COHEN'S CORNER SPORTS

METS 5 - WHITE SOX 2  Noah Syndergaard delivered a gem, and the Mets overcame another blown save by Edwin Diaz to beat the Chicago White Sox 5-2 Tuesday night, extending their winning streak to five games, and keeping the team in the mix for the last wild card slot as the trade deadline nears. If this was Syndergaard's last start as a Met, he went out with a ball of fire, delivering his best performance of this season. Syndergaard held the White Sox to just five hits and a walk over 7.1 innings of work. He struck out 11, the most strikeouts he recorded in a game all season. Syndergaard was so on point Tuesday that he held the ChiSox hitless through the games first four innings, and didn't surrender a run until a throwing error was committed by Todd Fraizer in the bottom of the sixth that cut the Mets lead to 2-1. Other than that one blip on the radar screen, Syndergaard was flawless, topping 100 mph as late as the eighth inning. His final batter of the night, Thor struc...

D-Backs 4 - Yankees 2  With less than a day to go before the trade deadline comes and goes, the Yankees dropped their sixth game in their last nine with a disappointing 4-2 loss to the Arizona Diamondbacks at the Stadium Tuesday. The Yankees who are desperate need for pitching, got a decent performance from J.A. Happ, but it was not enough. The veteran lefty gave up three runs on eight hits over six innings of work, certainly an improvement from the schlacking he took his last start in Minnesota. The problem for New York on Tuesday was the Yankee bats were complete silenced by Taylor Clarke and a bullpen by committee, as New York managed only two hits through the games first five innings. Meanwhile the D-Backs built a 3-0 lead on a homer by Christian Walker and a RBI single by Nick Ahmad. The Yankees didn't get on the board until Edwin Encarnacion's RBI double in the sixth cut the D-Backs lead to 3-1. Give the D-Backs credit, their bullpen was phenomenal. Andrew Chafi...

Noah Syndergaard has been a fan favorite in Queens since he was called up in 2015 and dazzled fans with his 100 mph fastball, and quick wit.  Fondly nicknamed Thor because of his resemblance to the comic book character, Syndergaard embraced New York as much as the city and its fans embraced him. He became the star of a once perceived vaunted rotation with Jacob deGrom, Matt Harvey, Steven Matz, and Zach Wheeler. As we all know now that rotation wasn't so vaunted. Harvey is gone, his baseball career in taters. Matz and Wheeler have battled inconsistencies and injury. Even Syndergaard has had his issues with both inconsistency and injury over the past five seasons. The best of the bunch, deGrom is not going anywhere having inked a five-year deal before the 2019 season started. But what about Syndergaard -- considered by many to be the Mets second-best starter? His future is in doubt. The Mets have been dangling Syndergaard in trade rumors since spring training, and they the spe...

When the New York Mets acquired Marcus Stroman from the Toronto Blue Jays Sunday a collective groan emanated from Yankees fans everywhere. Long believed to be heading to the Yankees, Stroman was instead coming to New York to pitch for the other team in town, now leaving the Bombers scrambling elsewhere to find pitching. With less than two days remaining before the MLB trade deadline expires, the Yankees are in dire straits for pitching. They won't admit it, but over their last eight games the Yankees have surrendered 79 runs. They are 3-5 in that span, and have watched their seemingly insurmountable lead on Tampa Bay shrink to 8.5 games. And the proof is in the starting pitching. James Paxton has given up seven run in each of his last two starts, and has been notorious for having poor outings routinely, i.e. when he gave up six runs to the Mets on June 11. J.A. Happ has been equally inconsistent. He yielded six runs in three-and-a-third innings against Minnesota last week...

Brodie Van Wagenen   once again has flipped   Major League Baseball   on its head with a trade that leaves Mets fans wondering what the novice general manager's true intentions really are.  The Mets stunned the entire baseball world on Sunday by landing   Toronto Blue Jays   ace   Marcus Stroman   for pitching prospects Anthony Kay and Simeon Woods-Richardson. Kay and Richardson were ranked fourth and sixth among the Mets top 30 prospects according to MLB.com.  At the same time rumors are swirling  the Mets will trade their second best pitcher,  Noah Syndergaard  in a deal by Wednesday, according to Bob Klapish. Klapish added that it doesn't look like the Mets will deal  Zach Wheeler  who is a free agent.  On the surface the Mets acquisition of Stroman gives them a solid starting pitcher who has been fairly successful in the toughest division in baseball, the AL East, over the past five and...

The   New York Jets   held their first open public practice of training camp, Saturday morning as fans finally got a chance to see their boys in their new green helmets for the first time in person.  While most eyes were on the progression of second year quarterback   Sam Darnold , it was the running game that dazzled under the hot summer sun.   Le'Veon Bell ,   Ty Montgomery   and   Trenton Cannon   all had strong showings Saturday with Bell and Montgomery breaking for a couple of big gainers in a 11-on-11 scrimmage.  As for Darnold he had his good moments and bad moments. For starters, Darnold had a lot of zip on the football, his arm looking stronger than it did a year ago at this time. He completed a nifty pass down the sideline to   Robby Anderson   on second down to move the chains, and also dumped off a pass to Bell in the flat. Later the scrimmage the Jets quarterback hit a wide open Montgomery streaking across...

YANKEES 14 - TWINS 12  10 INNINGS  If the Yankees do in fact win the World Series later this season, mark down July 23 against the Minnesota Twins as one of the most important games of the season. Because the Yankees, who trailed 9-5 going into the eighth inning packed a seasons worth of dramatic moments into the span of three innings as they pulled out a miracle 14-12 victory. And a lot of it can be attributed to the heroics of shortstop Didi Gregorius and center fielder Aaron Hicks. Gregorius had a career night, going 5-for-5 with seven RBI. His two-run double in the first inning gave the Bronx Bombers a 2-0 lead. And his three-run bomb in the fifth inning brought the Yankees back to within three runs at 8-5. Yet he delivered the keynote in the midst of a chaotic five-run eighth inning as the Yankees jumped out in front 10-9. The rally started when Mike Tauchman drove in Gleyber Torres on a RBI double to right to slice the Twins lead to 9-6. Two batters later, Aar...

METS 5 - PADRES 3  To say this season has been a disappointment for one Robinson Cano would be an understatement. In 74 games since becoming a member of the Mets, Cano had only six homers, 22 RBI and a .243 batting average -- certainly well below the expectations the Mets had for him when they acquired him along with Edwin Diaz in a trade with the Seattle Mariners; a trade that has become infamous in the eyes of the Mets fanbase. But on one night, Cano gave Mets fans a reason to smile. Cano went 4-for-4 and was responsible for all five runs the Mets scored Tuesday against the San Diego Padres. All of them came on home runs. Three of them in fact. Cano became the 13th player in Mets history to have a three-homer game, the last to do it being Yoenis Cespedes in 2017.  Cano's three-homer game was also the third such performance by a Mets hitter at home, joining Lucas Duda and Kirk Nieuwenhuis, both of whom did it in 2015. "You don't hit three homers in a game if y...

Odell Beckham Jr. just won't let it go. Like his uncanny ability to haul in and hold onto footballs with one hand, he refuses to let go of the animosity that developed between himself and his former employer the New York Giants, who traded him in March to the Cleveland Browns. Beckham unloaded on Big Blue in a feature piece in GQ Magazine where he claims the Giants "disrespected him" and the only reason the Giants got any attention during the past six years was because of his talents. This is me being honest: This team has not been good for the last six years,’’ Beckham said. “Period. Even the year we went to the playoffs and everyone was talking about this and that. And we went there, and I didn’t have a great playoff game. Don’t get me wrong, I had a terrible game. But I left the game with seven targets, and I’m supposed to be your number one receiver. I left the game with seven targets. We lost. They scored 40 points. It’s just all bad." Funny Beckham  sh...

Mark Sanchez has retired. The former New York Jets first round pick from 2009 who turned into a colossal bust with New York before bouncing around the league decided to call it a career, and will begin the next stage of his football life as a studio analyst for college football on ESPN.  Sanchez will join fellow former Jet Jonathan Vilma on the ABC/ESPN studio set for Saturday afternoon pregame and halftime shows.  It's a good move for Sanchez who was a successful college quarterback at the University of Southern California before coming out early in 2009.  Sanchez saw a lot of ups and plenty of downs in his star-crossed NFL career.  He started out strong in his first two years working behind Rex Ryan's malicious defense and the strong running attack of Thomas Jones, Shonn Greene and LaDainian Tomlinson. The Jets went to back-to-back AFC Conference Title games during those two seasons. Sanchez's best season probably came in 2010, when he had three com...

For so many years when the strings of Metallica's Enter Sandman started blasting over the loudspeakers at Yankee Stadium, you knew two things: 1) Mariano Rivera was coming into the game. And 2) the game was effectively over. On Sunday, July 21, Rivera entered into Cooperstown's hallowed halls as one of six new enshrines to baseball's Hall of Fame.  Joined by former Yankees teammate Mike Mussina, Rivera joined a class that included former Mariners designated hitter Edgar Martinez, former Cy Young Award winner, the late Roy Halladay, fellow closer Lee Smith, and Harold Baines. Yet, even with all that talent around him, this was his day. And in so many ways, and all due respect to the other enshrines in Cooperstown that sizzling hot afternoon, this was a Yankees day. Not only were there throngs of Yankees fans in the fields watching the proceedings, but so too were Rivera's teammates. Tino Martinez. Jorge Posada. Andy Pettitte. Bernie Williams, who played the nationa...