MLB
Nick Castellanos ripped a winning two-out single off Tylor Megill that scored Trea Turner and sent the Philadelphia Phillies to a dizzying 7-6 win over the New York Mets and evened the National League Division Series at one game apiece. Castellanos tossed his helmet and was mobbed by teammates on the infield as a game that seemed to slip away one inning earlier turned into one more comeback for the NL East champions. Game 3 is 5:08 Tuesday night in New York, the Mets’ first home game since Sept. 22.
Dodger Stadium fans tossed baseballs, apparently at San Diego left fielder Jurickson Profar, and then threw trash that caused a 12-minute wait between pitches during the seventh inning of NL Division Series Game 2. Profar had robbed Mookie Betts of a home run in the first inning, reaching into the stands behind the low left-field wall. As Betts rounded the bases, Profar hopped up and down for several seconds, back to the plate, before showing he caught the ball. With San Diego leading 4-1 and Yu Darvish warming up for the bottom of the seventh, fans appeared to be yelling at Profar and a ball was thrown. Game 3 is 9:08 Tuesday night in San Diego.
AMERICAN LEAGUE PLAYOFFS
Detroit at Cleveland 4:08 p.m. CLE leads 1-0
Kansas City at N-Y Yankees 7:38 p.m. NY Leads 1-0
WNBA
Sabrina Ionescu rebounded from a rare off game to score 22 points. Nearly a year after the Aces ended the Liberty’s dream of a championship, New York returned the favor Sunday afternoon by defeating Las Vegas 76-62 to advance to the WNBA Finals. The top-seeded Liberty will have home-court advantage in the championship series and will face either the Connecticut Sun or Minnesota Lynx in a best-of-five series starting Thursday. This is the Liberty’s sixth trip to the finals. But the franchise is still seeking its first title.
Alyssa Thomas had 18 points, 11 assists and eight rebounds to help the Connecticut Sun stave off elimination and beat the Minnesota Lynx 92-82 on Sunday, forcing a decisive Game 5 in their semifinal series. That game will be 8 Tuesday night in Minnesota. The winner will face the Liberty in the WNBA Finals that start Thursday in New York. Ty Harris scored 20 points to lead the Sun, who now will try and return to the Finals for the third time in six seasons. The Sun still are looking for the franchise’s first WNBA championship. Napheesa Collier did what she could to try to get Minnesota the win, finishing with 29 points and 13 rebounds.
NFL
Daniel Jones threw for 257 yards and two touchdowns, Bryce Ford-Wheaton returned a blocked field goal attempt 60 yards for a touchdown with 55 seconds left, and the short-handed New York Giants stunned the Seattle Seahawks 29-20. Playing without two of its best offensive players, New York put together a masterful game plan that built a 23-13 lead midway through the fourth quarter. The Giants then came up with one big special teams play with Seattle on the verge of potentially forcing overtime. Jason Myers' 47-yard field goal attempt was blocked by Isaiah Simmons and returned by Ford-Wheaton for the clinching score. Seattle lost its second straight and now faces a short week before hosting San Francisco.
London has not been good to Aaron Rodgers. The Jets quarterback has lost both times he’s played in Britain and he heads home banged up again. Rodgers threw three interceptions Sunday in New York’s 23-17 loss to the Minnesota Vikings at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. That’s back-to-back losses for the Jets and more questions about the health of their 40-year-old quarterback who says he has a low ankle sprain. And that comes a week after dealing with a swollen knee. Next up is a Monday night game against the Buffalo Bills.
Aaron Rodgers reached another milestone in his stellar career on Sunday by becoming just the ninth player in NFL history to throw for 60,000 yards in regular-season games. The 40-year-old New York Jets quarterback crossed the threshold when he connected with Tyler Conklin on a 7-yard pass in the third quarter against the Minnesota Vikings at London's Tottenham Hotspur Stadium. The Vikings won 23-17. The four-time NFL MVP joins a list that is led by Tom Brady and includes Drew Brees, Peyton Manning and Brett Favre — whom Rodgers backed up for three years in Green Bay.
C.J. Stroud threw for 331 yards and a touchdown and Ka′imi Fairbairn’s tiebreaking 59-yard field goal as time expired lifted the Houston Texans to a 23-20 win over the Buffalo Bills on Sunday. The Texans (4-1) led 20-3 after a field goal early in third quarter before the Bills scored 17 straight points to tie it with about 3½ minutes to go. Stroud was called for intentional grounding to bring up fourth-and-15 and take the Texans out of field-goal range with less than a minute left. A punt backed the Bills up to their 3 and they punted after three straight incomplete passes to give Houston one last chance. Dare Ogunbowale had a 5-yard run to set up Fairbairn’s game winner.
Alec Ingold scored the go-ahead touchdown on a 3-yard run with four minutes left and Miami beat the New England Patriots 15-10. Jason Sanders kicked three field goals to make up for three botched kicks by the Dolphins special teams in a game between two of the NFL’s worst teams that was pocked with penalties, missed kicks and clock management mistakes. Miami took the lead when Ingold plunged into the end zone on his only carry of the game.
Justin Tucker kicked a 24-yard field goal to lift the Baltimore Ravens to a wild 41-38 overtime win over the Cincinnati Bengals on Sunday. After Evan McPherson missed a 53-yard attempt for Cincinnati on a fumbled snap, Baltimore took over on its own 43. On the next play, Derrick Henry rumbled 51 yards down to the Bengals 6 to set up Tucker’s chip-shot kick for the win. Tucker tied it with a 56-yarder with 1:35 left to force overtime. The Ravens and Bengals traded punches on offense the entire day with Lamar Jackson prevailing despite Joe Burrow throwing a career-high five touchdown passes.
Caleb Williams threw for 304 yards and two touchdowns in his best performance to date, DJ Moore added 105 yards receiving and two scores against his former team and the Chicago Bears beat the Carolina Panthers 36-10. The Bears won their second straight after dropping two in a row, with the two key pieces they acquired as a result of a blockbuster trade with Carolina in 2023 leading the way. Chicago also got a big performance from D’Andre Swift. He had 120 yards from scrimmage and a TD. Williams picked apart a banged-up defense that ranks among the NFL’s worst. The No. 1 overall draft pick completed 20 of 29 passes with no interceptions and a 126.2 rating that was his best.
Trevor Lawrence threw for 371 yards and two touchdowns on his 25th birthday and put Jacksonville in position for a 49-yard field goal with 17 seconds left that gave the Jaguars their first win of the season, 37-34 over the short-handed Indianapolis Colts. Tank Bigsby ran for 101 yards and two scores for Jacksonville (1-4), which won for the first time since December and extended its home streak against division rival Indianapolis (2-3) to double digits. The Jaguars did so while wearing throwback uniforms on a day the franchise inducted retired coach Tom Coughlin into its ring of honor.
Jayden Daniels bounced back from an early interception with the longest touchdown pass of his young NFL career as he and the Washington Commanders routed the Cleveland Browns 34-13 for their fourth consecutive victory. Washington is 4-1 for the first time since 2008. Cleveland has lost three in a row to drop to 1-4. Daniels, Brian Robinson Jr., Austin Ekeler and Jeremy McNichols combined for 211 yards rushing. Deshaun Watson and the Browns' offense was sloppy and disjointed.
Kyler Murray had a long touchdown run in the first quarter and rallied Arizona with two fourth-quarter scoring drives in the Cardinals’ 24-23 victory over the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday. Murray threw a 2-yard touchdown pass to Elijah Higgins early in the fourth quarter that cut the deficit to 23-21 and then set up Chad Ryland’s 35-yard field goal with 1:37 to play. Brock Purdy then threw an interception to seal it. This marked the second time this season that San Francisco blew a double-digit lead in the fourth quarter to a division rival, having done it in Week 3 against the Los Angeles Rams.
Patrick Surtain had a pair of interceptions and the Denver Broncos snapped an eight-game losing streak to Las Vegas with a 34-18 win over the Raiders on Sunday. The Broncos scored 34 unanswered points after falling behind 10-0 early on. Surtain had a 100-yard interception return for a touchdown off starter Gardner Minshew and also picked off backup quarterback Aidan O'Connell. Both of the passes he intercepted were intended for rookie tight end Brock Bowers, who caught a 57-yard touchdown pass in the first quarter.
Jordan Love bounced back from the first pick-6 of his career to throw a pair of touchdown passes to Tucker Kraft in the second half as the Green Bay Packers rallied for a 24-19 victory over the Los Angeles Rams. The Packers trailed 13-7 late in the second quarter after Jaylen McCollough picked off Love’s off-balance attempt to throw the ball away and ran it in 4 yards. But Green Bay scored on its next three drives and benefited from a pair of turnovers to beat the Rams for the ninth time in their last 10 regular-season meetings. Matthew Stafford had a touchdown and an interception. Kyren Williams scored for the eighth straight game.
Dak Prescott hit Jalen Tolbert with a 4-yard touchdown with 20 seconds remaining and the Dallas Cowboys slipped past the Pittsburgh Steelers 20-17 early Monday. The Cowboys (3-2) won their second straight after Prescott overcame a mistake-filled night to lead a 70-yard drive that ended with Prescott finding a lunging Tolbert just across the goal line on fourth down. Prescott threw for 352 yards to go with two touchdowns, two interceptions and a fumble. Pittsburgh lost its second straight on a night it mustered just 226 yards of total offense to drop to 3-2. The start was delayed nearly 90 minutes due to severe weather, with the game ending at 12:59 a.m. EDT.
On Monday Night Football, New Orleans is at Kansas City at 8:15 p.m.
NBA
LeBron James and his son Bronny made NBA history when they played together for the first time during the Los Angeles Lakers’ preseason game against Phoenix. LeBron and Bronny are the first father and son to play in any NBA game at the same time, let alone on the same team. The James family’s remarkable moment coincidentally happened on Bronny’s 20th birthday. Bronny James entered the game as a substitute to begin the second quarter, joining his father on the court out of the timeout.. The crowd at Acrisure Arena in the Coachella Valley cheered at the mention of Bronny’s name.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
It was a week of upheaval in The Associated Press college football poll. Texas returned to No. 1 after a one-week absence following Vanderbilt’s monumental upset of Alabama. The Commodores’ win over Alabama on Saturday caused the Crimson Tide to drop from No. 1 to No. 7. The last top-ranked team to fall so far was Ohio State, which plunged to No. 11 in 2010 following an October loss to Wisconsin. Texas, which had an open date, received 52 first-place votes and became the first team in two years to bounce in and out of the top spot in a span of three polls. The Longhorns also were just the third team since 2008 to be voted No. 1 after not playing the day before.
Texas has found its swagger again. The Longhorns are undefeated before their rivalry game with Oklahoma. Their SEC debut was a smashing success. They held the No. 1 spot in the AP rankings for two weeks, then returned again on Sunday. That's a long way from the 2021 debut season of coach Steve Sarkisian when the Longhorns went 5-7. And it's not just football. Texas has rolled into the SEC as the top athletic department in the country and athletes are cashing in on name, image and likeness deals. Sarkisian heads onto the recruiting trail for a few days with a lot to sell.
TENNIS
Two days after starting out seventh-ranked Taylor Fritz and 10th-ranked Grigor Dimitrov have finally completed their second-round matches at the Shanghai Masters. Fritz completed a 7-6, 7-6 win over Frenchman Terence Atmane nearly 48 hours after the match began on Saturday. There had been rain delays throughout the weekend. Dimitrov also won his match against Zizou Bergs of Belgium 6-3, 3-6, 6-2. At the Wuhan Open in China, No. 12-ranked Beatriz Haddad-Maia beat Madison Keys of the U.S. 7-6, 6-2 in the opening main-draw match.
NASCAR
Ricky Stenhouse Jr. snapped a 65-race losing streak by winning in overtime at Talladega Superspeedway after a late crash collected more than half the field, including eight of the 12 championship contenders. Stenhouse is not in the playoffs and his victory Sunday marked the second consecutive week a driver not competing for the Cup Series title has won. The victory was the first for Stenhouse and his JTG Daugherty Racing team since he won the season-opening Daytona 500 to start 2023. Four drivers will be eliminated from the playoffs next Sunday on the hybrid road course/oval at Charlotte. Joey Logano, Daniel Suarez, Austin Cindric and Chase Briscoe are all below the cutline.
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