EDWIN DIAZ has a year from hell to make up for and prove himself worthy of the richest contract for a reliever in the history of Major League Baseball. But he also needs to prove he’s still the best closer in his own family. New York Mets flamethrower Diaz, 30, has yet to throw an MLB pitch since signing his record five-year, $102million contract in November 2022, shortly after the conclusion of his second All-Star campaign.

THE New York Mets have been here before. But they're hoping Carlos Mendoza can take them to places they haven't seen in a long, long time. The 44-year-old Venezuelan is the Mets' fourth consecutive head coach appointment to have spent time previously across the city in the Bronx. He is also the fourth of the last five that have been given their first run at managing a big-league club.

BASEBALL'S biggest names have been tasked with winning UK fans over to their sport this summer and they already have a fitting blueprint for success, as devoted converts to the Premier League. The third running of Major League Baseball’s London Series will see the New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies arrive at West Ham for two games in early June. These two old rivals are charged with growing the sport in Europe and selling out a 60,000-seat stadium - something none of their 30 clubs get close to back home but which was achieved in east London in both 2019 by the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, and last summer when the Chicago Cubs and St Louis Cardinals finally completed a series delayed three years by the pandemic.

BASEBALL star Bryson Stott has revealed how his unlikely friendship with Crystal Palace defender Rob Holding got him into a scrape with a London bouncer, as he prepares to cross the pond again this summer when MLB returns to the UK. Philadelphia Phillies second baseman Stott will come to the London Stadium for two games against rivals the New York Mets in June, his second trip to the capital after coming to watch Holding's Arsenal team play Palace in 2020.

ONLY one team can win the trophy that truly matters, seven and a half months from now in the World Series. But ever since Josh Sborz struck out Ketel Marte to seal a first championship for the Texas Rangers on November 1, another prize has been on offer - winning the off-season. There were colossal contracts, blockbuster trades and eight new managers in the winter that was 2023-24, but now it's spring and the season is set to get underway.

THE starting gun is ready to fire in the race for the 120th World Series. For the ninth time in MLB history, that hunt begins overseas, with the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres kicking off the 2024 season with two games at the Gocheok Sky Dome in Seoul, South Korea. With new rules, new faces and new frontiers to be breached, here are Mail Sport’s 10 things to watch in 2024:

BRIGHTON'S injury crisis has deepened, with wingers Kaoru Mitoma and Simon Adingra ruled out until February. Both players suffered problems in the Seagulls' 1-1 draw at Crystal Palace last week, Mitoma on his ankle and Adingra a hamstring strain. And manager Roberto De Zerbi is now without up to 10 players as Brighton welcome Tottenham to the Amex tonight. 'We have 10 injured players, maybe eight but (the other) two players can't start the game,' he said...

PICTURE a world where Lionel Messi could keep goal like Gordon Banks. Where Chris Froome could win titles both on a mountain bike in the Alps and a motorised one on the Isle of Man, or where Lewis Hamilton sandwiched Formula One races between hoovering up world rally championships. What price would you pay for such glorious all-round talent? How about $700million?

ROY KEANE was allegedly assaulted by a fan inside the Emirates Stadium on Sunday as he made his way to do his post-match duties for Sky Sports. Mail Sport understands the 52-year-old former Manchester United captain was confronted by a man at the top of the West Stand as he was waiting for a lift to take him down to the pitchside area. The man allegedly aimed a headbutt at Keane and hit the Irishman on the chest and chin, but was prevented from inflicting serious physical damage.

IT’S no wonder Arsenal and West Ham took so long to find common ground on Declan Rice – the new £105million man is the first player the Gunners have ever bought from their London rivals. Fourteen players have gone the other way from north to east London just in the Premier League era, however, making it one of the most commonly-trodden route between clubs even though it has earned Arsenal only £12.7m back in fees. Here, Mail Sport reveals each top-flight club’s favourite wells to return to since the Premier League began …and finds out which clubs have been fleecing each other!

WE ARE halfway into the 2023 Major League Baseball season and the usual rules have not applied. The Cardinals and Padres are a mess, the Marlins and Orioles are surging towards the playoffs and anyone who made a pre-season prediction about the Mets or Yankees is rubbing their eyes in disbelief. Two and a half months remain for teams to sort themselves out for the pennant chase, and as the regular season hits pause and MLB heads to Seattle for the All-Star Break, Mail Sport grades all 30 teams

TWO baseball teams, 110,000 fans, Winston Churchill, Jimmy Anderson, Henry VIII, Bill Murray, the McLaren Formula One team and 4,000 supersized hot dogs all descended on the London Stadium over the weekend as baseball returned to the capital. Fierce rivals Chicago Cubs and St. Louis Cardinals were in town for a two-game series, four years after the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox made Major League Baseball's first trip across the pond. Fans flocked to east London with ticket prices starting at £41 ($52) and going all the way up to £930 ($1,182) for seats directly behind home plate. There were 54,662 packed in on Saturday and Sunday's crowd of 55,565 will be the highest at any MLB game this season, even if slightly down on the 2019 mark of more than 59,000 at each game.

ENGLAND'S star pace duo Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson have insisted that the team will go even harder at Australia in this week’s second Test at Lord’s despite the crushing two-wicket defeat at Edgbaston. The legendary opening bowling attack have a combined 1,274 Test wickets including playing in the last nine Ashes series together, and are adamant that England will not take a backward step at the home of cricket.

NATHAN LYON has insisted Australia will pay no attention to England’s brash talk in the build-up to Wednesday’s second Ashes Test as the tourists look to take a commanding 2-0 series lead. Australia have not won the first two Tests of a series in England since their last victory here in 2001, and after last week’s nailbiting two-wicket win at Edgbaston they turn their sights to their favourite away ground, Lord’s. The Aussies have won 15 of 37 trips to the home of cricket, losing only seven - by far their best record at any venue on these shores, with their nine wins at Headingley the next best.

THE Chicago Cubs claimed bragging rights on foreign soil over fierce rivals the St Louis Cardinals with a commanding 9-1 victory in game one of the 2023 London Series. This was MLB’s second trip across the pond after the New York Yankees swept a two-game set here against the Boston Red Sox in 2019, and the first of the Cubs and Cardinals’ 2,495 meetings in 140 years of play to occur outside of the US.

THE New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies will go head-to-head in London next year in Major League Baseball’s third trip across the pond. MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred announced the news at London Stadium Friday morning ahead of this weekend’s two-game series between the Chicago Cubs and St Louis Cardinals. It pits two East Coast rivals against each other, both of whom are among the most popular teams in the UK.

IN THE event of a Moneyball sequel starring the 2023 Oakland Athletics, Brad Pitt will be able to draw inspiration from another of his back catalogue, Thelma and Louise - because the A's are hurtling off a cliff. Even after the relative outburst of a two-game winning streak this week, Oakland is 12-47, on track to lose a staggering 129 games this season. They have made baseball's worst start since 1903, the year the Yankees made their MLB debut - as the New York Highlanders - and when the sport was still 50 years away from crossing the Mississippi River for the first time.

BASEBALL is back in London next month, and while the Chicago Cubs and St Louis Cardinals are preparing to hit balls to the moon and dial up their pitching arms to 100mph, there'll be a few stars in the stands too. Weighing in at 1.5kg, packing a 2,000-calorie punch and measuring up at a staggering two feet in length, the 'Boomstick' hot dog is the headline act in a raft of mouth-watering food available at the London Series.

BASEBALL is back in London next month, and while the Chicago Cubs and St Louis Cardinals are preparing to hit balls to the moon and dial up their pitching arms to 100mph, there'll be a few stars in the stands too. Weighing in at 1.5kg, packing a 2,000-calorie punch and measuring up at a staggering two feet in length, the 'Boomstick' hot dog is the headline act in a raft of mouth-watering food available at the London Series.

A 9-0, a 7-0, six sixes, eight fives and 37 fours lead a fearsome scorecard that all adds up to the most prolific top-flight season for more than half a century. It hasn’t just been Erling Haaland filling his boots, with the overall average of 2.85 goals per game being the highest mark since a mammoth 3.03 in 1967-68, when 21 of the 22 teams scored at least 50 and the other, Sheffield United, had 49.