Sports

Can the Tigers win enough to keep Tarik Skubal past the trade deadline?

Published

8 hours ago

July 15, 2026

DETROIT — The first half of the Detroit Tigers’ 2026 season was full of discombobulation. The team looked at times terrible and at others terrific. There were injuries and mistakes, brilliant displays of pitching and out-of-nowhere glimpses of potent power.

A.J. Hinch faced the most criticism of his Tigers tenure, and yet Hinch kept his team believing after a dismal May.

Between all that, Justin Verlander announced this season will be his last. The Tigers had an odd parting with third-base coach Joey Cora. Kevin McGonigle emerged as a rookie of uncanny composure. Dillon Dingler blossomed into the best catcher in the sport. The Tigers watched as Tarik Skubal got hurt, then made an unprecedented return.

Who knows, then, what the second half will hold.

Here is a sampling of the biggest Tigers storylines as we return from the All-Star break:

Are the Tigers buyers, sellers or both?

This is the big question. This is what everyone wants to know. The bad news: Finding out the answer will require a bit more patience.

The odds are still against the Tigers being able to mount a run into the postseason. But if they can come out of the All-Star break playing well, they could strengthen their case to keep this team together and make a push. Stranger things have happened.

Regardless of what happens in the next couple of weeks, there is no bigger dilemma than what to do with ace left-hander Tarik Skubal. The Tigers could trade him for multiple pieces that could strengthen their future. They could keep him and stay true to their original mission of pursuing a World Series. Or maybe they could trade Skubal for pieces that could offer immediate help but keep others such as Casey Mize and Gleyber Torres, attempting to play for both now and later.

It’s a tricky position to be in, and that’s one reason the Tigers seem determined to play as much of the schedule as possible before deciding their lane.

There is so much at stake. The Tigers probably still project as sellers, but there is more schedule to play.

How far can the pitching take them?

In the second half last season, an offensive breakdown contributed to an epic divisional collapse. So too did a pitching staff that didn’t have the breadth of quality arms needed to survive. For the second year in a row, the Tigers seemed poised to go as far as their pitching can take them.

Right now, the Tigers are in an ideal position. Their rotation has been firing on all cylinders. Troy Melton is emerging as a force. It’s the bullpen that remains Detroit’s biggest weakness.

The overall 3.85 bullpen ERA entering Sunday is not abysmal. But the Tigers have blown 19 saves, more than any team in the American League. The Win Probably Added from Detroit relievers is -4.57, second worst in the majors. Will Vest is on the injured list with a stress fracture in his arm. Kenley Jansen has a 4.56 ERA. Although there have been nights where the bullpen strung together scoreless innings, Hinch has not been able to phone down to the bullpen with confidence.

For the Tigers to have any hope, they need their starters to continue rattling off quality performances.

And if they’re serious about being anything more than a wild-card team destined for an early exit, the bullpen has to improve, perhaps through acquisitions at the trade deadline.

What kind of offense is this?

In May, the Tigers had a .597 team OPS. That ranked last in MLB.

In June, the Tigers had a .797 OPS. That ranked sixth.

So which version is the real Tigers?

The answer probably lies somewhere in between.

Dingler and McGonigle staged terrific first halves. Riley Greene reached his third straight All-Star game and entered the break with a career-best .842 OPS.

But so many other players have still underperformed. Spencer Torkelson has 16 home runs but is hitting only .208. Zach McKinstry, an All-Star this time last year, has a .197 average. Matt Vierling has struggled to the tune of -1.0 bWAR. Even Kerry Carpenter has not been at his best in terms of all-around performance.

The Tigers hope to get Gleyber Torres back soon. His right-handed presence is always a boost in stability. But the Tigers will need more hitters to pull their weight if they want to play meaningful baseball in September or perhaps later.

It will also be fascinating to see whether the Tigers promote top prospect Max Clark at any point this year. There’s a world where Clark could become part of a compelling playoff push.

There’s another where Clark debuts after the Tigers dismantle their roster and turn an eye toward the future.

Sports

Steve Kerr teases Warriors fans about LeBron James’ next team: ‘Oh, we got him’

Published

6 minutes ago

July 16, 2026

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Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr seems, at least in jest, to have the answer to the question currently stalling the last moves of NBA free agency.

Where will LeBron James sign to play next season?

In a video posted to X, fans caught Kerr in his car and asked him to sign James. A reunion between James and his Team USA coach and teammate — and longtime rivals — in Kerr and Stephen Curry at Golden State has long been rumored.

“Oh, we got him,” Kerr said.

“Put that on Twitter,” the four-time championship-winning coach (and five-time champion as a player) said before smiling, laughing, waving at the camera and driving off.

Steve Kerr to a Warriors fan asking for them to sign LeBron James:

“Oh we got him.”

(via @warriorsworld, h/t @TheWarriorsTalk) pic.twitter.com/I5uAucZd7F

— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) July 16, 2026

To several Warriors officials, who verified that it was indeed Kerr in the video shot Tuesday and not an AI fake, the veteran coach was just doing what he has always done, using his humor to answer a question from a fan that the Warriors, and the rest of the NBA, still don’t have an answer about for themselves. The Warriors remain hopeful that James may eventually choose to play for them, but in this particular instance, Kerr was just using his same quick-witted humor for this viral exchange.

On June 30, James, 41, announced he would return to the NBA for his 24th season but would end his eight-year tenure with the Los Angeles Lakers and sign with a different team. As an unrestricted free agent, it officially opened the James sweepstakes for the first time since he left the Cleveland Cavaliers for the Lakers in 2018.

Really, though, it marks the first time since 2010 that there’s been a truly open market for the services of the NBA’s all-time leading scorer. That summer, he made “The Decision” to take his talents from Cleveland to the Miami Heat.

On July 3, Rich Paul, James’ longtime agent and the Klutch Sports Group CEO, appeared on his podcast with Max Kellerman and outlined (he literally drew it on a whiteboard) the true contenders to land James. The teams were the Warriors, Cavaliers, Philadelphia 76ers, Heat, Minnesota Timberwolves, Denver Nuggets and Dallas Mavericks.

The four-time champion’s connections to Golden State are deeply rooted. He spent four consecutive seasons in Cleveland battling the Warriors in the NBA Finals from 2015 to 2018, going 1-3 in those matchups.

But that one victory, in 2016, was historic.

James has since formed very public friendships with Curry and Draymond Green. He attended Green’s wedding and won Olympic gold alongside Curry under Kerr at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

In a 2022 clip from James’ HBO show “The Shop,” he was asked which player he’d most like to team up with in today’s game.

“Steph Curry is the one that I want to play with for sure in today’s game,” James said.

Curry was asked Thursday what his recruiting pitch to James would be while playing in the American Century Championship celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, Nev.

“So the pitch is: Do you want to play good basketball and be around people who know how to play the game?” Curry told reporters. “Raise our floor, competitiveness … There’s good golf in the Bay.

“… We’re an organization that’s been there [winning championships]. He knows that, and that’s really self-explanatory. It’s just a matter of where he sees himself fitting. And at the end of the day, that’s up to him.”

James has yet to announce his decision, leaving several remaining league dominoes — such as James Harden’s contract situation in Cleveland — in limbo.

Any time one of the greatest players the sport has seen changes teams, it becomes a league-altering moment that can reshape franchises’ timelines and championship aspirations.

A serious basketball matter.

Perhaps just not serious enough for Kerr to resist joking that the job is already done and the player is secured.

Or maybe he wasn’t kidding.

Sports

Exclusive: Fery on his schedule, rankings, Wimbledon experience and more

Published

14 minutes ago

July 16, 2026

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Arthur Fery reflects on his Wimbledon experience, his massive climb up the world rankings and the tournaments he’s planning to play next.

Sports

Nations Championship: England rugby players to avoid wearing national shirts in Argentina as football counterparts face off at World Cup | Rugby Union News

Published

22 minutes ago

July 16, 2026

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England’s rugby players have revealed they will avoid wearing national shirts in Argentina this week, ahead of facing the Pumas in Saturday’s Nations Championship Test in Santiago del Estero.

Steve Borthwick’s side will be in Buenos Aires when Wednesday’s FIFA World Cup semi-final between England and Argentina takes place.

The squad wore England jerseys in support of the football team for last Saturday’s quarter-final against Norway, but did so in Liverpool after defeating Fiji earlier in the day.

“I think, bearing in mind where we are and who we’re playing with, we’ve been pretty sensible about not wearing our English shirts around too much,” lock Alex Coles told The Telegraph.

“We had them all out in Liverpool and got a bit of a better reception than we might do here.

“I definitely love my football. I think there’s a fair bunch of us that do. We watched the previous game after our game at the weekend, on in a rooftop bar in Liverpool, and it was very cool. Everyone was getting very excited.

“We’re very proud to represent our country playing rugby, and I think that translates to real excitement around watching England in any sport, and World Cup fever – it is sort of like no other with the football, isn’t it?

“It captures the imagination of the globe in a way that no other sport can. It’s really special, and I think it’s the sport that I grew up watching first before rugby and cricket, football was the thing I was obsessed with.”

England wing Tommy Freeman said the squad are ready for an “angry” atmosphere and contest against the Pumas on Saturday, should England’s footballers prove victorious in Atlanta.

“We’ll see how hostile it gets,” said Freeman.

“It’s big for Argentina and us and being here it’s heightened massively. I think they’ll probably be angry if we win so Saturday could be a tough game.

“We know they’re a passionate country. We are too and they’ll want to compete to the fullest and we’ll be ready for that.”