MLB
Aaron Judge hit a two-run drive into Monument Park for his first home run of this postseason, and the New York Yankees beat the Cleveland Guardians 6-3 to take a 2-0 American League Championship Series lead. Judge, who entered with just one RBI in the playoffs, hit a sacrifice fly in a two-run second and hit his 14th career postseason home run, a seventh-inning drive off Hunter Gaddis. After a day off, Game 3 is 5:08 Thursday in Cleveland. The Yankees lead the ALCS 2-0 for the first time since 2009 against the Los Angeles Angels.
Everything starts with Shohei Ohtani and Francisco Lindor in this National League Championship Series. Right at the top of the lineup. Expected to run 1-2 in NL MVP voting, both leadoff batters have already made a big impact early in their playoff showdown between the Los Angeles Dodgers and New York Mets. And they know full well only one of them will reach the World Series. Ohtani says he feels connected to his Mets counterpart in that sense. Lindor says he admires Ohtani's cool cleats. With the best-of-seven NLCS tied 1-all, the scene shifts to Citi Field for Game 3 at 8:08 tonight, when Walker Buehler is scheduled to pitch for Los Angeles against Luis Severino.
NHL
Rookie Jackson Blake scored his first NHL goal and Pyotr Kochetkov made 23 saves in his season debut as the Carolina Hurricanes beat the New Jersey Devils 4-2. Seth Jarvis, Shayne Gostisbehere and Sebastian Aho also scored for the Hurricanes, who played their second game of the season after an opening loss to Tampa Bay on Friday. Jake Hughes and Nico Hischier scored for the Devils, who had a two-game winning streak halted. Jacob Markstrom stopped 30 shots.
Leon Draisaitl scored 56 seconds into overtime and the Edmonton Oilers came from behind to secure their first win of the season, 4-3 over the Philadelphia Flyers. Adam Henrique, Connor Brown and Evan Bouchard also scored for the Oilers, who snapped a three-game losing skid to start the season during which they were outscored 15-3. Connor McDavid had two assists, including on Draisaitl's winner. Matvei Michkov scored his first two NHL goals in just his third career game and Bobby Brink also scored for the Flyers.
Alex Ovechkin had two assists as the Washington Capitals ended the Vegas Golden Knights' season-opening winning streak at three with a 4-2 victory. Jakub Vrana, Tom Wilson, Aliaksei Protas and Jakob Chychrun scored for the Capitals and Logan Thompson made 24 saves against his former team. Ovechkin became the 60th player in NHL history to record 700 career assists. Victor Olofsson and Jack Eichel scored for the Golden Knights. Adin Hill, the goalie who backstopped Vegas to the Cup in ’23, allowed four goals on 22 shots.
Nikita Kucherov scored his fourth goal this season, and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Vancouver Canucks 4-1 in their hurricane-delayed home opener. Kucherov had a hat trick in Tampa Bay’s 4-1 season-opening victory, and opened the scoring on Tuesday. Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Hagel each had a goal and an assist in the win. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 26 saves in net. Conor Garland had a third-period power-play goal for Vancouver. The Lightning were scheduled to open the home season Saturday night against the Carolina Hurricanes but the game was postponed due to the aftermath of Hurricane Milton.
Sam Reinhart had a goal and two assists, Anton Lundell had a goal and an assist as the Florida Panthers beat Columbus 4-3, spoiling a Blue Jackets’ home opener steeped in tributes to Johnny Gaudreau. Spencer Knight made 35 stops and Dimitry Kulikov and Eetu Luostarinen also scored for the Panthers (3-2-0), who won their second straight game. Cole Sillinger had the first short-handed goal of his career, Sean Monahan and James van Riemsdyk also scored and Elvis Merzlilins made 18 saves for Columbus (1-2-0).
Johnny Gaudreau’s Columbus teammates were given a few options for how to handle their emotions during the Blue Jackets’ home opener. If you want to cry, cry. If you want to laugh, laugh. The only rules — play the game the way “Johnny Hockey” would and with him in mind. Emotions ran high in Columbus on Tuesday night, when the Blue Jackets paid tribute to their star and his late brother Matthew at their home opener against the Florida Panthers. Among the highlights: A banner was raised to the rafters in Gaudreau’s memory, as fans cheered, both teams stick-tapped the ice in the traditional hockey salute, and his family looked on, their arms intertwined.
Filip Gustavsson made 27 saves and scored an empty-net goal as the Minnesota Wild snapped a two-game losing streak with a 4-1 win over the St. Louis Blues. Ryan Hartman scored a power-play goal in the first period and Jakub Lauko scored a short-handed goal in the second for the Wild. Marco Rossi added a third-period goal. Kirill Kaprizov had two assists. Mathieu Joseph, acquired in an offseason trade with Ottawa, scored his first goal as a Blue midway through the third period. Jordan Binnington made 23 saves for the Blues, who had won their last four home openers.
Oliver Bjorkstrand, Jaden Schwartz, Jared McCann and Adam Larsson each had a goal and an assist to lead Seattle Kraken to a 7-3 victory over the Nashville Predators. Brandon Tanev, Ryker Evans and Jordan Eberle also scored, and Chandler Stephenson added two assists for Seattle. Joey Daccord made 31 saves. Michael McCarron, Tommy Novak and Brady Skjei scored and Juuse Saros made 29 saves for the Predators, who dropped their third straight game to open the season.
Wyatt Johnston made Dallas’ third consecutive shot in a shootout, and the Stars remained undefeated with a 3-2 win over the San Jose Sharks. The shot by Johnston ended the game since Jake Oettinger had stopped San Jose’s first shootout attempt. Oettinger had 25 saves in regulation and overtime. Sharks goalie Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 36 of the season-high 38 shots by the undefeated Stars. Tyler Toffoli and Ty Dellandrea had go-ahead goals for San Jose in the second period, when all the goals were scored. The Stars hadn’t trailed while winning each of their first three games in regulation.
Matt Coronato scored two goals, Dustin Wolf made 31 saves and the Calgary Flames stayed undefeated with a 3-1 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks. Andrei Kuzmenko, with his first of the season on the power play, also scored for Calgary, which improved to 4-0 to match the best start in franchise history. The Flames also opened up with four consecutive wins in the 2009-10 and 1993-94 seasons. Nick Foligno scored for Chicago, which wrapped up a season-opening four-game road trip at 1-2-1. Petr Mrazek stopped 23 shots for Chicago.
NFL
Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams are finally reunited after more than two years of separation and one year of speculation and now they’ll try to save the New York Jets' sinking season. The Jets acquired the disgruntled Adams from the Las Vegas Raiders on Tuesday by sending a conditional third-round pick in next year’s draft, which could become a second-rounder. The deal was agreed upon Tuesday morning and was contingent on Adams passing his physical. The teams announced the trade a few hours later. Rodgers and Adams were teammates in Green Bay for eight seasons before the wide receiver was traded to Las Vegas in 2022.
The Buffalo Bills upgraded their patchwork group of receivers by acquiring Amari Cooper in a trade with the Cleveland Browns. Buffalo gave up a third-round pick in the 2025 draft as part of the trade that also included a swap of late-round picks. The trade was made a day after the Bills expanded their lead atop the AFC East with a 23-20 win over their division rival New York Jets. The Browns’ decision to trade one of their top players could be a sign of the team giving up on a season growing worse by the week after Cleveland dropped to 1-5 with a loss to Philadelphia on Sunday.
Tom Brady’s purchase of a minority stake in the Las Vegas Raiders has been approved by NFL team owners. The seven-time Super Bowl champion who played 23 seasons with the Patriots and Buccaneers takes approximately 5% control of the Raiders. Brady needed to receive 24 of 32 votes, which happened Tuesday at the league’s annual fall meeting. The 47-year-old Brady can’t come of out retirement and play again unless he sells his stake in the team. It took owners 17 months to approve the deal because of concerns Brady was receiving too much of a discount from Raiders majority owner Mark Davis.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said the league is still reviewing the latest claims of sexual assault and battery against Deshaun Watson. The Cleveland Browns quarterback resolved the civil lawsuit filed against him by the woman but that doesn’t preclude him from being disciplined by the league. The league, per standard procedure, has sought to interview the plaintiff through her lawyer, Tony Buzbee. Watson was suspended for the first 11 games in 2022 for violating the league’s personal conduct policy after more than two dozen women accused him of sexual assault and inappropriate conduct during massage therapy sessions.
WNBA
New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart and her wife Marta Xargay received threatening homophobic anonymous emails after Game 1 of the WNBA Finals. The emails went directly to Xargay’s account which was a bit unnerving for the couple. The two-time MVP said she notified the team and they escalated it to security. Stewart said Xargay has filed a complaint with police at the advice of the team and security. Stewart had a chance to win Game 1 of the WNBA Finals, but missed one of two free throws with 0.8 seconds left in regulation and then a potential tying layup at the overtime buzzer.
Game 3 is 8 tonight in Minnesota tied at a game apiece.
SOCCER
Guadalajara is the capital of a Mexican state that is home to tequila and Mariachi music. It is also considered the birthplace of a less flattering tradition — a homophobic soccer chant that has cost Mexico hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines over the past two decades. It came as no surprise that the chant, a one-word slur that literally means male prostitute in Spanish, was heard from the crowd last night when Mexico hosted the United States in a friendly match. Multiple sanctions from FIFA and campaigns by Mexican soccer officials to educate fans have not been able to stamp it out.
French soccer star Kylian Mbappé’s representatives have rejected as “false and irresponsible” reports in Swedish media saying he is the subject of a rape investigation in the Nordic country. Without citing sources, several Swedish media including tabloids Expressen and Aftonbladet and broadcasters SVT and TV4 reported that the Real Madrid striker was the subject of a rape claim following a visit to Stockholm last week. Swedish prosecutors issued a brief statement Tuesday confirming that a rape had been reported to police, but didn’t name any suspect. Asked for comment, Mbappé's communications team accused Swedish media of spreading “slanderous” rumors. In a statement to AP, they said “these accusations are totally false and irresponsible, and their propagation is unacceptable."
© 2024 Associated Press. All rights reserved.
