Sports

7:27 PM ET Associated Press NEW YORK — Yoenis Cespedes came back with a bang, taking immediate advantage of the new designated hitter rule in the National League by launching a home run that sent Jacob deGrom and the New York Mets past the Atlanta Braves 1-0 in their season opener Friday. After five dominant

9:00 AM ET Heather Dinich Close ESPN Senior Writer College football reporter Joined ESPN.com in 2007 Graduate of Indiana University Adam Rittenberg Close ESPN Senior Writer College football reporter. Joined ESPN.com in 2008. Graduate of Northwestern University. On paper, the NCAA-approved college football practice plan that begins today looks normal: up to eight hours each

12:08 PM ET When NHL Seattle first installed signage on its downtown office in 2018, employees arrived at work the next morning to a surprise. Stuck to the door was a Post-it note with a handwritten message: “Release the Kraken.” “That may have been the first time I heard or thought of Kraken,” said Heidi

11:42 PM ET Associated Press KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Three straight finishes outside the top 10 for Denny Hamlin these days counts as a rough patch. He was once again smooth as they get Thursday night. Hamlin hung around the front of the pack all night, avoiding trouble that cost several playoff contenders in the

7:49 PM ET Associated Press SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Irad Ortiz Jr. won five races at Saratoga on Thursday, equaling his feat of a year ago. He won the second, fourth, fifth, seventh and ninth races from his eight mounts at the upstate New York track. Last July 31, Ortiz Jr. also won five races.

5:55 PM ET LIVERPOOL, England — Just for a brief moment, it looked as though Christian Pulisic was going to gatecrash Liverpool‘s Premier League title party. While all the fireworks were going off around Anfield, the Chelsea forward appeared to be on a mission to singlehandedly claim the spotlight by securing Champions League qualification for

11:25 PM BST World Rugby has recommended a revised international calendar following the disruption due to the COVID-19 outbreak, the sport’s ruling body said on Wednesday A temporary international window between Oct. 24 and Dec. 5 has been proposed by World Rugby’s executive committee. The Six Nations Championship can resume at the end of October

7:29 AM ET MIKE BROWN WAS sitting at a desk in Jorge Masvidal‘s Las Vegas hotel room. It was July 5, hours before Brown was scheduled to accompany Masvidal on a flight to “Fight Island” for UFC 251. While Brown, one of American Top Team’s head MMA coaches, was on his laptop, Masvidal’s manager, Abe

5:51 PM ET Steve KimESPN Former WBO featherweight world titleholder Oscar Valdez returns to the ring for the first time since November to face Jayson Velez in the main event of a Top Rank card Tuesday at the MGM Grand Conference Center in Las Vegas (ESPN, 8 p.m. ET). Valdez (27-0, 21 KOs) won the

10:25 AM ET Associated Press The tournament that was supposed to mark the official return of men’s professional tennis amid the coronavirus pandemic has been canceled. The Citi Open in Washington, scheduled to start with Aug. 13 qualifying, was called off Tuesday because of what tournament manager Mark Ein said are “too many unresolved external

8:17 AM ET Augusta National sits quiet. Life bustles by the esteemed club, which is closed for the summer and typically is not on the mind of the golf world. In a normal year, the Masters Tournament would be three months in the past, the major championship season complete. The club’s reopening to its membership

6:52 AM ET LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Chirp, chirp, chirp! “Is that me ringing?” New Orleans Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry wondered aloud, looking down at the proximity monitor clipped to his credential as he walked from the practice facility inside Disney’s ESPN Wide World of Sports Complex to conduct his virtual news conference on

8:33 AM ET On July 10, Matteo Berrettini, the No. 8-ranked men’s player, lost a semifinal on red clay to Andrey Rublev during an exhibition tournament on a chilly, wet day in Kitzbuhel, Austria. Barely 24 hours later, Berrettini triumphed in an Ultimate Tennis Showdown semifinal on a hard court under sunny but hot and

7:00 AM ET The last time the New England Patriots didn’t win the AFC East was 2008, when quarterback Tom Brady missed the season with a torn ACL. Now that Brady is no longer in the division, could things come full circle with a new AFC East champion? The Patriots’ streak of 11 straight division

7:00 AM ET Jared Berson With the 2020 MLB season shortened to 60 games, a handful of the sport’s most impressive active streaks are in jeopardy. Max Scherzer likely won’t be matching an MLB record held by Tom Seaver, while some fans might be happy that a streak tied to the Astros’ recent dominance will

7:30 AM ET ESPN staff NEARLY HALF OF major college football and men’s basketball coaches have taken voluntary pay cuts in response to the financial crisis facing higher education because of the coronavirus pandemic, but most of the highest-paid coaches have not, an ESPN survey found. Eight of the 10 top-paid football coaches and at