2026-04-21 01:51:20
Don't stop me if you've heard this one before: The New York Mets are a real disappointment. This was true last year, when they missed the playoffs, and this was true last week, when the team followed a sweep at the hands of the Athletics with one by the Dodgers. It's somehow even more true today, as the Chicago Cubs spent the weekend stretching the Mets' losing streak to 11 games, putting them at 7-15 and dead last in the National League.
A common theme in these losses is that New York has failed to plate runs, but on Sunday in Wrigley, they almost got away with it. Riding a 1-0 lead into the bottom of the ninth, they entrusted newly acquired bullpen arm Devin Williams with the save situation, then watched as he fumbled it by allowing a base hit and an RBI double by former Met Michael Conforto. In the 10th, after the butt end of the Mets' order failed to bring around their guy on second, it was another new-to-them reliever, Craig Kimbrel, who let the winning man score on a wild pitch and a sac fly.
2026-04-21 01:12:53
Forget what the scouting report said about Munetaka Murakami before he came over to MLB from the NPB. As we all know, foreign scouting is not real. Big bombs are real, and Murakami has, in his three most recent games games with the Chicago White Sox, delivered three big bombs. One of them even had the additional oomph of being his first career grand slam.
2026-04-21 00:43:35
Last week, I wrote that Manchester City had to intervene and stop the Arsenal title march, mainly for my own personal enjoyment. While some of you rightfully didn't appreciate that, you can't argue with the results. Arsenal came out on Sunday at City's stadium ready to play and still lost, 2-1, ceding control of the title race with just five matches left in its season.
The stats won't back the argument that Arsenal did anything particularly exciting yesterday, at least at face value. City dominated possession, 59-41, and had 15 shots to Arsenal's nine (five to three on target differential). Arsenal's only goal came from a Gianluigi Donnarumma mistake:
2026-04-21 00:09:37
Our Monday crossword is pretty dope. This week's puzzle was constructed by Zachary Edward-Brown and Mishkin Filstrup, and edited by Hoang-Kim Vu. Zach and Mishkin are high school friends from Chicago. Zach enjoys soccer and basketball and rooting for the Bears. Mishkin enjoys playing golf with his family and running track with his friends.
Defector crosswords, launched in partnership with our friends at AVCX, run every Monday. If you’re interested in submitting a puzzle to us, you can read our guidelines HERE. Please note that submissions will be closed from April 1 to May 1.
2026-04-20 23:57:50
Monty McCutchen remembers the play unfolding in front of him.
With just under two minutes left in Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals, the game tied at 89, Golden State's Andre Iguodala grabbed a rebound and dribbled up the floor. He was coming right at McCutchen, who was backpedaling and would end up as the "lead" official positioned underneath the basket Iguodala was sprinting toward. Iguodala and teammate Steph Curry bore down on J.R. Smith, the only Cleveland Cavalier back on defense; Iguodala passed it off to Curry, who skipped it straight back. As the closest referee, McCutchen prepared for a contested attempt at the rim.
"I was refereeing J.R. Smith," said McCutchen, one of three officials on the game and now the NBA's senior VP of referee development and training. "I remember thinking, 'You got J.R. Get J.R. Get J.R.'"
2026-04-20 22:37:26
Talk about regression candidates. Just over a month ago, football journalist Arif Hasan broke the news that analytics giant Pro Football Focus was purchased by Teamworks, an even larger analytics giant, for somewhere north of $130 million. According to Hasan, many employees working on the consumer side of PFF weren’t informed of the news by the company itself. It didn't take those poor souls very long to discover why that was. Shortly after the deal was consummated, many of those same employees were laid off. HOORAY FOR EFFICIENCY! From Front Office Sports:
PFF called employees to an all-hands meeting on Monday, during which it was announced that about half of them would be moving to the new company. PFF possessed both a content side and a data team—all 32 NFL teams subscribe to the company’s enterprise data set—and most of those who survived the layoffs were on the data side, a source said.
According to Hasan, many of those laid off weren’t informed of the news by the company itself. They found out through secondhand sources on the internet, which is a bit ruthless even for a company founded on cold-blooded football data.
