Baseball

Boston Red Sox third baseman Pablo Sandoval lost his starting job entering the 2016 season due in large part to weight issues, and the two-time All Star's former trainer attributes it to an eating problem.

You know what they say about $240 million contracts. It's amazing how quickly they can go from looking like money well spent to money wasted and back to money well spent again.

Per the early results, the recent trade between the Houston Astros and Philadelphia Phillies should be referred to not as "the Ken Giles trade," but as "the Vince Velasquez trade."

At least on a knee-jerk level, that's just sound logic. While Giles sits there with an ERA over 12.00 through four appearances out of Houston's bullpen, Velasquez looks like a man on a mission in the Phillies rotation.

When the Boston Red Sox's designated hitter David Ortiz cracked his third home run of the season Tuesday, he pulled within three home runs of Gary Sheffield for 25th on the career home run list, per Baseball-Reference.com.

Bryce Harper hit the century mark in home runs, and he did it in style. 

The 23-year-old reigning National League MVP hit the 100th homer of his career, a grand slam, in the third inning of Thursday's 6-2 win over the Atlanta Braves.  

Veteran pitcher Justin Masterson agreed to a minor league deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates on Thursday, Jon Heyman of MLB Network reported. Adam Berry of MLB.com later confirmed the news.  

Colorado Rockies outfielder Charlie Blackmon left Wednesday's game against the San Francisco Giants early after suffering a toe injury, and the timetable for his return is uncertain. 

Continue for updates.

The injury problems for Minnesota Twins outfielder Byron Buxton continue, as the 22-year-old left Thursday's game with a hand injury.  

Continue for updates. 

As the Washington Nationals learned in painful fashion just a season ago, in the bigs, everything that can go wrong will go wrong.

While the neighboring New York Mets rose as the power in the the National League East, a flood of injuries combined with underwhelming play by just about everyone not named Bryce Harper ensured that the Nats would be left out of the October conversation.

Philadelphia Phillies relief pitcher Daniel Stumpf was suspended 80 games Thursday for his first violation of Major League Baseball's policy against performance-enhancing drugs.

The Phillies released a statement following the suspension and made a corresponding roster move: