Sunrisers Hyderabad (SRH) batter Abhishek Sharma made an unwanted record, overtaking Rohit Sharma for the most ducks by an Indian batter in a calendar year

SportsLine's model simulated the 2026 RBC Heritage 10,000 times and revealed its surprising PGA Tour picks for Hilton Head

The MLB is two weeks into the season and we have a name worth considering to lead the league in homers this season. Most of the money and bets are on the obvious picks, Shohei Ohtani (+175), Aaron Judge (+190), Kyle Schwarber (+250), and Cal Raleigh (+1500), but how many people notice the evolution of James Wood?I don't think enough. Let's take a dive into the Nationals star hitter and why he's a good bet to lead the MLB at +20000 odds, meaning $10 to win $2,000!MLB Home Run Leader Long Shot: James Wood (+20000)Last season, Cal Raleigh crushed 60 homers to lead the MLB, while three others hit between 53 and 56. In the same year, seven players crushed 40-plus home runs and 33 players hit at least 30 home runs with James Wood being one of them (31).Wood is tied fourth with a bunch of hitters at five home runs this season, including Oneil Cruz (+3500), Elly De La Cruz (off the board), and Shohei Ohtani (+170). Only Gunnar Henderson (6, +17500), Yordan Alvarez (6, +1600), and Jordan Walker (7, +7000) have more homers than Wood. Despite only a few players have the same amount of homers or more, Wood has the worst odds besides De La Cruz, which I don't think is correct. Wood cracked 31 homers last year and could certainly surpass 40 or more this year with 50 being in reach.Looking at Wood's baseball savant page, the 6-foot-6 and 234 lbs power hitter has superb slug, barrel, hard hit, and bat speed numbers. Wood's bat speed is higher than Ohtani's and his hard hit percentages are higher than Judge's for example. Both his bat speed and hard hit numbers are higher than Schwarber and Raleigh's as well with Wood's barrel rates matching the best of the best.James Wood baseball savant pageLooking at Wood's hits spray chart, two of his doubles could have been home runs depending on the ball park as well, so he very well could be leading the league with seven bombs, but rather has five.Going over the last four home run champions, Raleigh (60), Aaron Judge twice (58, 62), and Matt Olson (54) all reached at least 54 homers. However, before that, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (48), Salvador Perez (48), Pete Alonso (53), and Khris Davis (48) all hit 53 or less, which is hittable numbers for a 23-year-old.Wood is likely going to take a significant jump this year. In 79 games as a rookie in 2024, Wood hit nine home runs and already has five through 15 games this year. In 2025, Wood had 598 at-bats over 157 games played, 221 strikeouts, and fell just short of 100 RBI (94).Wood struck out in over 36% of his at-bats last year, which this year is slightly lower through 15 games (33%), but he will need to drop the Ks more than that. When he makes contact, he is one of the most dangerous hitters and with a 3.7 WAR last year and .825 OPS it's evident that Wood will surpass those numbers in his third year. He has been one of the most underrated hitters in the league in 2025 and the start of 2026, but for how much longer can we ignore Wood?I grabbed Wood to lead the league in homers at +20000 odds. Wood is hitting .350 with four home runs, 14 hits, 11 runs, 11 RBI, and a 1.219 OPS in 10 games during April. If his April run continues, we should expect him to finish the month top five in home runs and this 200-to-1 price will vanish.Pick: James Wood to lead MLB in home runs (0.25 units)MLB Futures Card3 units: Pittsburgh Pirates Over 76.5 Wins (-115)2 units: Detroit Tigers to win AL Central (+110)1 unit: Bobby Witt to win AL MVP (+550)1 unit: Ronald Acuna Jr. to win NL MVP (+1000)1 unit: Pittsburgh Pirates to win NL Central (+800)1 unit: Paul Skenes to win NL CY Young (+250)1 unit: Garrett Crochet to win AL CY Young (+425)1 unit: Mason Miller to win NL Cy Young (+3500)0.5 unit: Konnor Griffin to win NL Rookie of the Year (+600)0.5 units: Bubba Chandler to win NL Rookie of the Year (+1200)0.25 units: Bubba Chandler to win NL Rookie of the Year (+2200)0.25 units: James Wood to lead MLB in Home runs (+20000)0.25 units: Detroit Tigers to have the most wins (+4500)0.25 units: Philadelphia Phillies to win the World Series (+1600)0.25 units: Atlanta Braves to win the World Series (+2000)0.25 units: Detroit Tigers to win the World SeriesComing soon:MLB returns toNBC and Peacock in 2026! In addition to becoming the exclusive home of Sunday Night Baseball, NBC Sports will broadcast MLB Sunday Leadoff, Opening Day and Labor Day primetime games, the first round of the MLB Draft, the entire Wild Card round of the postseason, and much more.How to sign up for Peacock:Sign up here to watch all of our LIVE sports, sports shows, documentaries, classic matches, and more. Youll also get tons of hit movies and TV shows, Originals, news, 24/7 channels, and current NBC & Bravo hitsPeacock is here for whatever youre in the mood for.What devices does Peacock support?You can enjoy Peacock on a variety of devices. View the full list of supported devices here.

Tracking news and updates for players entering -- and exiting -- the transfer portal for the 2026-27 season.

Tottenham captain Cristian Romero is out for the remainder of the Premier League season but could recover in time to feature for Argentina at the World Cup this summer.

Rory McIlroy went from becoming the sixth player with the career Grand Slam to only the fourth player to win the Masters two years in a row. Jack Nicklaus and Tiger Woods are the only other players to occupy both clubs.Elite company, indeed.If joining the first group wasn't difficult enough for McIlroy 11 years of trying to get the final leg of the Grand Slam then winning his second Masters green jacket was a clear reminder of how hard it was to get there.I thought it was so difficult to win last year because of trying to win the Masters and the Grand Slam, McIlroy said. And then this year I realized its just really difficult to win the Masters.So where does he go from here?McIlroy went into a funk last year after fulfilling a lifelong dream. He became irritated by endless questions about what would motivate him, which mountain was next to scale, when all he wanted to do was soak it all in. He finally got back on track at the Irish Open.That doesn't sound like it will be a problem this time around.I felt like the Grand Slam was the destination, and I realized it wasn't, McIlroy said after ending another wild Sunday afternoon at Augusta National with a one-shot win over Scottie Scheffler.I just won my sixth major, and I feel like I'm in a really good spot with my game and my body, he said. I don't want to put a number on it, but I feel like this win is just ... I don't want to say a stop on the journey, it's just part of the journey.Trying to put a number on how many majors he will win began long before he won his first Masters, much less the second one. McIlroy won his first major in the 2011 U.S. Open at Congressional by shattering the 72-hole scoring record at 268.That prompted Padraig Harrington to say, If you're going to talk about someone challenging Jack's record, there's your man.Nicklaus has the gold standard of 18 majors. Woods is next at 15. McIlroy is at six, tied with Nick Faldo, Lee Trevino and Phil Mickelson.Fred Couples piled on this week when he said on Thursday, By the way, Rory may never lose this thing again after last year. And the following day Couples added, I mean, he really could win five more of these.Easy, right?Yeah, I don't make it easy," McIlroy said. I used to make it easy back in my early 20s when I was winning these things by eight shots."He still holds the PGA Championship record for margin of victory when he won at Kiawah Island by eight shots in 2012, the year after his eight-shot victory at Congressional.No, its just hard. Its hard to win golf tournaments, especially around here, he said. Youve had maybe a couple of runaway winners over the years, but it always seems to be a very tight finish at this golf course."It wasn't easy a year ago when he lost a Sunday lead once on the front nine and twice on the back nine before beating Justin Rose in a playoff. And it didn't look that way this time when he lost a six-shot lead on Saturday, and then twice found himself two shots behind different players, Cameron Young on the front nine and Justin Rose on the back.Scottie Scheffler was in range and had to settle for making 11 straight pars. Young had birdie putts on eight straight holes on the back nine and converted none of them.And then McIlroy was a whisker away from trouble over the final hour the wedge that barely cleared the false front on the 15th, a sporty up-and-down from off the 17th green that gave him a two-shot cushion going to the last hole, and a drive so far right McIlroy wasn't sure where it was when he walked off the tee.It ended with more joy than relief, a big difference from a year ago. The only tears came when he spoke to his parents, who were not at Augusta a year ago and had to be persuaded to come this year because they didn't want to jinx him.With a bogey on the last hole he could afford, it ended with a one-shot advantage over Scheffler, the No. 1 player in the world. This was the first time since the 2002 U.S. Open the top two players in the world Woods and Phil Mickelson at Bethpage Black were the top two at a major.McIlroy and Scheffler have combined to win four of the last five majors. Scheffler is a U.S. Open short of joining the career Grand Slam club, and his position at No. 1 in the world is not threatened even after McIlroy's latest Masters title.Ive competed against him for a long time, and you dont win the amount of tournaments that hes won out here without being pretty resilient, Scheffler said.McIlroy is the first player since Adam Scott in 2013 to have taken three weeks off before winning the Masters. There's a sense that will be part of his plan going forward when possible. He felt like more than an honorary member as many trips as he took to Augusta in the last few weeks.I think it's a good blueprint, McIlroy said. "Im not going to take three weeks off before every major. ... When I've talked to Jack Nicklaus over the years how he prepared for majors, and he would go the week before, and he would simulate a tournament.I think thats certainly a good way to prepare going into the next majors.The next one starts May 15, another stop in the journey without needing to set a target for how many.___AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf

FIFA added new, even more expensive tiers of tickets for this years World Cup, asking up to $4,105 for a front category 1 seat at the U.S. opener against Paraguay in Inglewood, California, on June 12.Last week, FIFA had asked for a top price of $2,735 for category 1 tickets for the match but added new front category pricing.FIFA also added a front category 2 tier to its ticket sales website without public announcement, asking $1,940 to $2,330 for those tickets for the U.S. opener. The new categories were first reported Thursday by The Athletic.The World Cup will be held from June 11 to July 19 in 16 cities in the U.S., Mexico and Canada.Soccers governing body had in its Sept. 9 ticket products and categories information called category 1 the highest-priced seats, located primarily in the lower tier but appears to have withheld some seats from that category. It had labeled category 2 as positioned outside of category 1 areas, available in both lower and upper tiers.FIFA did not respond to an email sent to its media office seeking comment.FIFA added seats at up to $3,360 in front category 1 for Canadas opener against Bosnia and Herzegovina on June 12 in Toronto.For round of 16 games, it added $905 seats in Philadelphia.FIFA last week raised its top ticket price for the World Cup final to $10,990 during the glitch-hampered reopening of sales. The price had been $8,680 when FIFA sold tickets after the tournament draw in December.FIFAs category 2 tickets for the July 19 game at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey, were $7,380, up from $5,575, and category 3 cost $5,785, an increase from $4,185. No tickets appeared to be available for the final on Thursday on FIFA's ticket site.___AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer

Luke Littler has revealed that he and Gian van Veen have not been in contact since their controversial Premier League confrontation, though the world champion believes it is time for everyone to move on.The 19-year-old clashed with his Dutch rival during their quarter-final encounter on night nine in Manchester, where tensions flared after Van Veen, the Alexandra Palace runner-up, squandered a match dart.Littler responded by celebrating towards the crowd before motioning for Van Veen to return to the oche. When the Dutchman ultimately secured a 6-5 victory, Littler made a crying gesture and offered only a cursory handshake before departing the stage.TRENDINGStoriesVideosYour SayVan Veen subsequently branded Littler's behaviour "out of order" and warned that their next encounter might not be "very friendly".The fallout continued at last week's Brighton event, where Littler faced a hostile reception from the crowd. His evening ended prematurely with a quarter-final defeat to Stephen Bunting, denying him an immediate opportunity to face Van Veen again.Speaking to Online Darts at an exhibition in Bournemouth, Littler appeared unfazed by the ongoing controversy and keen to put the matter behind him.Littler said: "I wouldnt say the fallout, it is what it is, it is done. Obviously the fans in Brighton didnt let it go, I let it go."I think everyone needs to forget about it now. Me and Gian havent spoken, but I am sure we will and we can meet in the semi-finals next week in Rotterdam."Reflecting on events in Manchester, Littler said: "Im looking up at the TV, Im just thinking in my head, hes not going to miss. Even if he gets a shot at the bull, Gians one of the best bull-hitters in the game."When he came inside the double 15, I looked up, had a drink of my water and then I did a little fist bump towards (my girlfriend) Faith (Millar) and her dad. Thats when the fans started on that side, they were all screaming, so then I was like that to them, come on, and then the whole arena.LATEST SPORT NEWSPubs to stay open until 2am for England and Scotland World Cup matches under new rulesEFL club facing potential points deduction with just four matches to goJack Draper suffers fresh injury setback while playing at Barcelona OpenLittler added: "But there was no need for Gian to look back and stare at me. "Hes still got a dart in hand so really he should just step back, look at the floor and then throw his last dart. I didnt do it to him, I did it Faith and her dad, the whole crowd."What other people didnt see was as I walked back round, Im still looking that way, hes put his darts down on the table. "No one sees that. So really I think hes the one whos not doing his job, obviously being respectful."The teenager continued: "I think that is the first ever time I have seen someone put their darts down in front of my face, I was like why?."I came inside, called him a cry baby because there was no need for it and there was no need for him to put his darts down. Then when he won, I picked my darts up and said: Well done, you got the win."It is what it is, I am sure we will speak, but people need to forget about it."The Premier League heads to Rotterdam on Thursday, where the two players could potentially be drawn against each other in the semi-finals.Our Standards: The GB News Editorial Charter

Tottenham captain Cristian Romero is set to miss the rest of the season with the knee injury he sustained in their 1-0 defeat at Sunderland.

Greg Foot asks whether we should be using cotton buds to clean our ears.