Month: May 2023

Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Jay Jackson said he was tipping his pitches against NY Yankees star Aaron Judge during the game between their two teams on Monday.  Judge has received widespread scrutiny for a sideways glance before his home run off the Toronto right-hander; television cameras showed him quickly glance toward the Yankees’ first-base dugout before clobbering a 462-foot homer in the eighth inning against Jackson. Toronto manager John Schneider called the slugger’s glance “kind of odd,” while Blue Jays’ broadcasters speculated that Judge was looking for some kind of signal.

However, Jackson offered the real explanation during an interview with The Athletic, as part of a report published Wednesday. Said Jackson: “From what I was told, I was kind of tipping the pitch. It was [less] my grip when I was coming behind my ear. It was the time it was taking me from my set position, from my glove coming from my head to my hip. On fastballs, I was kind of doing it quicker than on sliders. They were kind of picking up on it … If they knew it was coming and he clipped me, he clipped me. I’m glad he hit it as far as he did … One of the guys told me I might have been tipping my pitches. Then the video guy came back later and said, ‘Hey, we might have picked something up on the difference between your slider and fastball. It might have been something those guys were keying off of. Just be conscious of it. You might want to change it up next time.’”

Judge said after the game that he was trying to identify “who was chirping from our dugout” at plate umpire Clint Vondrak. The Blue Jays, however, did not buy Judge’s explanation, and Schneider felt he could have been receiving signals from Yankees first-base coach Travis Chapman.  The Yankees have not been accused of using electronic equipment to decipher the Blue Jays’ signs, which is against Major League Baseball rules.

Judge remained unaffected by the controversy, howeve, hitting another monstrous, two-run blast that broke an eighth-inning tie and gave the Yankees a 6-3 victory on Tuesday. Judge’s 448-foot drive to center field broke part of a white maple leaf sign — Canada’s national symbol.

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The Denver Nuggets beat the Los Angeles Lakers with a score of 132-126 in Game 1 of the Western Conference finals on Tuesday night. Nikola Jokić recorded his sixth triple-double of these playoffs with 34 points, 21 rebounds and 14 assists, while Jamal Murray scored 31.

For the Lakers, Anthony Davis had 40 points and 10 rebounds, and LeBron James finished with 26 points, 12 boards and nine assists, while Austin Reaves added 23 points to help LA’s come back in the fourth, nearly erased Denver’s 14-point lead.  The Nuggets led by as many as 21, with the Lakers pulling within three points twice in the fourth quarter.

Game 2 is Thursday night at Ball Arena, where the top-seeded Nuggets hold a 7-0 records in the playoffs, and 41-7 overall — giving them the best home record in the league this season.

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The Philadelphia 76ers have fired coach Doc Rivers, just two days after they were eliminated from the playoffs in a Game 7 loss to the Celtics. Rivers had just told reporters on Sunday that he expected to return to the 76ers next season; he signed a 5-year, $40 million contract with the 76ers in 2020, and remained under contract for another two seasons.

76ers president of basketball operations Daryl Morey said in a news release on Tuesday: “Doc is one of the most successful coaches in NBA history, a future Hall of Famer, and someone I respect immensely. We’re grateful for all he did in his three seasons here and thank him for the important impact he made on our franchise. After having the chance to reflect upon our season, we decided that certain changes are necessary to further our goals of competing for a championship.”

Rivers, 61, took over as the Sixers’ head coach in October 2020. He led the 76ers to a 154-82 record in three seasons with the franchise. The 76ers went 20-15 in the postseason under Rivers, but failed to advance past the Eastern Conference semifinals. During the 2022-23 campaign, Rivers led the 76ers to 54 regular-season wins — the most since 2000-01. They swept the Brooklyn Nets in the first round of the playoffs before the Boston Celtics beat them in seven games to advance to the Eastern Conference finals.

In 24 years as a head coach in the NBA, Rivers owns a 1,097-763 regular-season record. He is 111-104 in the postseason, including his 2008 title run with the Boston Celtics. Rivers also coached the Orlando Magic and Los Angeles Clippers, leading those teams to the playoffs in 19 of his 24 seasons.

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