Tennessee third baseman Jake Rucker. (AP Photo/Shawn Millsaps)
Tennessee entered the 2021 College World Series ranked No. 3 and currently boasts a 50-17 record on the season. Part of the reason for Tennessee’s success has been the play by Jake Rucker.
The Volunteers will need him even more as they try to stay alive in the tournament and avoid elimination on Tuesday vs. No. 2 Texas.
Rucker currently holds a .331 batting average in 66 games played, all of which he started. He leads the Volunteers in hits with 89, recording 21 doubles and nine home runs.
As one of the top batters on the team, Rucker played an integral role in Tennessee’s victories over LSU in the Knoxville Super Regional. In the first game, Rucker recorded two doubles as well as a run as the Volunteers beat the Tigers, 4-2, on June 12.
In the second game, Tennessee ensured that a third game between the teams would not be necessary, as it thrashed the Tigers, 15-6. Rucker provided two home runs in the game, as well as a single and a total of three RBIs. Tennessee’s victories against LSU allowed the team to advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.
Rucker credits faith as one of the reasons for his success and actively integrates it into his play.
“One of my superstitions is reading the Bible before every game,” Rucker told Knox News. “That calms me and keeps me focused. The Lord is with me every step of the way in my life. That is something that helps me stay cool, calm and collected.”
Rucker has been outspoken about his faith since before he began his college career. In a 2017 Twitter post in which Rucker committed to Tennessee, Rucker gave “All the Glory to God.”
Rucker’s Twitter and Instagram bios also read, “God holds my future,” and his Instagram bio references Ephesians 2:8, which says, “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”
Rucker often uses social media as an instrument for sharing his faith, from posting verses such as Psalm 118:24 to crediting God with providing Tennessee with a path to the College World Series.
Tennessee started its College World Series with a 6-0 loss to No. 8 Virginia on Sunday. This was only the third time the Volunteers had been held scoreless this season, and they managed just six hits in the game compared to the Cavaliers’ 13.
First pitch for Tuesday’s elimination game is set for 2 p.m. ET.
Andy Pettitte in March 2025. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)
THIS IS THE GET IN THE GAME PODCAST
HOSTED BY SCOTT LINEBRINK
Our guest today is Andy Pettitte, a New York Yankees legend who played 18 years in the majors — 15 with New York and three with Houston. He was a five-time World Series champion and three-time All-Star.
From left: Dodgers players Tommy Edman, Mookie Betts, Blake Treinen, Justin Wrobleski, Evan Phillips and Alex Call at Faith Day, Sept. 20, 2026. (Photo via Instagram/@acad_8)
The Los Angeles Dodgers have already clinched their fifth straight National League Division championship and now have their sights set on October, where they hope to become just the third franchise to win three consecutive World Series titles. There’s loads of talent up and down the roster, and there’s also a strong core of believers who are vocal about their faith in God.
Six players — utility man Tommy Edman, star outfielder Mookie Betts, reliever Blake Treinen, starting pitcher Justin Wrobleski, reliever Evan Phillips and outfielder Alex Call — joined team chaplain Brandon Cash for Faith and Family Day on Sunday, where they shared their testimonies and how their faith guides them as professional baseball players. It’s an annual event many teams hold, like the Cleveland Guardians and Pittsburgh Pirates.
All six are regular attendees of team chapels and seen as leaders in the clubhouse as much as they are on the field. Call, for example, was traded from the Washington Nationals to L.A. at the trade deadline last season. Cash said he was excited because he heard Call was the spiritual leader in the Washington clubhouse, and he’s since carried that over to the Dodgers.
His testimony mirrored many of his teammates’ in a lot of ways in that he grew up in church with parents who modeled what it looked like to have a strong faith. Like a lot of believers, once he was on his own in college and then as a professional player, he had to decide if his faith was his own or just something he believed because his parents did.
“That’s where it kind of became real for me,” Call said. “I went from, ‘Yeah, I don’t do this or this because I’m a Christian’ to ‘God calls us all to be disciple makers. He calls us all to love and to be a blessing.’ That’s where I turned it up a notch and try not to be ashamed of the Gospel or anything else — just glorify Jesus in my daily life and on the field.”
Wrobleski had a similar upbringing thanks to a mother who set an example and raised him in the faith.
“It’s been a journey for me,” he said. “I’d be lying if I didn’t say there were ups and downs with my faith and God trying to show me things and get me back to where I need to be. Every time I feel like I’ve been down in my life or I feel like things aren’t going the way that I want, it’s just God showing me I need to get back to the Word and pray.”
A first-time All-Star this year, Wrobleski has been a pleasant surprise for the Dodgers and a mainstay in the rotation, making 22 starts with a 3.70 ERA. The Dodgers could use him either in the rotation or as a long reliever in the postseason like last year.
He shared that a verse that’s stuck with him lately is Romans 12:12, which says, “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”
“That’s something I’m trying to live out right now,” he said. “It’s a journey. Knowing Jesus obviously gives you that peace when you’re out there. For me, it’s big before the game. It’s a super big blessing to pitch for the Dodgers, but there’s a lot of pressure that comes with it. Just knowing that the results aren’t always what matters; it’s just giving your performance to the Lord, good or bad, and that’s kind of been something I’m trying to do this year.”
That pressure is felt by all the players. They know the expectations that come with playing in L.A. They know their team is loaded with talent and high-priced players.
Edman — who shared that his faith grew substantially when he was in college at Stanford thanks to faith mentors and involvement in the Fellowship of Christian Athletes — said he handles the scrutiny of playing pro baseball by remembering that his identity is in Christ.
“As a baseball player, one of the big struggles that we have is our identity being tied up in our performance on the field or being just a baseball player,” Edman said. “Baseball is such a crazy long season and a rollercoaster of emotions that you can go up and down like crazy.
“I have my identity rooted in my role as a son of God and a follower of Jesus Christ. I always have that in my foundation. Not to say that helps me perform on the field, but it definitely allows me to have that inner peace regardless of how I’ve done on the baseball field.”
Each player has a different background that led them to where they are personally and professionally, and that’s something that makes the chapel dynamic unique, Cash said. For example, Betts didn’t really grow up in the church like some of his teammates did. He spent most of his weekends playing baseball, and going to church just wasn’t much of a priority.
“As I got a little older playing ball, I kind of wanted the sense of purpose, because ball is just an avenue to show what God has given me and given all of us,” said Betts, an eight-time All-Star. “Once I wanted to learn my purpose, I think going to chapel, getting to know Cash, getting to know these guys has really changed my life completely. These are literally like my brothers. Obviously we’ve grown playing baseball and winning together, but I think we’ve grown the most in our Bible studies and our chapels on Sundays.”
He said he just read through 1 and 2 Kings, where he read about King Soloman and how he was wise and felt on top of the world. Betts saw some similarities to pro baseball.
“When you’re on top of the world and everything’s going great, but you lose what’s important, which is God, you kind of lose everything,” he said. “No matter how good or bad I do, I make sure to give glory to God and I make sure that every day I pray and give glory to Him because everything we have here is for Him.”
Treinen, who’s now in his seventh season with the Dodgers, shared that he sort of begrudgingly attended church growing up. His mother was a member of the worship team, which meant he often spent all morning and part of the afternoon at church when he would’ve rather been home watching football.
“As I’ve gotten older, I’ve greatly appreciated the stubbornness and consistency that my mom put in my life for me and my brother to take us to church on Sunday,” he said. “It was a lot as a kid, but it built a structure of faith and a standard of worship in life.”
He recalled a moment at a youth conference at the University of Tennessee where he said he “felt the tangible presence of the Holy Spirit just rock me and put me in my seat.” He recounted how Christians should always be able to give an answer for the hope they have in Jesus, and that experience is what he goes back to when explaining where he first believed.
“We all have the right to believe what we want,” he said. “But when you see the truth and the facts and the tangible hand of God in your life, it separates just wanting to be a good person and knowing Jesus is real, to ‘this is absolute.’ I’ve experienced the presence of the Father and I will forever with my life.”
Chicago Cubs starting pitcher Clay Holmes, Aug. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
Clay Holmes got a taste of the World Series experience in 2024 with the New York Yankees, but he and his team came up short of winning the whole thing.
He’s now with the Chicago Cubs, where both he and the team’s front office hope his addition to the starting rotation could mean a deep run in October.
The Cubs acquired Holmes from the New York Mets at the MLB trade deadline last month, and in his seven starts with Chicago he has a 2-3 record and a 3.46 ERA. Between the two teams, he’s 6-7 on the year — but with a 2.85 ERA and a 2.4 wins above replacement rating, which is the highest of his career.
“It’s been a very easy transition for me,” Holmes told the Chicago Sun-Times last week. “Everything’s about winning. You’re in that competitive environment, and you get to focus on and do the things that you want to do. It makes showing up to work a lot of fun every day.”
The 33-year-old made his major-league debut in 2018 with the Pittsburgh Pirates, and he spent the beginning part of his career as a reliever, including when he was traded to the Yankees in 2021. New York used him as a high-leverage reliever and closer, logging 20 saves and earning his first All-Star Game selection in 2022. He racked up 24 saves in 2023, then 30 in 2024, when he earned his second All-Star Game selection.
He then moved across town to the Mets ahead of the 2025 season and was converted to a starting pitcher. In his first year being stretched out, he logged a 12-8 record with a 3.53 ERA over a career-high 165.2 innings pitched. He has continued to flourish in his second year as a starter.
The Cubs are clinging to a 1.5-game lead in the National League wild-card race. Should they reach the postseason, they”ll have a number of options for starting pitchers, including Kevin Gausman, Matthew Boyd, Shota Imanaga and David Peterson, in addition to Holmes. That means the Cubs could employ Holmes out of the bullpen. He’s ready either way.
“When the lights get brighter and the games become more meaningful, the rest of everything else kind of drowns out. From my experience, that’s what you crave,” Holmes told reporters last week. “It’s a drug. It’s all you want is just to care about this one game in front of you, and that’s all that matters.”
His mindset has been formed by a mixture of his upbringing, his path to the major leagues and his faith in God. He’s the son of a preacher, which means — fair or not — he grew up under perceived heightened pressure and expectations to live a certain way. But that helped prepare him for the pressure of playing professional baseball.
He was drafted out of high school, so he knew it would take a while to make it to the majors. But Tommy John surgery delayed that process by another year or two, leading him to spend about seven years in the minors before getting the big-league call-up.
But that experience tested his faith and perseverance, he said.
“It’s a lot of bus rides. A lot of patience,” he said on the Sports Spectrum Podcast in 2023. “But I kind of knew what I was signing up for. I knew that being in high school I was a pretty raw talent, so there’s going to be some refining that needs to take place. It was maybe longer than I wished, but I look back on a lot of those years and I met a lot of great people.
“You go through things with some teammates that really just remind you why you play the game. … There’s a lot of moments in those seven years that I wouldn’t trade for anything.”
Plenty of players who have faced similar setbacks and delays have retired before realizing their MLB dream. The grind can become too taxing. For Holmes, it was his faith and God that helped him stay focused and grounded.
“My confidence, my identity, who I am and what I can do is not really tied into some title that’s given to me,” Holmes told MLB.com in 2024. “Obviously it’s an honor and a great thing, but knowing who I am, knowing what I’m capable of and the pitcher I can be — the person I am — those things weren’t stripped away.”
His faith grew even deeper right before he was traded to the Yankees, where he wanted to embrace being a living sacrifice for God.
“When you become that living sacrifice, there’s a freedom that comes with it that allows you to just display the talents and the uniqueness that God’s given you — and the identity you have in Him — in a way that’s much greater than you can do on your own,” he said on the Sports Spectrum Podcast.
And it was during his All-Star season of 2022 when he learned how to rest better. A passage he leaned on was Psalm 23.
“For me, it’s a mental thing of just learning how to rest in those things and trust that God’s brought you to a place and He’s going to continue to lead you,” he said. “You can find a lot of rest in that.”
Holmes will make his next start on Friday against the Cincinnati Reds, then make one more scheduled start before the end of the regular season.
Cleveland Guardians players speak at the team's Faith Day, Aug. 29, 2026. (Photo via X/@msteller123)
The Kansas City Royals took down the Guardians, 8-3, in Cleveland on Saturday in an American League Central matchup. The loss dropped the Guardians to a .500 record on the season and weakened their already tenuous grip on the third and final AL wild-card spot, which they had acquired thanks to a seven-game winning streak leading up to the series with Kansas City.
Yet despite the loss, many Guardians players considered Saturday a resounding success, all because of what happened before the first pitch was ever thrown.
In partnership with the Northeast Ohio chapter of the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, Guardians Faith Day was held at Progressive Field in Cleveland for the second consecutive year on Saturday. During the hour-long event hosted by team chaplain Mike Suit, Guardians players were given the opportunity to share their testimonies of faith in Jesus and how a relationship with Him impacts their lives on and off the field. Fans enjoyed Christian fellowship and were encouraged to follow the Light of the World as well.
One of the players who spoke was All-Star rookie pitcher Parker Messick. Much of his testimony revolved around his grandfather’s incredible healing and how God was at work in his life through that time.
“I had the conversation with the Lord,” he said, “and I’m like, ‘Lord, I know You’re real. I’ve seen what You can do. I’m never doubting You again. You’ve proven Yourself to me time and time again. I know what You did on the cross, and I’ll live for You forever.’
“I’ve tried to live that out ever since that day. He’s never left my side and I’m seeing the things that He can do in my life, so I encourage all of you to do the same.”
Messick was joined on the panel by the man sometimes called upon to catch his lethal fastballs, 34-year-old catcher Austin Hedges.
The veteran told the story of how he grew up knowing about God and being part of a church community, but he realized he was relying on others’ faith rather than his own. In 2021, during his first stint with the Guardians, he challenged his Christian background and completely left the church.
One of the biggest influences during his spiritual wandering, he said, was the fellowship of his numerous Christ-following teammates on the Guardians.
“The biggest change is these men standing here with me,” Hedges said. “These guys are so inspiring to me. Only a few months ago, I said, ‘You know what? That’s it. I’m in!’ … These guys are living their lives the right way, and I want to live like that.”
Austin Hedges shared his testimony with fans Saturday during Faith day at Progressive Field saying “God’s love is so real” and thanking his teammates for inspiring him. #GuardsBallpic.twitter.com/Y22ifMLiEu
Hedges continued later: “As of May of this year, I got back. And I am so bought in. The last couple of months, everything is just crystal clear to me. Everything makes so much sense. God’s love is so real, and I’m so excited for the rest of this journey — my life — growing with Jesus.”
“It’s very humbling,” he told reporter Natalie Turk after the game. “It’s been very cool to see how God has grown this group of guys we have in the clubhouse, how the numbers have grown and how each guy in that group has grown individually as well. That’s been a very, very cool thing.”
“You grow in your faith and you learn that, hey, there are some things you gotta give to Him that are gonna be heavier, and things that are out of your control, that you need to be able to just give off and release,” he said.
Joey Cantillo spoke to fans pregame about his faith saying “some things you have to give to Him because they’re heavier & out of our control” #GuardsBallpic.twitter.com/geEqPfUpHn
On the diamond, the Guardians (now 69-68) are set to begin a three-game home series Tuesday night against the Toronto Blue Jays (68-70). Cleveland currently holds a half-game lead over the Orioles in the AL wild-card race.
