Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Trey Yesavage made the first start of what’s technically his rookie season Tuesday night against the Boston Red Sox.

The 22-year-old righty didn’t collect double-digit strikeouts like he did during his last start, a seven-inning masterpiece against the Los Angeles Dodgers in Game 5 of the 2025 World Series, but he did set forth what could be an AL Rookie of the Year campaign.

After beginning the season on the injured list with a right shoulder impingement, Yesavage made his long-awaited return to the mound in a 3-0 victory over the Red Sox (12-18). He picked up the win, giving the Blue Jays (13-16) 5 1/3 innings of shutout ball. He needed 74 pitches to reach that point, logging three punch-outs along the way.

Yesavage conceded four hits, only one of the extra-base variety, and didn’t issue a walk. He finished strong, stringing together a 1-2-3 inning in the fifth and then striking out Willson Contreras in the sixth before Toronto turned to its bullpen.

By that point, Toronto had all three of its runs, courtesy of RBI singles from Kazuma Okamoto and Vladimir Guerrero Jr.

When Blue Jays manager John Schneider took the ball from Yesavage, the Pottstown, Pennsylvania, native received a standing ovation from appreciative fans who graciously welcomed him back.

“It was awesome,” Yesavage said of the reception he got at the beginning and end of his start, via “6ix Inning Stretch” podcast’s Lindsay Dunn.

“These fans are great, and I’m very blessed to play in front of them.”

They won’t ever forget the shot in the arm he gave their team’s rotation last season. Yesavage, a 2024 first-round draft pick of the Blue Jays, ascended through the ranks, going from Single-A to the big leagues just in time for Toronto’s World Series push.

He scattered 14 innings across three regular-season starts, all wins, and then helped the Blue Jays win their first AL pennant in 32 years. He piled up 27 2/3 innings in the postseason, making five playoff starts and three total appearances in the World Series.

Yesavage could be the future of the Blue Jays. He’s also the present, and he gifted Toronto with an encouraging first start of the season Tuesday night against the Red Sox.

The Arizona Cardinals have suffered the loss of a former player. Former defensive lineman Josh Mauro has died at the age of 35 last week on April 23, his family announced on Facebook.

His father posted this on Facebook:

“With many tears and broken hearts, yet anchored in the unshakable certainty that our precious Josh Mauro is now healed and made new — living in the presence of the Lord — we humbly covet your prayers as our family walks through the devastating loss of our amazing son, brother, uncle, grandson and friend. Josh breathed his last breath on this earth and his first breath in heaven. The Lord has been our strength in this unimaginable moment. Your prayers for continued strength and comfort mean more to us than words could ever express.”

The cause of death was not immediately available.

Mauro has multiple stints with the Cardinals, his first from 2013-2017 and then again in 2020 and for a bit in 2021. In eight NFL seasons, he played in 80 games with 130 career tackles and five career sacks.

In his stints with the Cardinals, he appeared in 55 games, starting 29, and had 83 tackles, four sacks, 13 tackles for loss, 12 quarterback hits, four tipped passes, two forced fumbles and a fumble recovery.

The Cardinals released a statement after learning the news.

pic.twitter.com/6h36tbtVi2

— Arizona Cardinals (@AZCardinals) April 28, 2026

AZCardinals.com’s Darren Urben recalled something that Mauro said that stuck with him.

“It’s bigger than you making plays, it’s bigger than getting your name called, it’s bigger than the newspaper having your numbers,” Mauro said.

It is a sad time for those who knew and loved Mauro. Our hearts go out to all those impacted by his death.

Get more Cardinals and NFL coverage from Cards Wire’s Jess Root and others by listening to the latest on the Rise Up, See Red podcast. Subscribe on Spotify, YouTube or Apple podcasts.

This article originally appeared on Cards Wire: Former Arizona Cardinals DE Josh Mauro dead at 35

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Concord University hired Springfield native Jayson Gee as its head men’s basketball coach on Monday, April 27, and will introduce him at a press conference Wednesday in Athens, W.Va.

This is the first head coaching job for the 1984 South High School graduate Gee since he led Longwood University, a Division I program in Farmville, Va., from 2013-18. He also served as the head coach of his alma mater, the University of Charleston, from 1996 to 2003.

Like Charleston, Concord is an NCAA Division II program and a member of the Mountain East Conference. Gee replaces Todd May, who stepped down after 10 seasons to take an assistant coaching job at Akron.

We are extremely excited to welcome Coach Gee to the Concord family,” Concord University Athletic Director Luke Duffy said in a press release. “Gee brings a coaching pedigree that is second to none, and his ability to attract the best players on the court makes him and his family a great fit for the Concord men’s basketball program.”

“My vision is we are going to bring the EDGE,” Gee said in a press release. “E is for energy and I’m all about energy, so there will be great energy in the program, around the program and outside the program. When you see us, you are going to feel that energy. The D is for discipline. We’re going to do things to a standard and do them the right way. We’re going to discipline our mind, discipline our tongue and discipline our body.

“Two things associated with Jayson Gee are energy and toughness. We’re going to play with great grit and then E is for excellence. We’re going to do our best and let God do the rest. Energy, discipline, grit and excellence is what Concord basketball will become known for, and be a consistent competitor in the Mountain East Conference.”

Gee won the Clark County Mr. Basketball award in 1984 as a senior at South. He helped lead the Wildcats to a 20-0 regular season.

Last season, Gee worked at Kansas State on Jerome Tang’s staff. His title was character coach. That stint followed four seasons in which he served as an associate head coach on Justin Gray’s staff at Western Carolina (2021-24) and Coastal Carolina (2024-25).

Gee’s coaching career started in 1989 at Youngstown State when, at 23, he was the youngest full-time assistant coach in the country.

Gee then spent four seasons on Larry Hunter’s staff at Ohio. He got that job in 1993 when Bill Brown left Hunter’s staff to take the head coaching job at Wittenberg.

Gee also has worked as an assistant coach with Anthony Solomon at St. Bonaventure (2003-06), Gary Waters at Cleveland State (2006-13), Pat Kelsey at Winthrop (2018-19) and John Brannen at Cincinnati (2019-20).

Gee enjoyed his best seasons as a head coach at Charleston. The program made four straight NCAA tournament appearances from 1999-02. One of his star players was South grad Ajamu Gaines, who was the Division II national player of the year in 2000.

At Charleston, Drew Meighen, who is married to Concord University President Bethany Meighen, worked as an assistant coach on Gee’s staff.

“Myself and Drew (Meighen) and President Meighen are aligned heart wise and aligned relational which made this a unique situation,” Gee said in a press release. The Meighens are someone that I consider family. Drew was a faithful assistant during my time at Charleston and we won a lot of games.”

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After NBC got the chance to break the news of an incredibly tight NBA Rookie of the Year win by Dallas’ Cooper Flagg on Monday night, Carmelo Anthony took the opportunity to revisit one of the league’s most ridiculous stories of the past year.

That would be the rise and fall of Mavericks general manager Nico Harrison, the galaxy-brained architect of the trade that sent franchise cornerstone Luka Dončić to the Lakers — widely regarded as one of the most lopsided trades in sports history.

Given the national profile of Dončić, who at the time he was traded was coming off his first NBA Finals appearance, and the constant spotlight on the Lakers, NBA media has churned through numerous news cycles around the trade in the year since it happened. Once Dallas lucked into (or, if you prefer conspiracies, was given) the No. 1 overall pick in the following draft and selected Flagg, some in the media began to turn back to Harrison’s side.

Of course, the Mavericks remained a mess behind the scenes and sucked for most of Flagg’s rookie season. So even as some commentators attempted to spin the story to give Harrison more credit, the team fired him.

Which made it all the more bizarre when Anthony, in celebrating Flagg’s closely contested ROY win on national television, chose to once again heap praise on Harrison.

“Shout out to Nico Harrison, man,” Anthony said. “For seeing this right here, for understanding this vision. No matter what happened, how it happened, Dallas got something back. They got the No. 1 pick.”

“You start talking about Cooper’s ceiling and a young face of this league in the NBA, that’s Cooper Flagg.”

Carmelo Anthony shouts out Nico Harrison for Cooper Flagg winning ROY

“Shout out to Nico Harrison for seeing this right here. For understanding his vision. Whatever happened or how it happened, Dallas got something back. They got the #1 pick and a rookie who led the squad in… pic.twitter.com/Bg9qyrANsv

— NBA Courtside (@NBA__Courtside) April 27, 2026

It’s one thing to defend Harrison, as some in the media have, after seeing Doncic continue to struggle with his conditioning or commitment to defense in L.A.

It is another for Anthony to credit him for “vision” when it comes to Flagg and claim that “they got something back” in relation to the Dončić trade. The whole reason the Dončić trade was considered such a disaster for the Mavericks is that they got so little back. The pick that became Flagg did not come back in that deal; Dallas entered lottery night in 2025 with a 1.8 percent chance at the top selection and miraculously came away with the right to pick Flagg.

Either Anthony completely forgot the details of how Dallas came to pick Flagg during a segment coronating the star rookie, or he genuinely wants to give Harrison credit for the way the ping-pong balls fell at the lottery.

Regardless of how a viewer might have parsed Anthony’s praise for the ousted GM, the audible laughter that came from Anthony’s fellow NBC panelists as he argued on Harrison’s behalf is all you need to see just how preposterous the take was.

The post Carmelo Anthony wants Nico Harrison to get credit for Cooper Flagg’s Rookie of the Year win appeared first on Awful Announcing.

The Houston Rockets have had players donning a total of 52 different jersey numbers (and have one not part of any numerical series for Houston assistant coach and general manager Carroll Dawson) since their founding at the start of the 1967-68 season, worn by just under 500 players in the course of Rockets history.

To honor all of the players who wore those numbers over the decades, Rockets Wire is covering the entire history of jersey numbers and the players who wore them since the founding of the team all those years ago right up to the present day.

With seven of those jerseys now retired to honor some of the greatest Rockets of all time to wear those jerseys, there is a lot of history to cover.

And for today’s article, we will continue with the 16th of 16 who wore the No. 12, big man alum Steven Adams. After ending his college career at Pitt, Adams was picked up with the 12th overall selection of the 2013 NBA Draft by the Oklahoma City Thunder.

The Rotorua, New Zealand native played the first seven seasons of his pro career with the Thunder. He also played for the New Orleans Pelicans and Memphis Grizzlies before he was dealt to the Houston Rockets in 2024. He remains with the team at the time of writing.

During his time suiting up for the Rockets, Adams wore only jersey No. 12 and put up 4.6 points, 6.7 rebounds, and 1.3 assists per game.

All stats and data courtesy of Basketball Reference.

This article originally appeared on Rockets Wire: Rockets jersey history No. 12 – Steven Adams (2024-26)

Atlanta United defeated a rotated Charlotte FC side on Tuesday night to advance to the Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup quarter-finals.

Scorers: Miranchuk 22′, Sanchez 71′

Atlanta opened the scoring as captain Alexey Miranchuk curled his strike into the top-left corner.

Despite taking seven first-half shots to Charlotte’s zero, Atlanta went into the break with just a one-goal lead.

Eventually, Atlanta doubled their lead as 18-year-old Cooper Sanchez took advantage of a serious defensive miscommunication to find the back of an empty net.

Ultimately, after a routine 2-0 victory, Tata Martino’s side will face the winner of Red Bull New York vs New York City FC in the quarter-final.

Jack
Della Maddalena probably preferred his view from the
Ultimate Fighting Championship penthouse, even if only lasted a
little more than six months.

The former undisputed welterweight champion will take his first
step toward reclaiming the 170-pound crown when he confronts
Carlos
Prates in the
UFC Fight Night 275 headliner on Saturday at RAC Arena in
Perth, Australia. Della Maddalena enters the Octagon as a slight
underdog against the dangerous Vale Top Team- and
Fighting Nerds-trained Brazilian. Even so, he appears to have
multiple paths to victory ahead of his latest high-profile
assignment. A look at three reasons why Della Maddalena beats
Prates in the UFC’s first visit to Australia in almost three
months:

Chin

Della Maddalena may bend, but he does not break. The 29-year-old
crooked-nosed Aussie steps back into the spotlight having won 18 of
his past 19 bouts—a ridiculous run of sustained success rarely seen
at any level of mixed martial arts. Durability has been an
essential spoke in the Della Maddalena wheel, as he has been
stopped by strikes only once in his 21-fight career. That lone
setback occurred in his pro debut more than a decade ago on March
12, 2016, when he was just 19 years old. Della Maddalena’s ability
to take punishment has certainly served him well with in the UFC,
where opponents have yet to be credited with a knockdown against
him despite his having absorbed nearly 400 significant strikes
across 23 rounds of hand-to-hand combat. Prates has relied heavily
on finishes throughout his time in the sport, with 21 of his 23
victories having resulted in either a knockout or a submission. If
“The Nightmare” wants to get past Della Maddalena, he probably
needs all five rounds to do it.

Volume

Della Maddalena marches into the match at a two-inch disadvantage
in height and five-inch deficit in reach. Nevertheless, most other
metrics favor the Australian. Della Maddalena lands more often
(5.57 significant strikes per minute to 3.77) and gets hit less
often (3.84 significant strikes per minute to 4.53), all while
connecting at virtually the same percentage as the explosive
Brazilian. He has landed at least 80 significant strikes in four of
his past five appearances, highlighted by a career-best 178 of them
in his title-clinching unanimous decision over Belal
Muhammad at UFC 315. By comparison, Prates has yet to land more
than 63 significant strikes in a single fight since he joined the
roster in 2024. Should he fail to secure a stoppage, odds seem to
swing dramatically in Della Maddalena’s favor.

Support

Della Maddalena owns a 9-2 record over his 11 fights in his native
Australia, having won nine straight since he started his career
with back-to-back losses. He gets the benefit of a short drive to
the venue, which seats in the neighborhood of 15,000 people, the
vast majority of whom figure to be in his corner once the cage door
closes behind him. Prates must confront an 8,500-mile, daylong
flight with at least one layover to Australia, along with a
treacherous weight cut and an 11-hour time difference.

Did Buccaneers draft ideal Mike Evans replacement? originally appeared on The Sporting News.
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When the Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost Mike Evans to the San Francisco 49ers in free agency, many were wondering how the franchise could replace the Pro Bowl weapon.

For some, they felt the Buccaneers already had the players on the roster to cover the loss of Evans, but others thought a veteran should be signed to help ease the transition.

Then came the NFL Draft, and the Buccaneers took a swing on Georgia State’s Ted Hurst in the third round.

For CBS Sports’ Mike Renner, Hurst is Tampa’s best chance at replacing No. 13.

“Hurst is their best swing at replacing Mike Evans,” Renner wrote. “At 6-foot-4, 206 pounds with 4.42 speed, Hurst is an outside receiver that can win on the vertical tree. I just see him as a massive project in his route-running, but coming from a small school there’s hope that can improve.”

More:Analyst names Chiefs’ worst draft pick

Can Hurst replace Evans?

I’m not putting any sort of pressure on a third-round rookie to replace a legend of the franchise, but with Hurst’s physical capabilities, he could become a nice piece for Baker Mayfield.

At 6’4, he will be a matchup nightmare in the redzone, and along with Chris Godwin, Emeka Egbuka, Jalen McMillan, and Tez Johnson, that isn’t a bad group of weapons.

But Hurst shouldn’t come into training camp with big expectations; instead, focus on making the roster and see how that plays out. He’ll likely have to play special teams to start with to get his foot in the door.

However, Hurst has the skills and physical makeup to be a productive player for Tampa.

But as an Evans replacement? Nope, no one is replacing No. 13.

More NFL news:

• Analyst offers $50 million Baker Mayfield Buccaneers contract prediction
• Analyst poses 1 big Commanders WR question
• Why Bills still have huge Keon Coleman question mark
• Ravens have huge cloud hanging over franchise
• How does Chargers’ draft impact Justin Herbert?

TORONTO (AP) — Toronto Blue Jays right-hander Trey Yesavage worked 5 1/3 shutout innings against Boston in his season debut Tuesday night and left to a standing ovation.

Yesavage struck out three, walked none and allowed four hits, including three singles. He left with a 3-0 lead after throwing 74 pitches, 50 for strikes.

The 22-year-old Yesavage began the season on the injured list while recovering from a shoulder impingement. He went 0-1 with a 7.50 ERA in four minor league rehab appearances, three starts, with the last two in Triple-A.

Willson Contreras hit a one-out double in the first before Yesavage got Roman Anthony to ground out and retired Wilyer Abreu on a fly ball.

Yesavage finished his outing by striking out Contreras on a slider to begin the sixth. A few in the sellout crowd of 41,949 booed when manager John Schneider came out to the mound, but they roared as Yesavage walked off. He was replaced by left-hander Mason Fluharty.

Yesavage rose through four minor league levels last season, striking out 160 batters in 98 innings combined at Dunedin, Vancouver, New Hampshire and Buffalo.

He made his big league debut at Tampa on Sept. 15, striking out nine in five innings, and went 1-0 with a 3.21 ERA in three regular-season starts before playing a major role in Toronto’s run to Game 7 of the World Series.

In Game 2 of the AL Division Series against the Yankees, Yesavage set a Blue Jays postseason record by striking out 11 over 5 1/3 hitless innings to win his postseason debut. He went 3-1 with a 3.58 ERA in six playoff appearances, five starts, striking out 39 in 27 2/3 innings.

Yesavage delivers his pitches from a unique arm angle that gives him one of the highest release points of any big league pitcher, 7.09 feet above the field.

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AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb