Good Morning! Here’s what happened in the world of sports on Wednesday, April 9th.

MLB

Before we get to the walk-offs, a quick shoutout to two excellent starting pitchers. Max Fried threw seven shutout innings and struck out 11, outdueling his high school teammate Jack Flaherty and leading the Yankees to a 4-3 win over Detroit. Later on, Kevin Gausman threw eight scoreless innings and struck out ten as the Blue Jays defeated Boston 2-1. Now it’s time for some late-inning heroics…

• First, Randy Arozarena hit a game-tying grand slam in the eighth inning. Then, he came up to bat with the bases loaded again in the ninth and drew a walk-off walk! The Mariners beat the Astros 7-6.

• After an exciting game that saw San Fransisco rally from 6-1 down, the Giants were tied with the Reds in the bottom of the tenth. That set the stage for Mike Yastrzemski, who sent a long one out into McCovey Cove for a splashdown walk-off homer.

• The strangest game of the day was between the Cardinals and Pirates. Neither team scored a run until the 12th inning, plus each team had runners thrown out at home plate, including this exceptional display of baseball fundamentals that you have to watch multiple times to understand. Finally, mercifully, the contest ended with Joey Bart’s walk-off single in the 13th. The Pirates won 2-1.

• Last but not least… wait, that’s Harrison Barnes! Is this a basketball highlight? The Spurs forward hit a walk-off, buzzer-beater three against his former team as San Antonio shocked the Warriors 114-11:

NBA

Last night, Luka Doncic played his first game in Dallas as a member of the Los Angeles Lakers. Take a look at how he was welcomed by the fans:

The superstar guard was in tears as he was introduced. As he said afterwards, “I don’t know how I did it. Because when I was watching that video, I was like, ‘There’s no way I’m playing this game.’” But not only did Luka play, he was exceptional, scoring 45 points with eight rebounds, six assists, and four steals. LA beat Dallas 112-97, and to cap off an emotional evening, the Lakers officially clinched a playoff spot.

NHL

Five hockey games were played last night, with an incredible total of 49 goals scored! Four different players scored hat tricks, three games went to overtime, and one goalie punched an opposing team’s forward. But there was one game that stood out more than all the others…

Marc-Andre Fleury started what may be his final home game for the Minnesota Wild, as the legendary goalie will retire at the end of this season. This will not be remembered as one of Fleury’s better performances– the Wild led 2-1 in the second period before San Jose Sharks rookie Macklin Celebrini scored. Celebrini, born three years after Fleury made his NHL debut, finished the game with his first career hat trick. Down 7-6 with less than a minute remaining, the Sharks tied the game and sent this high-scoring affair to overtime. But Kirill Kiprizov managed to bury the game-winner and secure Fleury and the Wild an 8-7 victory. Joel Eriksson Ek was the star of the game with four goals. I told you this was a crazy one!

NOTEWORTHY NEWS

LeBron James became the first male professional athlete to be named a “Kenbassador.” That’s right, there is now a Barbie version of LeBron. I don’t see a Michael Jordan doll anyway, do you?

Officially, the Masters begins today at Augusta National. However, the beauty and special nature that envelopes the first major of the year has already taken root. Take a look at what may be the shot of the tournament, courtesy of Rory McIlroy’s daughter Poppy:

TODAY’S BIG GAMES (all times Eastern)

NBA:

• Cavaliers @ Pacers, 7 PM on TNT/Max

• Timberwolves @ Grizzlies, 9:30 PM on TNT/Max

THE MASTERS: Round One, streaming on The Masters app/TheMasters.com and live on ESPN from 3-7:30 PM

Time for a choose-your-own-adventure! How do you want to approach the challenges that today might bring?

"I did not have high expectations. I knew I'm going to have a tough opponent, and I knew I'm going to probably play pretty bad. But this bad, I didn't expect. I was hoping it was not going to happen, but it was quite a high probability I'm going to play this way. ... A horrible feeling to play this way. Just sorry for all the people that have to witness this," –current number five tennis player in the world Novak Djokovic, after losing his first round match in Monte Carlo

That’s one option… or you can be like this fan at the Red Sox game: