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From Jack Harris: For almost any other team in the Dodgers’ position, the first half of the season would have been a flying success.
They entered Sunday with a seven-game lead in the National League West. They were the NL’s highest-scoring offense. And according to Fangraphs, they have the second-best odds of any MLB club of winning the World Series, with a nearly 15% probability, per the outlet’s analytic computer models.
This Dodgers team, however, carries far loftier expectations.
Any time they look like anything less than a World Series favorite, it feels like a failure.
That’s why, after suffering a wave of recent injuries and playing .500 ball for much of the last two months, they’ve been simply trying to “weather a storm,” as manager Dave Roberts put it, and get to this week’s All-Star break.
To win games right now, “it feels like we have to play perfect baseball,” Roberts said.
And on Sunday, in a 4-3 walk-off loss to the Detroit Tigers that sent the club into the All-Star break with a series defeat and losses in eight of their last 10 games, the Dodgers did anything but.
Dodgers excited about what speedy shortstop Kellon Lindsey could provide
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ANGELS
Jo Adell hit a three-run homer in the eighth inning and Carson Fulmer threw four hitless innings to lead the Angels to a 3-2 win over the Seattle Mariners on Sunday.
Adell, who pumped his fist as he ran the bases, hit his 15th home run of the season off Austin Voth (2-4), who had just come in to replace injured Ryne Stanek.
“I was pretty pumped up,” Adell said. “It was a big moment. The series has been a grind. Our travel schedule coming back off the road from Chicago was a grind as well. Being able to compete against a team like this, who is ahead in our division, was a pretty cool moment. I enjoyed it.”
Shaikin: Caden Dana is the Angels’ top prospect. So when will they call him up?
LAKERS
From Dan Woike: In the early days of Team USA training camp in Las Vegas, the group’s oldest player was delivering the lessons.
“He’s been passionate, he’s been responsive, he’s been incredibly engaged,” Team USA managing director Grant Hill said of LeBron James. “And so we’re lucky to have his presence. … His voice, like just, it’s loud, and it penetrates. He’s like, what do you call it, a conductor. Yes. Yeah. And that’s important. And it’s just been fun watching him.”
In addition to the chance to again win gold — it’d be James’ third after Olympic wins in 2008 and 2012 — he’ll get his first chance to play with Stephen Curry. James and Kevin Durant, who have been separated by late-career injuries, get a chance to rejoin. He gets to be coached by Steve Kerr, someone who coached against him in multiple NBA Finals.
“I’m still playing at a high level. I still love the game of basketball,” James said. “Team USA has done well by me and so I felt like this summer was important.”
So he enters these Olympic Games undoubtedly in one of the last chapters of his career, the Lakers trying to work around salary-cap constraints and limited trade assets to improve in a conference where everyone else is getting better. Maybe there’s another push to be made in Los Angeles.
And maybe, if James is going to win at the highest level, it’s going to happen somewhere else.
COPA AMÉRICA
Argentina won its second straight Copa América championship, overcoming Lionel Messi’s second-half leg injury to beat Colombia 1-0 Sunday night on Lautaro Martínez’s 112th-minute goal.
Messi appeared to sustain a non-contact injury while running and falling in the 64th minute and covered his face with his hands when he sat on the bench. Martínez later ran to that bench to hug his captain after the goal that propelled Argentina to its record 16th Copa title.
In a match that started 1 hour, 20 minutes late because of crowd trouble at Hard Rock Stadium, Argentina won its third straight major title following the 2021 Copa América and 2022 World Cup and matched Spain, which won the 2008 and 2012 European Championships around the 2010 World Cup.
LAFC
From Dylan Hernández: The explosion outside of his school. The vultures feasting on corpses in the streets. The water gushing into the boat that was ferrying him to safety.
The images of war remain with Kei Kamara to this day.
The LAFC striker pictures them whenever he shares the story of his childhood in Sierra Leone. He often sees them in his dreams.
“I get these nightmares,” Kamara said. “I’m always running. I’m always running from chaos.”
The memories continue to haunt the 39-year-old Kamara, but they also have convinced him of how fortunate he is.
WIMBLEDON
For Carlos Alcaraz, there was one brief blip in the Wimbledon men’s final against Novak Djokovic on Sunday, one five-point stretch that took him from the verge of victory to close to a collapse.
After dominating for the initial two sets, then seemingly withstanding a surge from Djokovic in the third, Alcaraz was a point from the championship while serving at 5-4, 40-love. But he double-faulted. Then missed a backhand. Then a volley. Then a forehand. And another forehand. Suddenly, it was 5-all. Suddenly, Alcaraz appeared rattled. Suddenly, Djokovic had hope. Suddenly, there was intrigue.
It would require an additional 20 minutes to close things out, and while Alcaraz is certainly a kid in a hurry, he steadied himself and never wavered again, defeating Djokovic 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 (4) to collect a fourth Grand Slam title at age 21.
THIS DATE IN SPORTS
1912 — Jim Thorpe wins the decathlon at the Stockholm Olympics and, in the closing ceremony, Sweden’s King Gustav proclaims Thorpe the world’s greatest athlete.
1921 — NY Yankees slugger Babe Ruth ties MLB record of 138 career home runs (held by Roger Connor since 1895).
1923 — Amateur Bobby Jones beats Bobby Cruikshank by two strokes in a playoff to win the U.S. Open golf title.
1927 — Bobby Jones wins the British Open shooting a championship record 7-under 285 at the Old Course in St Andrews, Scotland. It’s the second straight Open title for the amateur, who goes wire-to-wire for a six-stroke victory over Aubrey Boomer and Fred Dobson.
1961 — Arnold Palmer shoots a 284 at Royal Birkdale to win his first British Open title.
1972 — Lee Trevino wins his second consecutive British Open title by beating Jack Nicklaus by one stroke.
1978 — Jack Nicklaus shoots a 281 at St. Andrews to win his third and final British Open.
1991 — Sandhi Ortiz-DelValle becomes the first woman to officiate a men’s pro basketball game, working a United States Basketball League game between the New Haven Skyhawks and the Philadelphia Spirit.
2000 — Lennox Lewis stops Francois Botha at 2:39 of the second round to retain his WBC and IBF heavyweight titles in London.
2007 — The Philadelphia Phillies lose their 10,000th game, 10-2 to St. Louis. The franchise, born in 1883 as the Philadelphia Quakers and later called the Blue Jays in the mid-1940s, fall to 8,810-10,000.
2008 — Justin Morneau slides home just in time on Michael Young’s sacrifice fly in the 15th inning, giving the American League a 4-3 victory in the All-Star game at Yankee stadium.
2018 — Novak Djokovic wins his fourth Wimbledon title with a 6-2, 6-2 7-6 (3) victory over Kevin Anderson.
2018 — France wins its second World Cup title with a 4-2 win over Croatia in a dramatic final in Moscow.
2019 — Tampa Bay catcher Travis d’Arnaud becomes first player in MLB history to hit three home runs while catching and batting leadoff in the Rays’ 5-4 win over the NY Yankees.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…
That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at houston.mitchell@latimes.com, and follow me on Twitter at @latimeshouston. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.