying and the game-winning homers in Toronto.

Bronson Arroyo is throwing side-arm now
Bronson Arroyo is changing his delivery to compensate for his injured right shoulder.

Hunter Harvey to undergo sports hernia surgery
More injury woes for the Orioles’ top prospect.

Aroldis Chapman will rejoin the Yankees on Monday
Aroldis Chapman’s 30-game suspension will be up on Monday and the Yankees plan to use him in the closer’s role immediately.

The Reds’ bullpen set an ignominious record
The Reds’ bullpen has been extraordinarily bad to start the 2016 season.

Robbie Erlin needs Tommy John surgery
Robbie Erlin’s 2016 season is over before it really started.

Bartolo Colon hit a foul ball with 102 MPH exit velocity on Monday
Even Bartolo Colon was swinging a hot bat in the first inning on Monday against the Braves.

Brian Cashman on Yankees’ slow start: “Some leashes might be shorter than others.”
The Yankees have massively underperformed to begin the 2016 season and GM Brian Cashman is searching for solutions.

The Potomac Nationals will play a triple-header on Wednesday
The Potomac Nationals and Lynchburg Hillcats will play at least 19 innings of baseball on Wednesday.

Tigers activate James McCann
The Tigers have activated catcher James McCann from the 15-day disabled list. He’s been out since April 11 with a sprained ankle. Whether he has a position is an open question. In his absence Jarrod Saltalamacchia has put up a .947 OPS. That’s weighted somewhat heavily by slugging and some fluky power, but he’s done […]

Major League Baseball may cancel the upcoming Puerto Rico series due to Zika concerns
Yahoo’s Jeff Passan hears from multiple sources that the series is on “the brink of cancellation”

Bryce Harper signs the largest endorsement deal in MLB history
Baseball players will never get NBA-level endorsements, but Harper will come the closest.

What’s on Tap: Previewing Tuesday’s action
The lowly Braves enter Tuesday’s action 6-19. How low can they go?

Pablo Sandoval had successful shoulder surgery
Pablo Sandoval underwent successful surgery today to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder. The Red Sox said afterward that he will be out the remainder of 2016 and that they anticipate him being ready for 2017. That’s the official word, of course, on what many reported last night. But it’s nice that it’s […]

White Sox will designate John Danks for assignment
The White Sox plan to DFA John Danks, a veteran of 10 seasons.

It’s OK to not like someone on the team you root for
It’s really weird to find a Cards fan who doesn’t like Yadier Molina. But what do you care if someone doesn’t?

Catching up with Professor Ben Cherington
There is a general consensus that the bad free agent signings of the later Ben Cherington years in Boston were ownership diktats, not things that were Ben Cherington’s idea. Whether that consensus is accurate is hard to say, but that’s how it sort of felt to most outside observers. The reality was probably messier. Where […]

Justin Verlander and Kate Upton are engaged
Justin Verlander and Kate Upton have been a couple for a long time. And dudes like me have been writing about them for a long time because, well, Justin Verlander and Kate Upton. They’ve fallen a bit off the radar in recent years thanks to Verlander taking a step back from Cy Young contender status […]

Video: Yadier Molina does pushups after being brushed back, gets hit
The best part of this sequence is not that Molina successfully evaded an inside pitch or that, in doing so, he hit the dirt and did some pushups. It’s not even the part where, after that, het got back up and knocked a single to left field. No, the best part is the applause from […]

A-Rod’s mansion is featured in Architectural Digest
He’s got style, man. Loads of it.

And That Happened: Monday’s scores and highlights
Joe Maddon was barking at the Pirates after some plunky business, but the Cubs prevailed.

Pablo Sandoval will undergo surgery on his left shoulder
Pablo Sandoval’s tumultuous 2016 season continues.

Angel Pagan out four to five days with a strained hamstring
The Giants will be without hot-hitting Angel Pagan for the rest of the week at least.

Video: A Delino DeShields base running gaffe costs the Rangers a run
Delino DeShields turned a routine sacrifice fly into an inning-ending double play that cost his team a run.

Video: Adam Wainwright crushes a three-run homer into the second deck
Watch Adam Wainwright deposit a Jeremy Hellickson fastball into the second deck.

Manny Machado, Jake Arrieta highlight MLB’s monthly award winners
Major League Baseball announced the winners of its monthly awards today. Your April standouts… Player of the Month American League: Manny Machado All Machado did in April was play his usual elite defense while hitting .344/.394/.667 with 10 doubles, seven home runs, 16 RBI, 20 runs scored in 104 plate appearances. National League: Bryce Harper […]

J.J. Hardy to miss four to eight weeks with a hairline fracture in his right foot
The Orioles will be without J.J. Hardy for at least a month after he suffered an injury fouling a ball off of his foot.

The Braves made a flurry of roster moves ahead of Monday’s game
It’s like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

Dodgers’ Josh Ravin suspended 80 games for using a banned substance
Josh Ravin will be the sixth major leaguer suspended for PEDs this year.

Reds place Devin Mesoraco on the disabled list with a torn labrum
Devin Mesoraco has a torn labrum in his shoulder. Now he and the Reds will decide if he will undergo surgery.

Today is the anniversary of Lou Gehrig’s Iron Man streak ending
One man broke the streak of 2,130 games. I doubt anyone ever comes close to either of them again.

What’s on Tap: Previewing Monday’s action
Cubs/Pirates appears to be the marquee match-up on Monday’s schedule.

A-Rod knows how to keep his bat dry
Alex Rodriguez had a big night in a losing effort last night. He homered and drove in four. In the past week or so he’s raised his average over 50 points and may be finally shaking off the offseason rust. When you’re over 40 it takes you longer to do everything. But even if it […]

More talk of a juiced ball
At the end of March we linked a story from Rob Arthur and Ben Lindbergh at FiveThirtyEight which sought to figure out why home run rates have spiked. Their theory was that it was either randomness or a juiced ball. They tested baseballs and found no evidence of a different ball, so that seems to have ended […]