VTBeyond

Before you dig up all of your superlatives to capture Gerrit Cole’s amazing 2021 launch, the right-hander offered one verbal shrug late Wednesday night. “I’m not really thinking about it,” Cole said, following his masterful performance that gave the Yankees a 1-0 victory over the Rays at Tropicana Field, of having tallied 56 strikeouts without a walk since an April 12 win over the Blue Jays. “There was a situation today where I was OK with a walk, and we got a chase out of it.” That would be the Rays’ Yandy Diaz, who went after a full-count slider out of the zone in the fourth inning and missed, preserving this remarkable run of thriftiness without a free pass. Spare

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Up front, it is worth pointing out that Luis Rojas has not accomplished anything yet. His baseball baptism might have come by fire after the Carlos Beltran disaster, but he still should have found a way to lead the 2020 Mets to the playoffs. Everyone, it seemed, qualified for the pandemic postseason. Everyone except the Mets. His 18-13 start this year does not delete the disappointment of last year’s 26-34, nor does it even make Rojas a .500 manager in the early hours of his career. But this much is already clear about the 39-year-old man who is leading the first-place team in the NL East, and who is riding a seven-game winning streak into a weekend series with the

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With hits such as “Tighten Up,” “Lonely Boy” and “Gold on the Ceiling,” the Black Keys have always rocked in shades of the blues. But on “Delta Kream,” their 10th studio album, the Grammy-winning duo goes deeper than ever into the genre, with covers of 11 Mississippi hill country blues songs by greats such as R.L. Burnside and Junior Kimbrough. Lead singer and guitarist Dan Auerbach — who turns 42 when the new LP drops on Friday — reveals what the Black Keys owe to this music, how they’ve stayed together for 20 years, and why he and drummer Patrick Carney are more brothers than bandmates. Dan Auerbach (front) and Patrick Carney are celebrating 20 years together as the Black

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The Jesuit priest who presided over the inaugural Mass for then President-elect Joe Biden resigned as president of Santa Clara University in California this week after an investigation found he had behaved in a manner “inconsistent with established Jesuit protocols and boundaries.” John Sobrato, the chairman of the university’s board of trustees, confirmed in a statement Wednesday that Rev. Kevin O’Brien had offered his resignation Sunday and the board had accepted it the following day. Sobrato added that a probe by the Jesuits’ USA West Province confirmed that O’Brien had engaged in inappropriate behavior, “consisting primarily of conversations, during a series of informal dinners with Jesuit graduate students.” Father Kevin O’Brien presided over the inaugural Mass for Joe Biden.@kevinobriensj Twitter

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Comedian Bill Maher has tested positive for COVID-19, despite being fully vaccinated. The political humorist said he “feels fine” but decided to halt the taping of his talk show “Real Time with Bill Maher” on Friday, according to Variety. No other staff or crew members on the program have tested positive, the outlet reports. The news comes hours after New York Yankees shortstop Gleyber Torres became the latest member of the baseball organization to test positive for the virus, despite also being inoculated. Eight Yankees employees are now among the thousands of Americans who have been diagnosed with “breakthrough positives cases” “COVID-19 vaccines are effective and are a critical tool to bring the pandemic under control. However no vaccines are

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