Leading Off: Red Sox Can Clinch As Papi Begins Bronx Goodbye

New month, same awful Rockies. The Colorado club that is becoming nearly impossible to watch lost again on Wednesday at loanDepot Park, dropping to 7-23 in the club’s worst-ever 30-game start. In the 4-1 defeat in Game 2 in Miami, the Rockies wasted a strong outing by Dakota Hudson and, in a familiar refrain, lacked clutch hits.

WINNIPEG — Rick Bowness invoked the wisdom from one of hockey’s most famous playoff tales Tuesday night. His Winnipeg Jets had just finished a season with 110 points — fourth-most in the NHL — but only one postseason victory after the Colorado Avalanche rolled past his club in five games during an opening-round series in the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs. “You get to this stage, at the end of a playoff series, if you’re not putting an ice bag on, you’re not playing hard enough,” Bowness said.

You are what you tweet. Scroll Deion Sanders’ timeline and it provides messages that are uplifting, encouraging and confusing. Sanders dispenses advice on pursuing dreams, believing, staying positive and remaining disciplined. Intertwined in those messages, Sanders makes and takes things personally. As one of the greatest defenders ever to play football, it is natural for him to defend himself.

The younger brother of Denver Nuggets forward Michael Porter Jr. was arrested early Sunday morning in Missouri on investigation of driving while intoxicated. Jevon Porter, 20, was arrested at 1:31 a.m. in Boone County, Missouri, State Highway Patrol records show. Porter, who was released, also was accused of speeding. The 6-foot-11 Columbia, Missouri, native is a sophomore on the Loyola Marymount University basketball team.

After three seasons with the Colorado women’s basketball team, Tameiya Sadler is moving on. The senior guard has elected to put her name in the NCAA transfer portal with the intent of playing her bonus year, granted to all players from the 2020-21 season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, elsewhere. A 5-foot-8 guard from Vallejo, Calif., Sadler played in 94 games, with 26 starts, during her three seasons with the Buffs.

The extra season of eligibility granted by the NCAA for the 2020-21 COVID season has unleashed a number of previously unforeseen opportunities upon the game of college basketball. Trevor Baskin’s story certainly is one of them. A gangly and overlooked recruit out of Pomona High School in Arvada four years ago, Baskin gradually played his way into one of the top players in the Division II Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference through his first three seasons at Colorado Mesa. Going into his senior season last fall, Baskin outlined a plan.