NEW YORK (AP) — New York Mets slugger Juan Soto was placed on the 10-day injured list on Saturday because of a left calf strain.
Soto walked twice against Dodgers starter Roki Sasaki in Friday’s 4-2 loss before being replaced by Jorge Polanco in the sixth inning with the score tied at 1. He appeared to experience discomfort while running to second base on Bo Bichette’s double-play grounder in the second inning.
Soto is hitting .293 with 21 homers and 52 RBIs in 84 games this season. He missed 15 games from April 3-21 with a right calf strain, and the Mets went 3-12 without him.
Soto sat out Wednesday’s 4-3 loss at Milwaukee but was back in the lineup Friday after the Mets had a day off.
The lone All-Star for the Mets this year, Soto exited the team’s first game after the break in the eighth inning on July 16 at Philadelphia. New York was off the following day, and he returned to the lineup as the designated hitter on Saturday and Sunday against the Phillies. He played left field Monday in Milwaukee and was the DH on Tuesday.
To replace Soto, the Mets called up infielder/outfielder Eric Wagaman from Triple-A Syracuse. Wagaman is hitting .162 with two homers and four RBIs in 21 games this season.
This story has been corrected to show that Soto's injury earlier this season was to his right, not left, calf.
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New York Mets' Juan Soto hits an RBI single during the sixth inning of a baseball game against the Philadelphia Phillies, Sunday, July 19, 2026, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)
LEGE-CAP FERRET, France (AP) — France sent a hulking military cargo plane to dump tons of flame retardants as it battled raging wildfires on Saturday and slashed the final stage of Tour de France to redeploy security personnel to the blazes that forced tens of thousands of people to flee their homes.
The latest wildfires in southern Europe this week have displaced more than 250,000 people, including some 70,000 people who were evacuated in central Spain. One man died in Manises, the municipality reported on its Facebook page, the first death so far in the blazes.
In France, the giant A400M transporter swooped in low, its long plume of ochre-colored retardant trailing over drought-hit woodlands in the southwest as fire crews on the ground fought flames that authorities feared could spread toward the wine region city of Bordeaux.
Race organizers and the Paris police department announced a truncated 21st and final stage on Sunday for the three-week Tour, France's most famous annual sporting event, reflecting the immense strain that two large fires in the southwest are causing for emergency services.
Tour riders will race Sunday inside Paris, rather than starting from Thoiry, west of the capital, on a circuit of 89 kilometers (55 miles) — down by a third from the 133-kilometer (82.5-mile) route that had been planned. Part of the race's security detail will instead “reinforce the response efforts in the areas affected by the wildfires,” according to the statement announcing the ”exceptional measures made necessary by the situation."
With winds expected to shift in a west-to-east direction on Saturday afternoon, potentially driving flames closer to Bordeaux, fire crews and authorities were digging trenches, using retardants and taking other blaze-blocking steps, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said, predicting a “long and very difficult” battle.
He said the fire was about 30 kilometers (20 miles) west of the city and lost some of its intensity overnight. The prefect of the Gironde region that includes Bordeaux said the blaze grew into “a firestorm" on Friday after igniting earlier this week and cautioned that it “remains dangerous" even though firefighters were making progress.
The government mobilized soldiers to join fire crews and was rushing in 1.5 million face masks to protect against choking smoke.
Authorities ordered people between the fire and Bordeaux to evacuate, including from parts of the city’s western suburbs and other towns and villages.
Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu described the fires as unprecedented and said the Gironde blaze became so strong on Friday that it had begun generating its own winds. Firefighting teams were being reinforced with the addition of hundreds of soldiers and breathing masks to filter out potentially noxious smoke particles were being rushed to those exposed, Lecornu said.
In Bordeaux, authorities took in thousands of evacuees, offering them food and shelter in an exhibition center, and the city’s mayor said it could be equipped to welcome as many as 10,000 people if that became necessary. The city's airport said it remained open but that its bus and tram services were suspended.
Evacuation orders were sent with special alerts to mobile phones, instructing people to leave, Gironde prefect Sophie Brocas said. She said the fire had destroyed about 140 homes in the region.
The French military A400M transport plane, specially converted for fire-fighting, was a heavyweight new tool in the battle. It joined at least 18 other water- and retardant-dropping aircraft and helicopters that Nunez said were deployed in the Gironde region, working in rotation in the smoke-filled skies.
The virulence of the French and Spanish wildfires, fueled by high temperatures and the long-term effects of climate change, caught fire crews and authorities off guard.
Firefighters in Spain said the blazes spread so fast and violently that they could not be tackled head on. In France, some people even fled by boat when flames swept through touristic towns on the Atlantic coast.
“We’ve never seen anything like this,” said Javier Organista, a resident of El Tiemblo, west of Madrid, where fire charred a famed chestnut grove. “When we saw the flames coming into our town, surrounding us, leaving us with practically no way out, all the neighbors joined together to try to stop its advance.”
“It’s just really sad,” he said.
Spain deployed 2,600 firefighters, police and other emergency personnel to two blazes west of Madrid, backed by 19 water-dumping aircraft and helicopters.
France deployed 1,400 firefighters to the Gironde fire and hundreds of others to another wildfire further south in the Landes region. Dozens of firefighters suffered injuries, authorities said amid panic scenes with townsfolk fleeing by car and police went door to door to tell people to leave.
Successive heat waves that hit unusually early and hard this year, baking Europe with record-shattering high temperatures, have turned forests and scrublands into tinderboxes.
Fires have burned 130,000 hectares of forest already this year in Spain, up from an annual average of 100,000 hectares over the past decade, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Saturday as he visited a command post west of Madrid.
He said more favorable weather Saturday offered “a window of opportunity” for fire crews to bring the blazes under control. Madrid's regional government said the fires decreased in intensity as winds and temperatures dropped.
The fatality reported on Saturday occurred in Manises, part of the wildfire-affected region of Valencia.
Other European nations were helping, with Italy, Greece, the Netherlands, Portugal, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Sweden, Slovakia, Germany and Switzerland already providing or expected to deploy water-dumping planes and helicopters to the Spanish and French fire fronts.
Leicester reported from Paris. Associated Press journalists Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal; Manu Fernandez in El Tiemblo, Spain; and Joseph Wilson in Barcelona contributed.
A firefighter stands on a truck on a road near Lacanau, southwestern France, Saturday, July 25, 2026, as wildfires rage in the area. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
Smoke rises as a wildfire advances near El Tiemblo, Madrid province, Spain, Saturday, July 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Smoke rises as a wildfire advances near Hoyo de Pinares, Madrid province, Spain, Saturday, July 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Firefighters wait on a road near Lacanau, southwestern France, Saturday, July 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
A tree trunk burns in Lanton, in the Lege-Cap-Ferret region, southwestern France, Saturday, July 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
A view of a burned house and vehicle, in Lanton, in the Lege-Cap-Ferret region, southwestern France, Saturday, July 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Emma Da Silva)
A resident sits at a bullring serving as a temporary shelter after being evacuated from their homes because of the threat of a wildfire in Valdemorillo, Madrid province, Spain, Saturday, July 25, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Wildfires advance near Le Proge region, western France, Thursday, July 23, 2026. (AP Photo/Caroline Blumberg)
A water bomber drops water while fighting wildfires In Ares, western France, Friday July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Caroline Blumberg)
A firefighter sprays water in a burning forest in the Lège-Cap-Ferret region, western France, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Caroline Blumberg)
A seaplane drops water onto the fire as a wildfire advances near La Adrada, Ávila province, Spain, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Fiirefighters spray water in a burning forest in the Lège-Cap-Ferret region, western France, Friday, July 24, 2026. (AP Photo/Caroline Blumberg)
