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From Jack Harris: On the whole, Jack Flaherty has been good for the Dodgers since coming over in a blockbuster deadline-day trade last month.
He has three wins in five starts. He has a 3.49 ERA and 34 strikeouts. And, at a time the club has been without co-aces Tyler Glasnow and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, he has provided stability by working into the sixth inning in every outing but one.
“What Jack’s done,” manager Dave Roberts said, “has been everything we had hoped.”
However, as the Dodgers enter the stretch run of the season, Flaherty might be needed to do even more.
Yamamoto is several weeks away from returning from his shoulder injury. Glasnow’s timeline is even more concerning as his initially minor elbow injury continues to linger.
If the postseason started tomorrow, Flaherty would likely be the Dodgers’ Game 1 starter.
Which is why, for as solid as he looked in a six-inning, three-run outing against the high-powered Baltimore Orioles on Tuesday night, it wasn’t enough to satisfy his own lofty standards, nor the needs of a shorthanded Dodgers team.
Once again, the right-hander was good. But in a 3-2 loss at a sold-out Dodger Stadium, he wasn’t quite good enough to save his new team from defeat.
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ANGELS
Riley Greene and Kerry Carpenter homered in a three-run sixth inning and the Detroit Tigers extended their winning streak to five games with a 6-2 victory over the Angels on Tuesday night.
The Angels, last place in the American League West at 54-78, have lost six straight and 12 of their last 14 games.
The start of the game was delayed 2 hours, 45 minutes by heavy storms and the first pitch wasn’t thrown until 9:45 p.m. But the Tigers didn’t have any trouble with the late start.
RAMS
From Gary Klein: Eight months ago, after he helped them make an unexpected run to the playoffs, linebacker Ernest Jones IV appeared to be a key player in the Rams’ future.
Now, because of a contract impasse, he’s history.
On Tuesday, the Rams were in the process of trading Jones to the Tennessee Titans, a person with knowledge of the situation said. The person requested anonymity because the deal had not been announced.
Terms of the deal were not available.
NFL rosters must be set by Tuesday at 1 p.m. PDT. The Rams could be preparing for the Sept. 8 opener at Detroit — and a Lions offense that ranked among the NFL’s best in 2023 — with an inside linebacker corps that includes Christian Rozeboom, Jacob Hummel, Troy Reeder and Omar Speights, an undrafted rookie who made a big impact in preseason games.
CHARGERS
From Anthony De Leon: Luis Perez and Isaiah Spiller were notable cuts Tuesday as the Chargers reduced their roster to 53 players by the NFL’s mandatory deadline.
Perez was signed midway through the camp to compete for the backup quarterback role while Justin Herbert was recovering from an injury but didn’t see the field in the preseason finale despite splitting snaps with Easton Stick throughout camp. If he clears waivers, Perez could be added to the practice squad.
Spiller, a fourth-round pick in 2022, narrowly missed the cut after a tough competition with rookie Kimani Vidal and Jaret Patterson. Last season, Spiller made the 53-man roster but saw limited playing time, including stints on special teams.
GALAXY-LAFC
From Kevin Baxter: What MLS commissioner Don Garber envisioned when he insisted on having two teams in Southern California was seeing both of them enter the final stretch of the season atop the conference table and fighting for the Supporters’ Shield.
It was a nice idea. But until this summer, that vision has been little more than a mirage.
The last time the Galaxy led the conference entering September was in 2015, a year after Chivas USA folded and three years before LAFC played its first game. Yet that’s exactly where the Galaxy (15-5-7) are now, leading second-place LAFC (14-5-5) with seven weeks to play.
And the Galaxy trail only Inter Miami in the Supporters’ Shield standings, where LAFC is fourth. So while the MLS Cup may not be played in Southern California this fall, whichever Western Conference team goes to the final will have to come through Los Angeles to get there.
PARALYMPICS
The Paralympic Games are set to open Wednesday as some 4,400 athletes with disabilities, permanent injuries or impairments prepare to compete for 549 medals across 22 sports over 11 days in Paris.
The French capital, which just hosted the Olympics, again provides the backdrop for what promises to be another spectacle, with many of the same venues hosting Paralympic competitions.
Historic square Place de la Concorde, which hosted skateboarding, breaking and 3×3 basketball during the Olympics, will host the opening ceremony.
DUCKS
From Stephen Battaglio: The Anaheim Ducks will broadcast 65 of the team’s NHL games on Fox Television Stations’ Los Angeles outlet KCOP starting with the 2025-26 season.
The deal announced Tuesday is the latest by a major league sports team to put local telecasts on a free over-the-air channel that consumers can watch with a TV antenna. The games also will be available on a new ad-supported streaming service called Victory+, launching next month.
The move toward broadcast TV reflects how team owners are concerned that cord-cutting — canceling cable subscriptions in favor of streaming platforms — is limiting the exposure of their teams’ games in their local markets.
THIS DATE IN SPORTS
1950 — Althea Gibson becomes the first Black player to compete in the U.S. Open. Gibson wins her first round match, defeating Barbara Knapp of Britain 6-2, 6-2 at Forest Hills in New York.
1977 — The Cosmos beat the Seattle Sounders 2-1 at Portland, Ore., to win their second NASL title. Giorgio Chinaglia’s header in the 77th minute is the winning goal.
1977 — Nolan Ryan strikes out 300 batters for fifth straight year.
1989 — Pete Sampras, 18, wins his first U.S. Open singles match in four sets over Agustin Moreno of Mexico.
1990 — Stefan Edberg becomes the first top-seeded player since John Newcombe in 1971 to lose in the first round of the U.S. Open. Edberg loses to Alexander Volkov of the Soviet Union, 6-3, 7-6, 6-2.
1993 — Pinch-hitter Jeremy Hess’ bases-loaded single with two outs in the sixth inning gives Long Beach a 3-2 victory over Panama in the championship game of the Little League World Series.
1994 — Tiger Woods, 18, becomes the youngest winner in the history of the U.S. Amateur Golf Championship, capturing the last three holes of his 36-hole title match against Trip Kuehne.
1995 — Monica Seles, plays in her first Grand Slam tournament in more than 2 1/2 years and beats Ruxandra Dragomir 6-3, 6-1 in first round of the U.S. Open.
2004 — The U.S. women’s basketball team goes through the Athens Olympics undefeated to win its fifth Olympic gold medal, beating Australia 74-63 in the final.
2004 — Led by San Antonio Spurs shooting guard Manu Ginóbili, Argentina beats Italy 84-69 for the Olympic basketball gold medal in Athens; star-studded U.S. team takes bronze.
2005 — Michael Memea’s home run in the bottom of the seventh gives West Oahu of Ewa Beach, Hawaii, the Little League World Series title.
2008 — Top-seeded Ana Ivanovic is ousted from the U.S. Open, beaten by 188th-ranked Julie Coin 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 in the second round. Never before in the Open era that began in 1968 had the No. 1 woman lost this early in the tournament.
2011 — Huntington Beach returns the Little League World Series title to the U.S. with a 2-1 victory over Hamamatsu City, Japan.
2014 — Acknowledging he “didn’t get it right” with a two-game suspension for Ravens running back Ray Rice, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell announces tougher penalties for players accused of domestic violence, including six weeks for a first offense and at least a year for a second.
2016 — Ryan Harlost leads Endwell, N.Y., to the Little League World Series title, striking out eight and limiting South Korea to five hits in six innings in a 2-1 victory.
2021 — Angels pitcher/DH Shohei Otani becomes the first player in team history to have 20 stolen bases and 40 home runs.
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.