AL Central

Major League Baseball has approved David Blitzer as a new minority owner of the Cleveland Guardians, according to multiple reports.

The Athletic's Zack Meisel reports that the 52-year-old New York-based businessman is "expected to initially own 25 to 30 percent of the team, with an eventual pathway to majority ownership."

Blitzer also has minority stakes in the New Jersey Devils, Philadelphia 76ers, Pittsburgh Steelers and Real Salt Lake. Thursday's deal makes him the first individual ever to own equity in all five major sports leagues in the United States. Blitzer also owns stakes in six overseas soccer teams.

Per ESPN, MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced the approval of the sale on Thursday, though he didn't mention Blitzer specifically.

"We did approve a sale of a minority interest in the Guardians, pending the closing," Manfred said. "Really excited about the change there."

The opening for a stake in the Guardians occurred when former minority investor John Sherman purchased the Kansas City Royals in 2019. According to Meisel, Guardians owner Paul Dolan had enlisted the help of investment firm Allen & Co. to help identify a potential partner. Dolan confirmed in December that he was engaged in "meaningful discussions" with Blitzer.

Cleveland is second in the American League Central this season with a 31-27 record. In March, Forbes valued the Guardians at $1.3 billion, which ranked 24th in the majors.

"Fire Tony" chants rang out at Guaranteed Rate Field on Saturday as Chicago White Sox fans expressed their displeasure with manager Tony La Russa amid the team's 11-9 loss to the Texas Rangers.

There’s an audible “Fire Tony” chant at Guaranteed Rate Field as Chicago has blown a lead and now trails Texas 9-7 with none out and two on in the 10th inning.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) June 11, 2022

A win appeared inevitable with the White Sox holding a 5-0 lead and ace Lucas Giolito on the mound in the top of the fifth, but Chicago allowed four runs in that frame, including three following an Adolis Garcia homer.

Chicago responded with two runs, but Texas added one in the sixth and two in the seventh to tie the game.

The Rangers then poured it on in the 10th with four runs as Matt Foster allowed the first four runners to reach base.

The White Sox got the tying run on base with one out in the 10th, but Luis Robert and Jose Abreu both got out to end the game.

It's been a tough season for the 27-30 White Sox and a rough week as well.

On Thursday, La Russa decided to intentionally walk Los Angeles Dodgers shortstop Trea Turner on a 1-2 count with the White Sox down 7-5 in the top of the sixth. That brought up Max Muncy, who corked a three-run homer for a 10-5 lead en route to an 11-9 win. La Russa came under fire for the decision but defended and then doubled down on the call.

Now the reigning AL Central champions find themselves six games out of first and three games under .500. They'll look to bounce back in the rubber game of the Rangers series on Sunday at 2:10 p.m. ET.

Outfielder Max Kepler and reliever Emilio Pagan are among the four Minnesota Twins players who will miss this weekend's series in Toronto versus the Blue Jays because they aren't eligible to enter Canada under the country's COVID-19 regulations.

The Canadian government has more stringent entry guidelines than the U.S., as it requires people entering the country to have received two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine.

According to the Associated Press, relievers Caleb Thielbar and Trevor Megill will also miss the three games in Toronto.

All four players were placed on the restricted list and will be eligible to play when the Twins return to the United States to start a home series against the New York Yankees on Tuesday.

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Kepler, 29, has been one of the Twins' best hitters this season. He is slashing .253/.357/.429 and is tied for second on the team with six home runs and 25 RBI.

The Germany-born Kepler is Minnesota's regular starter in right field and made his MLB debut with the Twins in 2015.

His best season occurred in 2019 when he hit .252 with a career-high 36 home runs and 90 RBI.

The 31-year-old Pagan is in his first season with the Twins after coming over in a trade from the San Diego Padres.

Pagan has split closer duties with Jhoan Duran and leads the team with seven saves in 10 chances. He is 1-2 with a 3.00 ERA, 1.44 WHIP and 22 strikeouts over 18 innings.

During his six-year MLB career, Pagan has pitched for the Seattle Mariners, Oakland Athletics, Tampa Bay Rays, Padres and Twins. He set a career high with 20 saves in 2019 with Tampa.

Pagan said of his decision to not get vaccinated against COVID-19:

"I know that there are going to be people that are very angry for this opinion and the stance, but that's fine. I feel like I had a choice to make, and they have also a choice if they're going to be mad at me or not. ...

"I've gone to every guy in this locker room and explained where I was, and how I came up with my decision, and apologized because I do know it's hurting the team. I do not believe this is a baseball decision. This is the Canadian government. It's not even an MLB rule."

Duran will likely fill in as the full-time closer in Toronto, while outfielders Trevor Larnach and Kyle Garlick could see additional playing time in place of Kepler.

Minnesota's bullpen depth will be tested as well with both Thielbar and Megill unable to pitch.

Thielbar is 1-0 with a 5.59 ERA over 22 appearances, while Megill is 1-1 with a 1.04 ERA in five outings.

At 30-23, the Twins hold a 4.5-game lead over the Cleveland Guardians for first place in the American League Central.

The Minnesota Twins discovered during Monday's game against the Detroit Tigers that shortstop Carlos Correa had tested positive for COVID-19.

Manager Rocco Baldelli confirmed the news to reporters after the 7-5 loss to Detroit.

Correa is hitting .279 (.751 OPS) with three home runs and 16 RBI in his first year with Minnesota, who signed him to a three-year, $105.3 million contract last offseason.

The 27-year-old played his first seven MLB seasons with the Houston Astros, making two All-Star Games, winning the 2017 World Series and earning the 2015 American League Rookie of the Year award. He hit .277 (.837 OPS) with 133 home runs and 489 RBI during his tenure there.

This season has gone well for the Twins, which sport a 29-20 record and sit first in the AL Central.

Correa previously landed on the 10-day injured list (retroactive to May 6) with a right finger contusion suffered after he fouled a ball off his hand during a May 5 at-bat against the Baltimore Orioles. He returned on May 18 against the Oakland Athletics.

The Twins have been snakebit with injuries, as Byron Buxton, Miguel Sano, Trevor Larnach, Luis Arraez, Kyle Garlick, Correa, Bailey Ober, Chris Paddack and Dylan Bundy have all missed time.

Still, the team holds a comfortable lead over the rest of the AL Central field at the moment, foreshadowing potential hope that the Twins can run away with the division down the stretch provided they get healthier.

Without Correa, the Twins will turn to Royce Lewis or Jorge Polanco at shortstop.

The Chicago White Sox announced Saturday that they designated veteran starting pitcher Dallas Keuchel for assignment.

Keuchel, 34, has struggled mightily this season, going 2-5 with a 7.88 ERA, 2.16 WHIP and 20 strikeouts in 32 innings over eight starts.

The lefty is best known for his seven-year run with the Houston Astros from 2012 to 2018, in which he won the American League Cy Young Award in 2015 and the World Series in 2017.

Thursday's start against the Boston Red Sox was apparently the final straw for the White Sox, as Keuchel was tagged for seven hits, two walks and six earned runs over two innings in a 16-7 Boston win.

The past two seasons have been a far cry from what Keuchel has accomplished during his career, including his first season with the White Sox in 2020.

During the COVID-19 pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign, Keuchel pitched like an ace for the White Sox, going 6-2 with a 1.99 ERA and 1.09 WHIP over 11 starts. That netted a fifth-place finish in the AL Cy Young voting and a stray AL MVP vote.

His downfall began last season when he went 9-9 with a 5.28 ERA and 1.53 WHIP, marking arguably the worst year of his career until this season.

During a four-year stretch with the Astros from 2014 to 2017, Keuchel posted an ERA under 3.00 on three occasions and was named an AL All-Star twice.

Most notably, Keuchel went 20-8 with a 2.48 ERA, 1.02 WHIP and 216 strikeouts in 232 innings en route to the AL Cy Young Award in 2015.

After departing Houston, Keuchel spent one season with the Atlanta Braves and then joined the White Sox.

He has started 251 of the 262 regular-season games he has appeared in across 11 seasons and posted a 101-87 record with a 3.86 ERA, 1.30 WHIP and 1,193 strikeouts over 1,559.1 innings.

He also boasts a solid playoff resume, going 4-3 with a 3.71 ERA and 1.24 WHIP in 13 appearances, including 12 starts.

Additionally, Keuchel is perhaps the best defensive pitcher of the past decade, having won five Gold Glove Awards.

Despite entering 2022 as the favorite to win the American League Central and a contender to go to the World Series, the White Sox are 22-22 and five games behind the Minnesota Twins for the American League Central lead.

The starting rotation is led by Lucas Giolito, Michael Kopech and Dylan Cease, but what made Keuchel expendable was Johnny Cueto's solid start and the impending return of Lance Lynn.

Cueto has not allowed a run in 12 innings over two starts, while Lynn was set to begin a rehab assignment this weekend after suffering a right knee injury in early April.

With Keuchel out of the picture and Lynn's return on the horizon, the White Sox may soon have an excellent rotation from top to bottom.

New York Yankees slugger Josh Donaldson has not spoken to Chicago White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson or Major League Baseball as of Sunday evening following a comment he made during a Saturday game, a Yankees spokesman told reporters. 

Anderson told reporters Saturday that Donaldson called him "Jackie," a reference to Jackie Robinson that he took offense to. White Sox manager Tony La Russa also deemed it to be a racist remark made by Donaldson.

ESPN's Alden Gonzalez reported Saturday that MLB would be looking into the incident and "speaking to all relevant parties."

Donaldson said after Saturday's game that he called Anderson "Jackie," saying the two have joked about it in the past. He told reporters that he was joking about the White Sox star calling himself "today's Jackie Robinson" in 2019.

"My meaning of that is not any term trying to be racist by any fact of the matter,'' Donaldson said. "... Obviously, he deemed it disrespectful. And look, if he did, I apologize. That's not what I was trying to do by any manner and that's what happened.''

Anderson noted in his postgame comments that he thought Donaldson's comment was "disrespectful" and "unnecessary." He also agreed with White Sox manager Tony La Russa calling the remark racist. 

"He just made a disrespectful comment," Anderson said. "Basically he was trying to call me Jackie Robinson. 'What's up, Jackie?' I don't play like that. I don't really play at all. I wasn't really going to bother nobody today, but he made the comment and you know it was disrespectful and I don't think it was called for. It was unnecessary."

Anderson went on to get his revenge against the Yankees in Sunday's 5-0 win. With the crowd taunting the 28-year-old by cheering "Jackie" while he was at the plate in the eighth inning, he proceeded to launch a 3-0 a homer to seal Chicago's victory. 

TIM ANDERSON. pic.twitter.com/0wqYBo5gUH

— Chicago White Sox (@whitesox) May 23, 2022

Anderson is in the midst of an impressive season, hitting .359/.400/.517 with five home runs and 18 RBI in 35 games. 

The White Sox moved to 21-20 with Sunday's win and sit second in the AL Central behind the Minnesota Twins. 

Chicago White Sox closer Liam Hendriks wasn't buying Josh Donaldson's explanation for referring to White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson as "Jackie" during Chicago's 7-5 loss to the New York Yankees on Saturday.

"Usually you have inside jokes with people you get along with, not people who don't get along at all," Hendriks told reporters Sunday. "So that statement right there was complete bulls--t."

https://twitter.com/CST_soxvan/status/1528423132222177280

Following Saturday's game, Anderson said Donaldson had called him "Jackie," in reference to baseball legend Jackie Robinson. When alerted to how White Sox manager Tony La Russa called the comment "racist," Anderson said he agreed with the assessment.

Tim Anderson says Josh Donaldson referred to him as "Jackie [Robinson]" pic.twitter.com/sk8R7HEJ7w

— White Sox on CHSN (@CHSN_WhiteSox) May 21, 2022

Donaldson told reporters he had begun calling Anderson "Jackie" after the 2021 All-Star compared himself to Robinson in a 2019 interview with Sports Illustrated's Stephanie Apstein. The veteran third baseman said he used the name jokingly and didn't have any racist intent behind it.

Josh Donaldson admits he called Tim Anderson "Jackie" on the field today: pic.twitter.com/eko1UaR3Nt

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) May 21, 2022

While not condemning Donaldson with the same force as Hendriks, Yankees manager Aaron Boone said Sunday he thought the comment was ill-advised.

Major League Baseball is investigating yesterday’s events between the Yankees and White Sox.

Aaron Boone said that Josh Donaldson has been forthcoming about his history with Tim Anderson, but, “this is, just in my opinion, somewhere (Donaldson) should not be going.”

— Bryan Hoch ⚾️ (@BryanHoch) May 22, 2022

Aaron Boone said that after the TA incident, he's working to rein Josh Donaldson's trolling. "we're talking about Jackie, we're talking about the face of...civil rights. one of the most important figures in our history."
Said Donaldson needs to know "that's a sensitive issue"

— Bradford William Davis (@BWDBWDBWD) May 22, 2022

Newsday's Laura Albanese reported MLB was already looking into the matter and that a suspension is a possibility.

Hendriks said Sunday he spoke to "four separate clubhouses" to get some outside opinions on Donaldson, and none of the feedback he received was positive.

Although the two-time All-Star spent five seasons with the Oakland Athletics, his tenure in the Bay Area didn't overlap with that of Donaldson. They did spend a year together with the Toronto Blue Jays in 2015, though.

This isn't the first time Hendriks has spoken critically about the 2015 American League MVP.

"Playing with Donaldson, I am not a Donaldson fan," he told Vinnie Duber of NBC Sports Chicago in July 2021. "On the field, one of the greatest. You want him on the team behind you. But I saw behind the curtain too much, and I'm not a fan."

Cleveland Guardians third baseman Jose Ramirez will undergo an X-ray after taking a foul ball off his leg in the bottom of the eighth of Thursday's 4-2 loss to the Cincinnati Reds, according to The Athletic's Jason Lloyd. 

Ramirez was checked out by trainers for a few minutes after getting hit and remained in the game, proceeding to to hit an RBI single. 

Ramirez was one of the best players in baseball between 2017 and 2018. He posted a .948 OPS with 171 extra-base hits, including 68 home runs and 51 stolen bases, over that span. While his numbers dipped over the subsequent two campaigns, he returned to form in 2021.

He compiled an .893 OPS with 36 homers and 27 steals in 152 games last season and proceeded to sign a five-year, $124 million contract extension. He's tallied eight longballs and three swipes in 34 games so far in 2022.

The 29-year-old Dominican Republic native also had three straight years with at least 152 games played beginning in 2016, though he did spend time on the injured list in 2019 after surgery on a broken bone in his hand. He returned to full strength for the coronavirus-shortened 2020 season.

If Ramirez is sidelined for any period of time, Yu Chang figures to take over at the hot corner. Ernie Clement is another option to draw an occasional start on the infield.

Cleveland lacks proven offensive depth, so Ramirez being forced out of the lineup would be a major concern. Any type of extended absence for its starting third baseman would be a sizable blow to the club's chances of trying to earn a postseason berth.

The Minnesota Twins rotation suffered a significant blow on Wednesday as Chris Paddack underwent Tommy John surgery, putting an end to his 2022 season. 

Paddack was moved to the 60-day injured list last week. 

This marks the second Tommy John surgery of Paddack's career. He also had the procedure in July 2016 when he was the San Diego Padres' No. 8 prospect. 

The Padres traded Paddack, who made his MLB debut in 2019, reliever Emilio Pagan and starter Brayan Medina to the Twins in April in exchange for reliever Taylor Rogers and outfielder Brent Rooker. The right-hander went 1-2 in five starts for Minnesota this season, posting a 4.03 ERA, 1.21 WHIP and 20 strikeouts across 22.1 innings. 

The Twins were hoping Paddack would add some depth to their rotation, but the club has rotated through a number of pitchers due to injuries. In addition to Paddack, Bailey Ober is on the 10-day IL with a groin strain, Kenta Maeda is on the 60-day IL after undergoing Tommy John surgery, and Randy Dobnak is on the 60-day IL with a finger ailment. 

Minnesota's projected rotation entering the 2022 season included Paddack, Ober, Sonny Gray, Joe Ryan and Chris Archer. Aside from those five, Dylan Bundy, Josh Winder and Devin Smeltzer have started at least one game for the team this year. 

Before joining the Twins, Paddack had a promising career with the Padres, posting a 4.21 ERA, 1.13 WHIP and 310 strikeouts in 308 innings across 61 games. 

Paddack is on a one-year, $2.25 million deal this season and is eligible for two years of arbitration before becoming an unrestricted free agent following the 2024 campaign. Considering he also missed the end of the 2021 season with an elbow ailment, it's hard to imagine he'll receive much of a raise in 2023. 

Despite injuries to members of their rotation, the Twins have gotten out to a solid start this year, going 22-16, which is good for first in the AL Central. 

Former Chicago White Sox athletic trainer Brian Ball filed a lawsuit against the MLB franchise on Tuesday alleging his employment was terminated in October 2020 because of discrimination against his sexual orientation, age and disability.

The Athletic reported the civil suit alleges the White Sox violated the Illinois Human Rights Act and have caused Ball to suffer from severe mental anguish and emotional distress. He's seeking punitive and monetary damages. The club has denied the allegations.

"It is extremely disappointing that a former colleague, who was supported, developed and promoted over two decades, chose to attack the club in this way," the team said. "It is also surprising to many who know Brian, and supported him throughout his career, to read the allegations included in his lawsuit."

The lawsuit states Ball, a 20-year employee of the White Sox, is gay and that it became known to "multiple members" of the organization in February 2018, per The Athletic.

In December 2018, he was promoted to head athletic trainer following the retirement Herm Schneider. He signed a two-year contract extension in October 2019.

The lawsuit notes the club shifted him to a new role, director for the care of players, in February 2020 and urged him to take a leave of absence after being attacked during a carjacking in July 2020.

Ball alleges that, while he was away from the team, general manager Rick Hahn suggested to other members of the staff the trainer "had either a gambling, alcohol or drug addiction that was related to the July carjacking," according to The Athletic.

"None of those accusations were or are true," Ball's lawsuit states.

Ball said the club denied him an opportunity to return after recovering from the attack, and he added that he heard from someone in the organization two months after his termination the decision was based on his sexual orientation.

The White Sox said he was fired "based on his performance," per The Athletic.

Chicago then promoted James Kruk to head athletic trainer. He'd served as an assistant to Ball for the previous two years (2019-20).