BOSTON (AP) — Masataka Yoshida went 3 for 4 with a double and an RBI in his season debut after undergoing shoulder surgery in October, and the Boston Red Sox completed a three-game sweep with a 10-2 win over the Colorado Rockies on Wednesday night.

Carlos Narváez, Wilyer Abreu, Romy Gonzalez and Jarren Duran homered for the Red Sox, who matched a season best with their sixth straight win.

Lucas Giolito (6-1) went six scoreless innings, giving up four hits and no walks with six strikeouts.

Narváez led off the second inning with his eighth home run of the season. Abreu added a two-out, two-run homer in the fifth.

Gonzalez hit a two-run homer in the eighth, scoring Yoshida after his ground-rule double, and Jarren Duran added a three-run shot in the inning.

Yoshida, the designated hitter, also singled in the second and fourth innings.

Colorado's Kyle Farmer hit two-run homer in the eighth inning off right-handed reliever Isaiah Campbell.

Tyler Freeman’s single leading off the fourth inning for the Rockies extended his career-best on-base streak to 23 games, the longest active streak in the majors.

Key moment

With two outs and Freeman on first base in the fourth inning, the Rockies had a chance to tie the score on Michael Toglia’s double off the wall in left-center. Instead, the Red Sox executed a perfect relay from center fielder Duran to shortstop Trevor Story to catcher Narváez to cut down Freeman at the plate.

Key stat

Right-hander Antonio Senzatela (3-13, 6.60 ERA ) extended his major league lead in losses, going five innings, giving up four runs.

Up next

The Red Sox host the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday, with RHP Walker Buehler (6-6, 6.25 ERA) opposing RHP Taj Bradley (5-6, 4.79). The Rockies are off on Thursday before opening a three-game set in Cincinnati.

Colorado coach Deion Sanders declines to address health issues at Big 12 media days

FRISCO, Texas (AP) — Deion Sanders declined to address his health at Big 12 football media days Wednesday, which came during his extended absence from Colorado.

“I'm not here to talk about my health,” said Sanders, who is going into his third season as the Buffaloes coach. “I'm here to talk about my team.”

Since overseeing Colorado’s spring game April 19, Sanders hadn’t attended football camps in Boulder. The school had said last month, amid reports that the coach was ill, that it could not say why he was absent. Sanders did not specifically answer any questions about his health.

“I’m looking good. I’m living lovely. God has truly blessed me,” he said. “Not a care in the world. Not a want or desire in the world.”

Sanders was the last of the league's 16 coaches to appear on the main stage over two days at the headquarters of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, which is about 75 miles from the sprawling ranch that the Pro Football Hall of Fame player has in Canton, Texas.

During his question-and-answer session that lasted nearly 17 minutes, Sanders addressed topics such as his coaching staff, quarterbacks and even Texas Tech coach Joey McGuire. Sanders then returned to the stage for a roundtable discussion with the other seven coaches in attendance Wednesday, but he didn't take part in his media breakout session scheduled for each coach at the end of the day.

It was unclear if the latest health issues are new. Sanders, a month shy of his 58th birthday, has struggled with his left foot since having two toes amputated in 2021 because of blood clot issues while at Jackson State. He missed Pac-12 media day in 2023, his first year at Colorado, after a procedure to remove a blood clot from his right leg and another to straighten toes on his left foot.

Colorado athletic director Rick George, who wouldn't elaborate on Sanders' health, said they stay in constant contact. The AD said Sanders will probably be back on campus in a week or two.

“We always talk. We text, we talk,” George said. “We have a great relationship. We trust each other.”

While commending the work of Big 12 Commissioner Brett Yormark in his opening remarks, Sanders said that Yormark called him daily to check to make sure he was getting better. There have also been a lot of calls from his fellow league coaches.

“I love them, they've been calling and checking on me, making sure I'm straight,” Sanders said.

This will be Sanders first season at Colorado without having one of his sons on the team. Quarterback Shedeur Sanders was a fifth-round pick by the Cleveland Browns in the NFL draft, and safety Shilo Sanders signed with Tampa Bay as an undrafted free agent.

Also gone is Heisman Trophy winner Travis Hunter, the two-way standout who was also like a son to Sanders. Hunter played for him at Jackson State and Colorado, and now will try to play both ways in the NFL after Jacksonville drafted him second overall.

“Now I only have to be a coach. I don't have the coach and a dad,” Sanders said during a segment with ESPN. "You've got to understand, when you're the coach and the dad ... make sure you watch the defense, make sure you watch the offense, but you want to watch your kids as well. I don't have to have that dilemma. Now I can just pour into everything I got into all of these young men.”

Sanders is 13-12 in his two seasons with the revived Buffaloes, who in their return to the Big 12 last season missed making the league championship game on a tiebreaker after being one of four teams to finish 7-2 in conference play.

He is under contract with the Buffaloes through the 2029 season after agreeing to a new $54 million, five-year deal this spring that made him the Big 12’s highest-paid coach. That replaced the final three years of the $29.5 million, five-year deal he got when he arrived from Jackson State, where he was 27-6 in three seasons.

Asked about the Sanders' time at Colorado, George responded, “Fun and exciting.”

Rich Rodriguez's return as coach at West Virginia is a homecoming, too

FRISCO, Texas (AP) — Rich Rodriguez has more gray around the temples than the last time he was at West Virginia, nearly 20 years ago when he bolted for Michigan as one of the hottest coaching prospects in college football.

Two more head coaching stops and plenty of losses later, Rodriguez is more than just back at West Virginia. He's home again, in the state where he was born and raised, for a second tour at his alma mater.

“I know where the bodies are buried and the traps are laid and kind of understand the environment,” Rodriguez said Wednesday during Big 12 media days at the headquarters of the Dallas Cowboys in the northern suburb of Frisco. “But then again, times have changed.”

Rodriguez speaks of a different conference — it was the Big East back then — and the rapidly changing landscape of college athletics, along with the money West Virginia has spent on facilities that wowed the 61-year-old when he got a good look at the campus for the first time in 17 years.

Times have certainly changed for a coach who was the youngest in the country as a 24-year-old at Salem in 1988, and two years later took over at tiny Glenville State not far from a hometown that is just 20 miles from the WVU campus in Morgantown.

There was the humbling experience starting in 2008 at Michigan, where Rodriguez was fired with a 15-22 record after a three-year stint that began with the first back-to-back losing seasons for the Wolverines in 46 years.

Next was a six-year stay at Arizona that ended with a winning record but under the cloud of an investigation over claims of sexual harassment and a hostile work environment.

Rodriguez took a five-year break from head coaching before joining Jacksonville State, where the nine wins in each of his three seasons led to a reunion with the Mountaineers.

“I’m a smarter and better coach than I was a week ago, let alone 20 years ago,” Rodriguez said. “I feel like 20 years ago, we had some success and that maybe helped me get some respect in getting this job. But I think if I didn’t win at Jax State the past three years, I wouldn’t have had this opportunity. I think we’re better than we were back then.”

Rodriguez led West Virginia during easily the best three-year stretch in school history. After consecutive 11-2 seasons, the Mountaineers had a chance to qualify for the national championship game in 2007 but lost the regular-season finale at rival Pittsburgh, which was a heavy underdog.

That stunner sparked an acrimonious departure, with fans blaming Rodriguez's decision on the loss to the Panthers and the coach countering that his relationship with athletic director Ed Pastilong was in shambles while the school was refusing to pay assistant coaches what Rodriguez thought they deserved.

West Virginia went after Rodriguez to try to recoup the buyout in his contract. A settlement led to Michigan paying $2.5 million and Rodriguez the remaining $1.5 million.

At Rodriguez's reintroductory news conference, a heckler had to be escorted out. And Rodriguez said the administration wondered what the reaction would be. He said he tried not to let that factor into the decision to return.

“There’s been a couple of times and somebody’s said something here or there and all that,” Rodriguez said. “And I understand that. It might be better off. If they didn’t have hard feelings, maybe they didn’t miss you.”

Receiver Jaden Bray, going into his second season at West Virginia following two years at Oklahoma State, said he hasn't seen any hard feelings. He has an internship that requires him to work plenty of sporting events, and it's worth noting that the Mountaineers haven't had consecutive winning seasons since 2018.

“When I would be at those events, I’d have fans coming up to me, ‘Are you ready for Rich Rod? Is Rich Rod back?’” Bray said. “They were telling me all these stories about when he was here, how fun the town was.”

Rodriguez knows how he can quiet the critics.

“I think if you learn from everything, whether it’s good or bad, you’ve got a chance to win,” Rodriguez said. “Every decision I make with the program is, does it help us win?”

Three-time MVP Nikola Jokic will delay signing extension with Nuggets this summer, AP source says

DENVER (AP) — Three-time NBA MVP Nikola Jokic has decided to delay a contract extension with the Denver Nuggets this summer, a person with knowledge of the matter told The Associated Press on Tuesday night.

The person spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because neither Jokic nor the Nuggets have addressed the matter publicly. It doesn’t affect Jokic’s status in Denver in the short term: He has at least two years remaining on his deal — $55.2 million this season and $59 million in 2026-27, along with a player option in 2027-28 worth nearly $63 million.

Jokic became eligible Tuesday to sign an extension that could have added three years and around $212 million to his contract. By waiting until next summer to sign, Jokic would be eligible to add four years to his deal at even more money than this summer’s extension would have guaranteed.

The Denver Post first reported the decision from Jokic.

Josh Kroenke, the vice chairman of Kroenke Sports and Entertainment, explained earlier this offseason the team was going to present both options to Jokic — and respect his decision.

“I’m not sure if he’s going to accept it or not, because we’re also going to explain every financial parameter around him signing now versus signing later,” Kroenke said.

The 30-year-old from Serbia is coming off a historic season in which he became the first NBA center to average a triple-double — 29.6 points, 12.7 rebounds, 10.2 assists — and finished runner-up to Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in the MVP voting. The only other players who averaged a triple-double are Russell Westbrook and Oscar Robertson.

It was a trying season for Jokic and the Nuggets in which coach Michael Malone and general manager Calvin Booth were fired with three games remaining in the regular season.

Jokic and the Nuggets went 3-0 to close out the season, beat the Los Angeles Clippers in seven games during the first round of the playoffs and took the eventual NBA champion Thunder to seven games in Western Conference semifinals before being eliminated. Jokic averaged 26.2 points and 12.7 rebounds in the postseason run.

Once again, Jokic was his usual contribute-in-any-way facilitator. He finished with a franchise-record 34 triple-doubles in the regular season, including a 61-point triple-double.

In addition, he became the fastest player in NBA history (739 games) to notch 16,000 points, 8,000 rebounds and 5,000 assists. The previous mark was held by Hall of Famer Larry Bird, who reached those numbers in 799 games.

A second-round pick by Denver in 2014, Jokic has blossomed into a five-time All-NBA first-team player. He led the Nuggets to their first title in 2023 and earned the Finals MVP award.

This season, he will have a new coach in David Adelman, who was hired on an interim basis when the Nuggets fired Malone and was promoted to the permanent job. There’s a new front-office structure, too, led by executive vice presidents Ben Tenzer and Jonathan Wallace. They’ve vowed to be aggressive in building another title contender around Jokic in his championship window.

The executive tandem made a splash by breaking up the core of Jokic, Aaron Gordon, Jamal Murray and Michael Porter Jr. by trading Porter and a first-round pick to Brooklyn for Cam Johnson. The team has also brought back Bruce Brown — an integral piece in their championship run — and added sharpshooting wing Tim Hardaway Jr.

ESPN reported earlier this month the Nuggets sent Dario Saric to the Sacramento Kings for Jonas Valanciunas, a center who can back up Jokic. The deal hasn’t been announced yet.

Jokic is spending his offseason back in Serbia, where recently he was seen cheering one of his prized racehorses to a victory.