Browsing: embraces

The 21-year-old Tigers shortstop posted a .991 OPS across three levels this season, coming back from injury to log 101 hits in 88 games and walk 13 more times than he struck out. Along the way, he found his power stroke and upped his home run total from five a year ago to 19 against more advanced pitching—something that helped him climb all the way up to becoming Baseball America’s No. 2 overall prospect.

It was, by just about any measure, a season to remember for one of the game’s best prospects.

But as he reflected on the past season during his stint in the Arizona Fall League, McGonigle made one thing clear: Thereâ€s still work to be done.

“I struggled with defense this year,†McGonigle said. “Thatâ€s why Iâ€m here. Iâ€m really trying to lock in on that. I struggled with throwing, range—even just routine ground balls, sometimes I have hiccups on. Iâ€m trying to find the right foot patterns to approach different ground balls and just make every single play thatâ€s hit at me.â€

That kind of self-awareness and work ethic has defined McGonigle since his amateur days. It’s part of what the Tigers valued when they selected him 37th overall in 2023.

A polished, lefthanded bat with a mature approach at the plate, McGonigleâ€s offensive reputation preceded him long before he entered pro ball. He consistently barrels pitches, shows plate discipline beyond his years and has proven he can handle advanced pitching at every stop so far.

But while the bat has translated seamlessly, McGonigle’s defensive development is still an area requiring improvement. Though his arm strength is considered an above-average tool, his lateral quickness and overall consistency in the field remain a work in progress. The Tigers have recognized it—and so has McGonigle.

“This is the biggest offseason for me,” he said.

And so, Detroit challenged McGonigle with an unfamiliar assignment this fall: more reps at third base. It’s a position heâ€s played in-game just once—way back during the clubâ€s Spring Breakout exhibition in March.

Helping to guide that transition is a name synonymous with Tigers defensive excellence in Hall of Famer Alan Trammell. The legendary shortstop has worked closely with McGonigle throughout his career, serving as both mentor and infield coordinator.

“He was all in,†Trammell said of McGonigle’s new defensive assignment. “Heâ€s one of the top prospects. He could say ‘Why? Whatâ€s wrong with me playing shortstop?’ But thatâ€s not who he is. Heâ€s open to anything to help the organization win. That tells you a lot about Kevin McGonigle.â€

So far, McGonigle has soaked up every bit of insight he can from his sessions with Trammell, treating each one like a masterclass in infield play. Throughout the season, heâ€s focused on refining the small but crucial details—the kinds of things that separate solid defenders from great ones.Â

Heâ€s learned techniques like how to handle deep throws from the backhand side—if you’re going to miss, aim for the grass to give the first baseman a long, manageable hop—and he’s worked on setting his base properly, learning to generate power from his legs instead of relying solely on his arm so that his throws carry more velocity and stay on target.

“Heâ€s a sponge,†Trammell said. “Since the day he signed, heâ€s been really engaged. Thatâ€s one of the key attributes I always look for in young players. Heâ€s already a pretty darn good defensive player, but thereâ€s always room for improvement, and he knows that. He wants to be great.â€

They’re subtle adjustments, but McGonigle knows they can make all the difference over the course of a season—and a career.

“Being surrounded by people like Alan Trammell has helped a lot,†McGonigle said. “Heâ€s helped me so much through my first years of pro ball. Sitting down and listening to guys like him will help you further your career. I try to hone in on the little things they teach, and thatâ€s whatâ€s gotten me better since the day I was first drafted.â€

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The video is only five seconds long. In it, the pro hits just one driver on the range, and the caddie just looks on. But that was more than enough for more than a few folks. On Twitter, the PGA Tour’s posting of the video has gotten over 100,000 views. Over on Instagram, it’s received just under 5,000 likes.

Geno Bonnalie, one of golf’s most popular loopers, is back, after all.

As shown in the video, he’s connected with Isaiah Salinda, a 28-year-old pro out of San Francisco, and the pair is playing this week’s Sanderson Farms Championship. You might like them, and we’ll get to that in a sec, though Salinda’s colorful socks in the video give at least a heads-up of what’s to come. But Bonnalie’s former boss was also a personality, and their breakup even got some headlines (including two on this site, and they can be found here and here).

That’s how much Bonnalie and pro Joel Dahmen were known. They’d won only once on the PGA Tour, but social media gave them a voice, before Netflix’s “Full Swing” gave them stardom. On the show, they were open. They were relatable.

But then they were done. In mid-July, Dahmen wrote on Twitter that they had split. They thought they needed “a fresh perspective.”

“Man, I love Geno,” Dahmen said a few weeks later, at the Wyndham Championship. “We still text almost daily. He’s doing well. Yeah, I mean, I miss him but sometimes the hardest — you have to do something hard to …”

He paused.

“Look, it wasn’t an easy decision,” Dahmen said. “I won’t say I’m not happy about it, but it’s hard. He’s my best friend, he’s still my best friend.”

And now Bonnalie’s returned.

This year, Salinda has posted a couple top 10s. Entering the Sanderson, he’s 104th in the season-long points race, but only the top 100 keep their full-time playing privileges, so work will need to be done. But Salinda, like Dahmen, is affable. Dude’s a character.

For more on that, GOLF’s Sean Zak talked with him at this year’s Players Championship, and his story can be found by clicking here, or by scrolling immediately below.

***

PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. — Isaiah Salinda looks comfortable. That alone draws you in. But what he leads with really makes you lean forward.

“Can I be honest?” he starts. “Are you recording this or anything?”

“We don’t have to be,” a reporter clarifies.

“No, no, no — you can. F–k it,” he says. “Too many guys out here are just kind of cookie-cutter, vanilla shortbread cookies, you know what I mean? I’m trying to be different.”

It’s Wednesday morning and Salinda is one of 12 Players Championship debutants sitting in director’s chairs, spread out in a massive circle for their first-timer’s press conferences. He’s wearing a Bad Birdie polo with a desert sunset pictured on it, which partly explains what he means by different. His mountain-man thighs are testing the limits of his hiked-up golf shorts. He’s the proud owner of what the Tour calls “a robust selection of fun socks” — which included the Cookie Monster pair he wore early in the week — but he’s elected for clean white ones today, as to not distract from his shirt. He’s different. In many ways, that is exactly what the PGA Tour is in search of.

In recent months, the Tour has launched Fan Forward, a catch-all name for initiatives driven by survey responses from more than 50,000 golf fans. Among the four takeaways being put into action is a simple one on paper — make players more relatable — that isn’t so easy in reality. Because pros prefer to keep their public opinions as straight as their tee shots. It might maintain the brand pillars of the sponsors ironed on their shirts, but that safe approach doesn’t attract the eyes and ears the Tour seeks most in this time of TV ratings and popularity contests.

With Salinda, the work is easy. He’s trending, too: He has less than 5,000 Instagram followers, but reels the Tour’s content team have made featuring him regularly outperform those of better-known stars. Like the one he posted after our convo Wednesday, which has earned him an extra couple hundred followers since. Later that afternoon, when Collin Morikawa’s caddie made an ace on the island green 17th hole Wednesday, it was Salinda centering himself in front of the camera with a Gladiator impression.

“Are you not entertained!”

Salinda is considering joining Twitter, looking to get in the mix on the Tour discourse a bit, definitely interested in establishing a personal brand. But mostly, he just wants his fellow Tour pros to lighten up a bit. Go off script. Play practice rounds with Tour rookies. Talk a little s—. He graduated from Stanford in 2019 and slowly rose through the Tour ranks, from PGA Tour Canada to a couple years on the Korn Ferry Tour. He turned 28 Thursday, but the youthful streak in him very much misses the team golf days of college. He moved to Vegas, he says, just so he could compete with the crew of Tour players who live there, such as Morikawa and Min Woo Lee.

“I just love the juice,” Salinda says, so I ask him very plainly, “Do you talk s—?”

“Buddy, I talk too much s—,” he replies. “To the point where I think not too many people like me out here.”

To play a practice round with Salinda — at least according to him (sorry, I have no experience) — is to be chided and ridiculed constantly. It’s just “raw confidence,” he says, regularly unleashing vicious club-twirls regardless of where the ball goes.

The ongoing absence of Tiger Woods plus LIV Golf snatching stars means the Tour has been eager to develop more fan favorites. The best golfers will gain popularity as a result of their play, but the Tour hopes more players could gain fans from their personalities, too, and then launch to greater heights from their best on-course weeks. The best way to get noticed is to win, of course, something Salinda came damn close to a couple weeks ago, finishing one shot back of a playoff at the Mexico Open. While waiting for the leaders to finish, he said he was “clowning” off-camera, but the instant the broadcast producers turned the red light in his direction, he buttoned himself up.

“I hate myself,” he said this week, laughing. “I hate that I did that. But my agent was standing next to me. He didn’t tell me anything, but I knew I can’t say anything absurd. Next time, whenever that is, I’ll be more unique, I guess. I’ll stand out.”

Next time may be the next broadcast window. Salinda’s opening round at TPC Sawgrass was clean and efficient, comprised of 15 pars and three birdies, leaving him three shots back of the leaders. He walked to scoring with just a fraction of the fanfare of the Xanders, Jordans and JTs, who all also get requested for interviews by the media. Despite outplaying them all Thursday, Salinda wasn’t requested by anyone. His relative anonymity continues, if only for another 18 holes.

Robert Lewandowski said Barcelona will be fresher when the big games come around this season after coming off the bench to spur his side on to a 3-1 win against Real Oviedo in LaLiga on Thursday.

Oviedo led 1-0 at the break but Barça flexed their muscles in the second half, bringing on Lewandowski and Frenkie de Jong to highlight the depth coach Hansi Flick has at his disposal.

Lewandowski, 37, scored Barça’s second goal as they kept within two points of leaders Real Madrid. It was the Poland striker’s LaLiga-leading third goal off the bench this season and he says he’s happy to play fewer minutes if it keeps him in better shape throughout the campaign.

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“We have so many games and the season is very long,” he told ESPN. “At the end of preseason I got injured, I was out for three weeks, but later I still felt that I couldn’t do everything 100%.

“Now I feel good physically. You have to be patient sometimes. Of course, for strikers it’s always better to play, but we have to be patient and think there are more games coming, more important games coming.

“We know that last season there were parts where we didn’t play well. I don’t want to say we were tired, but not so fresh. So we have to know being more fresh for the future means we have more opportunities to be a better team.”

Robert Lewandowski put Barcelona ahead in their win over Real Oviedo. Bruno Penas/Quality Sport Images/Getty Images

Oviedo took a surprise first-half lead at the Carlos Tartiere when Alberto Reina lobbed into an empty net from 40 yards after a mistake from Barça goalkeeper Joan García.

Eric García drew Barça level from close range in the 56th minute and Lewandowski, coming off the bench for the fourth time this season, completed the turnaround with a stunning header from a De Jong cross in the 70th minute.

“I didn’t yet see the goal because when you’re on the pitch, you’re focused on your job,” Lewandowski added.

“I saw the corner or left side of post, I don’t want to say empty, but if I put the ball there I thought it’s possible. The cross is amazing and I know the space is there.

“It was a very important goal. I knew if I came on I had to do something, try and score the goal.”

Flick, who celebrated his 50th win in 67 games as Barcelona coach, praised the quality of Lewandowski’s contribution.

“It was important, this is what we know from Robert,” the Barça coach said in a news conference. “He’s one of the best in the world in the box. We’re happy we have him.

“I always say to the team, we start with 11 and finish with maybe five different players. The most important thing is everyone gives 100% for the team.

“When Robert comes on, you can feel he wants to change the result. Not only about the goal, but the dynamic it gave us in the match. It was great to see this.”

Flick also downplayed García’s error giving the ball away before the Oviedo goal — “it happens, it’s the style and how we want him to play” — and praised defender Ronald Araújo, who added Barça’s third goal late on, for his start to the season.

“Ronald is an important player for us and I am happy he scored a goal,” he said. “For him, maybe it’s a good step, for the belief in himself. This is for him the most important thing.

“I think he showed also this season that he is doing much better than last season. It’s normal. At the moment, everyone has the confidence and gives us a lot of options.”

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NAPA, Calif. – Keegan Bradley has not shied away from saying the quiet parts out loud.“I think we all agree…