— NBA star Shai Gilgeous-Alexander signed a new contract that will pay him $79M during the 2030-31 season; when a player makes $82M a year, which can’t be too far away, that means he will be earning $1M per game. A MILLION $$$$’s A GAME!!!!!
Thunder has signed its nucleus of Gilgeous-Alexander, Jalen Williams and Chet Holmgren to contracts totaling $822M, which is a lot of cabbage.
By way of comparison, the Seattle SuperSonics, who were the Thunder before they moved to Oklahoma, the Sonics’ entire franchise sold for $350M in 2006.
— In case you’re wondering, the first athlete to earn $1M a year was Nolan Ryan, in 1979.
— Phoenix Suns’ star Devin Booker signed a two-year, $145M extension thru the 2029-30 season.
If you have a young son who is athletic and might be kind of tall, get him a basketball, a hoop and send him outside to practice. A lot.
— NBA Summer League is going on for the next week in Las Vegas; guys competing very hard to become NBA players. You need to be great at one or two things to have a shot at making a roster. Shooting is marketable.
— Veteran pitcher Justin Verlander doesn’t have a win in 15 starts this year; until this year, he had never had fewer than three wins in any 15-game span in his entire career.
Three of Verlander’s starts this year have gone into extra innings.
In his other 12 starts, Giants scored a total of only 25 runs.
— Best records this year in one-run games:
Astros 18-8
Tigers 14-7
Angels 18-11
Padres 20-13
Cubs 14-8
Mariners 19-13
— Worst records this year in one-run games:
White Sox 8-21
Braves 12-23
Red Sox 11-19
Diamondbacks 11-19
— Famous birthdays, July 12th
Cheryl Ladd, 74
Mario Soto, 69
Howie Kendrick, 42
Patrick Beverley, 37
LeSean McCoy, 37
Kellen Moore, 36
Bailey Ober, 30
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, 27
— Mets 8, Royals 3
Kansas City led 3-1 after the 7th inning.
Mark Vientos’ bases loaded double was a game-winner.
Lindor/Soto homered for the Mets in the ninth inning.
— Twins 2, Pirates 1
Trevor Larnach hit a two-run home run for Minnesota.
Pirates scored 2 or fewer runs in seven of Skenes’ last eight starts.
Pittsburgh has lost seven games in a row, scoring 10 runs.
— Red Sox 5, Rays 4
Ceddanne Rafaela hit a walk-off, two-run homer for Boston.
Red Sox have now won eight games in a row.
As of right now, AL East would have four teams in the playoffs.
— Rangers 7, Astros 3
Wyatt Langford had four hits, including a home run.
Astros have lost four games in a row.
Texas bullpen got 11 outs, didn’t give up any runs.
— Angels 6, Diamondbacks 5
Travis d’arnaud had a pinch-hit, walk-off single to win the game.
Game was 4-4 in the second inning.
Randal Grichuk homered twice for Arizona.
— Mariners 12, Tigers 3
Cal Raleigh homered twice; he has 38 taters this season.
Tarik Skubal lost for the first time in his last 17 starts.
Mariners scored seven runs in 9th inning to break open a close game.
— Giants 8, Dodgers 7
Giants led 8-2 after five innings, held on for dear life.
Adames/Lee both drove in three runs for San Francisco.
Ohtani/Conforto homered for the Dodgers.
If the baseball playoffs started today (they do not):
AL: Blue Jays, Tigers, Astros. Wild Cards: New York, Rays, Red Sox
NL: Phillies, Cubs, Dodgers. Wild Cards: Brewers, Mets, SD/SF
