For the second straight Christmas, the NFL will provide the gift of Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson.

Netflix announced Wednesday that it will stream two games -- the Kansas City Chiefs at the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Baltimore Ravens at the Houston Texans -- on Dec. 25. The streaming network will broadcast at least one game on the holiday for each of the next three years in a new agreement with the NFL.

The four teams involved this year will play rare Wednesday regular-season games.

"There are no live annual events, sports or otherwise, that compare with the audiences NFL football attracts. We're so excited that the NFL's Christmas Day games will be only on Netflix," Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria said in a statement.

This marks back-to-back Christmas games for the Chiefs and Ravens. On Christmas last season, the Ravens beat the San Francisco 49ers 33-19 and the Chiefs were upset by the Las Vegas Raiders 20-14.

Before the 2024 season, only three teams had played on Christmas in back-to-back years: the Steelers (2016-17), Arizona Cardinals (2021-22) and Green Bay Packers (2021-22). The Ravens will be the first team to play back-to-back Christmas games on the road.

This will be the fifth Christmas game for Kansas City, which ties the Dallas Cowboys for the most in the NFL.

"The NFL on Christmas has become a tradition and to partner with Netflix, a service whose biggest day of the year is typically this holiday, is the perfect combination to grow this event globally for NFL fans," Hans Schroeder, NFL executive vice president of media distribution, said in a statement of the deal with Netflix, which will broadcast an NFL game for the first time.

The full 2024 NFL schedule will be announced Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET. A two-hour special will air on ESPN2 and be simulcast on ESPN+.

CHICAGO -- Bronny James' famous father was on hand Wednesday to watch him play at the NBA draft combine.

LeBron James showed up wearing a black hoodie and sat in the second row for Bronny's second and final scrimmage of the combine.

The NBA's career scoring leader, his wife and daughter were frequent spectators for Bronny's games at Southern California last season. LeBron has said repeatedly he would like to team with his son. The four-time MVP and four-time NBA champion just completed his 21st season and could become a free agent if he opts out of his contract with the Los Angeles Lakers. But he also said following a season-ending loss to Denver that he hasn't "given much thought lately" to playing alongside his son.

Bronny is deciding whether to turn pro after one college season. He declared for the draft and entered the transfer portal April 5.

Bronny was one of the nation's top prospects when he decided to stay near home and committed to USC last May out of Sierra Canyon School in nearby Chatsworth. But things took an unexpected turn last summer.

He went into cardiac arrest because of a congenital heart defect during a basketball workout at USC in late July and needed surgery. He missed the first month of the season. He averaged 4.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists in 25 games for the Trojans.

NEW YORK -- The Brooklyn Nets are retiring the No. 15 jersey of Vince Carter, the high-flying guard who will be enshrined this year in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

The Nets made the video announcement Wednesday that included former backcourtmate Jason Kidd, whose No. 5 jersey is retired by the franchise.

Carter played 4 seasons with the Nets while they were in New Jersey, averaging 23.6 points. He owns their single-season record with 2,070 points in the 2006-07 season.

Carter is third in franchise history in points and is in the Nets' top 10 in numerous other categories.

He is the only player in NBA history to play in four decades. The NBA Rookie of the Year in 1999 with the Toronto Raptors, he was dealt by the Raptors to New Jersey on Dec. 17, 2004, and played with the Nets through the 2008-09 season. His last season, 2019-20, was with the Atlanta Hawks.

Carter will become the seventh Nets player with a retired jersey. Along with Kidd, the others are Julius Erving, Buck Williams, Drazen Petrovic, "Super" John Williamson and Bill Melchionni.

BOSTON -- The Cleveland Cavaliers will be without three of their top six players -- led by star guard Donovan Mitchell -- for Game 5 of their Eastern Conference semifinal series against the Boston Celtics on Wednesday night.

Mitchell, who is dealing with a left calf strain, Jarrett Allen, who is dealing with a bruised rib, and Caris LeVert, who replaced Mitchell in the starting lineup for Game 4 before being added to the injury report Tuesday with a bone bruise in his left knee, will all sit out what could be Cleveland's final game of the season.

The Cavaliers, trailing 3-1, need a win Wednesday to force the series back to Cleveland for a potential Game 6 Friday night.

Mitchell missed Cleveland's 109-102 loss in Game 4 Monday night with the same injury, which occurred late in the fourth quarter of Boston's Game 3 victory Saturday, when Mitchell began limping on the court after playing more than 22 consecutive minutes in the second half.

Mitchell wasn't on the court when media was let into shootaround at TD Garden Wednesday morning, though he later emerged and sat on the sidelines in workout gear before walking out with his teammates. LeVert did the exact same thing, after he, too, was listed as questionable for Game 5.

Allen wasn't visible at any point during shootaround. A bruised rib has kept him out for seven consecutive games, and he hasn't played since Game 4 of Cleveland's first-round series against the Orlando Magic.

THE DRIVEWAY INTO the small private high school on Fairfax Boulevard in Los Angeles is purposely nondescript. A security guard is stationed out front. A name must be on a list to get beyond the retractable metal gate.

The luxury cars in the parking lot are the only tip-off to the caliber of basketball players who come to train at the gym here.

Two summers ago, on a blisteringly hot day in August, it was Jayson Tatum, Joel Embiid, Trae Young, DeMar DeRozan and Victor Oladipo -- all regulars at the runs organized by longtime NBA trainer Drew Hanlen.

They also were joined by a tantalizing but mysterious talent who'd just been drafted second overall by the Oklahoma City Thunder.

At 7-foot-1 and 195 pounds, Chet Holmgren stands out in every gym. To see him standing next to the 7-foot, 280-pound Embiid was almost worrisome, like one powerful post-up by Embiid -- or a strong gust of wind -- would level him.

Inside the gym, the run began -- All-Stars competing against All-Stars, the familiar squeaks of basketball shoes echoing off the walls. Then there was the slim rookie in a blue Thunder T-shirt and white shorts, undaunted by anyone.

As play began, Holmgren didn't act or play like a rookie going up against All-Stars.

"No," Holmgren, 22, told ESPN before a recent playoff game against the Dallas Mavericks. "I was just like, 'I'm going to play basketball, work on my stuff.' That's what the summer is for. That's what I always try to do when I step on the court."

He ran into the post to defend Embiid and blocked his shot. Then Holmgren got DeRozan and Tatum too. He blocked shots from behind, from the side. He closed out hard on the perimeter, tipping 3-pointers that were hoisted without enough respect for his long arms.

It was unlike anything the NBA vets had ever seen. Whatever questions the pros in attendance might've had about the rookie's ability to compete in the NBA had been answered -- and fast.

"I remember telling Drew I liked him because he wasn't scared," Tatum told ESPN. "Yeah, he was skinny. But he was going right back at dudes. I respected that."

Holmgren remembers that summer and those runs fondly too. But not for the same reasons.

"I was healthy," he said. "That was my last basketball before I had to take a pretty long hiatus."

Less than two weeks later, Holmgren suffered a Lisfranc fracture in his right foot while playing in a pro-am in Seattle. There is perhaps no scarier foot injury for a young big man. The Thunder weren't about to mess around with their prized young center. They'd been patient in their rebuild after losing Kevin Durant in free agency in 2015 and trading Russell Westbrook in 2019. They could be patient again as Holmgren sat out his entire rookie season.

The question was whether their budding young superstar, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, would remain patient, as well. The Thunder had gone 90-246 in his three seasons with the team, and they had netted a collection of talented young players through the draft and literally dozens of additional picks. But with Holmgren delayed by a full year and Gilgeous-Alexander starting to flash All-Star and All-NBA potential, external pressure to win was growing.

Internally, though, Gilgeous-Alexander had seen enough to be patient.

"I'd played with [Holmgren] a little before he got hurt," Gilgeous-Alexander told ESPN. "I knew how good he was. When you have that many gifts and intangibles, it's going to click for you."

The modern NBA has been shaped by superstars who've grown tired of waiting for a co-star to materialize. Be it LeBron James in Cleveland (both times), Paul George in Indiana then Oklahoma City, Carmelo Anthony in Denver or Anthony Davis in New Orleans.

But this year's playoffs, and the teams that remain, feature a different kind of a superstar duo, ones in which a foundational star stayed, ignored outside noise and pressure, allowed his team to find the right superstar partner and gave the partnership time to bake: Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray in Denver, Tatum and Jaylen Brown in Boston, Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards in Minnesota and Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving in Dallas.

And the youngest and perhaps most tantalizing of all: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Chet Holmgren in Oklahoma City, set to face off against those Mavs in a pivotal Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals on Wednesday (9:30 p.m. ET, TNT). It is a unique pairing -- the stoic, steely point guard who built himself into an MVP candidate and a fashion icon alongside the bouncy, sharpshooting big man who prefers Nike sweatsuits or oversize denim. And it has clicked better -- and faster -- than anyone could have dreamed this season as the Thunder finished with the conference's best record for the first time in 12 years.

Whether they're ready to be the faces of the West or just the can't-get-it-out-of-your-head soundtrack to the "What a Pro Wants" commercial that keeps airing during these playoffs remains to be seen.

THUNDER PRESIDENT OF basketball operations Sam Presti had been watching Holmgren for years before he decided to use the highest draft pick his organization had had since taking Durant second overall in 2007.

Presti is known for his extraordinary research into prospective players. It's how he built the first Thunder superteam of Durant, Westbrook and James Harden, and it's how he is attempting to rebuild it with Gilgeous-Alexander, Holmgren and Jalen Williams.

For Presti, character and organizational fit matter just as much as talent: Learn as much as possible about who a player is to project how he'll grow with other players on the team.

Will their skill sets mesh? Will they make each other better?

"All these guys are going to change," Presti told ESPN.

Once a player gets into the NBA, the league will change him. The next level is projecting how that will affect the team and the other players who are already there. Two alphas might clash or they might uplift each other. A talent evaluator has to learn enough about a player to project that.

"You can't change somebody's history," Presti said. "You've got to try to understand them."

The more he saw Holmgren, the more Presti thought Holmgren would fit alongside Gilgeous-Alexander and the young core of players already developing in Oklahoma City.

Going into his freshman season at Gonzaga, Holmgren already had built a reputation as a potential superstar. But because of the COVID-19 pandemic, there hadn't been a lot of opportunities to scout him at a high level. Finally, in May 2021, the top players in the country flocked to the Iverson Classic in Memphis, Tennessee. Holmgren, then 18, posted 20 points, 11 rebounds and 5 blocks. But what stood out to Presti extended past the box score.

"He was just very comfortable in who he was," Presti said. "Very at ease with himself."

Presti liked Holmgren's competitiveness and fearlessness. Presti had heard the stories of him climbing on the roof as a kid and how hard Holmgren had worked to harness his unique physical gifts. But Presti also appreciated how much he seemed to care about his teammates and commitment to defense and passing.

Hanlen felt similarly the first time he met Holmgren.

"Most young guys are focused on establishing themselves in the league and scoring," Hanlen told ESPN. "Chet was focused on how he'd fit in and help the Thunder."

AND HERE'S HOW Holmgren helps best: with righteous blocks that border on reckless, like the one with 6:31 left in the second quarter of Game 3 against the Mavs. It was his fourth block of the first half.

Dallas' Tim Hardaway Jr. turned the corner and got a step on Williams. Holmgren saw it out of the corner of his eye and rotated from the weak side. Seeing Holmgren, Hardaway tried a floater but was viciously denied. As Holmgren descended, he was either going to land on Hardaway -- and get called for a foul -- or the floor and take whatever lumps resulted from it.

Holmgren avoided the contact and landed hard on his stomach and stayed down. Gilgeous-Alexander and Williams immediately came over to check on him and assess the damage. Holmgren waved them off.

"Just needed a few extra seconds to catch my breath," he said. "I was fine. At least I got the block."

Thunder coach Mark Daigneault wasn't taking any chances. Holmgren tried to wave off the substitute, but Daigneault had made up his mind.

"I don't want to be a crash test dummy out there," Holmgren said. "But I also don't want to be hesitant. My instinct is just go make a play. If you're out there worrying about getting hurt, that's how injuries happen. And you're also not putting everything on the line for your teammates, which I feel like I always owe to them."

This is always how he has been wired. Team first. Fearless on defense. A skilled shooter and finisher on offense, skills that fit with the way the Thunder had been constructed as Gilgeous-Alexander continued his ascension.

Everybody can shoot. Everyone can score. Playing a 5-out offense, the paint is often wide open for Gilgeous-Alexander to drive or kick to the best-shooting team in basketball.

Holmgren certainly can score in the post. But that's not what the Thunder need from him. Rather than chafe at the limits of his role, he has embraced it.

"I feel like I've always had a great perspective towards my health and my ability and I never really took it for granted," he said. "When I got hurt, I kind of just built that appreciation. And now, I try to have that every single day no matter what's happening, whether I'm tired or this hurts or that hurts or I'm sick or whatever happens, just wake up and be appreciative of the opportunity and the ability to go out there and play. And I feel like until I'm no longer able to play, that's how I look at it."

THAT PERSPECTIVE IS what makes him a perfect fit for Gilgeous-Alexander and this Thunder team, full of young, similarly minded players.

Consider the time during his first summer league when Holmgren pulled the team's security guard into his postgame interview. And how that moment has now turned into half the team getting pulled into postgame interviews.

And how that has now turned into the league's most bizarre tradition -- a Williams-led bark that originates in the huddle of teammates gathering for the interview. It has become as much a part of the culture in Oklahoma City as the winning that precedes it.

"You don't want boring people around," Daigneault told ESPN. "The existence is boring enough, and our players are not boring.

"It breathes energy into an otherwise long season."

There are all sorts of theories on why Holmgren first did it. Was he shy in the spotlight? Did he just want to share it with others?

Either way, the tradition has come to define this Thunder team.

"He's a weirdo, so that doesn't really shock me too much," Williams told ESPN. "It's a share-the-stage thing, but it's also a funny friend thing. I don't know, to embarrass whoever he brought in."

And then there was another moment just three weeks ago after a dominant Game 2 win over the New Orleans Pelicans, a first-round game in which Gilgeous-Alexander posted 33 points on 13-for-19 shooting.

With his arm around Gilgeous-Alexander -- and surrounded by Williams, Jaylin Williams and Aaron Wiggins -- Holmgren was asked in TNT's postgame interview what message he was going to reinforce coming into Game 3.

The rookie sped through myriad clichés. That they needed to be ready for the opposing team's best punch, that the Thunder needed to come ready to play.

Then he took the microphone and looked down to his left.

"I got one more thing to say," Holmgren said, turning to face Gilgeous-Alexander. "He's too humble to say it, but this is the MVP right here. MVP of the league. I'm going to say it for him, because he won't say it.

"That's all I got."

Gilgeous-Alexander, visibly uncomfortable, cocked his head back and rolled his eyes. As Holmgren and the rest of the crew dispersed in laughter, the 25-year-old vet couldn't help but smile.

He'd pulled a similar move while Holmgren was out last season, telling anyone who would listen that the injured big man would be the Rookie of the Year when he finally took the court.

"I called it how I saw it," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "I guess he called it how he sees it, too."

HOLMGREN THOUGHT BACK to those pickup games in Los Angeles all the time while he was rehabilitating his foot last season. It was a long and tedious process, and Holmgren tried to stay connected to the team as much as he could. But he also didn't want to be a distraction.

The team scheduled him to come in before practice for rehab work, then shift to weights while the team was practicing. He'd often come back to the facility at nights with Hanlen for extra drills.

"The whole time he was asking me for the edits I was sending Joel or Jayson," Hanlen said. "Then when we'd train, he'd turn his phone on 'Do Not Disturb' so he could record the whole session and watch it back later."

Holmgren knew his teammates were waiting on him, that they needed him. And they saw how much it hurt him to be away.

"He just always was working, always was in the gym," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "Once he was cleared to be on the court, he was always on the court. He was always asking questions, trying to learn and be ready for this year."

The Thunder finished 40-42 and made the play-in tournament last season, beating the Pelicans in the 9/10 game before falling to the Timberwolves on the road. For a team that had lost 58 games the season before, it was a giant, unexpected leap forward.

"I think a telling sign was, we were in a lot of the games last year and that kind of gave us confidence that we could kind of play with everybody in the NBA," Williams told ESPN. "Then knowing we were going to have Chet back, cleaning up some of our rebounding and rim protection problems, was really exciting for us."

Still, no one expected the kind of leap Oklahoma City made. The Thunder finished ahead of the defending champion Nuggets to win the stacked Western Conference. Gilgeous-Alexander finished second to Nikola Jokic in MVP voting. Holmgren finished second to Spurs phenom Victor Wembanyama in Rookie of the Year voting.

The plan, the Holmgren/Gilgeous-Alexander partnership, the yearslong wait to finally cement the duo that could define the Western Conference for years to come, finally came to fruition.

In the first round, the youngest team in the league answered those who doubted their playoff bona fides by sweeping the Pelicans.

In this second-round series against the Mavs, the two combined for 52 points -- 17 in the fourth quarter -- to rally the Thunder back from a 14-point deficit to win Game 4 on the road and even the series 2-2.

"That's the front office. I give them a lot of credit. They know what they're doing, and they're doing it the right way," Gilgeous-Alexander said. "I'm a firm believer that if you do things the right way, good things happen to you.

"I felt like if I did what I'm supposed to do, and they do what they're supposed to do, eventually it'll all come together -- and it has."

AS THE SECONDS ticked away inside Dallas' American Airlines Center, Kyrie Irving and James Harden approached each other and exchanged the customized handshake they created during their brief stint together as Brooklyn Nets teammates before hugging.

Irving had just put the finishing touches on the Dallas Mavericks' first-round series, scoring 28 of his 30 points in the second half of the Game 6 closeout victory over Harden's LA Clippers. As the Mavs moved on, a few of Irving's longtime peers started their summer early, as a Clippers team built around 30-something-year-old stars Kawhi Leonard, Paul George and Harden was eliminated.

And with that, the older generation of NBA superstars was gone, bounced from the postseason before the second round started -- with one exception.

Irving, a major reason the Mavericks are two wins from the Western Conference finals, remains standing. In fact, there are a dozen active players with at least seven All-Star selections. Irving is the only one whose team advanced out of the first round.

That realization hit Irving, 32, as he went through his postgame routine after closing out the Clippers. The Los Angeles Lakers' LeBron James and the Phoenix Suns' Kevin Durant, Irving's co-stars at previous stops, had already been sent home. The Golden State Warriors' Stephen Curry, Irving's three-time NBA Finals foe, didn't make it out of the play-in tournament.

"I've been competing with those guys for so long and seeing them every year," Irving told ESPN. "It's been pretty much our generation running the Finals, the Eastern Conference finals, Western Conference finals. [The shift has] just been quick. I don't want to say I know that those guys are looking at the light in the tunnel. I can't speak for them.

"But to see this newer generation come in and to see how it's played out, I'm excited. It keeps me motivated and inspired to continue to lead my generation, because I was the youngest of that generation watching them."

THE NBA PLAYOFFS, and the West bracket in particular, are being dominated by superstars who have yet to even hit their prime.

The Mavericks-Oklahoma City Thunder series features a pair of 25-year-old MVP finalists: Irving's teammate Luka Doncic and Oklahoma City's Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. Minnesota Timberwolves' Anthony Edwards, 22, has ascended into the upper stratosphere of superstardom as arguably the most dominant player of the postseason so far.

"These young kids, they have no fear," Irving said. "When you have that much talent and you have no fear, the world is yours."

Irving, on the other hand, has a perspective that only comes with experience. He has won an NBA championship, hitting the Game 7 go-ahead 3-pointer for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2016 Finals. And Irving has endured chaos, some of which he acknowledges he created, as he bounced from Cleveland to the Boston Celtics and the Nets before landing in Dallas before last season's trade deadline.

The Mavs were able to acquire Irving at a price significantly lower than is typically paid in trades for stars because the off-court controversies during his Brooklyn tenure that deflated his value. But he's beloved throughout the Mavs organization, where Irving's poised leadership and character are raved about almost as much as his skill set. He's a finalist for the league's J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award due to his varied philanthropic efforts. And Irving's is the voice that resonates the loudest in the Dallas locker room.

"There's no panic. There's calmness," Mavs coach Jason Kidd said between series. "He's under control. His tone when he speaks to the team is confident. It's great to have someone like that in your locker room this time of year."

That calm is being tested during the West semifinals series that is even entering Wednesday's Game 5 in Oklahoma City. The Thunder are loading up defensively against Doncic and Irving, forcing the tandem to play in traffic and holding Dallas' star duo to a combined 37.0 points per game. Irving has twice been held to single-digit scoring totals in the series, which had happened just twice in his playoff career. Irving preached to his teammates, and reminded himself, after Monday's Game 4 loss to "stay poised and stay peaceful" during the ups and downs of the series against the West's top seed.

"It's a competitor's dream," Irving said after Gilgeous-Alexander carried the Thunder to a 100-96 win to tie the series.

Irving, who averaged 25.6 points, 5.0 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game for the 50-win Mavs during the regular season, smiled when asked after the first-round clincher if he felt like he was still in his prime. "I'm starting it," he said.

He has joked about being the "Benjamin Button" of the NBA, aging in reverse. He dunked six times this season, the most of any year in his career, matching the total of his entire 143-game Brooklyn stint. He still dazzles with his speed with the ball in his hands, such as on a one-man fast break against the Clippers, when he put on a ballhandling clinic while racing down the floor before executing a difficult lefty finish.

One opposing scout ranked Irving, who readily admits being picked on defensively for much of his career and says he enjoys that facet of the game now, as the Mavs' second-best on-ball defender behind forward Derrick Jones Jr.

According to ESPN Stats & Information research, Irving ranks second in the NBA in deflections (31) and defensive loose ball recoveries (eight) during the playoffs. Opponents have shot 38% (33-of-87) with Irving as the primary defender this postseason and are averaging only 0.72 points per direct isolation against him, per Second Spectrum. He has been the primary defender on 15 turnovers, tied for the sixth-most by any player in these playoffs.

"He's young, man," Doncic said with a grin before the series opener in Oklahoma City. "He's still young."

IRVING SERIOUSLY BELIEVES that he's never been better suited for a playoff run.

He openly discusses his "journey," especially connecting with his Native American heritage, thanking his therapist in a postgame news conference after the Mavs' Game 6 win over the Clippers.

And Irving is certain that he's in the best physical condition of his career, because he's learned how to be diligent about taking care of his body. For instance, Irving goes through his extensive individual pregame workout three hours before tipoff to give him time to get massages and other work on his body. Early in his career, Irving said he'd arrive at the arena maybe 90 minutes before a game.

"I've been waiting, waiting, waiting for this time of my career to be in my 30s, mastering the game mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally, IQ wise, being through tons of battles, failing on the public stage," Irving said. "I've gone through my fair share of losses to be able to understand what it takes to win and also appreciate the times like this when you have a special team around you and guys that are selfless.

"You don't want to take it for granted, because as a competitor, especially in this business, it doesn't come around often. It's not like you're guaranteed to make it to the Eastern Conference or Western Conference finals every year. And me as a young person, I think I took that for granted."

Irving, who is in his 13th season, acknowledged that thoughts occasionally cross his mind about how much longer his NBA career will last. In the next breath, he noted how much medical and exercise technology has advanced, helping stars extend their careers into their late 30s or perhaps beyond.

"Hey, I see guys getting better at 39, though," Irving said. "I see somebody getting better at 39."

That, of course, is a reference to James, who Irving starred alongside during the Cavaliers' Final runs before requesting to be traded away from Cleveland.

James publicly pleaded to be paired with Irving again last season, then expressed his disappointment when the Mavs, not the Lakers, traded for him. Los Angeles prioritized continuity over pursuing Irving as a free agent over the summer, when he re-signed with Dallas on a three-year deal worth $120 million plus incentives.

But Irving isn't spending any energy wondering what could have been. He appreciates the opportunity he has and the possibilities to come.

"No time to have regrets, man," Irving said. "I'm 32 years old now and that time has come and gone. I've been able to make peace with it and also understand that I needed those times to happen in order to understand where I am now and be me as a person. So this business will play tricks on you mentally if you continue to look in the past and who you could have been and what could have been.

"I found myself doing that pretty often, but now it's just looking forward, man. The future's beautiful."

The Cincinnati Reds placed left-hander Nick Lodolo on the 15-day injured list Wednesday with a left groin strain.

Lodolo, 26, is 3-2 with a 3.34 ERA in six starts. He owns a 9-10 career record with a 4.12 ERA in 32 starts with the Reds.

Also Wednesday, fellow left-hander Sam Moll was recalled from Triple-A Louisville.

Moll, 32, has scattered three hits over five scoreless innings in five relief appearances with Cincinnati this season. He owns a 4-4 record with a 3.31 ERA in 147 career games (one start) with the Oakland Athletics and Reds.