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Mets recently released outfielder already linked to Blue Jays after 0-13 stretch
Mets recently released outfielder already linked to Blue Jays after 0-13 stretch originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The New York Mets decided to move on from outfielder Tommy Pham on Sunday, as the veteran outfielder didn't enjoy any success during his short stint in New York.
Pham, typically a very good veteran who has proven throughout his career that he can swing it at a very high level, went 0-for-13 and now finds himself without a team. catcross.biz
Pham should be able to find another team, possibly even the Toronto Blue Jays, despite Toronto not playing all that well either.
Toronto is currently 12-15 and in fourth place in the American League East, but it has been a lot better than the Mets.
“The Blue Jays haven't been anywhere near full strength so far this season. For example, the Blue Jays have been without the services of George Springer since April 11. Springer has been making progress and should be back in the near future. But, the Blue Jays could still use some more veteran depth, at least for the bench, with all of the injuries the club has had to deal with. Toronto is just 12-15 on the season so far. The Blue Jays are going to need to dig themselves out of this hole. The more veterans the merrier, especially if Pham could play like he did last year with Pittsburgh,” Patrick McAvoy of SI wrote.
The injuries are the biggest factor here, and something that Pham will fortunately benefit from.
Guys like him typically find a way to stick in the league, so it should only be a matter of days before he gets himself a new job. As of Sunday, that won't be in New York.
More MLB news:
- Dodgers trade proposal moves on from very talented young player due to nowhere for him to play
- Braves trade proposal goes all-in amid horrid starts for Mets and Phillies by landing top player available
- Yankees fans can only help but laugh at Devin Williams after blowing games for Mets in losing streak
- Mets’ Francisco Lindor reveals impact Juan Soto will have on lineup after injury
- Mets’ Carlos Mendoza reveals how bad things felt after 12th straight loss
- Red Sox had a horrible approach against Yankees’ Luis Gil, and Alex Cora even admitted to it
Franz Wagner update: Magic forward comments on injury after Game 4 win
ORLANDO, Fla. -- After the eighth-seeded Orlando Magic took a commanding 3-1 series lead over the No. 1 seed Detroit Pistons in their first-round playoff matchup, the team faces some uncertainty following an injury to starter Franz Wagner.
The Magic finished off their 94-88 victory over the Pistons on Monday without Wagner, who exited the game for good with 1:34 left in the third quarter due to right calf soreness. He finished with 19 points, five rebounds, four steals and three assists in 24 minutes, 11 seconds.
Wagner began experiencing some discomfort and signaled to come out of the game late in the third quarter. He went back to the locker room and eventually returned to the bench with a wrap on his right leg, but he wouldn't play again after the team said he was questionable to return.
He will undergo an MRI on Tuesday.
"It bothered me enough to get out of the game," Wagner said in the locker room after the game. "It sucks to come out of the game. The most important thing is that we got the win, and we'll figure out the rest tomorrow."
With Wagner sidelined, the Magic entered the fourth quarter with a six-point advantage and eventually found themselves tied up at 85 points apiece with 5 1/2 minutes left. The group then finished the game on a 9-3 run to seal the win and put the Pistons on the verge of elimination.
Desmond Bane led the Magic with 22 points and five rebounds, while Paolo Banchero tallied 18 points and Wendell Carter Jr. added 12 points and 11 rebounds. Jamal Cain, who played the fourth quarter in place of Wagner, finished with eight points and nine rebounds.
“We put ourselves in position to try to get four, but right now it means nothing,” Magic coach Jamahl Mosley said. “We have the advantage, and now we just got to make sure we try to keep that advantage.”
JAMAL CAIN ATTACKS THE RIM AND THROWS IT DOWN💥
— NBA (@NBA) April 28, 2026
A BIG-TIME POSTER JAM IN GAME 4! pic.twitter.com/oGxTm1uRpb
The Magic, who posted a 45-37 record during the regular season and faced a must-win situation in the play-in tournament, are seeking to win their first playoff series in 16 years and to become just the seventh eighth-seed in history to beat a No. 1 seed.
Orlando may have to do it without Wagner, whose status for Game 5 in Detroit (Wednesday, 7p.m. EDT) will be updated on Tuesday's injury report. Asked if he anticipates being able to play in that contest, Wagner said, "I hope so."
This article originally appeared on Rookie Wire: Magic news: Franz Wagner comments on injury suffered in Game 4 victory
Video game fanatic travels more than 1,000 miles to achieve dream
A video game fanatic who travelled more than 1,000 miles for a football match achieved his "dream" of seeing his adopted club play in the flesh on Saturday.
Italian Andrea Lai has been playing the Football Manager series for almost 20 years and one day chose Coleraine Football Club, at random, as his new team to manage.
Last week, Lai traveled from Italy to Northern Ireland to see the Bannsiders play their final league game of the season as they pipped Glentoran to second place and a European spot.
He had first played as the club seven years ago and has won a heap of virtual silverware since.
'Enormous to me'
Lai is from Imola in Italy and supports Bologna alongside Coleraine.
The 39 year old, who travelled alone, said his trip to Northern Ireland was "wonderful".
"Astonishing - it was enormous to me because for many years I was considering coming, but it was too far," he told BBC News NI.
"I decided to come by myself. I enjoyed some of the great landscapes in Northern Ireland, but the main reason, really, it was the Saturday match against Glentoran, and then I built my trip based on it."
His love for the club started when he "randomly selected" the team which has since gone from semi to professional status.
"I start playing with this non-pro team and I totally fell in love for it. The part-time contract, all the players, and bringing them to success, winning the premiership, winning the Irish Cup, and bringing Coleraine in the European competition was awesome."
Lai started following Coleraine in real life too.
"I started purchasing items from the online shop," he added.
Through this he got to know people involved in the club and, last month, made the decision to come to the last game of the league season.
And success beckoned for his adopted club as they qualified for European football for the first time since 2022.
Lai got to meet players and staff including hat-trick hero Will Patching and his physical counterpart, the real Coleraine manager Ruaidhri Higgins.
With European football secured for next season, Lai said he "cannot miss this kind of opportunity" to watch the club live again.
He said he could not attend previous European matches in San Marino and Slovenia.
"I'm already looking forward to our next year to come."
As Coleraine prepare for their Irish Cup final against Dungannon Swifts this weekend, Lai said he thinks the club have "a very good possibility to win the game".
"I will find a way to follow the game, to follow Coleraine even out in Italy."
He joked that he is "probably the very first Italian supporter" of the club and that he will keep the memories made on his trip "all lifelong".
- Football fan completes 50-hour gaming challenge
- Football Manager gamer helps team win in real life
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Niyo: Shell-shocked Pistons digging their own playoff grave
Orlando — Trajan Langdon, the Pistons’ team president, stood leaning against a railing near the visitors’ tunnel at the Kia Center late Monday night. His arms were folded, his face expressionless.
But he wasn’t alone, watching in disbelief as Orlando pushed the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference to the brink of playoff elimination barely a week into the postseason.
On the court in front of Langdon, everyone could see what was wrong: The Pistons couldn’t score to save their season.
They went without a field goal for the final 5:24 of Game 4, save for a meaningless putback from Isaiah Stewart in the waning seconds. In Game 3 here, it was a similar story, as Cunningham’s three-pointer with 3:15 left — tying that contest after a furious fourth-quarter rally — proved to be the Pistons’ final basket.
The only difference was, when the final horn sounded Monday, it was no longer an alarm bell. This time it might as well have been a funeral dirge.
The Pistons aren’t ready to go there, obviously. And after this 94-88 loss to the Magic put them in a 3-1 hole heading back to Detroit, they said all things you’d expect. They talked about their backs being against the wall and vowed there’s “still fight in us.”
But when asked how shocking it is that they find themselves in this spot, Cunningham couldn’t hide his disappointment.
“I mean, going into it? Shocked,” he admitted. “But the way that we've been playing, that stuff's not good enough to win games in this league. This league’s too good. They're a good team. They're out-rebounding us, turning me over. We haven't hit enough shots. Our defense hasn't caught its footing. So it's not shocking.”
This isn’t, either: Only 13 teams in NBA history have come back from a 3-1 deficit to win a best-of-seven series, and just five of those were in the last 20 years. Of course, back in 2003, the top-seeded Pistons did manage to dig their way out of an identical scenario against Tracy McGrady and the Magic, winning three straight to take that first-round series in seven games.
This feels different than that, though. Back then, the Pistons were the better team, and all they needed to do was solve a one-man Magic show in McGrady. Now, it feels like a bit of a role reversal, and as Cunningham goes, so goes Detroit.
Right now, it’s going all wrong. The Pistons’ All-NBA leader endured another frustrating game Monday, finishing with more turnovers (eight) than assists (six) and shooting just 7-for-23 from the field, including 3-for-11 from behind the 3-point line.
“Yeah, it's frustrating,” said Cunningham, who still finished with 25 points and a team-high nine rebounds. “A lot of it was on myself. I was frustrated with my own play, having numbers, not making plays in transition, things like that. Things I do best. Just not being able to make plays for my team.”
Problem is, no one else on his team can make plays for themselves. At least not in this series. Not against a big, physical opponent like the Magic, who haven’t simply won the possession game the last week. They’ve also beaten the Pistons at their own game. Orlando scored 23 points off 20 turnovers Monday, and the problems certainly start there. But they also got 16 more off second-chance points, the product of 16 offensive rebounds.
And just to put an exclamation point on how this series has played out — with the Pistons seemingly shell-shocked while the Magic keep meeting the moment — there also was that highlight-reel dunk Jamal Cain threw down on Jalen Duren in the fourth quarter. After the crowd erupted, the Pistons responded on the next possession by missing three shots, the last two at the rim.
CAIN'S POSTER SLAM, FROM ALL ANGLES 🔥 https://t.co/bRTpaxkaakpic.twitter.com/NxiH5Iq6tc
— NBA (@NBA) April 28, 2026
“We just gotta be in a moment of what this is: This is playoff basketball,” said Tobias Harris, who once again was Detroit’s only secondary scoring option with 20 points. “We gotta be more ready to just go out there and scrap like we need it. I mean, we're a little too casual. Everybody knows that in our locker room. We have to be better. Every single guy — all of us — has to be better. Have to look ourselves in the mirror and be better.”
From the start, especially. Monday night was anything but that.
Determined to help Duren shake out of his series-long funk, they tried to force it inside to their All-Star center on their first few trips down court. It resulted in three empty possessions — a turnover, a Cunnigham miss and an offensive foul on Duren.
Making matters worse, the Magic hit a pair of three-pointers at the other end, igniting another loud Kia Center crowd. And it only got worse from there for the Pistons, who coughed it up on seven of their first 10 possessions. By that point, Orlando led by a dozen and it felt like the reverse of that third-quarter blitz Detroit used to win Game 3.
But the Pistons managed to gather themselves and slowly forced their way back into the game. Cunningham asserted himself, the defense tightened and some impactful bench minutes — particularly from Stewart (three blocks) and Caris LeVert — helped turn the tide. By the end of the quarter, the Pistons hadn’t just closed the gap, they’d taken the lead.
They’d even extend it from there, building a double-digit lead of their own midway through the second quarter. It helped that the Magic went ice cold from deep, missing 10 straight three-point attempts.
But that lead was short-lived, because the Pistons simply can’t get out of their own way. The careless turnovers keep happening. So do the defensive lapses. And Bickerstaff still hasn’t figured out his rotation more than halfway through this series.
Problem is, those are the things the Pistons can control. The other issues aren’t. Those are the ones Langdon wasn’t ready to fully address until after watching this season play out. As he put it after the trade deadline, “The hope is that we give ourselves a chance to play some real meaningful basketball in the postseason, and that’ll allow us to assess what this team is and who we are going forward.”
After a 60-win regular season, I’m sure he hoped — and expected — to have more than a handful of meaningful basketball games to assess. But if this is all they’ve got, that may be all he gets.
@JohnNiyo
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Detroit Pistons face elimination on Wednesday after Game 4 loss
NHL Game 4 Highlights: Golden Knights 5, Mammoth 4 (OT)