The MLB trade deadline a dud? Plus, ranking college football’s rivalries

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Good morning! Watch who you kiss today.

Stove-Setting: Click click, goes the hot stove

I’d like to start this morning with a simple yet important amuse-bouche about the road ahead. We are deep into the cliched dog days of summer, with the NBA season done and football season still over a month away. 

That means the gentle click you hear in the background is Major League Baseball, ruler of the summer airwaves, quietly turning on the hot-stove burners for its upcoming trade deadline, and the second half of the season. 

Let’s do three quick line items, inspired by Jayson Stark’s first-half lessons from yesterday, to prep us for the rest of summer baseball: 

• Yes, the Tigers are still baseball’s best team. Executives in Jayson’s column still talked about the Dodgers, of course, but Detroit counts the most wins (58) and the best pitcher (Tarik Skubal) in the game. An honorable mention goes to Toronto, MLB’s hottest team and new AL East leader.
  
  
• Can we talk about the Rays? The Athletics receive plenty of deserved flak about playing in Sacramento — which was a purposeful move — while Tampa Bay continues to play elite baseball despite playing home games in another minor-league park (not purposeful) and continuing to pinch pennies. They’re on pace for 87 wins.
  
  
• The trade deadline might be a dud. MLB’s expanded playoff format means more teams are in the hunt for a postseason spot … which means fewer teams are giving up at the halfway point. Fewer sellers means fewer trades, which is a good thing for competitive baseball and a bad thing for trade-deadline intrigue. I’m OK with it, but we should just temper expectations come July 31. 

Read all of Jayson’s lessons here. Onward:

News to Know

Julian Finney / Getty Images

Sinner survives via retirement
It looked over at Wimbledon for No. 1 seed Jannik Sinner, down two sets to none to Grigor Dimitrov in what was becoming a stunning upset. Then Dimitrov suffered what looked like a serious pectoral injury on a serve in the third set and, just like that, Sinner advanced in the most sheepish way possible. As Matthew Futterman wrote from London, Sinner was visibly shaken, not only by the circumstances alone but also due to his close friendship with Dimitrov. It was a brutal reminder of how random tennis can be.

The ol’ waive-and-stretch
The second apron has long been a boogeyman for NBA teams as this offseason approached. Quickly, we are seeing its effects, as the Celtics have dismantled their roster in preparation, and multiple teams — the Bucks and now the Suns — are fiddling with the concept of a waive-and-stretch, or releasing a highly paid player and stretching those payments over future seasons. Phoenix is talking with Bradley Beal about a buyout, as The Athletic’s Fred Katz reported yesterday, with two years and $110.8 million left on his deal. Stretching that money will get the Suns under the apron.

Elsewhere in confusing NBA trades yesterday, Norman Powell heads to Miami in a three-team deal that The Bounce’s Zach Harper didn’t really understand. It’ll all make sense one day.

A controversial smooch
French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus will not face anti-doping penalties after the Court of Arbitration for Sport accepted her explanation that kissing a former partner contaminated her with an illegal substance. Thibus was suspended last year after testing positive for ostarine, a drug that can promote muscle and bone growth. Her partner, according to accepted testimony, had been taking ostarine without her knowledge. Read the full wild story here.

More news

• Phoenix is expected to sign All-Star guard DeWanna Bonner, who began the year with a disastrous stint in Indiana.
  
• An NBA move that made complete sense: the Magic signing Paolo Banchero to a $239 million max extension.
  
• We saw crashes galore at the Tour de France yesterday, with points leader Jasper Philipsen abandoning the race. Our report from Northern France is worth a read.
  
• Manchester United ended talks with Amazon about an all-access documentary series after significant pushback from manager Ruben Amorim.
  
• Sudan’s soccer league has restarted despite an ongoing civil war. Pretty cool.
  
• Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione, a respected voice in college sports, is retiring.
  
• Bench coach Miguel Cairo will be the Nationals’ interim manager, the team announced.

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Things, Ranked: The bravest list there was

It’s not often I read a sports story and marvel at the guts of the writer. That feeling is normally reserved for the journalists venturing into war zones or the branches of government to uncover the world’s important truths. 

And yet, The Athletic’s Scott Dochterman, from a much safer physical space, put himself far away from a digital safe space yesterday with a monumental yet simple mission: to rank college football’s top-100 rivalries. 

The full list is frankly impressive, but let’s start with the top three: 

1. Michigan-Ohio State
2. Auburn-Alabama
3. Oklahoma-Texas

Two thoughts on all this: 

• For once, I cannot find a quibble with the top 10 picks on a list. You can maybe argue with some of the more historic inclusions (Nebraska-Oklahoma at No. 6) but it’s difficult to beat time. The Cornhuskers and Sooners have played 88 times. A bad decade for Nebraska barely dents that history.
  
• I love college football. So many great matchups are down the list, and instead of feeling jilted, these fans should simply marvel at the depth of lore we have in this sport. Looking at you, Egg Bowl (No. 23), Tennessee-Florida (No. 36) and TCU-SMU (No. 46). 

See all 100 picks here. You can also submit your selections here.

What to Watch

📺 Wimbledon: Norrie vs. Alcaraz
10 a.m. ET on ESPN
Again, important tennis will be on the ESPN family of networks all morning, as both the men and women are into the quarterfinals. Let’s settle on defending champion Carlos Alcaraz because of the reasonable time here, but Americans Taylor Fritz and Amanda Anisimova both play this morning as well. If you’re home, flip it on. Let’s just hope everyone stays healthy. 

📺 CWC: Fluminense vs. Chelsea
3 p.m. ET on TNT/DAZN
Our first Club World Cup semifinal should be a doozy, and Fluminense has been one of the tournament’s best stories. If anything, watch for Chelsea and the short corner today. Winner gets the victor of Paris Saint-Germain and Real Madrid. Oh, and tickets for this game went from $473 to … $13. See why here. 

📺 MLB: Dodgers at Brewers
7:40 p.m. ET on TBS
We do need something to watch at night, right? Pick this must-see regular-season game, which pits Clayton Kershaw, the living legend, against Jacob Misiorowski, the unhittable newcomer who gets to test his mettle against Shohei Ohtani and the league’s most-feared offense. 

Get tickets to games like these here.

Pulse Picks

Keith Law returns with a fresh MLB mock draft just a few days before the first round begins. There’s a change at No. 1. See his picks. 

I loved this story from Charlie Eccleshare on Flavio Cobolli, the Italian tennis player starring at Wimbledon, whose alternate self is a footballer for Roma. 

A final dispatch from the Gold Cup: on the defeat that was a microcosm of USMNT’s summer, as Paul Tenorio expertly wrote. 

CC Sabathia’s stay in Milwaukee was brief — a fling, as Tyler Kepner describes it — but he might not be in Cooperstown without it. It was a magical stretch. 

Most-clicked in the newsletter yesterday: Our official breakdown of the seven-team Kevin Durant trade. 

Most-read on the website yesterday: The live blog from Wimbledon.

(Top photo: Omar Vega / Getty Images)

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