Baseball

The most heralded, touted and celebrated team before the season started has used the first four-plus months of it to become easily the most disappointing.

The shortstop originally signed for $375,000, and now he might be the best in the league. The third baseman signed for $50,000, and now he might be the Rookie of the Year.

These are the kinds of stories baseball people love, and the San Francisco Giants have an infield full of them. They have four homegrown starters that cost them not even $2 million in combined bonuses, and they may well have the best four-man unit in the game.

The Kansas City Royals are a stone-cold lock to win the American League Central, but the rest of baseball's division and wild-card races are still far from determined.

As Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times noted, while the Royals have claimed a 12-game edge in the AL Central, the other five division front-runners have a combined lead of 11.5 games. Simply put, there's a lot left to be decided between now and the end of the season.

Boston Red Sox pitcher Koji Uehara will be on the disabled list for the remainder of the 2015 season with a fractured right wrist.

Continue for updates.

The New York Yankees were held scoreless by the Toronto Blue Jays pitching staff Saturday and Sunday, marking the first time in an MLB-record 2,665 games that the Bronx Bombers have been shut out in consecutive contests, per MLB Stat of the Day.

The sport of baseball has three true outcomes, a concept that's unfolded as the era of advanced metrics has gained mainstream popularity within the game and amongst its fans.

These outcomes, based on the fact that defense has zero effect on them, are the home run, the walk and the strikeout. These are the only results determined by the batter and pitcher alone, not counting for things like pitch framing or floating strike zones, of course.

This year, the Kansas City Royals have traded beanballs and engaged in on-field fracases with the Oakland A's, Chicago White Sox, Los Angeles Angels and, most recently, Toronto Blue Jays.

As August trails on and September approaches from afar, roster expansion is around the corner for the stretch run of the 2015 MLB season. Teams in contention for playoff spots, such as the second-place Los Angeles Angels, may need to call upon their top prospects to give the big club a jolt in the fall.

The Chicago Cubs completed a critical four-game sweep of the San Francisco Giants on Sunday afternoon, but baseball took a backseat in the game's aftermath. 

If they aren't mashing the panic button in New York, they're at least tapping it forcefully.

Yes, the New York Yankees enter play Monday as the first-place team in the American League East, a position they've held since July 3. But after a disheartening sweep at the hands of the hard-charging Toronto Blue Jays, the Bronx Bombers' division hold feels tenuous at best.