Notebook: Braves lose 13 players for illegal signings; Judge should be ready for camp after shoulder surgery

Major League Baseball came down hard on the Atlanta Braves on Tuesday for multiple violations of the international amateur signing rules, making 13 players who had previously signed with the organization free agents.

MLB will also dock the Braves a third-round pick in the 2018 amateur draft after the team offered extra benefits to 41st overall pick Drew Waters last year. Waters, however, will be able to remain with Atlanta.

The league determined that the Braves had packaged international signing bonuses during the two-year signing period from 2016-18, which is in violation of MLB rules.

MLB stated that Juan Contreras, Yefri del Rosario, Abrahan Gutierrez, Kevin Maitan, Juan Carlos Negret, Yenci Pena, Yunior Severino, Livan Soto, Guillermo Zuniga, Brandol Mezquita, Angel Rojas and Antonio Sucre were illegally signed during the two-year span.

The scandal cost former Braves general manager John Coppolella and team scout Gordon Blakeley their jobs and also led to the resignation of Atlanta president of baseball operations John Hart.

Judge has shoulder surgery; should be ready by camp

After insisting during a summer slump that he was not ailing, Yankees slugger Aaron Judge had arthroscopic surgery on his left shoulder.

The operation was performed Monday by Dr. Neal ElAttrache in Los Angeles. The Yankees said Tuesday the procedure involved a loose-body removal and cartilage cleanup and Judge should be recovered ahead of spring training.

The 25-year-old Judge hit .284 with 52 homers and 114 RBIs in 155 games this season, helping the Yankees advance to the AL Championship Series, where they lost to the eventual World Series champion Astros. He was a unanimous selection for AL Rookie of the Year and finished second to Houston infielder Jose Altuve in the AL MVP race.

Judge was hitting .329 with 30 homers and 66 RBIs at the All-Star break, then batted .179 with seven homers and 16 RBIs with 67 strikeouts in his next 44 games through the end of August.

He made several crashes into outfield walls and often was seen with packs of ice on his shoulder. While it looked as if an injury might be preventing him from swinging freely, but the right fielder and manager Joe Girardi repeatedly said his shoulder was fine.

He rebounded to bat .311 with 15 homers and 32 RBIs in the final month of the season.

Morgan says steroid users shouldn't be in HOF

Hall of Fame vice chairman Joe Morgan emailed every eligible voter from the Baseball Writers' Association of America on Tuesday, writing that "steroid users don't belong" in Cooperstown, N.Y.

Morgan's email, which he said he wrote on behalf of "many of the Hall of Famers," comes one day after the 2018 ballot was released.

"We hope the day never comes when known steroid users are voted into the Hall of Fame. They cheated. Steroid users don't belong here," wrote Morgan, a two-time National League Most Valuable Player who was voted into the Hall of Fame in 1990.

Former stars Roger Clemens (54.1 percent) and Barry Bonds (53.8 percent) received their highest vote totals last year, moving closer to the 75 percent required for enshrinement.

Beltran ends 20-year career, announces retirement

Outfielder Carlos Beltran announced his retirement after a 20-year major league career, going out on top by winning his first World Series championship with the Houston Astros.

The 40-year-old Beltran, a nine-time All-Star with 435 career home runs, made the announcement Monday with a first-person essay on The Players' Tribune.

"I am blessed to have played this game for 20 years," Beltran wrote. "I am blessed to have played for so many great organizations.

"I am blessed to have shared all of my experiences with my wife and my three kids, my family and friends. To have so many loving fans. To have been able to build a school in Puerto Rico and change the lives of so many kids. To have won the Roberto Clemente Award, which is the greatest honor I could have ever received as a ballplayer.

"And I am blessed to be a champion. But now, my time as a player has come to an end."

Beltran played for seven different teams, starting with the Kansas City Royals in 1998. He also played for the New York Mets, St. Louis Cardinals, New York Yankees, Texas Rangers and San Francisco Giants, before making a second stop in Houston for the 2017 season.

Beltran batted .231 with 14 homers and 51 RBIs in 129 games with Houston this season. The Astros signed him to be their primary designated hitter but as the season progressed, his playing time decreased.

For his career, Beltran batted .279 with 2,725 hits, 1,587 RBIs and 1,582 runs scored in 2,586 games.

Beltran told MLB.com he reached the decision to retire sometime over the summer during Houston's memorable run.

"At the beginning of this year, being in Houston while my family was in New York, it was the first time I've been away from my family for months," Beltran said in his first interview since announcing his retirement. "I told (my wife) Jessica I really missed the family and I wanted to be with them, so I was really contemplating retirement after this year. I said, 'Hopefully we can get to the World Series and win the World Series, so I can go home on a happy note.'

"When the family came to Houston for the summer, I told Jessica, 'This will be my last year for sure.' I couldn't be away from my family for such a long time anymore."

Astros win 1st World Series crown, top Dodgers 5-1 in Game 7

By BEN WALKER
Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — From laughingstock to lift off.

George Springer and the Houston Astros rocketed to the top of the baseball galaxy Wednesday night, winning the first World Series championship in franchise history by romping past the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 in Game 7.

Playing for a city still recovering from Hurricane Harvey, and wearing an H Strong logo on their jerseys, the Astros brought home the prize that had eluded them since they started out in 1962 as the Colt .45s.

“I always believed that we could make it,” All-Star slugger Jose Altuve said. “We did this for them.”

For a Series that was shaping up as an October classic, Game 7 quickly became a November clunker as Houston scored five runs in the first two innings off Yu Darvish. Hardly the excitement fans felt during the Cubs’ 10-inning thriller in Cleveland last fall.

Well, except for everyone wearing bright orange. Back in Houston, a huge crowd filled Minute Maid Park to cheer as fans watched on the big video board, and the train whistle wailed when it was over.

“We’re coming home a champion, Houston,” Springer said after accepting the World Series MVP trophy named this year for Willie Mays.

The Houston Astros have won the World Series, after beating the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 in a decisive game 7 in Los Angeles on Wednesday night. Fans in Houston celebrated the team’s first-ever championship. (Nov. 2)

Star shortstop Carlos Correa turned the party into a proposal. After doing a TV interview, he got down on one knee and asked girlfriend Daniella Rodriguez, a former Miss Texas USA, to marry him.

“Yes?” he said, putting a ring on her finger as she cried.

Altuve, one of four holdovers from a club that lost an embarrassing 111 times in 2013 after switching from the NL to the AL, and this collection of young stars silenced Dodger Stadium from the get-go, taking a 5-0 lead in the second inning.

Altuve was in perfect position for the final out, a grounder by Corey Seager to the 5-foot-6 second baseman.

“I caught the last out for the Houston Astros to become a world champion. It was a groundball to me, I threw to first, and I think it was the happiest moment of my life in baseball,” Altuve said.

The Astros streamed from the dugout and bullpen to go wild, tossing their gloves in the air. A thousand or so fans crowded behind the first base dugout, chanting “Hou-ston! Hou-ston!”

Later, some little Astros kids ran around the outfield grass dressed in Halloween outfits. Their dads, meanwhile, were putting on championship hats and shirts.

At last, they had completed the ascent some predicted after a rebuilding club purged payroll and stripped down to bare bones a few years back.

Famously, now, there was the Sports Illustrated cover in 2014 — after Houston had lost more than 100 games for three straight seasons — that proclaimed: “Your 2017 World Series Champs” and featured a picture of Springer in a bright Astros jersey.

On the other side, ace Clayton Kershaw and several Dodgers leaned against the dugout railing, watching the Astros celebrate. Los Angeles led the majors with 104 wins and a $240 million payroll, and rallied to win Game 6, yet it didn’t pay off for part-owner Magic Johnson and his team.

“Obviously, this one hurts,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And like I told the guys, when you put everything, every ounce of your being into something and you come up short, it hurts. And it’s supposed to hurt.”

Normally a starter, Charlie Morton finished up with four stellar innings of relief for the win.

“We held down a really tough lineup,” Morton said. “For my teammates, for the city of Houston, it’s just unbelievable.”

Springer led off the evening with a double against Darvish, and soon it was 2-0.

Springer hit his fifth homer — tying the Series mark set by Reggie Jackson (1977) and matched by Chase Utley (2009) — when he connected for a record fourth game in a row, making it a five-run lead.

That was plenty for Houston manager A.J. Hinch. He pulled starter Lance McCullers Jr. soon after the curveballer crazily plunked his fourth batter of the game , and began a parade of four relievers that held the lead.

Throughout the postseason, Hinch and the unconventional Astros overcame a shaky bullpen by using starters in relief.

“I knew yesterday I didn’t have much,” said McCullers, the Game 3 winner. “I knew I didn’t have much to give other than to gut it out as long as I could.”

In a dramatic Series marked by blown leads and late rallies, when Houston twice outlasted the Dodgers in extra innings, McCullers did enough.

Forever known for their space-age Astrodome, outlandish rainbow jerseys and a handful of heartbreaking playoff losses for stars like Nolan Ryan, Jeff Bagwell and Craig Biggio, these Astros will be remembered as champions, finally, in their 56th season.

The club that wears a star on its hat also filled out the Texas trophy case. Teams from the Lone Star State had won most every major crown — the Super Bowl, NBA and NHL titles, championships in college football, and men’s and women’s hoops — except the World Series.

Built on the skills of homegrown All-Stars Dallas Keuchel and more, helped by veteran offseason acquisitions such as Brian McCann and 40-year-old Carlos Beltran, who won his first ring, and boosted by the slick trade for ace Justin Verlander, general manager Jeff Luhnow oversaw the team’s resurgence.

Houston won 101 times this year to take the AL West, then won Games 6 and 7 at home in the AL Championship Series against the New York Yankees. The Astros joined the 1985 Royals as the only clubs to win a pair of Game 7s in the same year.

When it was over, Bagwell and Biggio posed for pictures together with the World Series trophy.

For the Dodgers, the quest to win a Series for the first time since 1988 fell short.

Kershaw provided four shutout innings of relief for Los Angeles , but it was too late. What the Dodgers really needed was a better starter than Darvish, someone more like the lefty who tossed out a ceremonial first ball: the great Sandy Koufax.

Acquired from Texas on July 31 for these big games, Darvish lasted 1 2/3 innings in both his World Series starts — the two shortest of his career.

“This pain is going to stay in me for a while,” the four-time All-Star said through a translator.

After Springer lined a leadoff double , Alex Bregman hit a bouncer that first baseman Cody Bellinger threw past Darvish for an error, allowing a run to score . Bregman aggressively stole third and scored on Altuve’s grounder , and it was 2-0 after eight pitches.

A double by Marwin Gonzalez helped set up perhaps McCullers’ biggest contribution, a slow grounder for his first pro RBI. Springer followed with a no-doubt, two-run drive into the left-center field bleachers.

That was the Series-most 25th homer in a Major League Baseball season that set a record for home runs. It was easily enough for the Astros to offset pinch-hitter Andre Ethier’s RBI single in the Los Angeles sixth.

Only once have the Dodgers clinched a crown at home, that coming in 1963 when Koufax outpitched Yankees star Whitey Ford to finish a sweep. They’ve never won Game 7 of the Fall Classic at their own park, dating more than a century ago to their days on the streets of Brooklyn as the Trolley Dodgers.

As pockets of Houston fans got louder and louder in the later innings, the crowd at Dodger Stadium was left to repeat the sad, but hopeful cry that used to echo in Brooklyn: Wait till next year.

Just 106 days until pitchers and catchers report to spring training.

Pitching returns to World Series as Dodgers force Game 7

LOS ANGELES -- Gravity appeared to return to the World Series on Tuesday as the Los Angeles Dodgers used cooler temperatures and an icy resolve to help force a deciding Game 7 on Wednesday.

The Dodgers' 3-1 victory in Game 6 over the Houston Astros was in stark contrast to the 25-run onslaught both teams delivered Sunday in a Game 5 that gave the Astros a brief advantage in the matchup.

A World Series that has seen a record 24 home runs had just two Tuesday, with Joc Pederson's late-inning drive to the opposite field in left the most significant. It gave the Dodgers a two-run cushion in the seventh inning, and closer Kenley Jansen was able to rebound from some early-series wobbles to finish off a six-out save.

The Dodgers might have shown they were good enough to get to this position when they went on a 44-7 run in the regular season behind a dynamic offense. But what might have helped them most Tuesday was what they learned about themselves during a 1-16 stretch late in the year.

"It's been the same thing all year in that whatever happens the day before is over with," Dodgers third baseman Justin Turner said. "We had a chance to win a ballgame tonight, and we did that. It will be the same thing tomorrow. (Game 6) won't mean a whole lot. You have to go out and find a way to win a game (Wednesday)."

Corey Seager's sacrifice fly in the sixth inning gave the Dodgers the lead for good, and the World Series will head to a winner-take-all title game for the second consecutive season. There has been a Game 7 in three of the past four World Series.

The Dodgers will try for their seventh World Series title all time and first since 1988. The Astros will be playing for their first championship in their second World Series ever.

"This is when you're a young kid and you're kind of trying to play through all the heroes and heroics and talking about a Game 7 in the World Series, and here we are," Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. "I know that we're happy to be at home. And tonight was very energetic, exciting. I know we love being in front of our fans, and I know we'll be ready to win a baseball game."

The Dodgers trailed 1-0 against Astros starter Justin Verlander when they started their comeback in the sixth inning. Austin Barnes hit a leadoff single before pinch hitter Chase Utley was hit by a pitch.

Chris Taylor followed with an RBI double to tie the game 1-1 as the crowd of 54,128 erupted. Seager flied out to the warning track to bring home Utley. With the 100-degree temperatures in Los Angeles during Games 1 and 2, Seager's drive might have carried into the seats. Dodger Stadium is known to produce fewer home runs during night games.

It is not as if Pederson had an issue with the damp marine layer. In the seventh, Pederson went deep against Astros reliever Joe Musgrove, his third homer of the World Series and fourth this postseason.

"I think we won because we have 25 guys all pulling on the same string," said Pederson, who has rebounded this postseason after being demoted following the acquisition of Curtis Granderson in August. "We all have each other's backs. You've been watching the series, it's been quite hectic, emotionally draining, mentally, physically, everything you could think of. And we stick together. And we find a way to produce runs and our bullpen shut them down, and it's a group effort."

A Los Angeles bullpen that was a strength all season has a 4.50 ERA during the six games of the World Series, allowing nine home runs. But the Houston bullpen sports a 7.29 ERA and has given up six home runs.

"Listen, it doesn't matter that they scored runs off us, whatever has happened in the past, the great thing about this bullpen is that we all let that go and don't think about that anymore," said Jansen, who followed scoreless relief outings from Brandon Morrow, Tony Watson (2-0) and Kenta Maeda. "We keep believing in ourselves and we just want to go out there and try to win ballgames."

George Springer continued his World Series offensive onslaught with a third-inning home run, hitting a 1-0 fastball from Dodgers starter Rich Hill over the wall in right field.

Springer's fourth home run of the series came after a Game 5 in which the center fielder became just the second player in World Series history to hit a home run, walk three times and score three runs in a game. Barry Bonds in 2002 was the only other player to accomplish the feat.

Verlander (0-1) was locked in through five innings, giving up a second-inning single to Yasiel Puig and nothing else. After Puig's single, Verlander had retired 11 consecutive batters heading into the fateful sixth inning.

"I thought (Verlander) was good, especially early," Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. "He brings so much energy and so much aggressiveness to the game. And I thought he entered the game with that. And I thought he was obviously cruising. He had the one hiccup in the middle of the game, but that was about it."

The Astros put together a rally in the fifth against Hill, getting a single from Brian McCann and a double from Marwin Gonzalez to open the inning. Hill retired Josh Reddick and Justin Verlander before giving way to Morrow, who retired Alex Bregman on a groundout to end the threat.

Hill went 4 2/3 innings, giving up one run on four hits with a walk and five strikeouts. He threw just 58 pitches after throwing 60 pitches over four innings in Game 2.

Verlander allowed two runs on three hits over six innings in Game 6, with nine strikeouts and no walks. In Game 2, also at Dodger Stadium, he gave up three runs on two hits over six innings with five strikeouts.

The Astros will start right-hander Lance McCullers in Game 7, while the Dodgers will counter with right-hander Yu Darvish.

"This series was destined to go seven pretty much the whole time," McCullers said. "I think we have two great teams here. I just have to stick with my game plan and execute a little bit better than last time in certain spots. And just be a competitor out there."

NOTES: Dodgers RHP Brandon Morrow has appeared in all six World Series games. Only Oakland's Darold Knowles (1973) pitched in all seven games of a single World Series. ... OF Andre Ethier set a Dodgers record by appearing in his 50th postseason game when he pinch-hit in the seventh inning. He flied out. ... With his third-inning home run, Astros CF George Springer has recorded an extra-base hit in five consecutive World Series games. ... The Astros had been 10-0, including the postseason, when RHP Justin Verlander started a game until the Game 6 defeat.