Claiming that one of its biggest distractions had been the recent protracted contract negotiations with two of its best platers, the baseball team made a firm commitment to not discuss plater contracts until the end of the year.

A. its biggest distractions had been the recent
B. its biggest distractions has been the recently
C. its biggest distractions is the recently
D. their biggest distractions is the recent
E. their biggest distractions had been the recent

Correct answer is A.

I understand "its" vs. "their" and "had" vs. "has"
but "recent" vs. "recently" confuses me

thanks for any insight.
Evan

"Recent" is an adjective, and thus must modify a noun or pronoun. This means that it modifies "negotiations" here -- it tells us that the negotiations are recent.
If we use "recently" then we're using an adverb. An adverb must modify an adjective or a verb. In this case, it's an adjective, so we'd be modifying "protracted" -- making the sentence say that the negotiations had recently been protracted or extended -- not that the negotiations themselves were recent.

Make any sense?

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