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The Florida Panthers picked up a much-needed win against a strong Vegas Golden Knights team last night, concluding their road trip with a 2-2-0 record. They’ll now return home for a five-game homestand.

Last night’s win witnessed another strong performance from 23-year-old defenseman Donovan Sebrango. He finished the game with two assists, his first two points of his NHL career, while blocking a shot, throwing two hits and recording a fight in 12:18 of ice time.

His emergence comes as a surprise, but it’s most definitely a pleasant one. But the real question is, should it be considered a surprise? Recent evidence of the Panthers under GM Bill Zito shows that he is a wizard at both pulling off blockbuster moves and finding unearthed talent on the waiver wire.

He hit big-time with Gustav Forsling, and while it’s still very early into both his Panthers and NHL career, Sebrango appears to be another possible home run. His minutes have been fairly sheltered, but as time goes on, it wouldn’t be shocking to see coach Paul Maurice continue to use Sebrango in more high-leverage situations.

Standing 6-foot-2, 223 pounds, Sebrango is a big body who is slowly becoming more comfortable using. Prior to his inclusion in the lineup, the third pairing of Jeff Petry and Uvis Balinskis was struggling. They were hemmed in their own zone far too often, and the Panthers were losing their minutes badly.

HockeyStatCards (@hockeystatcards) on X
NHL GameScore Impact Card for Florida Panthers on 2025-11-10:

Maurice made the simple swap of Balinskis for Sebrango, and it’s changed the Panthers. According to Natural Stat Trick, at 5-on-5, the Panthers are outscoring their opponents 6-1, hold the high-danger chances advantage 17-9 and own 52.92 percent of the expected goals with Sebrango on the ice. Sebrango has skated in almost half the ice time as Balinskis has, but each statistic is in favor of Sebrango.

The 2020 third-round pick (63rd overall) of the Detroit Red Wings hasn’t featured too prominently on the penalty kill just yet, but he is an option Maurice can turn to if needed.

Recent reports suggested the Panthers could be looking at the trade market for a depth defenseman to replace Dmitry Kulikov while he is on the shelf with a long-term injury, but if Sebrango continues to play at this level, Zito will likely stay off the phones.

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Three takeaways: Panthers end road trip looking more like themselves, power play snaps cold spell
Panthers shake off slow start, reclaim their identity on the road. Their potent offense and disciplined play deliver crucial wins and a snapped power play drought.

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The buzz was just beginning to build for David Hagaman as he returned to a mound on June 5 with the Rangers’ Arizona Complex League affiliate. It took just three ACL appearances for the 22-year-old righthander to earn promotion to Low-A Hickory. Then, on July 31 with Texas in the midst of a playoff race, the Rangers shipped Hagaman along with lefthanders Kohl Drake and Mitch Bratt to the Diamondbacks in a trade deadline deal for Merrill Kelly.

Today, weâ€ll be continuing our offseason series on potential sleeper and breakout pitchers by taking a deep dive into what makes Hagaman an intriguing name to follow heading into 2026.

Career Background

A native of Egg Harbor City, NJ, Hagaman grew up on the Jersey Shore just 15 minutes from Atlantic City. After a standout career with Holy Spirit (NJ) High School, he committed to West Virginia, where he redshirted the 2022 season. He returned in 2023 and earned all-Big 12 honorable mention after making 22 appearances and striking out 40 batters over 38.1 innings. The next season, Hagaman remained a primary bullpen weapon for the Mountaineers, making 14 appearances spanning 35 innings and striking out 49 batters to 19 walks.

Thatâ€s when the elbow injury hit.

Hagaman missed the final month of West Virginiaâ€s season and then underwent internal brace surgery on his right elbow two months before the 2024 MLB Draft. An intriguing prospect, Hagaman ranked 183rd on BA’s final Top 500 draft board. The Rangers landed him in the fourth round, signing him for $515,000.

Hagaman would work his way back from injury, finally toeing the rubber on an affiliated mound in early June. He allowed just one run over seven ACL innings, striking out 12 of 25 batters faced. The Rangers promoted him to Low-A Hickory, where he made five starts and began to showcase the deep arsenal of quality pitches that convinced the Rangers to draft him.Â

Over those five starts, Hagaman mostly worked in 2-3 inning stints, striking out 16 batters to six walks across 15.1 innings of work. Hagaman showed off four pitches in his four-seam fastball, slider, changeup and reworked curveball. Right as the Rangers were unleashing the new curveball on unsuspecting Carolina League hitters, they dealt Hagaman to the D-backs.Â

Nearly immediately, Hagaman began to make some people in the Rangers front office likely regret his inclusion in the trade.

Arizona let Hagaman throw his reworked curveball and the pitch began to get immediate results. He dominated High-A Northwest League competition, striking out 27 batters to four walks and holding opponents to a .159 batting average in five appearances spanning 20 innings.

Hagaman’s curveball, in particular, began to drive big results. The pitch generated a 64% whiff rate and 56% chase rate, as Hagaman showed the ability to command it in and out of the zone.Â

Pitching Profile

Listed at 6-foot-4, 215 pounds, Hagaman has a prototypical starter build with size and strength throughout, and he’s likely close to his physical max. His repeatable mechanics and smooth arm swing allow him to throw an above-average amount of strikes. He delivers the ball from a high three-quarters arm slot that allows him to play the vertical game with his riding four-seam fastball and plus curveball.Â

Hagaman throws a riding four-seam fastball that sits 93-95 mph with 17-19 inches of ride on average with 9-11 inches of armside run. For secondaries, he mixes in a pair of breaking balls in his aforementioned curveball and mid-to-high-80s gyro slider with tight bullet spin along with a changeup.

Hagamanâ€s curveball was the least-used pitch in his arsenal this season, but it became a larger part of his attack plan as the year progressed. Thereâ€s strategic logic behind this, as the pitch was nearly unhittable in his brief sample with High-A Hillsboro:

PitchStrike%Swing%Miss%Chase%OPSCurveball72%45%62%47%0.167

The results speak for themselves, as Hagaman fooled hitters in and out of the zone with the improved offering, driving whiffs, chases and weak contact. The combination of power and movement on the curveball make it a truly unique look, particularly in the minor leagues. Itâ€s a true outlier combination of traits and movement, and Hagaman shows supreme command of the pitch.

Only seven other pitchers in the minors threw a curveball at 83 mph or harder on average with 10 or more inches of negative induced vertical break and nine or more inches of sweep:

playerorgavg velomax velospinivbhbTommy NanceTOR84.687.92926-14.7-11.6Alex MakarewichLAD84.987.52664-13.4-9.7Kade StrowdBAL83.986.52906-11.6-13.6Clarke SchmidtNYY84.486.53000-14.4-11.4David HagamanAZ83.786.32211-12.2-9.3Cedric De GrandpreATL8385.92431-10.4-9.9Colin SelbyBAL8384.72785-13.2-11.9

The rest of Hagamanâ€s arsenal is average-or-better.

With ride, run and average velocity, his four-seam fastball projects as an above-average offering. His slider is average with tight gyro spin, but its velocity is slightly below the ideal range for a pitch of that type. Hagaman’s changeup, meanwhile, shows good vertical separation from his fastball, helping it to generate strong results this season to the tune of a 40.7% whiff rate and 40.8% chase rate.Â

Health and command will determine how far his intriguing skill set takes him, but with a deep arsenal of quality pitches and a signature breaking ball designed to get whiffs in and out of the zone, Hagaman has all the ingredients to break out in 2026.

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  Alden GonzalezOct 17, 2025, 11:30 PM ET

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  ESPN baseball reporter. Covered the L.A. Rams for ESPN from 2016 to 2018 and the L.A. Angels for MLB.com from 2012 to 2016.

LOS ANGELES — Mookie Betts stood on the Dodger Stadium field Friday night, a commemorative World Series cap on his head and a wide smile on his face, and made what felt like an apt comparison moments after the Dodgers completed a National League Championship Series sweep of the Brewers.

“It’s like we’re the Chicago Bulls,” Betts said, “and he’s Michael Jordan.”

Betts was referring, of course, to Shohei Ohtani, who had once again put together a performance many of his peers described as the greatest in baseball history. On the mound, he pitched six scoreless innings and struck out 10. In the batter’s box, he clobbered three home runs, one of which might have left the ballpark.

When it was over, and the Dodgers had clinched a second straight pennant on an Ohtani-fueled 5-1 victory in Game 4 of the NLCS, his teammates once again struggled to make sense of it.

“Some human, huh?” Dodgers utility man Enrique Hernandez said of Ohtani, the NLCS MVP despite being almost nonexistent for the first three games.

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“I can’t wait for when I’m a little bit older and my kids are asking about, ‘What’s the greatest thing you’ve ever seen in baseball?'” third baseman Max Muncy said. “I can’t wait to pull up this game today. That’s the single best performance in the history of baseball. I don’t care what anyone says. Obviously, I don’t know what happened a hundred years ago, but that’s the single best performance I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Ohtani entered Game 4 with three hits and 14 strikeouts in 29 at-bats over his previous seven games, a slump so pronounced and prolonged it prompted a rare session of outdoor batting practice. Questions swirled about whether attempting to be a two-way player in the postseason was affecting his hitting, a thought at least partly backed by his struggles at the plate when he started on the mound during the regular season.

Ultimately, though, it was doing both that set him free.

“No one puts more pressure on himself than Shohei,” Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. Focusing on pitching, Dodgers hitting coach Aaron Bates believes, “actually took his mind off the hitting a little bit.”

“It let him go be an athlete in the box,” Bates said. “It let him just play baseball.”

Ohtani became the first player in major league history to hit two home runs as a pitcher in a postseason game, let alone three, according to ESPN Research. He hit more home runs than he allowed hits (two), also a first. Before him, no pitcher — at any stage in the season — had hit a leadoff home run, and no player had accumulated three home runs as a hitter and 10 strikeouts as a pitcher. Ohtani is the first player in Dodgers history to homer as a pitcher in the postseason and the second to have a three-homer performance in an LCS-clinching game, joining Hernandez’s performance from 2017.

“I played left field that time,” Hernandez said, “and I didn’t get to punch all those people that he punched out.”

YearPlayerTeam2025Shohei OhtaniDodgers1971Rick Wise*Phillies1962Earl Wilson*Red Sox1944Jim Tobin*Braves1931Wes Ferrell*Cleveland* Threw no-hitter
— ESPN Research

The Dodgers responded to their 2024 championship, their first in a full season in 36 years, by doubling down on a star-laden roster, coming away with another impressive group in free agency. They entered the ensuing season with expectations of challenging Major League Baseball’s regular-season wins record. A 23-10 start only strengthened that belief.

But the Dodgers won just two more times than they lost over their next 110 games. For much of the season, they were basically mediocre. Their rotation was hurt, their bullpen was a mess, and their lineup was inconsistent. Around their lowest point, while in Baltimore during the first weekend of September, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts called a team meeting in an effort to inject confidence in his players. They responded by winning 15 of their last 20 regular-season games, looking every bit like the juggernaut so many expected.

It continued in the playoffs.

The Dodgers breezed past the Cincinnati Reds in the wild-card round, dispatched the Philadelphia Phillies in four NL Division Series games then completely stifled the No. 1-seeded Brewers, limiting them to four runs on 14 hits in 36 innings. Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow and Ohtani combined for an 0.63 ERA in the NLCS. In 10 playoff games, they are a combined 9-1 with a 1.40 ERA.

“We knew going into October that the strength of our club was going to be our starters,” Friedman said. “For them to do what they did eclipsed even our expectations.”

Ohtani took the ball on 12 days’ rest, allowed a leadoff walk to Brice Turang then struck out Jackson Chourio and Christian Yelich on back-to-back 100 mph fastballs, an early sign to teammates and coaches that he had brought his best stuff with him. Another strikeout, on a sweeper to William Contreras, followed.

He then walked briskly toward the third-base dugout, put on his helmet, strapped on his elbow and shin guards, raced to put on his batting gloves and approached the batter’s box. In moments like these, the Dodgers had noticed Ohtani rushing at-bats, almost as if his mind was too locked in on pitching. This time, he worked the count full against Jose Quintana, turned on a low-and-inside slurve and produced a titanic 446-foot home run.

Something different was clearly brewing.

“When the starting pitcher strikes out the side and then goes and hits a home run, you think, ‘Whoa, this is something special,'” Dodgers president Stan Kasten said.

“That’s the single best performance in the history of baseball. I don’t care what anyone says. Obviously I don’t know what happened a hundred years ago, but that’s the single best performance I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Max Muncy on Shohei Ohtani

The Brewers did not record their first hit until Chourio led off the fourth inning with a ground-rule double. Ohtani followed by getting Yelich to ground out and striking out Contreras and Jake Bauers. Ohtani came to bat again in the bottom of the fourth, with two outs, none on and the Dodgers holding a three-run lead. He swung so hard at a Chad Patrick cutter that he sent it 469 feet, clearing the right-center-field bleachers. Ohtani followed with a string of four consecutive strikeouts in the fifth and sixth innings, all on splitters.

Ohtani came out for the seventh inning after throwing 87 pitches, allowed the first two batters to reach and exited to a standing ovation from a sold-out crowd of 52,883. “MVP” chants serenaded him when he came to bat again in the bottom of the seventh — and Ohtani responded with a 113.6 mph line drive that cleared the wall near straightaway center field, cementing a masterful production.

“That was probably the greatest postseason performance of all time,” Roberts said. “There’s been a lot of postseason games. And there’s a reason why he’s the greatest player on the planet.”

The 2025 Dodgers are the first team since the 2009 Phillies to return to the World Series one year after winning it, and Los Angeles is just the fifth to ever win nine of its first 10 postseason games, joining the 2014 Kansas City Royals, 2005 Chicago White Sox, 1999 New York Yankees and 1995 Atlanta Braves.

The Dodgers are the only team to benefit from a performance like this.

Since the mound moved to its current distance in 1893, 1,550 players have struck out 10 batters in a major league game. In that same stretch, 503 players have had a three-homer performance.

Only one has done both simultaneously.

“There’s only one person who can do that in the world, and in the history of this game, and it’s him,” Hernandez said of Ohtani. “He is who he is for a reason.”

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The Los Angeles Dodgers signed Blake Snell this offseason so he could pitch well in the biggest moments.

And he did just that in Monday’s Game 1 of the National League Championship Series at American Family Field.

The two-time Cy Young winner allowed just one hit and struck out 10 in eight shoutout innings as he led the Dodgers to a 2-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers to seize a 1-0 advantage in the series. Los Angeles is now three wins away from reaching back-to-back World Series.

Snell didn’t need much run support, and the only offense he got came from a Freddie Freeman homer in the sixth and a Mookie Betts RBI walk in the ninth during what was also a strong bullpen game from Milwaukee.

That last run was key because the Brewers scored in the ninth and loaded the bases before Blake Treinen struck out Brice Turang to end the game and preserve the win for Snell, who drew plenty of reaction from social media:

While both offenses were quiet in the early going with Snell and Brewers reliever Quinn Priester—who entered the game after opener Aaron Ashby pitched the first inning—pitching well, one of the biggest moments of the game came in the fourth inning when it seemed as if Los Angeles might break it open.

It was also one of the strangest plays one could ever expect to see on the baseball field.

With the bases loaded, Max Muncy drilled a deep fly ball to center field that looked to be a grand slam when it was in the air. However, Sal Frelick kept the ball in the park and threw it into the infield, where the Brewers were able to get a double play thanks to confused base runners who weren’t sure if he caught it on a fly.

Teoscar Hernández initially tagged, started running home when he thought it wasn’t caught, returned to third when it looked like it might have been, and didn’t make it to home on time. Meanwhile, Will Smith went back to second base thinking it was caught and was forced out at third for a double play and no runs.

Some teams may have allowed such an unfortunate break to linger and undercut their efforts the rest of the game, but the Dodgers’ didn’t do that. Instead, Snell continued to dominate on the mound before Freeman launched a solo homer off Chad Patrick to break the scoreless tie in the sixth.

Even one run shifted all the pressure to Milwaukee’s offense given how dialed in Snell was on the mound. The southpaw maintained the lead with a 1-2-3 sixth inning and another 1-2-3 inning in the seventh, which extended his streak of consecutive batters retired to 14.

The only question at that point was whether he would pitch a complete game, and another 1-2-3 frame in the eighth made it seem like he might.

Perhaps he should have even with 103 total pitches because closer Roki Sasaki struggled in the in the ninth and allowed a run before he was pulled for Treinen.

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Sep 26, 2025, 10:20 PM ET

PHILADELPHIA — Aaron Nola’s season has gone so haywire, from ankle and rib injuries to old-fashioned inconsistency, that the right-hander who anchored the rotation for most of the past decade could get dumped to the Phillies’ bullpen in the playoffs.

Against the Twins, Nola delivered an outing worthy of staking his claim in the October rotation.

Nola took a perfect game into the sixth inning, moved into second on Philadelphia’s career strikeout list and proved he could have postseason value for the NL East champion Phillies in a 3-1 victory over the Minnesota Twins on Friday night.

Nola (5-10) allowed two hits and struck out nine without a walk over eight innings.

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“That’s who he is,” manager Rob Thomson said.

Nola ended his worst year since he broke in with the Phillies in 2015 with easily his best start of the season. He pitched eight innings for the first time since he tossed a shutout against the New York Mets in May 2024. Nola also struck out Edouard Julien to end the fifth inning for his 1,872nd career strikeout, putting him second behind Hall of Famer Steve Carlton on the franchise’s list.

Nola snapped a tie with Hall of Famer Robin Roberts. A four-time Cy Young Award winner with the Phillies, Carlton had 3,031 strikeouts with the franchise.

“It’s humbling, for sure, to be on the list with those guys,” Nola said.

The Phillies’ rotation seems set headed into next weekend’s NL Division Series.

With ace Zack Wheeler sidelined as he recovers from surgery to remove a blood clot in his throwing shoulder, Cristopher Sanchez, Jesus Luzardo and Ranger Suarez appear lined up to start the first three playoff games.

Phillies manager Rob Thomson said he would consider using Nola out of the bullpen in the playoffs. A possible bullpen role would be an adjustment for Nola — he has never come on in relief in 285 regular-season appearances. He said his last relief appearance probably came as a freshman at LSU.

“We’d certainly give him enough time if that were the case to make sure he’s ready,” Thomson said.

Nola has made 16 postseason starts over the past three seasons with the Phillies that includes a 3-1 mark with a 2.35 ERA in 2023.

“I’ll do whatever, man,” Nola said. “Do whatever to help the guys win. Everybody’s goal is the same in here. We want to get back to the World Series and win it. It’s a long road to there. It starts with the DS and we’ve got to play good baseball.”

The veteran did not allow a baserunner against the Twins until Christian Vázquez hit a solo shot in the sixth to make it 2-1. Nola, 32, pitched out of a jam in the seventh after allowing a leadoff triple.

Nola, signed to a $172 million, seven-year contract ahead of the 2024 season, was drafted seventh overall by Philadelphia in 2014 and had been one of the most durable pitchers since his 2015 big league debut. Even as this season unraveled with a 1-7 record and a 6.16 ERA over his first nine starts, Thomson’s confidence in his onetime ace never wavered.

“You know it’s there,” Thomson said. “I don’t worry about him at all. I really don’t.”

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