THIS IS THE GET IN THE GAME PODCAST
WITH SCOTT LINEBRINK
Lance Berkman played 15 seasons in the major leagues (1999-2013), was named to six All-Star Games and won a World Series in 2011 with the St. Louis Cardinals.
He was inducted into the Houston Astros Hall of Fame in 2020 and is currently a baseball coach at his alma mater, Rice University.
Lance Berkman joins his former teammate and longtime friend Scott Linebrink on today’s “Get in the Game” podcast to discuss his “Big Puma” nickname, the “fake injuries” he had in his back pocket during his playing days, his walk with Jesus, and why coaching baseball is a part of his ministry.
Tampa Bay Rays player Richie Palacios runs home to score, July 2, 2026. (AP Photo/Charlie Riedel)
The Tampa Bay Rays are the hottest team in baseball, riding a nine-game winning streak — all on the road. At 74-46, they have the best record in MLB, lead the American League East by six games, and appear primed for a deep postseason run after missing the playoffs the past two seasons.
A big spark lately has come from the bat of second baseman Richie Palacios, who’s hitting .364 in the month of August (8-for-22) with one home run, five RBIs and a stolen base. His RBI single in Wednesday’s game started off a two-run second inning as the Rays went on to beat the Athletics 8-4 and close out their road trip.
Palacios is now hitting .238 on the season with five home runs, 35 RBIs and 10 stolen bases — his most productive season with the Rays, where he’s been since 2024. That’s already a career high for RBIs, he’s matched his career best for home runs and hits (59), and he’s well on pace for career highs in games played and batting average.
After much of the past five years spent in the majors, he knows most people know him and would define him as a baseball player.
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Palacios grew up in the church. His father is a pastor now, and Palacios credits his dad for raising him to have a strong faith in Jesus. Baseball is just what he does, but he sees it as his “vehicle” to point people toward God.
“He’s greater than anything that’s better than baseball; he’s greater than all that stuff,” Palacios told Pinckney. “I put my faith in Him. I pray every day, I read my Bible and I know that He’s with me and the Holy Spirit is on this earth with me. I’m just amazed to be able to be blessed, to be able to play the game that I love and enjoy. But it’s not because of anything I’ve done in my life, it’s because of His mercy.”
Palacios starred at Berkeley Carroll School in New York City before playing college baseball at Towson (Maryland) University. Cleveland drafted him in the third round of the 2018 MLB Draft, and he made his big-league debut with Cleveland on April 25, 2022, but he’s spent time in the minors every year until 2026. He was traded to the St. Louis Cardinals in June 2023, then traded to Tampa Bay in January 2024.
The 29-year-old appears to be settling in with the Rays. But his play on the field is downstream of his spiritual practices at home.
“The first thing I do when I wake up is pray and read my Bible,” he told Pinckney. “That’s the greatest sacrifice I can make right when I wake up. I say, ‘Thank You, God, for giving me another day, for giving me another blessing to be able to come out and do this and just be the person that I am. That’s what I do — I acknowledge Him first. Before the game, I acknowledge Him again. Throughout the whole day I try to acknowledge Him. That keeps me rooted in the Spirit and not rooted in myself.”
Though Palacios is experiencing success now, he knows he had to grind to get to this point. He made his major league debut at age 25, which is later than some prospects, and is already on his third team. He was slated to begin the 2026 season in Triple-A, but an injury to Gavin Lux opened the door for him to make the opening day roster.
For the majority of his career, he’s been a bench player and only started sparingly. Now he’s worked his way into an everyday role. In the successes and the struggles, he aims to keep his perspective the same.
“For me, when I wake up in the morning and pray to God and just know that everything that’s going to go on this day that He’s in control,” he recently told Jesus Over Baseball. “I’m able to be free with that so when I do go 0-for-4, I don’t become a different person now. I don’t become an angry person. I still have the faith of God within me. I still have the joy of the Lord in me, so I’m able to play. Even though I’m 0-for-4 or 4-for-4, I can still go and say, ‘Thank You, God, for what You’ve done for me, for who You are and the ability to impact the people around me positively whether I do good or don’t go good.'”
He said one of his favorite verses is Colossians 3:23, which says: “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.”
“When I’m playing this game, I’m not playing this game for the fans, I’m not playing this game to get recognition,” Palacios told Jesus Over Baseball. “I’m playing this game because God’s told me that this is the vehicle that He wants to use in my life to affect people and share His Word.”
The Rays return to the field Friday at home for an AL East battle against the Baltimore Orioles.
Catcher Adley Rutschman, May 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Terrance Williams)
The 2026 version of the Boston Red Sox looked dead in the water for nearly half the season. But a historic 15-game winning streak in July catapulted them out of last place in the American League East. After Tuesday’s 14-2 win over the Chicago White Sox, Boston has won 29 of its last 34 games, and now sits just 5.5 games out of first place and in the second AL wild-card spot.
The winning streak tied the franchise’s longest, originally set in 1946, and turned the Red Sox into buyers at the MLB trade deadline, which passed on Monday. Their prized acquisition was three-time All-Star catcher Adley Rutschman from Baltimore.
The switch-hitting Rutschman was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2019 MLB Draft and one of the centerpieces of a Baltimore rebuild that led to the franchise’s AL East title in 2023 and a wild-card spot in 2024. He’s currently on the injured list for the third time this season, this time due to left wrist inflammation, so it’s unclear when he’ll make his debut for the Red Sox.
But he said he’s looking forward to taking the field soon for one of the hottest teams in baseball.
“Just from playing here, the city loves baseball. It always has a great atmosphere and I’m excited to play in it,” Rutschman told reporters Tuesday at Fenway Park. “They’re playing the game the right way and doing things right. It was cool to watch from a distance. Now being here, like I said — just trying to fit in and help out any way I can.”
Rutschman has one more season of arbitration before he becomes a free agent in 2028, but the Red Sox may look to sign him to an extension before then. That means he may have a big payday coming, and perhaps some more personal accolades. But he told CBN Sports before last month’s All-Star Game that his identity comes from Jesus, not his success or accomplishments in baseball.
“I have the verse Colossians 3:23 in my Instagram bio, and it’s, ‘Whatever you do, do it with all your heart as for the Lord, not for man,'” he said. “To me, that applies directly to baseball. The reason I’m doing this is because I want to be a light. I want to shine for Him. When I go on the field, I want my play and my attitude to reflect Him. That’s the biggest goal at the end of the day.”
He was raised in a Christian household and went to church regularly growing up, he said in a video posted on TikTok. His church attendance dwindled when he got to high school due to his travel baseball schedule, but he was able to recalibrate that during his sophomore year at Oregon State, where he starred on the baseball team and also played football briefly.
That was when he started to make his faith his own.
“It’s a huge part of my life,” he said in the video. “It’s the biggest thing in my life, so it’s cool hearing everyone’s story. But you usually have that transition when you’re younger to now, and you make it your own.”
He also spoke with CBN Sports ahead of the 2024 All-Star Game and reiterated how important faith is to him.
“I think it’s the reason you show up and play as hard as you can every single day,” he said. “All the talent and abilities that I have are not for myself. I’m just a byproduct of that, and my role on this earth is to glorify Him every single day. So, it’s everything to me.”
Rutschman made his major-league debut in 2022 and hit .254 with 13 home runs and 42 RBIs over 113 games, finishing second in the Rookie of the Year voting to Seattle Mariners outfielder Julio Rodriguez. He made the All-Star team in 2023 and 2024, and served as the AL’s starting catcher in 2024. Injuries limited him to just 90 games in 2025, but he was named an All-Star this season despite the lingering injuries.
He’s hitting .251 with eight home runs and 47 RBIs in 67 games this season, and when healthy figures to be a major part of the Red Sox lineup — offensively and defensively — as they make a playoff push.
“He is a proven star in this league,” Boston chief baseball officer Craig Breslow said. “… In Adley, you get impact on both sides of the ball. He’s a premium defender, switch-hitter. So he’s a great fit for our park.”
Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen, Nov. 2, 2025. (AP Photo/David Becker)
Despite going 13-4 and winning the AFC South a season ago under first-year head coach Liam Coen, the Jacksonville Jaguars have largely flown under the radar in offseason talks about potential Super Bowl contenders. Many experts predict the Jaguars to take a significant step back in 2026-27.
But as Coen enters his second year at the helm, with quarterback Trevor Lawrence returning, he believes his team can not only replicate last season’s success but continue to improve on it. If they do, it will mark the Jaguars’ first back-to-back postseason appearances this century.
“In everything that we do, we are training to say, ‘Anyone, any time, any way,'” Coen said as he addressed his team during the first week of training camp. “We built the standard and the foundation and the way that we want to play the game.”
At 40 years old, Coen is one of the younger head coaches in the NFL, and he’s also a member of the famed Sean McVay coaching tree; Coen learned under the Los Angeles Rams head coach as a position coach for three years (2018-20) and the offensive coordinator for another (2022). In 2024, Coen was the offensive coordinator for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and helped fuel the career renaissance of QB Baker Mayfield. In his first year in Jacksonville last season, he became the NFL’s first rookie head coach to win 13 or more games after his team won four or fewer games the prior season.
During Coen’s coaching journey, he’s established himself as an offensive mastermind and a skilled quarterback developer. He’s also made it known during his time in the spotlight that he’s a follower of Christ.
Coen was a guest on the “Built 4 More” podcast last week with pastor Joby Martin and Denny Thompson, where the coach discussed one of the most difficult experiences of his life and how Christ formed his faith through the trial.
Coen grew up as an only child in Rhode Island, where he was a football fanatic and very close with his mother, Beth. But when Liam was in high school, Beth felt something was off. After numerous appointments, the doctors concluded that she’d contracted Lyme disease. The former marathon runner now struggled to get out of bed each morning. The physical pain was excruciating, and there was little improvement. But the emotional toll grew unbearable.
Four years later, in 2006, Coen was chasing his gridiron dream in college at UMass. He returned home during a school break, and his dad was in the hospital with congestive heart failure. While Coen was at the hospital with him, his mother took her own life.
Coen needed to care for his dad in the immediate aftermath, and then he rushed to return to school and join his team. Suddenly, he was back on a college campus, going to classes and practices like nothing had changed.
“I didn’t probably deal with it right, or well, in that short term,” Coen admitted on the podcast.
But this was different than anything he’d experienced before. The pain of losing his mother in the way he did wasn’t going away.
“Come to find out, 10 years down the road, it creeps up on you when you don’t deal with it,” he said on the podcast. “You don’t process it, you don’t forgive, you don’t have grace. It started to eat at me, and I didn’t know why. I didn’t know what was really happening. I wasn’t feeling right.”
He found people to talk through his traumatic past, and amidst those sessions, Jesus became a frequent topic of conversation. Coen had attended a private Catholic high school and learned many of the rituals, but he had never truly discovered the essence of Christianity.
“I actually began to have a relationship with Jesus Christ,” he said of that time. “And oh my gosh, I started to have more grace, and I started to forgive, and I started to have a little bit more understanding of what she went through and why.”
He had been given new life in Christ.
That new life was only strengthened during his time as the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Kentucky (2021, 2023) through the ministry of the school’s Fellowship of Christian Athletes (FCA) chapter. There, Coen was introduced to a man who handed him a small but extremely helpful packet about the Bible.
“I didn’t know what Jesus did,” Coen said on the podcast. “I didn’t know what He sacrificed. I didn’t know why He was truly put on this earth.”
Coen’s story of unthinkable pain followed by the power of healing found in Christ is a testimony of God’s goodness that he’s shared with his team and those close to him.
“Once I understood [true faith] and learned and was educated, I felt a different vibe,” he concluded. “I felt a different way of wanting to represent God — Jesus Christ, myself, my family, the way that I carry myself, the grace or honesty that you live life with.
“Perfect? Absolutely not. No question. But I know that it helped me when I actually built a relationship with a Power greater than myself in Jesus Christ.”
find someone who looks at you the way Liam Coen looks at Parker Washington
Now, in the hyper-competitive world of NFL football, with a nation’s eyes soon falling again on his sport, Coen has an opportunity to point others to Christ — the Fountain of true life — both in the 2026-27 season and beyond. Jacksonville’s first preseason game is Aug. 15 in New Orleans.
New York Mets pitcher Luke Weaver, June 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Ben Jackson)
With Monday’s MLB trade deadline quickly approaching, one of the hotter names on the market was New York Mets relief pitcher Luke Weaver. The 32-year-old righty signed with the Mets in December for his 11th MLB season, but after less than a year, he’s on the move again.
With New York sitting at 47-66 and out of playoff contention, the team sent him to the Pittsburgh Pirates (56-57) with just hours left before Monday’s 6 p.m. ET deadline.
After signing a two-year contract with the Mets, Weaver struggled out of the gate, limping to an ERA of 6.00 at the end of April. But he impressively turned things around, allowing only one earned run since the calendar flipped to May, now boasting a 1.84 ERA in 42 appearances (44.0 innings pitched) this season — thus making him a desirable bullpen arm for many contending teams.
Pittsburgh won that battle. The Pirates last made the playoffs in 2015, and currently sit 3.5 games out of the final NL wild-card berth.
Weaver, who played for the Yankees prior to the Mets, enjoyed his time in the New York spotlight. The Big Apple fed his energy, he said. After a victory with the Yankees in the 2024 ALDS, he compared himself to a “ferocious jungle cat.” It’s a pitching demeanor the former-starter-turned-reliever hopes to bring to his new team.
“That’s just my personality on the mound,” he told The Mirror last week. “It’s different than my daily life, my daily walk. It’s almost like an alter ego that comes on. It’s matched by the intensity of what the game provides in those high-leverage moments.”
Weaver had the opportunity to play in perhaps the most high-leverage moment of any MLB season with the Yankees in 2024, when his team faced the Los Angeles Dodgers in the World Series, where L.A. came out on top in the seven-game series, 4-1. Weaver pitched five innings over four World Series contests, allowing one hit and one walk with no earned runs.
A few months later, on a January 2025 episode of the Sports Spectrum Podcast, Weaver was asked what it was like to take the mound under the brightest lights in the sport.
“What a really cool time,” he said. “I feel like it came at the perfect time, honestly, because there had been a lot of failures and a lot of grinding — I guess we can call it — to get to that point. It felt like there was a lot of peace and a lot of appreciation for where I was.”
That peace, he said, was the peace of Christ.
“Being a follower of Jesus gives a lot of foundational strength,” he said. “It gives a lot of reference to understand how to navigate through those moments. … God has the plan. He’s already written it out.”
On the podcast, Weaver was asked about his Bible glove.
“It’s a way that I’m trying to use my platform to further the Gospel,” he explained, “and my walk with Jesus.”
"Our game is our worship."
New York Yankees pitcher Luke Weaver shares on the latest Sports Spectrum podcast how his unique baseball "Bible Glove" has been a way for him to glorify God on the mound. pic.twitter.com/jN4Sz50CRH
“When we talk about the foundation from God and walking with Jesus, that is what keeps it level,” he said. “Because I know that, in a moment’s notice, I can really bring a crowd together who might love me in that moment, or I could do the exact opposite and be the most hated guy on the planet.”
Weaver will look to join the Pirates as soon as possible in Milwaukee, where they begin a four-game series Monday night. Then on Friday, he’ll arrive in Pittsburgh with his new teammates and prepare to face his former team, as the Mets arrive for a three-game series.
Such is the life in Major League Baseball, and through it all, Weaver knows God holds him secure. He’s built his life on the solid rock of Christ, and Christ cannot be shaken.
