NEW YORK (AP) — Slumping shortstop Anthony Volpe was hitless in his return to the New York Yankees starting lineup Tuesday after two games off.
Volpe went 0 for 4 and is mired in a 1-for-32 skid and hitting .206 with 18 homers and 65 RBIs this season. He batted eighth for the 19th time this year as the Yankees beat the Washington Nationals 5-1 in the second game of a three-game series.
Volpe struck out on a curveball by MacKenzie Gore to open the third and flew out three times. In his final at-bat in the eighth, he drove a ball to the warning track in center field.
"He hits one 106 to the wrong part that last at-bat," manager Aaron Boone said. “I thought (he) got some good swings off. Out in front of the breaking balls from Gore."
José Caballero started in Monday’s 10-5 win over Washington and Sunday’s 7-2 win over Boston that prevented a four-game sweep. Volpe entered as a defensive replacement in the eighth inning Sunday. He had his second full day off this season Monday and first since May 4.
The Yankees were hopeful Volpe will benefit from the mini-benching after hearing loud boos from fans during portions of his slide, which dropped his average to the second-lowest among qualified players.
“Wired right for it, handles it,” Boone said before the game. “Whether he’s going through a good stretch or a struggle, he’s always the same guy and such an important part of our team. So hopefully (he will) start to turn the corner a little bit here offensively and get hot again for us. It has been a rough run offensively for him.”
Volpe started for the first time since Saturday’s 12-1 loss to the Red Sox. He was 0 for 3, attempted a sacrifice bunt with the Yankees down by three runs and committed his AL-leading 17th error by making an errant throw on a grounder during Boston’s seven-run ninth.
Volpe won the shortstop job in spring training 2023 and the former first-round pick batted .209 with 21 homers and 60 RBIs in 159 games as a rookie when he won the Gold Glove. Last season, Volpe improved his average to .243 and finished with 12 homers and 60 RBIs in 160 games.
He also batted .286 in the postseason as the Yankees reached the World Series for the first time since 2009. He hit a grand slam in Game 4 against the Dodgers that prevented the Yankees from getting swept.
Volpe was hitting .249 through his first 69 games, but is hitting .157 since June 15. The Yankees are 30-33 in that span and dropped from first place in the AL East to the second wild-card spot.
“He’s very capable,” Boone said. “I think the biggest thing for him here in the first few seasons of the career is the ups and downs, the peaks and valleys offensively. So it’s just continuing to work really hard at being more consistent.
“I do feel like he’s hit into some tough luck this season, but is starts with the strike zone and making sure you’re swinging at quality pitches and when you do that you give yourself a chance to be successful”
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
New York Yankees' Anthony Volpe (11) drops a bat after striking out during the fourth inning of a baseball game against the Minnesota Twins, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)
New York Yankees' Anthony Volpe goes to the dugout during the eighth inning of a baseball game, against the Washington Nationals, Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Noah K. Murray)
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — Investigations into the Brown University mass shooting and the slaying of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor shifted Thursday when authorities discovered evidence they say indicates they were committed by the same man, who was then found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The attacker at Brown killed two students and wounded nine others in an engineering building on Saturday. Some 50 miles (80 kilometers) away MIT professor Nuno F.G. Loureiro was killed Monday night in his home in the Boston suburb of Brookline.
The FBI had earlier said it knew of no links between the cases.
Here are some answers to questions about the attacks and investigations:
Claudio Neves Valente, 48, a former Brown student and Portuguese national, was found dead in a New Hampshire storage facility after a six-day search that spanned several New England states.
Brown University President Christina Paxson said Neves Valente was enrolled at Brown from the fall of 2000 to the spring of 2001. He was admitted to the graduate school to study physics beginning in September 2000.
“He has no current affiliation with the university,” she said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa. He eventually obtained legal permanent residence status in September 2017. His last known residence was in Miami.
There are still “a lot of unknowns” in regard to motive, Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha said. “We don’t know why now, why Brown, why these students and why this classroom,” he said.
Loureiro, 47, who was married, joined MIT in 2016 and was named last year to lead the school’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center, where he worked to advance clean energy technology and other research. The center, one of MIT’s largest labs, had more than 250 people working across seven buildings when he took the helm. He was a professor of physics and nuclear science and engineering.
Valente and Loureiro attended the same academic program at a university in Portugal between 1995 and 2000, Foley said. Loureiro graduated from the physics program at Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal’s premier engineering school, in 2000, according to his MIT faculty page.
The same year, Neves Valente was let go from a position at the Lisbon university, according to an archive of a termination notice from the school’s then-president in February 2000.
Authorities released several security videos of a person thought might have carried out the Brown attack. They showed the individual standing, walking and even running along the streets, but their face is masked or turned away in all of them.
Police say a witness then gave investigators a key tip: he saw someone who looked like the person of interest with a Nissan sedan displaying Florida plates. That enabled Providence police officers to tap into a network of more than 70 street cameras operated around the city by surveillance company Flock Safety. Those cameras track license plates and other vehicle details.
After leaving Rhode Island for Massachusetts, Providence officials said the suspect stuck a Maine license plate over the rental car’s plate to help conceal his identity.
Video footage showed Neves Valente entering an apartment building near Loureiro’s. About an hour later, he was seen entering the New Hampshire storage facility where he was later found dead, Foley said.
The two students who were killed and the nine others wounded were studying for a final in a first-floor classroom in an older section of the engineering building when the shooter walked in and opened fire.
Those killed were 19-year-old sophomore Ella Cook and 18-year-old freshman MukhammadAziz Umurzokov. Cook, whose funeral is Monday, was active in her Alabama church and served as vice president of the Brown College Republicans. Umurzokov’s family immigrated to the U.S. from Uzbekistan when he was a child, and he aspired to be a doctor.
As for the wounded, six were in stable condition Thursday, officials said. The other three were discharged.
Neves Valiente gained permanent residency status through a green card lottery program, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on X.
She said President Donald Trump ordered her to pause the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services program.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the United States, many of them in Africa.
The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Whittle reported from Portland, Maine. Contributing were Associated Press reporters Kimberlee Kruesi, Amanda Swinhart, Robert F. Bukaty, Matt O’Brien and Jennifer McDermott in Providence; Michael Casey in Boston; Heather Hollingsworth in Mission, Kansas; Kathy McCormack and Holly Ramer in Concord, New Hampshire; Christopher Weber in Los Angeles; and Alanna Durkin Richer, Mike Balsamo and Eric Tucker in Washington.
This combo image made with photos provided by the FBI and the Providence, Rhode Island, Police Department shows a person of interest in the shooting that occurred at Brown University in Providence, R.I., Saturday, Dec. 13, 2025. (FBI/Providence Police Department via AP)
A memorial of flowers and signs lay outside the Barus and Holley engineering building at Brown University, on Hope Street in Providence, R.I., on Tuesday, Dec 16, 2025. (AP Photo/Matt OBrien)
A Brown University student leaves campus, Tuesday, Dec. 16, 2025, after all classes, exams and papers were canceled for the rest of the Fall 2025 semester following the school shooting, in Providence, R.I. (AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)
