Sri Lanka's less-heralded players helped ease through the side's first test in the UK, as they beat Scotland by 35 runs via the DLS method.

Opener Avishka Fernando, who had had a poor tour of South Africa earlier this year, produced 74 off 78 balls, while Dimuth Karunaratne, on ODI captaincy debut, made 77 off 88. The pair put on 123 runs for the first wicket. Kusal Mendis also contributed 66 off 56 balls through the middle overs, but it was bowler Nuwan Pradeep who impressed most of all, taking 4 for 34 in the rain-shortened second innings.

For Karunaratne, the match was not only a test of his leadership, but also an examination of his batting. Having not played ODIs since the 2015 World Cup, there have been doubts over whether he could score quickly enough in this format. He was dropped twice before eventually being caught at long-on, but in making a half-century, and providing the middle order with a good platform, Karunaratne suggested he was not completely out of place in ODIs.

"Playing an international one-dayer after such a long time is not easy," Karunaratne said afterwards. "I was under pressure early on and was struggling a little bit. But once I got set and thought about how to play - which bowlers I should target - I felt better. Fortunately, I got a couple of chances. But thanks to the runs I got, I got some confidence.

"Avishka was excellent as well. We know how capable he is. He can hit hard and rotate the strike as well. We talked to him about what we needed from him. Unfortunately, he couldn't get a hundred, but I think he can get a big hundred in the World Cup."

Sri Lanka made 322 for 8 in their 50 overs, but had seemed set for a score of over 350 at one point, before they experienced a serious middle-overs stutter. Having been 203 for 1 at the end of the 33rd over, Sri Lanka mustered only 19 more runs in the next seven overs, as they lost three quick wickets. While that slowdown was not ideal, it was important that Mendis and Lahiru Thirimanne stabilise the innings at that stage, Karunaratne said. Sri Lanka later made 99 runs in the final ten overs.

"We planned to bat out 50 overs, so when we were struggling in the 33rd over - we had lost a couple of wickets, in Angelo Mathews and Thisara Perera - we were trying to make sure we batted long. Kusal Mendis was playing well, and Lahiru Thirimanne went in and did a good job. When you have wickets in hand, you can go for it at the end. We were struggling through that period, but we rotated the strike, and in the last ten overs we went for our big shots."

Although they had a substantial score to defend, the arrival of rain partway through Scotland's innings had complicated the task of Sri Lanka's bowlers, who were visibly struggling to grip the ball. Pradeep, though, was able to maintain excellent control, and was rewarded with the Player of the Match award for his returns.

"When Scotland were going quite well, I spoke to Nuwan Pradeep and asked him to try a couple of bouncers," Karunaratne said. "He did that really well and we were able to squeeze them through that middle period. It's not easy to bowl yorkers, especially with the ball getting wet because of the rain. If you don't execute it well it will go for a six. But Pradeep knows how he has to bowl, and he went for the straight yorker. I hope he takes that confidence into the World Cup."

Chris Gayle believes opponents are still scared of him, but the 39-year-old West Indian opening batsman admits that it's no longer as easy playing against youngsters as it used to be. Gayle, who is set to play his fifth - and last - World Cup, has been a part of the tournament each time it has been held since his ODI debut in September 1999.

"Youngsters coming at my head - it's not as easy as it was like one time before," Gayle told cricket.com.au on the eve of West Indies' unofficial warm-up match against Australia. "I was quicker then. But they'll be wary. They know what the Universe Boss is capable of. I'm sure they will have it in the back of their mind, 'Hey, this is the most dangerous batsman they've ever seen in cricket'.

"Go ask them on camera. They're going to say, no, they're not scared. But you ask them off the camera, they going to say, 'Yeah, he's the man. He's the man'. They're going to say, 'he's the man'.

"But I'm enjoying it. I'm always enjoying the battle against fast bowlers, it's good. Sometimes those things actually give you extra drive as a batter. When you have a battle, I like those challenges."

"I just have to monitor it as much as possible and just get the mindset right"

Gayle hinted at 'unretirement' just ten days after he had announced his retirement following his strong form in the home series against England earlier this year. He had blasted 424 runs at an average of 106, including 39 sixes, in four matches and also brought up his second-highest ODI score, on the way to leading West Indies to their highest total in the format.

Prior to that, he had not played an ODI for 30 months after West Indies' quarter-final exit from the 2015 World Cup, and while it seemed like his ODI career was heading towards an end, he returned to the West Indies squad in September 2017 ahead of the 2018 World Cup qualifiers. With qualification sealed, he featured regularly in the format and has been in great form since then, making 930 runs in 19 innings. He is also by far the most experienced player in West Indies' World Cup squad, and has 10,151 runs from 289 ODIs.

He believes that it's his passion and that of his fans that has been driving him to deliver.

"It's the love for the game," he said at a press interaction. "But sometimes sportsmen don't know when to walk away. You might think you're still at your peak but eventually, you have to leave the game at some point. But enjoying is important. I'm enjoying it and having fun. Especially with a great group of guys.

"All this is going to play a key part for me as an individual. These guys spur you on and the fans are always asking you for sixes and those sort of things give you the extra drive. There's nothing to go and prove."

Coming off an average run of form in the IPL, where he made 490 runs in 13 matches for Kings XI Punjab, Gayle stressed on the importance of game-time and a positive mindset ahead of the big tournament.

"I am still in good nick," he said. "I had a not-so-bad IPL, coming after the home series against England. The good thing about it is I've been playing cricket. It's important for me to keep playing and get some games under my belt and come here to the UK and start with a few warm-up games to see where you are at.

"It's a long tournament. For me, personally, I just have to monitor it as much as possible and just get the mindset right."

ST. LOUIS -- The streamers fell from the ceiling and the fans sang along with "Gloria," the 1980s pop classic repurposed as the St. Louis Blues' official victory song, as it blared from the speakers in Enterprise Center.

The Blues' 5-1 victory Tuesday night in Game 6 of the Western Conference finals to eliminate the San Jose Sharks felt as inevitable as it felt improbable just over five months ago, when St. Louis had the fewest points in the standings of any team in the NHL.

Now, the Blues are four wins away from hoisting the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.

"I don't understand yet," winger Vladimir Tarasenko said after the win, which sent the Blues to face the Boston Bruins in the first Stanley Cup Final for St. Louis since 1970. "It feels a little weird. It seems like this year took forever. A lot of emotions. Negative from the start, positive in the end. I'm proud of every person here for what we achieved today."

As late as Jan. 2, the Blues were in last place overall in the NHL. They had fired their coach, Mike Yeo, elevating AHL coach Craig Berube to the job on an interim basis. Adversity had struck. The Blues chose the right path to respond, building their trust and chemistry until the victories started to arrive in bunches, including an 11-game winning streak that got them back into playoff contention.

Only four teams in the expansion era have reached the Final after ranking among the bottom three in the standings at any point following their 20th game: the 1967-68 Montreal Canadiens, 1967-68 Blues, 1990-91 Minnesota North Stars and 2009-10 Philadelphia Flyers. The Canadiens, it should be said, are the only one of those clubs to win the Stanley Cup.

"We stuck together, we kept believing in each other," Blues captain Alex Pietrangelo said after eliminating the Sharks. "We had some good, hard, honest conversations, and we all knew we needed to be better from top down. We looked each other in the eye, we looked in the mirror and we did that. A lot of people doubted us this year, but this group was resilient; and I really am proud of the guys because as hard as it is, it's been fun to look back and see where we are now."

Where the Blues are now, frankly, wouldn't have been attainable without the remarkable play of their rookie goaltender, Jordan Binnington, who allowed only two goals to the Sharks in the final three games of their series. The 25-year-old is a finalist for the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year, and he backstopped the Blues to the Final.

"We're confident in him, but he's confident in himself. That's what we want. We wouldn't be in this position if it wasn't for him," St. Louis center Ryan O'Reilly said.

Was Game 6 lost for the Sharks before it even started? They entered their most important game of the season with Tomas Hertl and Erik Karlsson back in San Jose, California, nursing injuries after leaving Game 5 following the second period. Captain Joe Pavelski skated one shift in the third period of that game before leaving as well. Pavelski traveled with the Sharks and was a game-time decision for Game 6, but it ultimately was decided he was too injured to play.

All of this proved insurmountable against a Blues team that was peaking.

The final turning point in Game 6 came when San Jose's Logan Couture, the playoffs' leading scorer, had a chance to tie the game with a loose puck in Binnington's crease. But Colton Parayko saved a goal by blocking a tip-in and sweeping it out of danger. Just 31 second later, Sharks defenseman Justin Braun went to the penalty box for hooking. One minute, 50 seconds after that, Brayden Schenn scored the Blues' second power-play goal for a 3-1 lead.

The dagger arrived from St. Louis center Tyler Bozak, whose shot deflected off of Gustav Nyquist and behind Martin Jones for a 4-1 lead with just under seven minutes remaining.

Which is to say that the Blues closed out the game. This was the lesson learned from their most recent battle with adversity: Game 3 of these conference finals, when a hand pass missed by all four officials led to a winning goal by Karlsson.

"I'll go back to that Game 3. We should've closed that game out. And it should've never gotten to that point. But things happen, and that's a good hockey team over there. They battled, and we stayed with it. And we played some really good hockey after that," Berube said.

It was the same crossroads they stared at back in January: Either feel sorry about your lot in life or do something positive about it.

"My feeling was that if we were going to win the next game, we were going to win the series," Blues forward David Perron said of Game 3, "because we took [the high] road. I'm just glad we approached it that way. I think we reacted different to that, and that's how we found success at the end."

It's not quite the end. The Bruins -- and former Blues captain David Backes, for added drama -- are next. It'll be a physical series. It'll be an intense series.

Game 1 is Monday night in Boston.

"I'm really proud of the team and how far we go, but there's still one more opponent to beat," Tarasenko said, before considering the moment again. "It feels unbelievable. I'm not going to lie."

TORONTO -- Fred VanVleet broke out in a huge way Tuesday night, scoring 13 points off the bench to help lead a balanced scoring attack for the Toronto Raptors, as they blew out the Milwaukee Bucks 120-102 in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals.

The performance, which helped even the best-of-seven series at 2-2, continued a week full of highs for VanVleet.

On Sunday, he helped the Raptors survive a double-overtime thriller to beat the Bucks in Game 3.

On Monday, VanVleet found himself flying to his hometown of Rockford, Illinois, for the birth of his second child, Fred Jr.

While he was flying back to Toronto again Tuesday morning to play in Game 4, he had time to reflect on being in the midst of the worst shooting slump of his playoff career.

"It makes you tired," VanVleet, smiling, said of welcoming a second child. "It gives you a little perspective, I guess, on life. I had a lot of time to think. Had to sit at the hospital all day, had a lot of time to think, obviously a plane ride back.

"It just changes the way you're looking at things. You are not so down on yourself about everything."

As it turned out, for both VanVleet and the Raptors, that time alone with his thoughts was just what the doctor ordered.

VanVleet had struggled since the start of the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Philadelphia 76ers, shooting 7-of-44 overall and 3-of-25 from 3-point range entering Tuesday.

On Tuesday night, he shot 5-of-6 from the field and 3-for-3 from deep -- including, somehow, banking one in.

"I think he needed it," Raptors guard Kyle Lowry said. "I think those type of things kind of relaxed him a little bit.

"He needed one of those games. You know what he needed? That banked 3 to go in. Stuff like that. Just get in some type of rhythm. He played well and made some great plays tonight.

"Sometimes it's just one or two shots where something happens. It's all mental sometimes."

The same could be said for the Raptors as a whole throughout these playoffs. VanVleet's struggles might have been the most notable, but he was far from the only one who couldn't buy a basket for much of the past two series.

Tuesday night, though, the dam finally broke.

After being bludgeoned by Milwaukee's bench for most of the first three games, Toronto's bench trio of VanVleet, Norman Powell and Serge Ibaka combined to score 48 points and shoot 18-for-36 from the floor. Milwaukee's main bench players -- George Hill, Ersan Ilyasova, Malcolm Brogdon and Pat Connaughton -- combined to go 7-for-22 overall and 2-for-8 from 3.

The Raptors couldn't have asked for a better time for this kind of game to happen, either, with the two players who expended the most energy in Sunday's double-overtime win, Kawhi Leonard and Pascal Siakam, both looking worse for the wear because of it.

"It was big time," Leonard said of the balanced production across the roster. "Everybody contributed tonight, knocking down shots, playing great defense."

For a second consecutive game, much attention was paid to Leonard occasionally coming up limping throughout the proceedings. After looking hobbled early in Game 3 yet finding a way to gut himself through 52 grueling minutes, the most obvious moment in Game 4 came when Leonard completed a dunk and was fouled by Giannis Antetokounmpo in the third quarter.

Leonard came down with his full weight on his right leg and looked to be in pain. But, like in Game 3, he stayed in the game and refused afterward to say he was in pain.

"Feel good," said Leonard, who finished with 19 points on 6-for-13 shooting in 34 minutes. "Keep going, keep fighting. We have a chance to make history."

Asked if the minutes from Game 3 caught up with him in Game 4, Leonard passed on answering.

"There's no excuses," he said. "You're playing basketball. We got a win tonight."

For so much of these playoffs, the Raptors have been getting wins because of Leonard's heroics. That was the case in both of the previous two games Toronto had played here at Scotiabank Arena -- in Game 7 against the Sixers, in which he hit a classic game winner, and in Sunday's Game 3, when he played through those career-high 52 minutes.

This time, though, the Raptors picked things up on his behalf. And, because they did, this series heads back to Milwaukee as a toss-up.

"We know," VanVleet said. "We know we have to be better. We see all the stuff. We understand what the narrative has turned into, that it is kind of 'Kawhi Leonard and The Backup Singers.'

"We understand that. Sometimes it has been like that, and there's other stuff that goes into that. There's give and take there. But we have to do the same s--- today again in Game 5."

If they do, the next time the Raptors play in this arena, in Game 6 on Saturday night, they could have a chance to make the NBA Finals for the first time in franchise history.

TORONTO -- The extra shots were supposed to help.

Giannis Antetokounmpo, Eric Bledsoe and Khris Middleton were the last people on the Scotiabank Arena court at morning shootaround Tuesday. The trio evaded the throng of journalists that had descended at center court, and instead shot extra free throws and put up a few more 3-pointers.

After shooting a combined 23 percent in Game 3, the three players were determined to play better than they had Sunday, and that meant squeezing in some extra repetitions.

Some improvements were made -- Antetokounmpo finished with 25 points, 13 more than he had in Game 3 -- but it wasn't enough. The Milwaukee Bucks dropped Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals to the Toronto Raptors 120-102, only the second time this season they have lost back-to-back games.

The series now heads back to Milwaukee tied at two games apiece.

"We just came out flat in the third quarter," Antetokounmpo said. "It's something we can get better at -- something we can fix."

The Bucks were down by just one point at the half, but then the game quickly unraveled for Milwaukee.

The shooting issues that have plagued Bledsoe all postseason continued in Game 4. Through the first two rounds of the playoffs this year, Bledsoe averaged 16 points. Against the Raptors in the conference finals, though, he is averaging 8.3 points.

"For Bled, it's just making sure he understands we wouldn't be here without him," Pat Connaughton told ESPN. "Everybody gets frustrated with themselves when they are not playing well because they feel like they are letting the team down. He wants to play well for his teammates."

Bledsoe finished with only five points on 2-of-7 shooting. He was 0-for-2 from 3-point range and played only 20 minutes, five less than any other starter. He hustled out of the locker room before most of his teammates had even begun showering. On his way to the bus, he shrugged off questions and assured bystanders he would be all right.

The Bucks' system is built to withstand an individual player's shooting slump, but Bledsoe is frustrated with just how long he has struggled to find the basket. According to Second Spectrum tracking, Bledsoe is shooting just 27 percent on his jump shots this postseason, the worst among all players with at least 50 attempts.

"I tell him just forget about it," Middleton told ESPN. "That's the only way you can play better, is if you stop thinking about it so much."

Malcolm Brogdon wobbled, too. He shot just 2-of-11 and finished with four points. Before Tuesday, Brogdon hadn't scored fewer than 14 points all series.

"A plethora of things went wrong," Connaughton said. "We weren't able to withstand adversity the way we normally do."

The Bucks' locker room after the game was eerily silent. Players didn't speak to one another -- not even in a whisper. The loudest sound was the whirring ceiling fan and Antetokounmpo's cellphone alarm notifying him it was time to take off his ice bags.

"The series is two to two," Middleton said. "It's not the end of the world. I know Game 5 is going to be a dog fight."

TORONTO -- In the parlance of the Toronto Raptors, it's called "Drive-Kick-Swing." Though it's a mainstay in the Raptors' playlist of practice drills, Drive-Kick-Swing was on full display under the bright lights of Scotiabank Arena in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals on Tuesday night.

In the third quarter, Kawhi Leonard was at the controls, the "Drive" in Drive-Kick-Swing. Leonard was being influenced to drive left -- as he has been all series by Milwaukee Bucks defenders -- by guard Malcolm Brogdon. Leonard obliged and, as has also been the case this series, encountered two additional defenders as he reached the paint.

Hounded by multiple bodies after picking up his dribble, here comes the "Kick": Leonard passed the ball out to Fred VanVleet out on the left wing beyond the arc. With so many defensive resources committed to Leonard, Bucks guard George Hill had to account on the left side of the floor for both VanVleet and his teammate, Norman Powell, alone in the corner.

Finally, the "Swing." As Hill closed on VanVleet, the Raptors' backup point guard dished the ball to Powell. Of Powell's team-leading 18 field goal attempts in Game 4, this shot was the most delectable -- open corner 3-pointers are the mother's milk of NBA basketball in 2019. Powell drained it to put the Raptors up 10 points.

The lead would never again narrow to single digits, as the Raptors received massive contributions from their full complement of players to pull away to a 120-102 victory, and even the series at 2-2.

"Kawhi is going to get attention all the time, no matter what," Raptors point guard Kyle Lowry told ESPN. "It's the Kawhi effect."

The privilege of having a transcendent superstar like Leonard isn't just the gift of the singular performance that wins a game, though Leonard has done plenty of that over the past six weeks of the postseason. The team also enjoys the ability to leverage a defense like Milwaukee's that devotes its full weight and diligence to stopping Leonard.

"He's going to carry us some games -- he's a superstar," Lowry said. "But then you have nights like tonight when he just let everyone else do their thing and he doesn't have to carry as much. In the first quarter, he didn't touch the ball all that much. But we attacked and moved the ball off the attention he attracted."

Easing Leonard's load was imperative for Toronto because the three-time All-Star came in still gassed from Game 3. Though there has been no specific diagnosis and Leonard insists he feels good, Raptors coach Nick Nurse characterized his best player as "tired," and Lowry said he was "a little bit limited." Leonard's 19 points were his lowest output since Game 3 of the Raptors' first-round series against Orlando, a night he was under the weather.

The Bucks' top-ranked defense has established and refined its principles over the course of the regular season and playoffs. While Milwaukee has introduced a tweak or two against specific matchups, its broad strategy hasn't changed. The Bucks are fully committed to packing the paint to ward off penetration and prevent easy shots inside. Help will be dispatched from marginal and even some average shooters, which will leave some open shots on the perimeter. So long as the integrity of the interior defense isn't compromised, this is a trade-off Milwaukee is content to live with.

Accordingly, Raptors center Marc Gasol shot the ball from beyond the arc six times in Game 4 (converting three), and Powell attempted 13 3-pointers. In total, the Raptors have attempted 40 uncontested shots over the past two games, according to Second Spectrum tracking, and converted them at an effective field goal percentage of 61.3. Over the first two games in Milwaukee, they also found 40 uncontested shots -- but hit them at an effective field goal rate of only 47.5 percent.

"With Kawhi having the ball, he draws so much attention," Powell said. "So it's opening up a lot for us on the weak side. We're just trying to play through him a little bit, play through Marc. I think Marc did a phenomenal job of breaking down the defenses when he had the ball up top on cuts, on screens. I think we're just playing for one another. Everybody is talking on what we see and how we can get better looks and try to get a shot up every time. We're staying confident in one another."

Gasol led the team in assists Tuesday night, an important indicator the Raptors have reclaimed their identity as a high-IQ outfit that can generate shots creatively at multiple spots on the floor. Gasol was a master at the top of the floor, leading Leonard into the lane with a little drop pass for an easy bucket after Khris Middleton denied the pass out on the perimeter. Gasol and Leonard paired up again about a minute later with a heady backdoor sequence when Middelton again got caught on the high side.

When the Raptors fail to hit open shots as they've done so frequently over the past few weeks against Philadelphia and Milwaukee, it's easy to forget about the collective intelligence of the outfit. But Leonard, Gasol and Lowry conducted an honors class in basketball IQ in Game 4. Lowry led the team with 25 points, including a 10-for-10 night at the free throw line, the product of some heavy manufacturing -- turning broken possessions into meaningful points by simply drawing contact against a destabilized defense.

Both VanVleet and Serge Ibaka have struggled through long stretches of the postseason, but each thrived in his role in Game 4. VanVleet posted a perfect 3-for-3 from long range to score 13 points and dished out six assists in 25 minutes. Meanwhile, Nurse gave his backup big man Ibaka a directive to go out and wield his athleticism as a blunt object. Ibaka responded by helping Toronto accomplish something it rarely has in the playoffs: control the glass. Through three quarters, the Raptors collected 31 percent of their misses, a big number that helped them control possession and wear down Milwaukee.

For the Bucks, the bludgeoning at the hands of the Raptors was a stark reminder that good opponents have problem-solving capacity. While the Bucks' defensive schemes are certainly well-drawn, they have to be executed with more precision and greater discernment. Not all help is created equal -- it must be prompt and occasionally selective.

As dynamic as the Bucks are offensively, they can ill-afford to squander possessions on the road with poor decisions against a strong defensive team. Whether it's Middleton fouling 75 feet away from the basket with less than three seconds left before halftime in a heave situation, or Giannis Antetokounmpo launching off-the-dribble jumpers from 21 feet out of sheer impulse, the Bucks don't have half-dozen possessions to spare, not on a night when Brogdon couldn't find his shot, when Eric Bledsoe was again an offensive cipher.

Yet the Bucks are resolute. They believe in their schemes, their mode of preparation and the philosophy that guides their systems. After the game, Antetokounmpo rejected the notion the Bucks' failures in Games 3 and 4 demanded adjustments.

"We're just going to keep doing the same thing," Antetokounmpo said. "We want the other guys to take shots. We've got to keep being aggressive defensively on Kawhi, try to limit his shots. But at the end of the day, if guys come off the bench and they knock down shots, we've got to live with it, we're doing our job."

The Raptors clawed back into the series on faith in probabilities and personnel. Milwaukee will be equally steadfast in its belief. Such is the NBA's deep postseason, when elite teams know and like who they are, and are willing live and die on those identities.

DETROIT -- Ron Gardenhire was ejected from the Detroit Tigers' game against the Miami Marlins on Tuesday night after the Tigers' manager came out to argue following a replay reversal in the bottom of the ninth inning.

With men on first and third and one out, Detroit's Ronny Rodriguez lifted a fly ball to deep left field. Harold Ramirez appeared to drop it, and a run came home, tying the score at 4-4. But replays showed Ramirez had the ball briefly in his glove before losing control as he tried to transfer it to his throwing hand.

The call was overturned and the batter was ruled out -- although the run still counted. Gardenhire came out to argue with third base umpire Fieldin Culbreth, and although Culbreth didn't make a demonstrative ejection motion, Gardenhire disappeared from view in the dugout, and the Tigers eventually confirmed he'd been tossed.

"Obviously the umpire didn't think he had control. Then we go out and they appealed it, and New York said that somehow he did have control,'' Detroit bench coach Steve Liddle said. "I think that's one of those instances where slow motion can hurt you a little bit, and it looked like it came back to bite us there.''

The Marlins won 5-4 in 11 innings.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Nineteen-year-old pitcher Carter Stewart is in agreement with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of the Japanese Pacific League on a six-year contract worth more than $7 million, a groundbreaking deal that could have long-term ramifications for Major League Baseball's amateur and professional sides, sources told ESPN.

Stewart, who was chosen by the Atlanta Braves with the eighth pick in the 2018 draft out of a Florida high school but did not sign after they reduced their signing-bonus offer due to an alleged injury, was expected to be chosen in the early second round of this June's draft. By signing with Fukuoka, which has won four of the past five Japan Series, Stewart would guarantee himself significantly more money than he would have made with a major league organization -- and could theoretically join the major leagues as a 25-year-old free agent.

The deal, first reported by The Athletic, is expected to be finalized at the end of the month, according to sources. The 6-foot-6 Stewart, whose fastball sits in the mid-90s and curveball has spun at an elite 3,000 RPMs, would be the first American amateur to join a Japanese team on a long-term deal. Unlike Brandon Jennings and other basketball players who have avoided the NBA's early-entry rule by taking a gap year abroad, Stewart would be committed to the Hawks through the cusp of his 25th birthday.

The contract includes escalators that could take it beyond the $7 million-plus guaranteed. Had he opted to stay in the United States, Stewart likely would have received a bonus of less than $2 million and made even less over the next six years, barring a rapid ascent to the major leagues.

The secondary benefit for Stewart could be even more lucrative: International free agents 25 or older can sign with any major league team without restrictions, so long as their Japanese team enters them into the posting system. Were Stewart to play in Japan for the next six years, sources told ESPN, he would be considered, under the present rules, an international free agent eligible for posting.

Although the limit of four foreign players per Japanese team could stem an influx of American players, elite amateur talent could begin to use the prospect of going to Japan -- not just for the greater guarantee in money but the earlier access to free agency -- as a cudgel in negotiations.

Stewart's agent, Scott Boras, has long tried to use the prospect of taking an amateur player to Japan for leverage purposes. Never until Stewart had one come close to agreeing to a deal. Boras, who has exploited multiple draft loopholes in the past, opted for a 7,500-mile end-around with Stewart.

Stewart is in Japan now and is expected to join a minor league affiliate of the Hawks upon the completion of his deal. At Eastern Florida State College, the junior college where he pitched this spring, Stewart went 2-2 with a 1.70 ERA in 74 1/3 innings and struck out 108.

For years, opponents of Major League Baseball's draft who believed it stifled the true value of players have hypothesized about ways to avoid its constraints. Nineteen-year-old Carter Stewart is ready to test the viability of an alternative -- and travel more than 7,500 miles from his Florida home to do it.

Stewart is in agreement on a six-year contract worth more than $7 million with the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks of Japan's Pacific League, sources familiar with the deal told ESPN. Stewart was the No. 8 overall pick in last year's MLB draft but didn't sign after the Atlanta Braves, who believed he was injured, offered him a signing bonus well under the $4.98 million slot value of the pick -- around $2 million. Stewart went to junior college instead and was expected to go early in the second round of this year's draft -- and receive an offer of less than $2 million.

Instead, he agreed to a groundbreaking contract with the Hawks, who have won four of the past five Japan Series. Stewart is expected to finalize the deal by the end of May. Not only does Stewart stand to make more money during his six years in Japan than he would have with an MLB organization, he could potentially return to the United States as a 25-year-old free agent allowed to sign a long-term contract with any of MLB's 30 teams.

Certainly that is a long way from today, when Stewart is a raw right-handed pitcher with a mid-90s fastball and a curveball that last year flashed elite spin, whirring at more than 3,000 rpm. Still, the value proposition of playing in Japan was alluring enough to convince Stewart to play patient zero and make real what long has been a what-if question bandied about baseball.

The idea of a player decamping to Japan has been floated over the years by agent Scott Boras, who represents Stewart, in an attempt to extract leverage in an amateur draft system without any. Every team is assigned a pool of money to divvy up in signing bonuses, and teams are penalized for exceeding that pool. The rules have essentially capped draft spending.

Stewart's decision makes easy sense financially. Say he stayed in the United States and signed for $2 million. Best case, Stewart would have started with a team's short-season Class A affiliate. In 2020, he would top out at Double-A and make less than $10,000 for the season. And if Stewart is that good, and moving that quickly, his team probably would keep him at scant wages in the minor leagues for all of 2021, too, and promote him around this time in 2022 to ensure it controls him for 6¾ years before free agency. In 2022, 2023 and 2024, Stewart would make the major league minimum -- which, being generous and assuming the new collective bargaining agreement gives it a big bump, could be $750,000.

In a near-optimal scenario, Stewart would receive around $4 million for the next six years -- and would not reach free agency until after the 2027 season, when he will be 28. His deal with the Hawks would guarantee Stewart $3 million more and potentially allow him to hit free agency three years earlier.

MLB's rules require a "foreign professional" to have spent "all or part of at least six seasons" playing in an "MLB-recognized foreign professional league." Even though Stewart is American, sources told ESPN that residency determination for foreign players is based on a number of factors, including where a player has played, where he plans to live, as well as his nationality. Stewart, under current rules, would be considered a foreign professional if he spends the next six seasons in Japan, sources said, though those rules are subject to change.

If they do not, Stewart could at age 25 join MLB via the posting system, which is used to transfer players between the leagues. The system allows foreign professionals 25 and older unrestricted free agency and delivers a fee to their Japanese team that depends upon the size of the contract negotiated with the MLB team.

All of this, of course, is wildly presumptuous. Stewart is 19 years old. He could get hurt. He could lose control of his pitches. He could regress. Pitching prospects are notoriously finicky, and ascribing to him an idealized scenario isn't entirely fair.

It's just a function of the draft's clamping down on players' value for so long. The reason teams place such a premium on draft picks is because the assets gained with those picks carry enormous marginal value. Were Adley Rutschman, the switch-hitting Oregon State catcher widely expected to go No. 1 overall on June 3, a completely unrestricted free agent, teams would line up to pay him at least $50 million -- perhaps upward of $75 million. The slot value of the Baltimore Orioles' No. 1 pick is $8,415,300.

It's no wonder, then, that Boras wants to subvert the draft. For more than 30 years, he has raged against it, whether it was through Tim Belcher not signing in 1983 or Brien Taylor squeezing a record bonus out of the New York Yankees in 1991 or Jason Varitek and J.D. Drew going to independent leagues or the loophole that made four draft picks unrestricted free agents in 1996. This is not so much a loophole as it is an end around -- and one with risk.

Stewart, after all, is a kid from the Space Coast who played baseball at Eau Gallie High School last year and Eastern Florida State College this season. The baseball culture in Japan is markedly different from that of the major leagues, let alone the travel league, high school and juco ball Stewart has played. The Japanese minor leagues, or ni-gun, are even more trying. All of Stewart's physical skills will require complementary mental toughness. On the other hand, the competition will be plenty representative, and by the time he does arrive in the Japanese major leagues, he'll be playing in the finest foreign league on the planet, the best training ground possible for MLB.

If Stewart excels, it could change baseball. Not only is the money better, the marketing opportunities in Japan for baseball players far exceed those in the United States. Other amateur talent could follow -- or at least use the possibility of Japan as a cudgel, potentially forcing MLB to reassess its draft rules. In a tweet more than five years ago, Hiroshi Mikitani, the billionaire owner of the Tohoku Rakuten Golden Eagles, said he hoped Nippon Professional Baseball would loosen restrictions on foreign players, which currently limit each team to four. Perhaps Japanese teams could start recruiting more amateurs in the Dominican Republic, an area MLB monopolizes.

The fact that it took decades for a player like Stewart to agree to such a deal might indicate this is more the exception than the rule. Most 19-year-olds aren't altogether keen on going to a country in which they don't speak the language, learning new customs and figuring out how to thrive in a game as difficult as baseball. Then again, kids from the Dominican Republic and Venezuela and Colombia and all around Latin America do it every day in MLB -- and for far less than the millions Stewart will receive.

Stewart, in the end, is a proxy for something bigger -- a haymaker at a system capable of careening out of control until brought back into balance. Perhaps Stewart is that counterweight. Maybe it's someone after him. Could be that nothing changes and this is but a blip. Whatever the case, it's a noble effort, an admirable risk and a fascinating story, this idea in a vacuum coming to life and playing out 60 feet, 6 inches from home plate and thousands and thousands of miles from home.