For most of the past two seasons, the Twins have employed a fairly even split of playing time behind the plate. Ryan Jeffers would start one day, Christian Vázquez the next.

Last year, each started 81 games with Jeffers playing 720 1/3 innings and Vázquez 719. That’s how things stood when the Twins started this season, too. But over the past week, that’s finally changed.

Vázquez took a foul tip to his hand on April 14 and he’s healthy now, but the playing time has flipped dramatically towards Jeffers. Vázquez has started just twice since then with Jeffers drawing seven starts behind the plate in that time period, including Friday night’s game. At one point in that stretch, Jeffers started six of seven games.

“I think RJ is going to find a few more at-bats in the near term here,” manager Rocco Baldelli said earlier in the week. “We can see if we can get the offense going even more than we’ve seen. That’s a big part of it. … I think getting him a few more games and getting him a few more at-bats might be able to jump-start our group in some ways offensively.”

Jeffers said he spoke with Baldelli about the change and the manager indicated there wouldn’t be an exact schedule but just that the 27-year-old backstop would be in the lineup more often.

Vázquez is the stronger defender of the two, while Jeffers is a better hitter. Heading into Friday’s game, Jeffers was hitting .254 with a .682 OPS and 98 OPS+ while Vázquez was hitting just .152 with a 33 OPS+, which is figure that is well below the league average hitter (100).

“I’ve gotten a good handle on how to prepare myself going every other day,” Jeffers said. “I think that was hard at first, but I think, especially when you’re trying to feel something or figure something out, it’s nice when you can get a larger sample size of games quicker.”

And while the reason the two have shared the playing time is in large part because of the rigors of the position, Jeffers said he thinks his body will be able to bounce back even with an uptick in playing time.

“I’ve always said, my whole time here, I would love to play every day,” Jeffers said. “It’s the reality of catching, you don’t do that. But I’m excited. The opportunity is exciting. I’ve always prepared my body to be ready whenever that happens.”

Lewis plan

Royce Lewis headed out to St. Paul on a rehab assignment on Friday, a major step for him as he works his way back from a hamstring strain that has kept him sidelined since mid-March.

But don’t expect this rehab assignment to be a quick one.

After a partial game on Friday, Lewis is scheduled to have Saturday as a day off. He’s supposed to play on Sunday and then the Saints have a day off on Monday. The Twins will head out on the road next week and it’s possible they will wait until they return home on May 6 to activate him from the injured list.

“He’s going to have to build back up,” Baldelli said. “In a lot of ways, he’s starting from scratch with his game action. It’s been awhile since he’s played, so he’s going to need some at-bats, he’s going to have to be at third base a fair amount. He’s going to be DHing some.”

Briefly

Simeon Woods Richardson is scheduled to start on Saturday opposed by Angels starter Yusei Kikuchi. Woods Richardson gave up three runs in 4 1/3 innings pitched the last time out. …  Minor league catcher Diego Cartaya cleared outright waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A. The Twins’ 40-man roster is now at 39.

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By ASHRAF KHALIL

WASHINGTON (AP) — Organizers and the Kennedy Center have canceled a week’s worth of events celebrating LGBTQ+ rights for this summer’s World Pride festival in Washington, D.C., amid a shift in priorities and the ousting of leadership at one of the nation’s premier cultural institutions.

Multiple artists and producers involved in the center’s Tapestry of Pride schedule, which had been planned for June 5 to 8, told The Associated Press that their events had been quietly canceled or moved to other venues. And in the wake of the cancellations, Washington’s Capital Pride Alliance has disassociated itself from the Kennedy Center.

“We are a resilient community, and we have found other avenues to celebrate,” said June Crenshaw, deputy director of the alliance. “We are finding another path to the celebration … but the fact that we have to maneuver in this way is disappointing.”

The Kennedy Center’s website still lists Tapestry of Pride on its website with a general description and a link to the World Pride site. There are no other details.

The Kennedy Center did not respond to a request from the AP for comment.

The move comes on the heels of massive changes at the Kennedy Center, with President Donald Trump firing both the president and chairman in early February. Trump replaced most of the board with loyalists, who then elected him the new Kennedy Center chairman.

The World Pride event, held every two years, starts in just under a month — running from May 17 through June 8 with performances and celebrations planned across the capital city. But Trump administration policies on transgender rights and comments about Kennedy Center drag performances have sparked concern about what kind of reception attendees will receive.

“I know that D.C. as a community will be very excited to be hosting World Pride, but I know the community is a little bit different than the government,” said Michael Roest, founder and director of the International Pride Orchestra, which had its June 5 performance at the Kennedy Center abruptly canceled within days of Trump’s takeover.

Roest told the AP he was in the final stages of planning the Kennedy Center performance after months of emails and Zoom calls. He was waiting on a final contract when Trump posted on social media Feb. 7 of the leadership changes and his intention to transform the Kennedy Center’s programming.

Immediately the Kennedy Center became nonresponsive, Roest said. On Feb. 12, he said, he received a one-sentence email from a Kennedy Center staffer stating, “We are no longer able to advance your contract at this time.”

“They went from very eager to host to nothing,” he said. “We have not since heard a word from anybody at the Kennedy Center, but that’s not going to stop us.”

In the wake of the cancellation, Roest said he managed to move the International Pride Orchestra performance to the Strathmore theater in nearby Bethesda, Maryland.

Crenshaw said some other events, including a drag story time and a display of parts of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, would be moved to the World Pride welcome center in Chinatown.

Monica Alford, a veteran event planner with a long history of working with the Kennedy Center, was scheduled to organize an event June 8 as part of Tapestry of Pride, but said she also saw communication abruptly end within days of Trump’s takeover.

Alford organized the first ever drag brunch on the Kennedy Center rooftop in 2024, and said she regarded the institution — and its recent expansion known as The Reach — as “my home base” and “a safe space for the queer community”

She said she was still finalizing the details of her event, which she described as “meant to be family-friendly, just like the drag brunch was family-friendly and classy and sophisticated.”

She said she mourns the loss of the partnership she nurtured with the Kennedy Center.

“We’re doing our community a disservice — not just the queer community but the entire community,” she said.

Roest said he never received an explanation as to why the performance was canceled so late in the planning stages. He said his orchestra would no longer consider performing at the Kennedy Center, and he believes most queer artists would make the same choice.

“There would need to be a very, very public statement of inclusivity from the administration, from that board, for us to consider that,” he said. “Otherwise it is a hostile performance space.”

More than a dozen private companies around the world are looking to profit from extreme measures to combat global warming — filling the sky with sunlight-blocking particles, brightening clouds or changing the chemistry of the oceans. We live in precarious times when it’s not hard to find the technology and the money to change the Earth’s climate. The problem is that nobody knows how to control the unintended consequences.

Some scientists who’ve studied and modeled the complexity of Earth’s oceans and atmosphere say any “geoengineering” scheme big enough to affect the climate could put people at risk of dramatic changes in the weather, crop failures, damage to the ozone layer, international conflict and other irreversible problems.

Environmental lawyer David Bookbinder is more afraid of geoengineering than he is of climate change. “The consequences of geoengineering could happen a lot faster and with much less warning,” he said. “And could provoke a really bad geopolitical crisis.”

He said the world lacks the legal or regulatory framework to ensure no single government or private entity takes a risky initiative. At the same time, “there’s a clamor for tech solutions, and it’s only going to grow.”

Experts are debating whether such a framework should restrict so-called geoengineering across the board or allow some small-scale experiments.

The world got an early warning about this Wild West situation in 2022 when a small startup called Make Sunsets caused a scandal by launching a small balloon-borne experiment over Mexico to spray sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. Now, it’s joined by richer, more serious players, including a company based in Israel called Stardust, which is researching a plan to dim the skies with a particle of undisclosed chemistry.

In theory, sulfur dioxide or similar chemicals would cool the planet by forming suspended particles of sulfuric acid that act to scatter sunlight. When I wrote about the Make Sunsets incident, the company’s founder said he thought they could profit by selling carbon credits under the belief that their actions would offset emissions.

They won’t. Such a particle release does nothing but mask the effect of the carbon buildup in the atmosphere. If those releases are abruptly stopped, the temperature could rise suddenly in what’s been called “termination shock.”

Despite obvious risks, experts have envisioned a scenario where people are dying from a prolonged summer heat dome and demand action. Bookbinder said the president, governors or even private individuals might be authorized to make the decision. “Right now, anyone can … There are literally no rules.”

He warned that if a cooling scheme initiated in one country coincided with floods, droughts or crop failures in another, the affected country might retaliate without direct evidence that the geoengineering caused the problem.

Mark Z. Jacobson, an atmospheric modeler at Stanford University, said we’ve already seen the results of several natural experiments. Some forms of air pollution have been cooling the planet by about 1 degree C,  but that same pollution also kills millions of people from respiratory illnesses. In 1815, the eruption of Tambora injected so many particles into the atmosphere that 1816 was dubbed “the year without a summer.” People died from crop failure and famine.

One justification for geoengineering comes from the 2015 Paris Agreement, which included an imperative to keep warming below 1.5 degrees C. We’ve already surpassed that mark. Preventing us from reaching even more dangerous temperatures will require more than just stopping carbon emissions. We might need to find a way to pull carbon out of the atmosphere on a global scale.

That was the stated goal of California businessman Russ George back in 2012 when he released iron into the Pacific Ocean off the coast of British Columbia. The iron, in theory, would fertilize algae, which would absorb carbon. There was never any documented scientific evidence that it helped.

Now, several companies, such as Canadian startup Planetary Technologies and U.S. startup Vesta, are beginning to dump chemicals into the oceans in an attempt to increase the pH of the water. This should, in theory, trigger more carbon uptake from the atmosphere. Planetary Technologies has found a way to make money by selling carbon credits.

With for-profit organizations already releasing chemicals into the oceans, it’s important for scientists with no financial stake in this industry to collect data, said geochemist Adam Subhas of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. He’s planning to set sail off the coast of Massachusetts this summer with a team of experts for a small scale experimental release of sodium hydroxide traced with a fluorescent dye.

He said they’ll measure temperature, salinity, carbon dioxide concentration, alkalinity and other chemical properties, phytoplankton, zooplankton and fish larvae. An expert will be on board to monitor the effects on marine mammals. The American Geophysical Union believes monetary gains should not be prioritized in small-scale research either.There’s a catch, said Stanford’s Jacobson. Small-scale experiments won’t detect damage that might ensue if the projects were scaled up enough to actually affect global warming. In Jacobson’s view, we aren’t coming close to realizing the world’s potential to switch our energy needs to renewable resources.

He convincingly argues that it makes no sense to resort to exotic and dangerous solutions when we haven’t fully exploited what we know is safe and clean.

Right now, some of these companies have sunk millions of dollars in investor money, giving them incentives to convince the public and politicians that their particular brand of geoengineering is necessary. What we need instead is more scientific data and some rules to protect us all from rash decisions and unintended consequences.

F.D. Flam is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering science. She is host of the “Follow the Science” podcast.

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The physicality allowed in the NBA playoffs is what draws many casual basketball fans to the sport. The pushing and grabbing is viewed as effort, intensity and want to.

It’s an expectation by now of players and coaches that the way the postseason is officiated will be a major departure from what’s allowed during the 82-game regular season.

It is what it is.

But Timberwolves coach Chris Finch couldn’t help but watch Game 2 of the Warriors-Rockets series on Wednesday and wonder if it’s all gone too far.

The headline on USA Today writer Jeff Zillgitt’s dispatch from Houston was that the Rockets won a “football game on basketball court.”

On The Kevin O’Connor Show, Yahoo Sports writer Tom Habestroh said of the way that series is being called: “I don’t think it’s legal,” citing the way the Rockets are “manhandling” Golden State on and off the ball.

“To me, they’ve gone way too far on the physicality,” Finch said this week.

And the coach isn’t complaining about Minnesota’s series against the Lakers,

“I’m just saying in general, I would think it’s gone too far. It feels like it’s physicality without purpose. It’s disrupted the flow. If there’s not a fight in that Houston-Golden State series, I’d be surprised,” Finch said. “That thing feels like it’s on the edge every single time.”
Warriors wing Jimmy Butler left the game in the first quarter of Game 2 after he was undercut by Houston wing Amen Thompson after Thompson went to the deck amid a tussle with Golden State forward Draymond Green for rebounding position.

Butler has a deep gluteal muscle contusion and is questionable for Game 3 on Saturday.

Grizzlies guard Ja Morant left Game 3 in Memphis and didn’t return after a reckless contest on his transition dunk by Thunder guard Lu Dort.

Luka Doncic didn’t get injured in Game 2, but he went down to the deck after Jaden McDaniels tripped him up with a leg lock.

Who knows what else is to come. None of those plays are directly linked to a loosened playoff whistle, but it’s all far more likely so when so much is allowed. Players are getting fouled, but the “playoff whistles” aren’t recognizing the illegal contact. At that point, players will continue to push the boundaries to see exactly what is allowed, or they can grow frustrated and make a reckless decision out of sheer emotion that they otherwise may not make.

No one is going to complain about fewer hand check calls on the perimeter. And people don’t mind that the offensive flopping and gamesmanship — which is supposed to be cleaned up during the regular season, as well — frequently isn’t recognized in the postseason.

You certainly do not want officials to determine playoff games, but when they repeatedly ignore illegal contact that inhibits the offense from executing, that too is determining the outcome.

Frankly, excessive grabbing and holding sometimes removes skill from the equation. If mugging is allowed, suddenly anyone can defend. At that point, the true art of good defense is minimized.

Even in a physical game, it shouldn’t be difficult to differentiate basketball from wrestling.

“All these things bother you if you let them,” Finch said. “My problem with it right now is it feels out of context. It feels like it’s not the right type of physicality that we’re trying to integrate into our game. We’ll just have to keep working through it.”

If the NBA is even motivated to do so. Finch noted this is what the league seems to want. Though perhaps the NBA’s will may change as more star players miss marquee games because of seemingly preventable injuries. How games are officiated this weekend, and moving forward in these playoffs, will be telling.

“You play 82 games in a certain way and then they flip switch,” Finch said. “And I do worry about the ability to be able to control that.”

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