India have called up batter Shafali Verma in place of the injured Pratika Rawal for their Women’s World Cup semi-final against Australia.
Rawal sustained an ankle injury while fielding during India’s final group game against Bangladesh on Sunday.
The 25-year-old opener tried to stop a boundary on the slippery outfield at the DY Patil Stadium in Navi Mumbai and was later unable to bat in the match.
Rawal is the tournament’s second-highest run-scorer with 308 in six innings at 51.33, behind only fellow India opening batter Smriti Mandhana.
India’s request to replace Rawal in their squad with Verma was approved by the International Cricket Council’s event technical committee for the tournament.
Verma has not played a one-day international for India since October 2024 but has played 50-over cricket for India A in recent months.
The 21-year-old was left out of India’s original squad for the World Cup but will now come into contention for a place against Australia in the semi-final showdown on 30 October.
Amanjot Kaur opened against Bangladesh after Rawal limped out while Uma Chetry and Jemimah Rodrigues are other potential partners for Mandhana at the top of the order.
India batter Shreyas Iyer is “recovering well” in hospital after suffering a lacerated spleen while taking a catch in the third ODI against Australia in Sydney on Saturday.
Iyer sustained the injury while fielding in the 34th over, running backwards to take a catch to dismiss Alex Carey and landing awkwardly on his side.
The 30-year-old immediately clutched his side and received treatment on the field before being taken to hospital.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has not put a timeline on his return but confirmed he is “medically stable”.
“Shreyas Iyer sustained an impact injury to his left lower rib cage region while fielding during the third ODI against Australia in Sydney. He was taken to hospital for further evaluation,” the BCCI said in a statement on Monday.
“Scans have revealed a laceration injury to the spleen. He is under treatment, medically stable, and recovering well.
“The BCCI medical team, in consultation with specialists in Sydney and India, is closely monitoring his injury status. The Indian team doctor will remain in Sydney with Shreyas to evaluate his day-to-day progress.”
MILWAUKEE — Technically, Roki Sasaki was available to pitch in relief for the Dodgers on Tuesday night.
Realistically, he wasn’t.
“I wouldn’t say unavailable,” manager Dave Roberts said before the game. “But it is unlikely that we will use him.”
Without the most electric arm in their unreliable bullpen, how could the Dodgers record the final outs required to win Game 2 of the National League Championship Series?
Here’s how: By making their bullpen a non-factor.
Yoshinobu Yamamoto tossed a complete game, becoming the first Japanese pitcher to do so in a postseason game. The offense spared Roberts another late-inning scare by tacking on insurance runs in the sixth, seventh and eighth innings.
The result was a 5-1 victory over the Milwaukee Brewers at American Family Field that extended the Dodgers’ lead in the NLCS to two games to none.
Two more wins and the Dodgers will advance to the World Series for the third time in six seasons. Two more wins and they will be positioned to become baseball’s first repeat champions in 25 years.
Ninety-three teams have taken a two-games-to-none lead in a best-of-seven postseason series. Seventy-nine of them have advanced.
In other words, this series is over.
If the Philadelphia Phillies couldn’t overturn a 2-0 deficit against the Dodgers, these overmatched tryhards in Milwaukee certainly won’t.
With the next three games at Dodger Stadium and Tyler Glasnow, Shohei Ohtani and Blake Snell scheduled to start those games, the most pressing question about this NLCS is whether it will return to baseball’s smallest market for Game 6.
Don’t count on it.
The Brewers’ bullpen was supposed to be superior to the Dodgers’, but that advantage has been negated by the Dodgers’ superior starting pitching.
Reaching this stage of October has forced the Brewers to exhaust their relievers, so much so that by the time closer Abner Uribe entered Game 2 in a sixth-inning emergency, he might as well have been Tanner Scott.
“We’re more depleted than the Dodgers are,” Brewers manager Pat Murphy said.
The workload made the Brewers’ bullpen as rickety as the Dodgers’, and that was with Sasaki just spectating.
What decided the game was that Murphy had to rely on his bullpen and Roberts didn’t.
Brewers starter Freddy Peralta pitched 5 ⅔ innings. A day after Snell faced the minimum number of batters over eight innings, Yamamoto registered every one of the 27 outs required to win a game.
Roberts said he didn’t hesitate to send back Yamamoto to the mound for the ninth inning. The night before, he called on Sasaki to close, and the decision to remove Snell nearly cost the Dodgers the game.
“Obviously,” Roberts said as diplomatically as he could, “there’s been things with the bullpen.”
Things now include Sasaki, whose ability to shoulder an October workload has come into question after he failed to complete the ninth inning in Game 1. In the game in question, Sasaki gave up a run and had to be replaced by Blake Treinen.
Sasaki’s form in Game 1 sounded alarm bells, and rightfully so. The converted starter still looked exhausted from his three-inning relief appearance against the Philadelphia Phillies in Game 4 of the NL Division Series. His fastball velocity has gradually declined over the postseason, and he’s not the type of pitcher who can be as effective throwing 96 mph as he is when he’s throwing 100 mph.
Sasaki has never pitched as a reliever in the United States or Japan. He spent 4 ½ months on the injured list this year with a shoulder impingement. Just as the Dodgers didn’t know what they could expect from him when they first deployed him out of the bullpen, they don’t know what they can expect from him now moving forward.
“It’s one of those things that we’re still in sort of uncharted territory with him,” Roberts said.
At various stages of the season, the Dodgers have asked themselves the same questions about their downtrodden bullpen: How could they survive when their firemen on their roster were also arsonists? How could they win a World Series with such an untrustworthy group of late-inning options?
In this NLCS, the Dodgers have shown how. They will use them as infrequently as possible.
Imagine if the Dodgers hadn’t scored a gazillion runs.
Shudder.
Imagine how the majority of spectators would have tensed up when manager Dave Roberts trudged to the mound to remove Alex Vesia if the game was actually close.
Hoo boy.
Imagine the devastation the Dodgers would have experienced if Jack Dreyer’s bases-loaded walk legitimately endangered their chances of winning.
Barf.
The postseason started for the Dodgers on Tuesday night, and their pumpkin of a bullpen didn’t magically transform into an elegant carriage in a 10-5 victory over the Cincinnati Reds in Game 1 of their National League wild-card series.
On a night when the hitters crushed five home runs and starter Blake Snell completed seven innings, the relievers continued to be as terrible as they were over the last three months of the regular season.
The Dodgers technically moved a win closer to defending their World Series title, but that ultimate goal suddenly looked further out of reach because of a shocking 30-minute top of the eighth inning during which three of their arsonist relievers nearly created a save situation out of an eight-run game.
Can a team possibly win a World Series with such an unreliable bullpen?
Dodgers reliever Alex Vesia reacts during the eighth inning of a 10-5 win over the Cincinnati Reds in Game 1 of a National League wild-card series on Tuesday night at Dodger Stadium.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Before the game, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said he thought so.
“It’s not a talent issue,” Friedman said, but who knows if this was an honest assessment or a disingenuous effort to convince his audience that he hadn’t wasted tens of millions of dollars on a bunch of no-chancers.
Friedman continued, “We’ve seen it time and time again with guys who have scuffled and all of a sudden found it and they roll off a heater.”
That’s not what happened in Game 1.
If anything, the troublesome eighth inning eliminated certain relievers from consideration to pitch in in the highest-leverage of situations.
Suspicions about rookie fireballer Edgardo Henriquez were confirmed, as Henriquez walked a batter to load the bases, walked in a run and gave up a run-scoring single.
The wishful thinking that Dreyer could be a late-inning option was dented, as Dreyer entered the game and walked in another run.
Most disconcerting was the performance of Vesia, the team’s most trusted reliever.
Vesia started the inning, with the Dodgers leading 10-2. The use of Vesia in such a lopsided game spoke to how little Roberts wanted to use any of his other relievers in a game of this magnitude, but the fiery left-hander looked like a rubber band that had been stretched out too many times. Vesia, who pitched a career-high 68 games in the regular season, retired only one batter. He gave up a hit and a walk.
So what now?
Roberts sounded as if the only relievers he trusted were his starters. He said Tyler Glasnow and Emmet Sheehan would be in the bullpen for Game 2.
Glasnow was last used as a reliever in 2018. He’s never pitched out of the bullpen in the postseason.
Sheehan has pitched in relief in only five of 28 career games. He has only one career save, and that was in a four-inning appearance in a blowout.
The Dodgers have contemplated deploying Shohei Ohtani out of the bullpen. They could also have other starting pitchers such as Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Snell pitch in relief instead of throwing scheduled bullpen sessions between starts.
The team’s highest-ceiling late-inning option could be Roki Sasaki, who struck out two batters in each of the two one-inning appearances he made in the final week of the regular season.
Will Yamamoto and Snell really be unaffected in their starts if they also pitch in relief?
It’s unclear.
But what is clear is the Dodgers can’t wait around for the likes of Tanner Scott or Blake Treinen or anyone who pitched in the eighth inning on Tuesday to magically round into form as Friedman envisions. They have to try something new.
Dave Roberts started out of the dugout with a walk.
Once Blake Snell caught his gaze, it turned into a trot.
With two out in the seventh inning, and Snell trying to put the finishing touches on his best performance in a Dodgers uniform, Roberts appeared to be coming to the mound after a pair of walks to turn to his shaky bullpen with a three-run lead.
As he usually does when removing a pitcher, his gait was slow — at least, initially.
Once Snell saw him coming, however, Roberts picked up his pace — as he will sometimes do when electing to leave a pitcher in the game.
This time, it was the latter.
After a brief discussion between manager and starting pitcher, Snell stayed in.
Five throws later, the $180-million offseason signee rewarded the decision, striking out Otto Kemp with a 95-mph fastball to put an emphatic ending on his scoreless seven-inning start, one that lifted the Dodgers to a 5-0 win over the Philadelphia Phillies.
Entering Wednesday, all the discussion around the Dodgers had centered on the bullpen. The slumping unit was coming off two of its worst performances of the season. The majority of Roberts’ pregame address with reporters was spent dissecting how to fix it.
“Before the results, has to be confidence,” Roberts said, comparing the relief corps’ struggles to the second-half scuffles that the offense only recently emerged from. “It’s just kind of trying to reset a mentality, a mindset and expect that things happen. … You can’t chase a zero in an inning until you execute the first pitch, and then keep going like that. And I think that right now you can see that they’re kind of trying a little too hard.”
On Wednesday night, however, Snell made their job easy.
Efficient from the start with the kind of aggressive, attacking game plan he had acknowledged was missing in his last three outings, Snell went to work quickly against the Phillies, retiring the side on eight pitches (and two strikeouts) in the first inning, en route to setting down the first eight batters he faced.
Brief trouble arose in the third, when Bryson Stott and Harrison Bader had back-to-back singles.
But then Snell froze Kyle Schwarber with a curveball, one of the seven punchouts he recorded with the pitch. He had a season-high 12 strikeouts on the night.
And after that, the Phillies didn’t put another runner aboard until the seventh, with Snell breezing through the next 12 batters.
In the meantime, the Dodgers built a lead. Freddie Freeman homered to lead off the second. Ben Rortvedt (starting his third straight game behind the plate, even with Dalton Rushing back from a leg injury) added an RBI single later in the inning, following an Andy Pages hit-and-run single that put runners on the corners.
Another run came around in the fourth, after Pages worked a two-out walk, stole second, took third on a wild pickoff throw and scored on an RBI single from Kiké Hernández (who played third base in place of Max Muncy, who still felt “fuzzy” on Tuesday from a hit-by-pitch he took to the head over the weekend).
And from there, the Dodgers watched Snell cruise, with the $182-million offseason acquisition attacking the corners of the strike zone while also inducing misses on 24 of 54 swings.
The night culminated in the seventh, after walks to Nick Castellanos and Max Kepler drew Roberts out of the dugout. In the bullpen, left-hander Alex Vesia was getting warm. For a brief moment, it appeared the game would be in the hands of the relievers.
Snell had other ideas, signaling Roberts to hurry to the mound in the middle of his walk before seemingly pleading his case to stay in.
Whatever he said, Roberts listened.
Snell stayed on the rubber. A crowd of 50,859 roared in approval.
Against his final batter, Kemp, Snell fell behind, missing low with a changeup before pulling a fastball wide. Undeterred, he went back on the attack, getting one foul ball with a heater on the inner half, then another with a curveball that leaked over the plate. The count was 2-and-2. Chavez Ravine rose to its feet.
The next pitch — Snell’s 112th of the night — was another fastball, this time on the upper, outside corner at 95.3 mph. Kemp swung through it. Snell screamed and pumped his fist. In the dugout, Roberts raised an arm in the air, then began clapping as Snell walked off to a raucous ovation.
The next two innings were refreshingly simple. Alex Vesia retired the side in the top of the eighth. The Dodgers made it a five-run lead by scoring twice in the bottom half of the frame, including on Shohei Ohtani’s 51st home run of the season. Embattled closer Tanner Scott spun a stress-free ninth, pitching three consecutive scoreless outings for the first time since early July.
Come October, that’s the kind of blueprint the Dodgers (who maintained a two-game lead in the National League West over the San Diego Padres) will have to try and replicate.
Their bullpen still needs fixing. Their relief issues aren’t solved. But more gems like Snell’s would certainly help.
SOUTH WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. — Lin Chin-Tse retired the first 13 batters he faced and gave up just one hit in five innings as Taiwan beat Nevada 7-0 in the Little League World Series championship Sunday, ending a 29-year title drought for the Taiwanese.
Taiwan won its first LLWS since 1996, although its 18 titles are the most of any country beside the United States, including five straight from 1977 to 1981.
Lin, a 5-foot-8 right hander, also smashed a three-run triple in Taiwan’s five-run fifth. The 12-year-old from Taipei hit more than 80 mph with his fastball multiple times during the tournament, which to batters looks much faster because the plate in this level of baseball is only 46 feet away. His velocity looked much the same Sunday.
Taiwan’s Jian Zih-De celebrates in front of Nevada’s Luke D’Ambrosio during the second inning of Taiwan’s 7-0 victory in the Little League World Series championship game.
(Patrick Smith / Getty Images)
Lin’s longest start before Sunday was three innings in Taiwan’s opening game against Mexico. He gave up only one hit in a subsequent victory over Venezuela.
Garrett Gallegos broke up the perfect game with a single into left field in the fifth inning but was caught in a double play when Grayson Miranda lined out to second. Nevada was appearing in its first championship game.
Offensively, Taiwan capitalized on four wild pitches and a passed ball. Jian Zih-De worked a walk leading off the bottom of the second and later scored when he beat the throw home after the wild pitches.
Chen Shi-Rong scored Taiwan’s second run in the bottom of the third when he ran home on a Nevada throwing error to first base.
The last international team to win the tournament title was Japan in 2017.
DENVER — With the Dodgers in the midst of a stretch that will see them play a season-HIGH 19 games without a day off, manager Dave Roberts rested shortstop Mookie Betts on Wednesday and started Miguel Rojas in his place.
Shohei Ohtani, who was in Wednesday’s lineup as the starting pitching and designated hitter, is expected to sit out Thursday’s series finale, and outfielder Teoscar Hernández and catcher Will Smith probably will as well.
Relievers Kirby Yates and Tanner Scott both threw hitless innings in rehab appearances with triple-A Oklahoma City on Tuesday. Yates struck out one and gave up a walk, while Scott walked a batter and struck out two. Both could rejoin the Dodgers this weekend in San Diego, Roberts said.
Utility player Kiké Hernández, on the injured list since July 7 with left elbow inflammation, was expected to make his first rehab start Wednesday.
Before Wednesday’s game, the Dodgers also recalled right-hander Paul Gervase from Oklahoma City and optioned right-handed Alexis Diaz. Gervase, 25, acquired from Tampa Bay at the trade deadline, appeared in five games with the Rays this season, striking out six batters in 6.1 innings.
Díaz, 28, was 1-0 with a 5.00 ERA in nine games for the Dodgers. A former National League all-star, he was acquired on May 29 from the Cincinnati Reds in exchange for minor league pitcher Mike Villani.
It was a sight that’s been all too rare this season, coming precisely when the Dodgers needed it most.
Mookie Betts, bat in hand, game on the line. A swing as smooth as it was strong, his two-handed finish sending the ball out of sight.
For so much of this year, the Dodgers have been picking Betts up amid a career-worst season at the plate.
On Sunday afternoon, with a rivalry game and division lead hanging in the balance, he returned the favor with his biggest moment in what felt like ages.
After once leading by four, then watching the San Diego Padres claw back to tie the score, the Dodgers completed a weekend series sweep on Betts’ go-ahead home run in the eighth.
The no-doubt, 394-foot, stadium-shaking blast sent the Dodgers to a 5-4 win and gave them a two-game lead in the National League West; and had Betts skipping around the bases with a swagger that has been missing for much of the campaign.
“It’s been a long time,” Betts said — since he had delivered such a clutch hit, looked so much like his old self at the dish, and trusted a swing that has frustrated him since the earliest days of the season.
“Finally, I did something good for the boys that’s with the bat. I feel like I’ve done a decent job with the glove. But the bat, I haven’t really been able to help much. So just good to help with that.”
Mookie Betts hits a solo home run for the Dodgers in eighth inning Sunday against the Padres.
As Betts came to the plate in the eighth, Dodger Stadium stood still in a silent, tense trance.
In the first inning, the team had ambushed Padres starter Yu Darvish for four runs on long balls from Freddie Freeman and Andy Pages.
But from there, a crowd of 49,189 watched the Padres slowly come back.
Tyler Glasnow fizzled after two electric opening innings, leaving the game at the end of the fifth after allowing two runs.
A patchwork Dodgers bullpen couldn’t hold off the Padres, giving up runs in the top of the sixth and eighth to make it a 4-4 game.
At that point, San Diego had the advantage. Their league-best bullpen was fresh. Their closer, Robert Suarez, was on the mound. And the Dodgers were almost completely out of pitching options, having burned five relievers to get the previous nine outs.
But then, Betts delivered. In a 2-and-0 count against Suarez, he launched a center-cut fastball deep into the left-field stands.
“To get into a good count and turn that fastball around, that’s the Mookie we like,” manager Dave Roberts said.
“He was able to stay through it, back-spin the ball, hit it over the fence in a big situation,” Freeman echoed. “Been saying it the last few weeks. Mookie Betts is gonna be Mookie Betts. No one here is worried about him.”
That might have been true of his teammates. But for much of the summer, Betts seemed to be battling constant self-doubt.
His swing never felt right, off from the start after a late-spring stomach virus that zapped him of almost 20 pounds. His typical production never materialized, with a lack of power or consistent on-base ability contributing to distant career-lows in batting average (.242), OPS (.683) and home runs (he is on pace for only 17).
“I don’t know how to get through this,” Betts said last month. “I’m working every day. Hopefully it turns.”
When mechanical tweaks and long-trusted swing cues didn’t fix the issue, Betts recently decided to adopt a new mindset.
At the behest of Roberts, and the encouragement of his wife Brianna, Betts began this month by reframing his perspective.
“We’re going to have to chalk [this] up [as] not a great season,” Betts said two weeks ago, at least as far as his overall numbers were concerned. “But I can go out and help the boys win every night. Get an RBI. Make a play. Do something. I’m going to have to shift my focus there.”
Of late, the shift seemed to be working.
From Aug. 5-13, he went 14 for 35 over an eight-game hitting streak with seven RBIs, three extra-base hits and only two strikeouts.
This weekend had been more of a struggle, with Betts going hitless in his first nine at-bats.
But when he came up in the eighth, he had mental clarity. He wasn’t worried about his numbers, or a statline long past saving.
“Just trying to do something productive,” he said. “It definitely helps to not carry burdens from previous at-bats.”
Mookie Betts runs the bases after hitting a solo home run in the eighth inning for the Dodgers against the Padres on Sunday.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
As the ball sailed out, landing in a left-field pavilion of rollicking fans, Betts practically floated around the bases, giving a two-handed wave to the bullpen, the team’s Shohei Ohtani-inspired finger swoosh to the dugout, and a couple emphatic salutes to both teammates and the crowd.
“To take the pressure off — trying to recover from the season and get more micro, just game to game, at-bat to at-bat — it’s a better quality of life,” Roberts said. “Certainly, we’re seeing the performance from Mookie.”
And as a result, the Dodgers (71-53) had a triumphant ending to their pivotal rivalry series sweep of the Padres (69-55), going from second place Friday to all alone in first again.
“We just played a good brand of baseball this weekend,” Betts said. “But again, we still got a long way to go.”
Long before the dramatic ending, Sunday had started like the previous two games. The Dodgers were getting good pitching, with Glasnow striking out four of his first five batters while pumping increased fastball velocity and generating foolish swings with his slider. The Padres were making mistakes; most notably, Freddy Fermín getting gunned down by Pages from center while trying to leg out a double in the top of the third, turning what could have been a crooked-number rally into only a one-run inning.
Darvish, meanwhile, made a pair of two-strike mistakes in the first, leaving a fastball up to Freeman for a three-run homer before failing to bury a splitter to Pages for a solo shot.
It all seemed to give the Dodgers full control of the series finale.
In the top of the fifth, however, things began to shift.
Dodgers starting pitcher Tyler Glasnow delivers in the first inning against the Padres on Sunday.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
First, Ramón Laureano lifted a solo drive just over the wall in right to lead off the inning. And though Glasnow got out of a jam later in the inning, his fading command and rising 91-throw pitch count prompted Roberts to go to the bullpen with still 12 outs to go.
In the sixth, Anthony Banda gave up one run on a pair of doubles (the second one, a floating fly ball into the right-field corner from Ryan O’Hearn that slow-footed Teoscar Hernández couldn’t track down).
And though Blake Treinen stranded a runner at third in the seventh — thanks in no small part to a generous strike call against Manny Machado that negated a walk — more trouble arose in the eighth, after Alexis Díaz started by hitting a batter and giving up a double to Laureano on a line drive to center.
“Man, fought our tail off to come back,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said. “Could have easily said, you know what, it’s not our day again, down four.”
Tying the game, however, was as close as the Padres would get.
Facing the two-on, one-out jam, Roberts summoned Alex Vesia to try and get out of the inning. The left-hander retired both batters he faced, with only a ground ball from Jose Iglesias managing to level the score.
Dodgers reliever Alex Vesia, right, celebrates with catcher Will Smith after the Dodgers’ 5-4 win over the Padres at Dodger Stadium on Sunday.
(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)
When Vesia returned to the dugout, Roberts phoned to the bullpen, instructing Justin Wrobleski to get loose with the game veering toward extras.
Vesia, however, had a different plan in mind.
“They told me I was done. And I was just like, ‘No,’” Vesia declared. “So I told Doc, I walked up to him and said, ‘Hey, if we’re up [in the ninth], I want it.’ He was like, ‘OK, you got it.’ Sure enough, Mook, bang, homers. Sweet, let’s go.”
Indeed, just when it seemed like all the momentum the Dodgers had built this weekend was suddenly fading, and the series would end with them only tied atop the standings, Betts instead flipped the script with his moment of salvation. Then Vesia returned to the mound for a clean ninth inning — punctuated by a strikeout of Machado that left him one for 11 in the series.
“To really weather the last couple innings, and to get that big hit off a really good closer was big,” Roberts said. “Yeah, feel a lot better today than a week ago.”
The result was historic. The way it happened was all too familiar.
Never before, since interleague play began in 1997, had the Dodgers been swept in a six-game season series against the Angels.
But plenty of times in recent weeks had they suffered the kind of fate that befell them Wednesday.
Entering the eighth inning, the team was leading by one run. Without many trustworthy options in a recently scuffling bullpen, however, manager Dave Roberts had few cards to play from his deck.
First, he sent left-hander Justin Wrobleski out for a third inning of work. When he walked the first two batters, Roberts turned to right-hander Edgardo Henriquez, who had pitched multiple innings the night before.
You can probably guess what happened next.
Despite perfectly defending a sacrifice bunt to get the lead runner at third, the Dodgers again failed to escape a late-game threat. With one out, Jo Adell hit what looked like a possible double-play grounder — only for Henriquez to deflect the ball on an ill-advised fielding attempt and send it rolling away for an infield single.
Two batters later, Logan O’Hoppe roped a go-ahead, two-out base hit into center.
Another lead had been squandered by the bullpen. Another loss — the Dodgers’ fourth straight, and 21st in their last 33 games — had been all but cemented.
With a 6-5 defeat, the Dodgers were swept for the second time this season by the Angels. They also fell out of first place in the National League West for the first time since April.
It was yet another day they could only shake their head.
Wednesday was supposed to be about Shohei Ohtani, who was making his first pitching start as a visitor at his old home ballpark at Angel Stadium.
It was also Ohtani’s first full-length outing since returning from a second career Tommy John surgery earlier this year. But even the two-way star could only conjure so much magic.
After building up inning by inning since his return to pitching, Ohtani’s leash was extended into the fifth for the first time this season — a target length the Dodgers don’t plan on having him surpass at least until the playoffs.
“He’s just such a valuable player to us offensively, as a pitcher,” Roberts said. “So to push for an extra inning, or call it five extra innings in totality, it’s just not worth it. There’s just way too much downside.”
And by the time Ohtani took the mound for the first time, he’d already helped the Dodgers take an early lead, beginning the game with a scorching line-drive triple before Mookie Betts singled him home and Will Smith went deep to make a three-run first inning.
The two-way star gave up two runs in the second, one on a Taylor Ward home run, then another after Yoán Moncada doubled and came around to score on a sacrifice fly, but the Dodgers restored their three-run advantage with a two-run rally in the fourth; one that featured three walks (including one from Ohtani and a run-scoring free pass from Smith) and an RBI single from Betts (who extended his hitting streak to eight games, five of which have been multi-hit efforts).
Ohtani’s first foray into the fifth inning didn’t go smoothly. O’Hoppe and Bryce Teodosio hit consecutive one-out singles. Zach Neto laced a two-run double into the left-field corner that kicked away from Alex Call. And with his pitch count up to a season-high of 80, Roberts went to get him before he could qualify for the win.
Reliever Anthony Banda escaped the inning without further damage. Ohtani’s final line was 4 1/3 innings, four runs, five hits and seven strikeouts (two of them against former Angels co-star Mike Trout). His season ERA is now 3.47. He has 32 strikeouts in 23⅔ innings.
And for a while, it appeared the score would remain that way — until yet another late-game collapse sent the Dodgers to another maddening setback.
The Dodgers’ Tyler Glasnow and the Cardinals’ Sonny Gray squared off in an old-school pitchers’ duel Monday. But both were watching from the clubhouse when pinch-hitter Yohel Pozo’s two-out single in the ninth lifted the Cardinals to a 3-2 victory at Dodger Stadium.
Glasnow gave the Dodgers seven strong innings for the second time in three starts, allowing a run on three hits — none after the second inning — while striking out seven. Gray was even better in his seven innings, giving up just a fourth-inning solo home run to Freddie Freeman and a second-inning walk to Max Muncy.
Both then gave way to shaky bullpens, which is when things got interesting.
The Dodgers’ bullpen gave up more runs over a span of nine batters than Glasnow did all night. Anthony Banda went first, allowing a go-ahead homer to Iván Herrera three batters into the eighth inning. But the Cardinals’ Riley O’Brien gave the run right back in the bottom of the inning on a double to Teoscar Hernández.
Newcomer Brock Stewart started the ninth for the Dodgers, but he didn’t finish it. After Willson Contreras and Lars Nootbaar greeted him with singles to put runners at the corners, Pozo squirted a two-out single over the infield to score pinch-runner Garrett Hampson for the go-ahead run.
After Shohei Ohtani’s led off the ninth with a single, the Cardinals’ JoJo Romero finally shut the door, getting Mookie Betts to pop out and striking out Freeman. After walking Will Smith to put the tying run at second, he retired Muncy on a line drive to right to end the night.
Glasnow got off to a rough start, allowing three hits, including a solo homer by Masyn Winn, in the first two innings. But he settled in after that, allowing just one baserunner the rest of the way, though he would have nothing to show for it, finishing without a decision for the eighth time in 10 starts.
Gray, meanwhile, was dealing from the start for the Cardinals, setting down 10 of the first 11 batters he faced before Freeman tied the game with a one-out home run, his 13th of the season, in the fourth.
Freeman has hits in 12 of his last 13 games and is batting .500 over his last six games. But his home run would prove to be the only hit the Dodgers would get off Gray, who struck out eight and walked just one.
Sasaki set to throw
Right-hander Roki Sasaki is expected to throw the equivalent of three innings to hitters Friday and if that goes well, he could begin a minor-league rehab assignment next week. He has not pitched in nearly three months after going on the IL with a shoulder impingement.
Edman goes on injured list
Utilityman Hyeseong Kim, out since July 29 with a shoulder issue, is swinging a bat and taking grounders. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is optimistic he will be able to return soon. But another utility player, Tommy Edman, went on the IL with an ankle injury. With Kim, Edman and Kiké Hernández, another utility player, all out with injuries, Roberts has not had the usual versatility he has enjoyed in fielding a lineup.
But, in what became a frustrating 4-2 loss to the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park, Crochet bobbed and weaved around every knockout blow the Dodgers tried to land.
“I thought we played hard. I thought we competed,” manager Dave Roberts said. “He made pitches when he needed to.”
Indeed, in a game that was decided on the margins — through high-leverage at-bats and two-strike battles and risky decisions that backfired on the basepaths — Crochet was just a little bit better than Dodgers starter Clayton Kershaw, using his heavy fastball and premium all-around stuff to wiggle out of trouble in a way his aging 37-year-old counterpart couldn’t.
While Crochet limited damage over the rest of his six-inning start, striking out 10 batters to prevent each of the eight other Dodgers who reached base from scoring, Kershaw faltered when his back was up against the wall, yielding the lead in a three-run second inning before exiting after another run in the fifth.
“Obviously, when you’re facing a guy like Crochet, there’s not gonna be a ton of runs,” said Kershaw, who once invoked such fear from opponents but now has to grind with gradually diminished stuff. “Our guys did a good job getting a lead there early and really having good at-bats. Just frustrating not to be able to hold it.”
Making his first career regular-season start at Fenway Park (he had only previously pitched here in the 2018 World Series), Kershaw appeared to be battling his mechanics from the start. He delivered a first-pitch strike to only five of the first 14 batters. Even worse, he couldn’t put guys away on two-strike counts.
It culminated in the three-run second inning from the Red Sox (56-50). Trevor Story worked a leadoff walk. Carlos Narváez belted a double off the Green Monster. And, on a night he had two triples and a double, Jarren Duran laced a line drive to center that got over Andy Pages’ head to plate two runs (Duran would later score on a sacrifice fly).
All three batters did their damage with two strikes.
“Needed to figure it out a little bit better,” Kershaw said of the second inning. “The last few innings [after that], I actually felt pretty good with everything. Just couldn’t make the adjustment that second inning. And that’s what cost us.”
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1.Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw delivers in the first inning Saturday.2.Boston starting pitcher Garrett Crochet delivers in the first inning Saturday.(Steven Senne / Associated Press)
Kershaw eventually settled down. He rediscovered his command in the third, working around a pair of singles with a double-play grounder and strikeout of Story. He found the kind of rhythm that has keyed his surprisingly strong 18th season from there, retiring seven consecutive batters to work his way into the fifth inning.
But with two outs in the fifth, Red Sox slugger Alex Bregman outlasted Kershaw in another two-strike battle, bouncing a single through the infield on the 10th pitch of the at-bat. Then, rookie star Roman Anthony drove him home with a double off the Monster.
Kershaw’s night ended there, with four runs (tying the second-most earned runs he has allowed this season) and only two strikeouts over 4⅔ innings raising his season earned-run average to 3.62.
“Could have been a super frustrating day,” Kershaw said. “Now it’s only mildly frustrating — just that that’s still in there, I can still get people out. It’s just that second inning got to me.”
Crochet, meanwhile, never wavered after the Dodgers (61-44) did their early damage.
“When you’re facing guys like Crochet, you don’t get so many good pitches to hit,” Hernández said. “The ones that you do, you just have to put it in play and hopefully you can get good contact, do some damage, like we did in the first inning. After that, he was throwing the ball very good. He didn’t miss many pitches in the strike zone.”
The Dodgers, in an effort to manufacture extra offense, didn’t help their own cause on the bases, either.
After the first-inning home runs, another rally fizzled when Freddie Freeman was thrown out trying to go from first to third base on a Pages single that was initially booted by Duran in left field.
The Dodgers challenged the call, with Roberts applauding Freeman’s aggressiveness from the dugout, but the out was upheld. Tommy Edman lined out to end the inning an at-bat later.
“I thought that was a good play, I liked that,” Roberts said of Freeman’s decision. “He’s got to make a perfect throw to get Freddie right there. But in a first and third [situation] with a two-run lead, if we get into a situational spot right there, it could’ve been a different game.”
Instead, the rest of the night was more of the same.
The Dodgers had two other innings end with outs on the bases. Hernández was caught stealing for the final out of the fifth (on a close play the Dodgers were unable to review after burning their challenge earlier, but one Hernández was told likely would’ve been upheld). Will Smith was gunned down trying to turn a single into a double in the seventh, after Crochet’s exit.
“If you try to play it straight and try to collect a bunch of hits, it’s just not going to happen,” Roberts said of the Dodgers’ game plan on the bases. “We had a chance early and then he started bearing down and the velocity ticked up. Then hits were harder to come by.”
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani examines his bat before striking out in the fourth inning Saturday.
(Steven Senne / Associated Press)
And if that wasn’t enough, Ohtani squandered several more chances in deflating sequences at the plate.
Despite extending his National League lead with his 38th home run to start the game, the slugger also moved into the top-five of the NL in strikeouts with three in each of his remaining at-bats Saturday, finishing with 124 on the season.
In both the second and fourth, No. 9 hitter Hyeseong Kim managed to single off Crochet (surprising results given Kim’s recent struggles, which Roberts said have been magnified by a recent shoulder injury). But both times, Ohtani followed with inning-ending Ks, chasing out of the zone on a fastball up and a cutter that was well away.
The Dodgers, nonetheless, gave themselves one last chance against Red Sox closer Aroldis Chapman in the ninth, bringing the tying run to the plate after a two-out walk from Esteury Ruiz.
The batter representing that tying run: Mookie Betts, who was out of the starting lineup for a second straight game after spending the week back home in Nashville following a death in his family, but arrived at the ballpark shortly after first pitch to be available to pinch-hit.
His number was called with the game on the line, in what marked just his second trip back to Fenway Park since being traded from the Red Sox to the Dodgers in 2020.
Alas, the former MVP brought a night of missed chances to a frustratingly fitting conclusion, getting rung up on a called third strike to set up a series rubber match Sunday.
Dave Roberts had some goals in mind for starting pitcher Dustin May on Thursday. And they had little to do with the final result.
“The first thing is his ability to go deeper in games,” the Dodger manager said. “The sweeper has got to be a more effective pitch. His sinker has got to be more effective.
“I know he’s working through some delivery things with the pitching coaches. I’m kind waiting to see what to expect tonight.”
May would give Roberts far more than he asked for, setting down the first 16 batters in order and pitching into the eighth inning for the first time in his career in a 6-2 win over the Chicago White Sox.
The win was the Dodgers’ fourth in a row and ninth in their last 10 games.
The start was May’s 16th of the season and the seven innings he threw gave him 89.2 for the year, both career highs. Consistency, however, has been an issue. He won just once in June, when his 5.67 ERA was highest among Dodger starters.
His first start in July was a different story, with May (5-5) giving up just two hits and striking out nine — one shy of his career high — in seven shutout innings before tiring in the eighth.
The Dodgers needed just three batters to give the right-hander the lead with Shohei Ohtani drawing a lead-off walk, then scoring on Freddie Freeman’s one-out double into the right-field corner.
Freeman padded that lead in the third, going the other way and looping a two-run double into the left-field corner. It was Freeman’s first three-RBI game in nearly two months. When Michael Conforto followed two batters later with a two-run homer, it was 5-0 Dodgers.
And the lead could have been larger: Freeman lost a homer of his own in his next at-bat when Chicago right fielder Michael Tauchman reached a couple of rows into the right-field bleachers near the foul pole to bring his fifth-inning drive back.
Mookie Betts closed the Dodgers’ scoring with a one-out solo homer in the seventh, just his second since May 19.
May, meanwhile, was cruising, talking a perfect game into the sixth before Brooks Baldwin singled sharply to right. He took a shutout into the eighth before Baldwin ended that, too, with a two-run homer.
May got help from a couple of sterling defensive plays, with Conforto taking a hit away from Miguel Vargas with a sliding catch in left to the start the fifth and Freeman diving to his right to stab Josh Rojas’ low line drive to start the sixth.
Relievers Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates followed May to the mound, throwing a hitless inning apiece to close out the win.
Fifteen minutes before first pitch on Sunday, Giants catcher Logan Porter trotted in from the visitor’s bullpen. He’d usually be accompanied by the starting pitcher, which was set to be left-hander Kyle Harrison.
Instead, Porter stood on the first-base line for the national anthem, turned to his left and whispered to his teammates. As they all received the information from Porter — reminiscent of the children’s game “Telephone” — other Giants teammates likely learned one-by-one that Harrison had been traded.
“It was crazy,” Dodgers second baseman Tommy Edman said. “You don’t expect a trade like that this time of year and just getting the pitching change at the last minute.”
The odd scene at Dodger Stadium was because of a reported blockbuster trade that involved the Boston Red Sox sending infielder Rafael Devers to the Giants in exchange for Harrison, right-hander Jordan Hicks and two prospects — a move that further bolsters the talent in the L.A.-San Francisco rivalry.
“Those guys over there are doing a great job of putting a team together and obviously, they want to win,” said shortstop Mookie Betts, who was teammates with Devers in Boston from 2017 to 2019.
San Francisco manager Bob Melvin was forced to turn to long reliever Sean Hjelle, who rapidly warmed up for the start, against a Dodgers offense that had scored 11 runs Saturday night. As Betts said after the game, no matter who the Giants were going to throw at them in response, they were prepared. The Dodgers had done their “homework,” he said.
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It was more of the same from the Dodgers’ offense in a 5-4 victory Sunday. The top of the order manufactured a run via an Andy Pages sacrifice fly in the first inning. Edman hit a solo home run — his 10th — in the second. Pages put a cherry on top in the fifth after Shohei Ohtani (three for three, one walk) and Mookie Betts set the table with singles.
The Cuban slugger’s three-run home run helped the Dodgers (43-29) restore a two-game lead over the Giants (41-31) in the NL West standings.
“It’s really emotional, a special moment to hit a home run in that situation because I haven’t seen him,” Pages said through an interpreter, speaking about his father back in Cuba. “It’s hard sometimes. But it was really special to hit a home run on Father’s Day.”
On the mound, Dustin May was looking to get back on track.
May’s recent starts left more to be desired from the former top prospect who had been struggling with his command and not tallying many swinging strikes. He had struck out just six batters across his last 11 innings — striking out just one in his last outing.
Although May couldn’t find his strikeout pitch, his start Sunday was the sixth time he had pitched through the sixth inning in 2025. He walked four batters for the second time in as many starts — the only time he’s issued at least four free passes in back-to-back games in his career — and struck out three batters. He didn’t have his best stuff, but showed his mettle in the fifth inning.
Dodgers pitcher Dustin May delivers against the Giants at Dodger Stadium on Sunday.
(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)
Whereas he crumbled in the fourth, giving up a two-RBI triple to Jung Hoo Lee to give the Giants a 3-2 lead, he battled out of a bases-loaded jam to keep San Francisco at bay, inducing Porter into an inning-ending groundout.
After Pages further strengthened his All-Star case with his 13th home run, the Dodgers’ bullpen took care of business. Alex Vesia tossed a shutout seventh, while Kirby Yates (one run) and Tanner Scott (zero runs and struck out the side) finished it off in the eighth and ninth, respectively.
“It was good to see us find a way to win a ballgame,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Dustin got a little traffic there in the fourth but he finds a way, as he has shown, to still manage to get through six and to use the guys we wanted to and win a ballgame.”
Sasaki’s status uncertain
Ohtani will start Monday against the San Diego Padres, but it’s still not clear when right-hander Roki Sasaki will return. Roberts said Sasaki (right shoulder impingement) recently halted his throwing program.
“There was some rubbing, is the word he used,” Roberts said. “He’s pain-free. When we start that build-up, it should be soon. He’s already moving around. We all feel encouraged where he’s at right now, as far as the pain.”
The Dodgers placed the 23-year-old rookie on the injured list May 13. Roberts did not specify what Sasaki’s condition is other than that he’s out indefinitely.
Piecing together the starting rotation for the week ahead, Emmet Sheehan is set to be activated Tuesday or Wednesday, Roberts said.
Nicholas Pooran, one of the world’s leading T20 batters, has retired from international duty with West Indies aged 29.
The Trinidadian has played 167 times for West Indies, but the decision will allow him to concentrate on playing in lucrative franchise leagues.
He had already skipped the ongoing T20 series against England to rest following his time playing for Lucknow Super Giants in the Indian Premier League (IPL).
He also has deals in Major League Cricket (MLC) and The Hundred this summer.
Cricket West Indies said, external: “We salute his achievements and thank him for the moments he has given fans across the region and beyond.
“We wish him all the very best in the next phase of his journey.”
While Pooran is not the first player to retire from internationals in favour of franchise leagues – South Africa’s Heinrich Klaasen did so last week – his decision is one of the most significant, given his age and profile.
West Indies captain Shai Hope was asked about Pooran’s decision to skip the England series last week but said that decision would not impact his future selection.
It is understood Pooran told West Indies of his retirement on Monday.
He last played for West Indies in December 2024 in T20s against Bangladesh, but has not played an ODI since July 2023 and does not play Tests.
Pooran is the most capped West Indian in T20 internationals with 106, and the leading T20I run-scorer with 2,275.
In its latest assault on Gaza’s decimated healthcare system, Israel has once again targeted the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza, this time with drones, as its forces are also carrying out a ground offensive in the north and south of the bombarded territory.
Health officials said late on Sunday that fighting around the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza and an Israeli military “siege” forced it to shut down.
It was the main medical facility in the north after Israeli air strikes last year also forced the Kamal Adwan and Beit Hanoon hospitals to stop providing health services.
“There is direct targeting on the hospital including the intensive care unit,” Indonesian Hospital director Dr Marwan al-Sultan said in a statement, adding that no one could reach the facility, which had about 30 patients and 15 medical staff inside.
Israel has repeatedly targeted hospitals during its 19-month war on Gaza. Human rights groups and United Nations-backed experts have accused Israel of systematically destroying Gaza’s healthcare system.
Earlier, Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya, director of al-Shifa Hospital in the besieged enclave’s north, told Al Jazeera on Sunday that the latest strikes – which have been ongoing since Saturday – indicate that Israeli attacks on Gaza’s hospitals are intensifying.
“The medical teams are really suffering, and we have a few numbers of medical teams and staff … and a lot of people are in need [of] more medical care,” Abu Salmiya said by phone from the hospital on Sunday.
Thousands of sick and wounded people could die, he warned. Blood donations are urgently needed.
This has been underscored by Gaza’s Health Ministry, which confirmed that Israeli forces besieged the facility in Beit Lahiya, adding that “a state of panic and confusion is prevailing”.
The ministry later said that Israel had cut off the arrival of patients and staff, “effectively forcing the hospital out of service”.
With “the shutdown of the Indonesian Hospital, all public hospitals in the North Gaza Governorate are now out of service”, it said.
Gaza’s healthcare facilities have been targeted repeatedly throughout Israel’s deadly assault that began 18 months ago.
Other facilities in the north that have been bombed, burned, and besieged by the Israeli military since the start of the war include Kamal Adwan Hospital, al-Shifa Hospital, al-Ahli Hospital, and al-Awda Hospital. Dozens of other medical clinics, stations, and vehicles have also come under attack.
The targeting of health facilities, medical personnel and patients is considered a war crime under the 1949 Geneva Convention.
Israel has also battered several hospitals in Gaza’s central and southern areas, including Deir el-Balah’s Al-Aqsa Hospital and the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.
Earlier this week, Israel struck two hospitals in Khan Younis. Nine missiles slammed into and around the courtyard of the European Gaza Hospital, killing at least 16 people, while an attack on the Nasser Medical Complex killed two people, including a wounded journalist.
Incessant attacks on Gaza’s healthcare sector have left it reeling, devastating its ability to function, while doctors say they are out of medicine to treat routine conditions.
Hospitals have also been on the verge of total collapse amid a brutal and ongoing blockade, where Israel continues to bar the entry of much-needed medical supplies, fuel, and other humanitarian aid including food and clean water.
The crisis in Gaza has reached one of its darkest periods, humanitarian officials warn, as famine also looms.
Israeli air strikes have killed hundreds of Palestinians in the last 72 hours.
Strikes over the weekend have also put the European Hospital, the only remaining facility providing cancer treatments in Gaza, out of service.
Al Jazeera’s Hind Khoudary, reporting from Deir el-Balah, said dozens of Palestinians have been wounded, and doctors say “they’re facing numerous challenges in treating injuries because of a lack of medical supplies”.
“Israeli air strikes in Gaza are still escalating as drones and fighter jets hover in the sky,” Khoudary said.
The death toll has reached the same level of intensity as the earliest days of the war, said Emily Tripp, executive director of Airwars, an independent group in London that tracks recent conflicts.
She says preliminary data indicate the number of incidents where at least one person was killed or injured by Israeli fire hovered around 700 in April. It’s a figure comparable only to October or December 2023 – one of the heaviest periods of bombardment.
In the last 10 days of March, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) estimates, an average of 100 children were killed or maimed by Israeli air strikes every day.
Almost 3,000 of the estimated 53,000 killed by Israel since October 7, 2023, have lost their lives since Israel broke a fragile ceasefire on March 18, Gaza’s Health Ministry said.
Among those killed in recent days include a volunteer pharmacist with the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, who was killed with her family in a strike on Gaza City on May 4.
A midwife from Al Awda Health and Community Association was also killed with her family in another strike on May 7.
A journalist working for Qatar-based television network Al Araby TV, along with 11 members of his family, was also killed.
