The Orlando Magic will try to close out the Detroit Pistons in Game 6 of their first-round series. The Magic lead the series 3-2 but lost Game 5. Detroit is favored by 3.5 points. The total is set at 209.5 for this Eastern Conference matchup.
The Milwaukee Brewers placed pitcher Brandon Woodruff on the 10-day injured list with right shoulder inflammation, the team announced Friday.
That outcome seemed imminent after Woodruff left Thursday’s start against the Arizona Diamondbacks in the second inning. Facing only six batters, Woodruff showed diminished velocity with his fastball, averaging 85.4 mph (and topping out at 86.9 mph) after averaging 92.5 mph during his first five starts of the season.
Brandon Woodruff exited his start today in the 2nd inning with an apparent injury.
Following the game, Brewers manager Pat Murphy told reporters Woodruff said that his arm was “dead” and couldn’t throw with higher velocity. Yet he didn’t feel like he was injured.
“I think we just have to be really cautious here,” Murphy said. “We’re going to get him checked out. We’re going to get him tested.”
Talking to reporters Friday, Woodruff confirmed an MRI revealed right shoulder inflammation but didn’t seem concerned that he would be out for very long.
“I went out [Thursday] and, honestly, I felt good,” he said. “Nothing alarmed me and I went out for my start, and the ball just wasn’t coming out. A little inflammation in there from the image.
“But after talking with our staff and Dr. [Keith] Meister — I had a conversation with him, my surgeon — it should be a pretty minimum stint here, which is good news,” he added.
Woodruff, 33, has experience with more serious injuries, undergoing surgery on his right shoulder (performed by Meister, a renowned orthopedic surgeon and the head physician for the Texas Rangers) in 2023 that sidelined him for the entire 2024 season.
Last year, Woodruff went on the IL with a right lat strain that resulted in him being shut down in mid-September. He finished with 64 2/3 innings in 12 starts, compiling a 3.20 ERA, 7-2 record and 83 strikeouts.
The Western Conference’s second-seeded San Antonio Spurs will take on the sixth-seeded Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round of the 2026 NBA playoffs. It’s the first time these teams have squared off in the postseason since 2001, when Tim Duncan, David Robinson and Co. outclassed Kevin Garnett’s overmatched squad in a 3-1 opening-round win.
(That’s right: San Antonio and Minnesota haven’t played in the postseason since the first round was only five games. And if you remember that, do me a favor and please also remember to schedule that colonoscopy screening. We can’t be too careful at our ages.)
Game 1: Mon., May 4 at San Antonio (time and network TBD) Game 2: Wed., May 6 at San Antonio (TBD) Game 3: Fri., May 8 at Minnesota (TBD) Game 4: Sun., May 10 at Minnesota (TBD) *Game 5: Tue., May 12 at San Antonio (TBD) *Game 6: Fri., May 15 at Minnesota (TBD) *Game 7: Sun., May 17 at San Antonio (TBD)
*if necessary
Series odds
San Antonio Spurs (-2000) Minnesota Timberwolves (+950)
What we know about the Spurs
That, despite their relative youth, they are not just happy to be here.
San Antonio handled its business viciously, efficiently and with aplomb in Round 1. The NBA’s No. 3 regular-season defense held the Trail Blazers below 100 points three times in five games, limiting Portland to 40% shooting from the field and 30% shooting from 3-point range. Ascendant backcourt stars Stephon Castle and Dylan Harper looked mighty comfortable in their maiden postseason voyage, most notably when they combined for 60 points on the road in a Game 3 win. Veteran lead guard De’Aaron Fox earned his keep, leading the Spurs in scoring in Games 4 and 5 to close the Blazers out.
Portland’s lone win came after Victor Wembanyama left Game 2 early following a frightening fall that landed him in the NBA’s concussion protocol. When he returned for Game 4, though, so too did San Antonio’s sense of near-invulnerability; the Spurs outscored the Blazers by 45 points in the 112 minutes that the unanimous Defensive Player of the Year saw in the series. That works out to nearly 20 points per 100 possessions — a level of dominance firmly in keeping with his full-season impact for a Spurs team that now moves past the first round for the first time since 2017.
Jaden McDaniels called out every single Nugget’s defense and then backed up his talk, averaging 17.8 points per game on 49.4% shooting in the series. When Edwards and DiVincenzo went down, trade-deadline acquisition Ayo Dosunmu stepped up, delivering a 43-point Game 4 masterclass to become a Twin Cities folk hero. And when Dosunmu, too, became unavailable due to right calf soreness for Game 6, leaving the Wolves without their top three guards in a closeout game, it was McDaniels (32 points and 10 rebounds in 45 minutes) and little-used sophomore wing Terrence Shannon Jr. (24 points and six rebounds) who stepped in to join Julius Randle and Naz Reid in shouldering enough of the offensive workload to finish the job.
The Timberwolves won the clincher against Denver without Ayo Dosunmu (21.8 PPG this series), Anthony Edwards (18.5) and Donte DiVincenzo (10.8).
They are the first team in NBA history to win a playoff game while missing 3 or more players who averaged 10+ PPG in that series 🔥 pic.twitter.com/1NwSexKMpf
This is who Minnesota has been during these past few years: a physical, unrelenting crew eager to take any opponent to the mat, even a three-time MVP, and just maul ’em. Doing that against a fully healthy, rested and operational Spurs team profiles as an awfully daunting task, especially given the myriad injury issues the Wolves are now navigating. You know the old saying about wounded animals, though; the Spurs look past Chris Finch’s club, compromised though it might be, at their own peril.
Head-to-head
Minnesota won the season series, 2-1.
The Wolves took the opener in November, 125-112, behind an efficient 32 points from Edwards; a 22-point, 12-assist double-double from Randle and blistering 46% 3-point shooting as a team in what went down as San Antonio’s worst defensive performance of the season:
Minnesota just edged out the Spurs in their next meeting, with Edwards drawing Wembanyama on a switch before sliding around a screen for a tough runner that proved to be the game-winner in a 104-103 thriller:
“I was like, ‘Damn! Do I got the shot? Do I drive on him?’” Edwards told reporters after the game. “I was confused. I ain’t never been confused. I ain’t going to lie. I’m like, ‘S***, I’m [going to throw it] to Ju[lius Randle]. I don’t know what to do right now. […] I feel like he thought I was going to take a jump shot, for sure. He probably would’ve blocked that s***, so I had to drive him.”
San Antonio struck back six nights later, eking out a 126-123 victory despite a career-high 55 from Edwards, thanks to 39 points in 30 minutes from Wembanyama, 25 points and 12 dimes from Fox, and 20 points off the bench from Sixth Man of the Year winner Keldon Johnson:
After the injuries to Edwards and DiVincenzo, Minnesota’s offense scored at about a league-average clip for the remainder of Round 1, but did so against a much more permissive defense than the one San Antonio brings to bear. Without their starting backcourt — for at least the early part of the series, with Edwards’ status looming as (spoiler alert) The Key Question in this matchup — the Wolves must search for shot creation elsewhere, and Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson will have to decide how to deploy his phalanx of nasty, long-limbed defenders in an attempt to render that search unfruitful.
If Dosunmu’s calf injury clears up, he’ll be tasked with resuming primary ball-handling duties against the likes of All-Defensive Team candidate Castle — a significantly sterner test than anything Denver threw at him. If Ayo’s not ready, and with Edwards sidelined, would Johnson station his sophomore stopper on Randle, aiming to fluster and frustrate the three-time All-Star by having a smaller, quicker disruptor get underneath him and pressure his dribble?
Maybe not, if Finch keeps the electric Shannon in the starting lineup after his breakout 24-point performance in Game 6:
Can Shannon continue flexing his muscle on those north-south drives against the Spurs’ size and length on the perimeter? Can McDaniels continue to soak up more isolation and shot-creation possessions while operating as the primary defender on Fox — and, when Finch wants to shake things up, pulling shifts on Wembanyama with Gobert helping behind him, as he did in San Antonio’s January win? How much can Minnesota rely on veteran caretaker Mike Conley, who was largely out of the rotation until the injuries mounted but contributed 27 big minutes in the Game 6 clincher, against a Spurs backcourt full of bigger, stronger guards who can hunt him on the defensive end?
If Finch doesn’t like the sound of that, fearing the prospect of introducing a smaller target into his defensive ecosystem, does he instead veer the other way, looking for more opportunities to supersize with lineups featuring all three of Gobert, Randle and Reid? Those units played just 56 minutes together during the regular season, but were plus-15 in 17 minutes in Game 6 against Denver and could give the Wolves the opportunity to force a Spurs squad that typically flanks Wembanyama with small-ball 4s Julian Champagnie and Harrison Barnes to deal with a physicality disadvantage up front — a potential pathway to offensive rebounding opportunities, paint points and fouls to get into the bonus and muck the game up.
It remains to be seen whether any of those options will provide a consistently reliable pathway to points against a Spurs defense that’s been elite all season in limiting rim attempts, contesting the arc, preventing fast-break opportunities and dominating the glass. But some combination of them — continued breakouts from unlikely sources, a tactical curveball from Finch, a monster performance from the giganto-ball look — will have to make the favorites play off the back foot if the Wolves want to have a chance to steal a game early, extend the series and potentially give their game-breaking superstar a chance to get back and change the math.
About that …
Key question
Can Anthony Edwards make an impact on this series?
At the risk of overstating the obvious, Minnesota’s chances of being able to pull the upset increase dramatically if Edwards — who finished third in the NBA in scoring during the regular season, becoming one of just 10 guards ever to average at least 28 points per game on a true shooting percentage (which factors in 2-point, 3-point and free-throw accuracy) higher than 60% — is able to play. As it stands, though, that’s a big “if.”
So: How many weeks might it take before Edwards could be available?
“There is a chance that Edwards returns at some point in this series,” according to Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic. “But he is not expected to be back for the start of it.”
Friday’s Game 3 would mark 13 days since he suffered the injury. If two weeks is enough for Minnesota’s medical team to get Edwards — a famously fast healer in the past — not only back in the fold, but back with the requisite explosiveness to elevate on jumpers and attack the rim with his typical force, it could go a long way toward giving Minnesota a puncher’s chance against heavily favored San Antonio. If he needs more weeks than that, though … well, there just might not be enough weeks left for him to have a say in whether the Spurs advance to the Western Conference finals.
Prediction: Spurs in six
If I knew for a fact that Dosunmu was 100% and that Ant would be back midway through the series, I’d think hard about Minnesota here; you don’t win as many playoff series as the Wolves have over these past few years, in as many different ways as they’ve won them, without earning a certain measure of respect. But I’m not sure toughness and smothering defense will be enough to outlast an opponent that pairs those traits with depth, youth and an alien. The Wolves make a proud stand, but the Spurs march on to the Western Conference finals.
Cronin discussed his growing connection with the 54-year-old Texas billionaire, who thrived in the auto loan business and also owns the NHL’s Carolina Hurricanes. As for the myriad reports about Dundon’s cost-cutting measures during his first month at the helm in Portland, Cronin said that they aren’t “an accurate depiction of what his goals are.”
When asked specifically about the Blazers not sending their three two-way players to San Antonio for the first two games of their first-round playoff series against the San Antonio Spurs, Cronin took responsibility for that blunder. Portland received flak after it was the only team to not send its two-way players on the road for the first weekend of this season’s playoffs. While two-way players — who are on contracts that allow them to split time between the NBA and the G League — aren’t eligible to play in the NBA postseason, it’s customary that they make playoff trips with their NBA teams.
“That one’s on me,” Cronin, who became full-time GM in May 2022, told reporters Thursday. “It was more of a miscommunication on my end. We’ve talked about doing some traveling party reductions.
“Next year, we’ll run a little lighter. I just assumed that meant including them, and I didn’t double check. And we fixed that mistake. We brought those guys to San Antonio [for Game 5]. That was on me for not communicating properly.”
Portland Trail Blazers owner Tom Dundon (left) and general manager Joe Cronin (right) are hoping to return the Blazers to contender status in the Western Conference. (Photo by Soobum Im/Getty Images)
Soobum Im via Getty Images
Game 5 is when the Blazers’ season came to a close, as they bowed out of the playoffs to the No. 2 seeded Spurs after returning to the postseason for the first time since 2021. Interim head coach Tiago Splitter helped Portland end its four-year playoff drought.
Splitter took over for Chauncey Billups after the first game of the 2025-26 season. Billups, a Basketball Hall of Famer, was arrested in an FBI gambling probe this fall. In his absence, Splitter piloted the Blazers to 42 wins, plus another in the play-in tournament that secured them the No. 7 seed in the West.
“The current status is Tiago is a candidate for the position, but we’re also looking around at other candidates,” Cronin said. “We decided early on we were going to cast a wide net and get to know a lot of different coaches and analyze and evaluate them in relation to Tiago.
“And timeline-wise, we don’t have a timeline pinned down. We just want to keep meeting people and keep talking to people and having a really thorough process.”
Cronin was peppered with a few questions about the Billups situation. He said he couldn’t comment on it at the moment and that there are no updates he can provide right now. Billups has pleaded not guilty to multiple charges and remains on leave from the NBA.
There’s been more than just uncertainty about whom Portland will hire to lead the team next season.
‘A lot of the reports on budget out there were a little misleading’
There have also been reports that the Blazers aren’t willing to pay top dollar for a head coach under Dundon.
“A lot of the reports on budget out there were a little misleading,” Cronin said. “Have talked to Tom a lot about this. We’re going to pay the coach based on some sort of level of shared risk. If it’s a first-time coach who comes with a lot of risk and doesn’t have a market that we have to necessarily compete in, it’ll be one number.
“If the coach we’re talking to is a 15-year vet and a future Hall of Famer, it’s going to be a completely different number, and Tom isn’t going to flinch at either of those scenarios. We’re going to be very open-minded to what types of people we interview and would potentially bring in, and I’m not concerned about the number at all.”
The speculation has run rampant, especially on the heels of reportsthat Blazers staffers were asked to check out of their Phoenix-area hotel rooms hours before the first team bus left for a play-in game versus the Suns so that Portland could avoid late-checkout fees.
In The Athletic’s report, it noted early checkouts were required of all traveling party members, except the team’s players and coaches, and that it was an order from Dundon.
Discourse about the Blazers slashing expenses has been hard to ignore, especially in the wake of the two-way player omission on the first trip to San Antonio.
Cronin was asked about the reputation that conversation is assigning the franchise.
“I think seeing those reports and some of those things, for me, it was somewhat disturbing,” he said, “because I’ve gotten the opportunity to know Tom Dundon really, really well these last nine, 10 months, and it’s just not an accurate depiction of what his goals are.
“Yes, we’re going to run things more efficiently in terms of being economically responsible, in terms of having a discipline, less is more mentality. … But I’ve seen a lot of instances where he was willing to throw big money on the table in order to support this team, in order to put it on the floor, in order to make us a winner.”
Cronin called upon a scenario at the trade deadline that he presented to Dundon.
“It would’ve launched us into the tax, close to the first apron, would’ve saved the other team a bunch of money,” Cronin recalled. “We would’ve got a nice young asset, and [Dundon] would’ve had to write a check for $20 million because he would’ve inherited that tax bill, and he didn’t flinch. He’s like, ‘Yep, do it.’ And at that moment, I said, ‘OK, he’s about winning. He’s going to put money into this team whenever it’s necessary.’“
Cronin said he and Dundon have had dialogue about buying into this year’s draft using cash. Dundon, unprompted, bought the organization a new hyperbaric oxygen chamber, according to Cronin.
“So there’s a lot of spending fallacies about him,” Cronin said. “He’s going to spend when it touches the players, and the players are always going to be supported.”
But as the weather warms, it’s never too early to think about cold weather baseball activities — namely, the 2027 free-agent class.
This will be the first in a series of monthly check-ins. Much will change between now and the offseason. Injuries, underperformance and unexpected breakouts are yet to come. At this point, we don’t know what we don’t know. As such, this list will change a great deal over the coming months.
Before we begin, a few big-picture notes about this class:
1. This could be an all-time bad crop of position-player free agents.
In every single offseason since 2015, at least one hitter received a contract with a total value of $100 million or more. That run might very well be snapped this winter. A strong walk year from Jazz Chisholm Jr. or Seiya Suzuki could lead to a nine-figure deal, but it’s far from a given. Why the shallow group? Extensions for Cal Raleigh and Nico Hoerner kept those shoo-in $100 million talents off the open market. And the 2020 rookie class was particularly light, for whatever reason.
2. There’s tons of pitching.
Whatever you’re shopping for on the mound, this market has it: Game 1 playoff starters, mid-rotation innings-eaters, lefties, righties, velocity, control, reliability, upside. It’s all here.
3. The labor situation will impact things.
It’s a near certainty that a work stoppage of some sort — probably the owners locking out the players — will happen when the current CBA expires on Dec. 1. When that transpired in the winter of 2021-22, there was a flurry of free-agent activity right before the CBA deadline. Things might happen that way again, they might not, but know that zero transactional activity is allowed during a work stoppage. Get ready to get bored.
With all that out of the way, let’s get to the rankings.
Notes: Whenever you see a number, a slash and another number, that’s a reference to contract years and total earnings. For instance, the shorthand for Bryce Harper’s 11-year, $330 million deal would be “11/330.” Ages listed below are for the 2027 season.
1. Tarik Skubal, Tigers SP, age 30
It’s difficult to envision Skubal getting knocked from the top spot. He’s the best pitcher in the world, fresh off two consecutive Cy Youngs and gunning for a third. Barring injury, he will break the record for the largest contract ever handed to a pitcher: Yoshinobu Yamamoto’s 12/325. That Skubal is represented by mega-agent Scott Boras will only add to the drama.
Skubal did have a weird moment in his most recent outing, when he shook his arm out and massaged his elbow after throwing a pitch. His next offering was a 97-mph fastball dotted on the edge. So while that moment didn’t become anything bigger, it was a reminder that every hurler in the sport is always one pitch away from catastrophe. If Skubal dodges disaster, the payday will be nuts.
2. Freddy Peralta, Mets SP, 31
Think of Peralta as the best of the rest. Dealt from the Brewers to the Mets over the winter, the ebullient Dominican has been just OK through his first seven starts. But Peralta’s numbers should inch back to his career norms as the season goes along. This guy finished fifth in the NL Cy Young last year and has a career K/9 north of 11. He might not be an ace, depending on your definition, but Peralta is undoubtedly a very good No. 1 starter and will get paid as such.
As mentioned, these are the only two position players with a fighting shot at a nine-figure deal. Despite being notably older, Suzuki ranks over Chisholm for his offensive consistency. The Japanese outfielder has tallied at least 580 plate appearances with an adjusted OPS 30% above league average in each of the past three seasons. Suzuki hits the ball hard, in the air, very often. That’s a crucial, repeatable skill. He’s also a better athlete and outfielder than you might expect — Team Japan had him playing center in the WBC — even if those skills will decline over time.
Chisholm, though, could leapfrog Suzuki with a monster season. The gregarious Bahamian clanked 30 homers and swiped 30 bags last season but has gotten off to a slow start in 2026. He’s walking less, swinging slower and barreling the ball less often. Still, Chisholm is talented enough to catch fire at any time. His defense at the keystone is stellar, as is his baserunning. Those attributes give him a decently high floor. If the offense bounces back, watch out.
5. Kevin Gausman, Blue Jays SP, 36
Age is but a number. Gausman was initially much lower on this list, but he kept climbing higher with each edit. His performance, in the end, was simply too good to ignore. The Jays’ righty has thrown at least 174 innings in each of the past five seasons and is on pace to do so again. He’s no longer quite as dominant as he was from 2021 to ‘23, but this guy was the ace of a Jays team that was inches from winning it all last fall. The underlying metrics still love him, and his heater-splitter combo remains one of the game’s best. He won’t earn a lengthy pact because of his age, but some team (maybe the Jays) will pay big money over the short term to secure his services.
6. Ian Happ, Cubs OF, 32 7. Randy Arozarena, Mariners OF, 32 8. Taylor Ward, Orioles OF, 33
This is a weird one. Three left fielders, all of them nearly the same age, with very similar offensive production over the past three seasons. Happ gets the edge in the early going because he has the longest track record, and he’s merely average defensively, whereas Arozarena and Ward are active detriments in the outfield.
But if steals are your thing, Arozarena is your guy. He has 112 bags since 2022 (Happ has 43, Ward 20). And, of course, the Cuban-born Mexican goofball always brings a flair for the dramatic. Ward is off to a scorching start in 2026, with a batting average over .300 and a league-leading 13 doubles. He also owns the single lowest chase rate in MLB.
It’s Tarik Skubal and everybody else when it comes to the 2027 MLB free-agent class.
King has a $28 million player option for 2027, but we think he’ll end up reentering free agency if he stays healthy. Despite an injured-plagued 2025, he got a three-year, $75 million deal last offseason. He should be able to beat that if he makes 30 starts. So far, so good.
Rogers and Bubic can be grouped together as younger-than-typical southpaws with short track records. The O’s lefty was one of the best pitchers in baseball after the All-Star break last year. Bubic was an All-Star himself. That’s more or less where the résumés end. Both have been good, not great so far in ‘26. Depending on how this season plays out, you could envision this duo as high as Nos. 3 and 4 — or way down the rankings.
Imanaga is coming off a bizarre foray through free agency in which he and the Cubs played contractual ping-pong before reuniting on a qualifying offer. His fastball velocity so far this season is back up to where it was during his stellar 2024. If that holds, Imanaga should get a nice multiyear deal.
Arraez is good at defense now? The 30-year-old Venezuelan settled for a one-year deal with the Giants last winter, in part because he was intent on moving back to the keystone from first base. Some teams were spooked by that, but the Giants were willing to take on the experiment. That has paid off so far, with Arraez grading out phenomenally on most defensive metrics. Offensively, he’s up to his old tricks. If the defensive improvement sticks, Arraez is a markedly different player and should get a better look this time around.
Lowe is a bad defender but has a much higher offensive ceiling and sturdier track record than Arraez. He has already gone deep eight times in his first season with the Pirates. Only Marcus Semien has more home runs among second basemen over the past five seasons. That’s all the more impressive considering Lowe has missed a ton of games over the years due to injuries. Perhaps that ends up dampening his free-agent case.
Torres was one of a record four players to accept the qualifying offer this past winter. For whatever reason, his exit velocity and bat-speed numbers are down precipitously compared to 2025. That hasn’t impacted his output just yet, but it’s something to monitor as the season unfolds.
16. Ryan Jeffers, Twins C, 30
Easily the top catcher on the market, Jeffers has quietly been one of the best-hitting backstops in the game over the past few seasons. His framing and throwing numbers are very poor, which probably takes him out of the running for a team that prioritizes defense behind the dish. As he ages, Jeffers probably works best in a hybrid catcher/DH role in which he can spend a bit more time focusing on hitting. He rakes, though, and is off to a magnificent start.
Here we have two occasionally electric, extremely flawed center fielders. Varsho gets the edge based on his glove, an area in which Grisham has curiously declined. The Jays’ center fielder has also cut his strikeout rate by more than 10 percentage points, one of the biggest drops in the sport this year. How that impacts his power production remains to be seen, but the bar is lower for Varsho just because he’s capable of brilliance in the grass.
Grisham was another of the qualifying offer acceptors from last winter. He’s off to a slow start with the Yankees, though the underlying metrics think a rebound is inevitable. Grisham does a few very important things — walk, not chase, square up the ball, hit it hard — very well. That gives him a high floor … as a center fielder. A bounce-back in his defense would go a long way; it was telling that Grisham was wary of testing the open market this past offseason.
Lets call this “Starting Pitching Tier 3.” Mize was off to the best start of his career but just went on the injured list due to a lower-body issue. That’s less concerning than a shoulder or an elbow and shouldn’t influence his free agency too, too much. Gallen returned to Arizona on a one-year deal after dipping his toe in the free-agent waters last winter but looks pretty similar to the pitcher he was in 2025. He’s throwing more sliders and getting more chase as a result, but that’s pretty much it.
Ray, an All-Star last season, looks like a perfectly reliable mid-rotation type right now — somebody you’d start in Game 3 of a playoff series. Maybe he becomes more than that as he gets further away from elbow surgery. Holmes’ transition from the ‘pen to the rotation has gone better than most anybody thought possible. He has a $12 million option for next year, which he’ll probably decline if he continues pitching this well. The Mets have problems; Holmes is not one of them.
23. David Bednar, Yankees RP, 32 (26) 24. Ryan Helsley (opt-out), Orioles RP, 32 25. Raisel Iglesias, Braves RP, 37
Relievers are volatile things. Helsley, Luke Weaver and Devin Williams spent last season pinballing up and down these rankings with the whims of the wind. This trio here, though, represents the clear upper crust of the free-agent relievers to be. There’s an argument that Bednar belongs higher, given his long track record and current dominance. Let’s give it some time and reassess later.
