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Former NFL quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow held a workout in front of “roughly 25” Major League Baseball teams in Los Angeles on Tuesday, according to MLB Network’s Jon Morosi, and reviews of his performance were mixed.  

Participating in the workout as an outfielder, Tebow—who earned all-state honors playing baseball at Allen D. Nease High School in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida, according to the Washington Post‘s Marissa Payne—impressed with a 60-yard dash in the ballpark of 6.6-6.8 seconds.

Former MLB pitcher and ESPN broadcaster Dallas Braden relayed video of Tebow’s sprint: 

Morosi reported that the 60-yard dash was officially 6.65 seconds, which would make Tebow an “above-average runner” based on MLB scouting standards. 

However, other scouts in attendance didn’t come away as impressed, according to Bleacher Report’s Scott Miller:  

After showing off his speed, Tebow moved to the outfield—where he struggled a bit more on throws out of right field. 

According to Miller, one scout in attendance graded Tebow’s throwing a 40 on the scouting scale that ranges from 20-80, while another handed out a lackluster mark of 30. 

MLB on Twitter posted several photos of Tebow in action during the fielding portion of the program: 

The highlight of the afternoon, though, was Tebow’s performance at the plate.

Although he went just 1-for-5 with a single and walk against veteran pitcher Chad Smith, per Morosi, Tebow was able to rebound and finish with a rock-solid day at the dish. 

The former Florida Gators standout, who squared off against both Smith and David Aardsma, finished 8-for-19 with two doubles and three strikeouts. 

Tebow also mashed several pitches over the outfield wall during batting practice, as MLB on Twitter documented: 

Scout Media’s Taylor Blake Ward snapped a photo that displayed just how impressive Tebow’s power was: 

“I thought he was OK. Better than I expected, to be honest,” an anonymous MLB scout told USA Today‘s Josh Peter. “For not having played as long as he had, I thought he did OK. That’s a big dude, for as fast as he can run. The power was impressive, but I wish he could have translated it maybe a little better [against live pitching].”

As all of the scouts’ observations suggest, Tebow appeared a bit raw in certain phases of the game. Then again, that should have been expected since he hadn’t been on a diamond like he was Tuesday since turning his attention to football. 

But now that he’s completed his workout, Tebow can focus on fine-tuning his game as he continues to look for a shot in the big leagues. 

When asked whether or not the door was closed on football, Tebow replied, “oh yeah,” per Nate Davis of USA Today.

“I want to be someone to pursue what I believe in, what I’m passionate about,” Tebow said, according to ESPN.com’s Jerry Crasnick. “A lot of people will say, ‘But what if you fail? What if you don’t make it?’ Guess what, I don’t have to live with regret. I did everything I could. I pushed it.

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Fact: Albert Pujols hit his 586th career home run on Monday, tying Frank Robinson for ninth on the all-time list.

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There’s no official deadline for MLB teams to strike a trade through revocable waivers, but playoff contenders have until Wednesday to make a deal that can factor into the postseason.

Any player acquired after Aug. 31 is not eligible for his new club’s playoff roster, so a postseason hopeful must hurry if it foresees an acquisition producing in October. It’s not a far-fetched scenario, as Chase Utley and Addison Reed played postseason baseball for teams that traded for them last August.

If a player clears waivers, his team can bargain a deal with any other organization. If a franchise places a claim, that team holds exclusive negotiating rights. The player’s team can also pull the waived player back or let him go outright.

So far, little of note has happened past the non-waiver deadline. The Miami Marlins acquired Jeff Francoeur, the Washington Nationals landed Marc Rzepczynski and the Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers swapped veteran catchers Carlos Ruiz and A.J. Ellis.

None of these deals reshaped the playoff picture. It’s unlikely any blockbuster moves go down, but some notable names are floating around as possible trade candidates.

Here are some predictions for what will transpire before Wednesday’s cutoff for postseason eligibility.

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Yoenis Cespedes is just one guy on a 25-man roster, and he’s still feeling a quadriceps injury that put him on the disabled list Aug. 4. It’s not fair to expect him to carry the New York Mets to October.

But darn it, he’s going to try.

This has been apparent for the week-and-a-half that Cespedes has been off the DL, as he’s come back with his bat ablaze. In Monday’s 2-1 win over the Miami Marlins, a key foe in the National League wild-card race, Cespedes played the hero at Citi Field by slamming a walk-off home run in the 10th inning.

It was a classic Cespedes dinger, so the thing to do is drop your jaw now so as not to be caught off guard by how hard the ball was hit and how far it flew:

With that, Cespedes delivered the Mets’ seventh win in nine games. Their 67-64 record is tied with the Marlins at two-and-a-half games off the pace for the NL’s second wild card. They haven’t won anything yet, but this will do for a sign of life from a club that was under .500 as recently as Aug. 20.

Cue manager Terry Collins with the on-the-nose quote, as he told Anthony DiComo of MLB.com after the game: “Cespedes is one of those guys that people pay to see him play. He’s a special guy.”

More to the point, Cespedes is a special guy New York is paying $27.5 million precisely so he can do things like this. And he’s delivered. With a .949 OPS and 27 home runs, he’s just as good as he was in his 57 games (.942 OPS, 17 home runs) with the Mets last season.

And just as that stretch helped propel them to their first postseason since 2006, the veteran left fielder seems to be trying to do it all over again. After going a quiet 1-for-4 in his first game off the DL in San Francisco on Aug. 19, Cespedes has hit .406 with five home runs in eight games since.

These numbers don’t misrepresent how well he’s swinging the stick. We’re comparing a big sample size to a small one, but it is in the interest of what-the-heckery that we’ll turn to Baseball Savant for a look at Cespedes’ exit velocity before and after his DL stint:

• Before: 92.9 mph
• After: 96.2 mph

Put another way, Cespedes is on an exit-velocity binge that would make even Nelson Cruz or Giancarlo Stanton blush. To boot, that bolded figure doesn’t even include the rocket he hit to walk it off Monday night. That’ll only increase it, as Cespedes mashed that ball at roughly the speed of sound.

It’s all good for now, but the specter of the Mets plummeting back to mediocrity can’t be ignored. Things are set up to lean one way or another: Either Cespedes’ broad shoulders can bear the weight of the team, or the injury bug will swallow him and the rest of the squad whole.

The latter is a Godzilla-level clear and present danger. Cespedes is part of a lineup that won’t get David Wright or Lucas Duda back, and it’s also feeling nagging injuries to Asdrubal Cabrera and Neil Walker. Cespedes is among the walking wounded, as concern over his tender quad led Collins to sit him Sunday, when the Mets lost to the Philadelphia Phillies.

“Any time you have the expanded rosters, it helps you, it protects you, because you’re banged up,” Collins said, per DiComo. “But let me tell you something: If Yoenis Cespedes goes down, that’s an awful lot to ask for Brandon Nimmo or Michael Conforto to make up for him. If you don’t have your good players, your best players, and they don’t play good, it’s tough to replace them.”

Monday’s game offered a hint that Cespedes’ quad may render him just as likely to taketh away as giveth. The one run the Marlins scored came on a Xavier Scruggs double that Cespedes was unable to catch up with.

If Cespedes’ defense is compromised, that’s yet another hit to the Mets’ run prevention. With Matt Harvey gone for the season, Jon Niese on the DL and Steven Matz still working his way back from a shoulder problem, a once-heralded pitching staff has grown thin. Hence its 4.69 ERA in August.

So far, though, Cespedes’ hot bat is having a larger impact than his potentially compromised glove. And looking ahead, the Mets aren’t exactly tasked with tracking down the 1927 New York Yankees or, for that matter, the 2016 Chicago Cubs.

As expected, the struggle has been real for the Stanton-less Marlins. The Pittsburgh Pirates, who were a game-and-a-half ahead of the Mets as of this writing, are hot, but they’re facing depth issues reminiscent of what’s going on in Queens, New York. Leading the charge in the NL wild-card race are the San Francisco Giants, who have been terrible since the All-Star break, and the St. Louis Cardinals, who are seemingly immune to any kind of consistency.

This is a winnable race for any of the teams involved. And while it’s not the same as saying it’s the favorite in the bunch, any team with a hot Cespedes is a team with a chance.

Stats courtesy of Baseball-Reference.com and FanGraphs unless otherwise noted/linked.

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Fact: Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson hit three homers against the Minnesota Twins on Sunday. It was the 2015 American League MVP’s first career three-homer game. 

Bleacher Report will be bringing sports fans the most interesting and engaging Cold Hard Fact of the day, presented by Coors Light.

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Boston Red Sox designated hitter David Ortiz moved up another notch on the all-time home run list in Sunday’s 10-4 loss to the Kansas City Royals, joining former Red Sox slugger Jimmie Foxx in a tie for 18th place at 534 career home runs, per ESPN Stats & Info.

The 40-year-old smacked a 420-foot solo shot to center field off Royals pitcher Yordano Ventura in the fourth inning, cutting an early lead to 2-1 in a game Kansas City would eventually run away with.

Held hitless in his other three at-bats, Ortiz grounded into a pair of double plays that killed rallies in the first and fifth innings.

The aging slugger has recovered nicely from an early-August slump, though, now boasting a .314 batting average, six home runs and 16 RBI in 26 games this month.

Interestingly enough, Ortiz and Foxx are both ahead of Ted Williams (521) on the all-time home runs list, but it’s the latter who owns the franchise record, as Ortiz and Foxx both hit some of their long balls for other teams.

Ortiz, who plans to retire after this season, is second on the franchise list with 476 homers, followed by Carl Yastrzemski (452) in third place, with Foxx (222) all the way down in ninth place.

Though remembered just as well for his seven years in Boston, Foxx hit more home runs (302) in his 11 seasons as a member of the Philadelphia Athletics.

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The push for the MLB playoffs is now in full swing with roughly five weeks remaining in the regular season.

Whether a team is contending for a postseason spot or looking to play spoiler while evaluating its young talent, the month of September is always an exciting one.

For the first time in several weeks, we have a new team inside the top five of our MLB power rankings, as two of the league’s elite posted 2-5 records this past week to open the door for the Los Angeles Dodgers to climb.

The Houston Astros and Kansas City Royals also stayed hot to move inside the top 10, while the Miami Marlins, Seattle Mariners and St. Louis Cardinals all ran into trouble with a pair of series losses.

At the bottom of the rankings, a winless week by the Minnesota Twins leaves them just 1.5 games up on the Atlanta Braves and within striking distance of claiming the No. 1 pick next June if they continue to struggle.

As always, one thing remains true: These rankings are a fluid process as teams move up or down based on where they ranked the previous week. If a club keeps winning, it will keep climbing—it’s as simple as that.

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Kansas City Royals catcher Salvador Perez hit his 20th home run of the season in Sunday’s 10-4 win over the Boston Red Sox, becoming the first player in Royals history to record multiple 20-homer seasons while primarily playing behind the plate, per ESPN Stats & Info.

Perez’s milestone blast came in the second inning of Sunday’s game, with the 26-year-old backstop taking Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez over the Green Monster to give the Royals an early 1-0 lead.

Although the lead widened to 2-0 by the end of the frame, the Red Sox bounced back with four runs between the fourth and fifth innings before an eight-run sixth inning by the Royals eventually quieted them.

Perez also contributed to the massive inning, drawing a walk to load the bases with nobody out while the Royals were still trailing by two runs.

Already one of the top catchers in franchise history, Perez is on pace to best last season’s career-high mark of 21 home runs, though his 58 RBI still leave him 21 short of his career-best total (79 in 2013) in that category.

The added power has come with a bit of a trade-off, as Perez already has a career-high 101 strikeouts, shedding his reputation as a low-strikeout, low-walk batter who mostly puts the ball in play.

The end result has been just fine, with Perez’s current .759 OPS representing the best mark he’s recorded in a full season.

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The San Francisco Giants accomplished a rare feat in Sunday’s 13-4 win over the Atlanta Braves, joining the Cleveland Indians as the only teams to record three triples in an inning this season, per ESPN Stats & Info.

Sunday’s outburst occurred during an eight-run seventh inning, with shortstop Brandon Crawford and outfielders Jarrett Parker and Conor Gillaspie each contributing three-baggers.

San Francisco finished the inning with seven hits, three walks and a hit batsman, highlighted by Parker’s two-run triple, Eduardo Nunez’s solo home run and Gorkys Hernandez’s two-run double.

The massive rally turned a 5-3 lead into a 13-3 rout, though the Braves did bounce back with a lone run later on.

The Giants finished the game with four triples, as first baseman Brandon Belt smacked his seventh of the season earlier in the contest, helping the Giants take an early 2-1 lead in the second inning.

San Francisco has the second-most triples (45) of any team this season, joined in the top three by a pair of National League West rivals—the Arizona Diamondbacks (50) and Colorado Rockies (36).

It’s probably not a coincidence that the division has seen so many triples this season, as every team besides Arizona has a spacious ballpark that can turn some doubles into three-baggers.

The Diamondbacks have the advantage of speed, ranking fourth in the majors in stolen bases (108), whereas the Giants are 14th (65) and the Rockies 18th (55).

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Toronto Blue Jays third baseman Josh Donaldson recorded the first three-homer game of his career in Sunday’s 9-6 win over the Minnesota Twins, becoming the 16th player in franchise history to go deep three times in a single game, per Sportsnet Stats.

Ten of those 16 players have accomplished the feat in a home game, with Donaldson joined by Edwin Encarnacion, John Buck, Frank Thomas, Vernon Wells, Carlos Delgado, Chris Woodward, Joe Carter, Ernie Whitt and Otto Velez, per Sportsnet Stats.

While most of those players enjoyed extended stints hitting in the middle of Toronto’s lineup, Woodward never reached 400 plate appearances in his 12 big league seasons, and Buck only played one season (2010) with the Jays, though it did end up as the finest campaign (20 homers) of his 11-year career.

It’s a bit surprising that it took so long for Donaldson to homer three times in a game, as the 2015 American League MVP has gone deep at least 24 times in each of the last three seasons, topping out at 41 last year.

He has a reasonable shot to set a new career-best mark, currently boasting 33 home runs with 32 games remaining on Toronto’s schedule.

At the very least, Donaldson is right in the middle of the MVP conversation, ranking first in the AL in runs (105), fourth in home runs and sixth in RBI (91), supplemented by a .294 batting average, .407 on-base percentage and .578 slugging percentage.

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