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TORONTO — The Dodgers played 162 games in 193 days during the regular season. Then they played 10 more times in 18 days in the first three rounds of the playoffs.

It was a grind that gave way to a routine as comfortable as an old shoe.

That routine was upended when the Dodgers swept the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Championship Series, giving them a week off before the start of the World Series, the team’s longest break since February. And the Dodgers looked anything but rested and refreshed in Friday’s 11-4 shellacking by the Toronto Blue Jays, which left them trailing a postseason series for the first time since last fall’s NLDS.

“I’m pretty sure the guys kind of felt the velocity a little bit more,” said Miguel Rojas, one of just a handful of Dodgers who spoke to the media after the loss. “But there’s nothing that we can do. That’s not going to be an excuse for us to underperform.”

It may not be an excuse. But it could be an omen.

This World Series is the fifth in which a team that swept its best-of-seven LCS, as the Dodgers did, faced a team that needed to go seven games to win its series, as Toronto did. The team that swept and got the break lost each of the four previous World Series, winning just two of 18 games.

Dodger manager Dave Roberts dismissed that history Friday.

“I really don’t think the week layoff had anything to do with tonight,” he said. “We were rested. I thought we were in a good spot. We had a 2-0 lead. So I don’t think that had anything to do with it.”

Blake Snell, the pitcher who gave up that lead, brushed off the break as well.

“There’s no excuses. I need to be better,” said Snell, who went 10 days between starts, his longest break since coming off the injured list in August. “I don’t care if it’s a month off. Find a way to be ready.”

He wasn’t against the Blue Jays. After averaging 16 pitches an inning in 14 previous starts, he needed 29 to get through the first inning Friday. And after giving up two runs and six hits in 21 innings this postseason, he gave up five runs and eight hits in just five-plus innings in Toronto, with two of those runs coming on Dalton Varsho’s fourth-inning home run, the only homer Snell has conceded to a left-handed hitter this year.

Emmet Sheehan, who followed Snell to the mound, hadn’t pitched in two weeks. He had his worst outing of the year, facing four batters and watching three of them score.

“I felt good going into the game. I felt the same as I have been,” he said. “I thought I made some good pitches, and they made some really good swings.

“It’s not a good feeling.”

A prolonged break can affect pitchers more than hitters because after throwing with a slightly fatigued arm all season, they suddenly feel fresh and strong and their pitches lose some of their movement.

“You don’t want to feel too good. You feel too good, you try to throw too hard because you feel good. And it doesn’t go where you want it,” said Will Klein, who mopped up for the Dodgers, pitching a scoreless eighth inning. “[The ball] doesn’t go where you want it to because you’re used to pitching a little down, like 90 or 95%. You’re never really at 100.

‘There’s such a thing [as] too fresh.”

Klein’s last appearance in a big-league game was a month ago; since then he’s been working out at the Dodgers’ facility in Arizona. He said the team tried to keep the rest of their pitchers in their familiar routine with bullpen sessions or simulated games, but it’s not the same as throwing in high-leverage situations against opposing hitters in a World Series game before 44,353 fans, as Snell, Sheehan and Klein had to do Friday.

And the history shows the Dodgers aren’t the first team who have been broken by the break.

But they had less than 24 hours to wait for Game 2, which means they’re back into the comfortable — if exhausting — routine that got them to the World Series in the first place.

“There’s another one tomorrow,” Klein said. “We can’t go and unlose today, as much as we’d like to. Thinking about today isn’t going to help you win tomorrow.”

Jared Gordon says he “maybe” made the wrong decision to fight Rafa Garcia at UFC Noche on Saturday a day after being hit by a car.

The American lightweight, 37, was stopped in the third round by Mexican-American Garcia following a succession of elbows on the ground in San Antonio, Texas.

Gordon fought with a sleeve covering his knee before later revealing he had sprained a ligament a day earlier after being hit by a car.

“Two hours after weigh-ins I was standing in the street while a car was backing out behind me, I was looking down the street away from the car,” Gordon wrote on X., external

“The front end of the car started turning, and the right wheel ran my right foot over as the bumper started turning and buckled my knee inward, spraining my MCL (medial collateral ligament).

“I thought about pulling out, but decided not to. Was it the wrong decision? Maybe so. After a hard, good camp I didn’t wanna pull out. It is what it is. I’ll move forward. Sorry to all my fans for the performance.”

Gordon has fought 17 times in the UFC, winning nine bouts since debuting in the promotion in 2017.

Good Morning Britain has seen a string of changes recently, and one star has now made an announcement that has sparked concern among viewers.

It appears that some Good Morning Britain viewers are concerned that a familiar face might be departing the programme, amid the sweeping shake-ups at ITV.

The popular breakfast show, which recently witnessed presenter Susanna Reid praising an ITV legend live on air, revealed plans to extend their broadcast by an additional 30 minutes starting January 2026.

Additionally, the programme will be produced by ITV News at ITN from their London headquarters and created by a team operating within ITV News at ITN.

Nevertheless, it seems one Good Morning Britain presenter has strong ties to ITN, having initially joined the organisation back in 1999 before returning to their studios this weekend to present ITV news bulletins.

Charlotte Hawkins, who regularly hosts Good Morning Britain, posted on social media on Saturday, sharing a snap of her old ITN security pass alongside a more current photograph, reports Wales Online.

She wrote: “Do not adjust your sets.. a guest appearance from me presenting the @itvnews this weekend! I was first here at ITN back in 1999, working on ITN Radio, and then this security pass is from when I worked on the ITV News Channel.

“A lot has changed over the years.. including the hair! Next update is just after 10pm see you then.”

Yet her appearance sparked confusion amongst some viewers, with one person wondering what this means for her Good Morning Britain future, following a series of budget cuts.

One fan commented: “You will be there all the time soon when GMB becomes part of ITN.”

One fan queried: “Wow this is amazing Charlotte watched u this afternoon u were superb. Will we see u do more weekends in future occasionally.”

Former Good Morning Britain director Erron Gordon commented: “A much more palatable time of day for a change. Love to see this!!”

To which Charlotte responded: “Yes, bit of a change to having an early alarm!! Thanks Erron xx.”

On X, one viewer asked: “Are you leaving @gmb for @itvnews??? Was a nice surprise when I put the news on.”

Another viewer remarked: “It was lovely to see you on the early evening news, Charlotte. I thought I’d missed a career change!”

While another person noted: “It could confuse some people, imagine going for a nap, waking up and seeing you on you would think how long was I sleep.”

Good Morning Britain is available to watch on ITVX.

NEW YORK — Howard Stern, the popular and highly paid radio host, returned to SiriusXM’s airwaves Monday after trolling listeners into thinking he had departed his long-running show.

Stern, 71, who evolved from his shock jock origins to become a respected interviewer, enlisted a seemingly flustered Andy Cohen at the top of “The Howard Stern Show” to pretend to be his successor. “This was supposed to be a cleaner hand off. I’m kind of winging it,” said Cohen.

Stern then came on the air and thanked the Bravo personality, who has his own SiriusXM show and podcast, for agreeing to do the bit. The stunt was the culmination of weeks of promos that promised a big reveal, following swirling speculation that Stern’s show would be canceled. “The tabloids have spoken: Howard Stern fired, canceled,” one promo video said. “Is it really bye-bye Booey?” The speculation grew after Stern postponed his return from a summer break last week.

While he did return Monday, Stern did not announce that he had reached a new contract with SiriusXM. His current deal expires at the end of 2025.

“Here’s the truth: SiriusXM and my team have been talking about how we go forward in the future. They’ve approached me, they’ve sat down with me like they normally do, and they’re fantastic,” Stern said.

Stern joining what was then Sirius Satellite Radio Inc. in 2006 made him one of the highest-paid personalities in broadcasting and was a game-changer for both the company and the nascent satellite radio industry. His importance was highlighted on the SiriusXM homepage — tabs included For You, Music, Talk & Podcasts, Sports and Howard.

SiriusXM in the years after Stern joined has become home to top podcasts “Call Her Daddy,” “SmartLess,” “Freakonomics Radio,” “Last Podcast on the Left,” “99% Invisible” and “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” and features such personalities as Trevor Noah, Kevin Hart and Stephen A. Smith.

But SiriusXM’s subscriber base has been slowly contracting, with the company reporting 33 million paid subscribers in the second quarter of 2025, a net loss of 68,000 from the first quarter and 100,000 fewer than the same period in 2024. It is a battling a saturated satellite market and competition from free, ad-supported platforms like Spotify.

Stern extended his contract with SiriusXM twice before, in 2010 and again in 2020 with a five-year, $500 million deal, Forbes reported. He’s recently had newsy and intimate chats with Lady Gaga and Bruce Springsteen.

“He’s been with me and the company going on two decades, and so he’s pretty happy, but he’s also able, like many great artists, to stop whenever he wants,” SiriusXM president and chief content officer Scott Greenstein told The Hollywood Reporter in 2024. “Nobody will ever replace them. We would never try to replace them.”

Stern, who has liked to call himself the King of All Media, rose to national fame in the 1980s during his 20-year stint at the then-WXRK in New York. At its peak, “The Howard Stern Show” was syndicated in 60 markets and drew over 20 million listeners. Stern was lured to satellite radio by the lucrative payday and a lack of censorship, following bruising indecency battles with the Federal Communications Commission and skittish radio executives. His past on-air bits had included parading strippers through his New York studio and persuading the band then known as The Dixie Chicks to reveal intimate details about their sex lives.

His 1997 film “Private Parts” became a box office hit and offered a raw, humorous look at his rise to fame. He has also authored several bestselling books and served as a judge on “America’s Got Talent” from 2012 to 2015.

Kennedy writes for the Associated Press.

England all-rounder Jacob Bethell said he “probably should have played a bit more” during his testing first home summer in international cricket.

Bethell, 21, impressed in his first Test series last winter but has only played a bit-part role this summer.

Having missed the one-off Test against Zimbabwe while at the Indian Premier League, he lost his place in England’s Test XI and was the spare batter across the first four matches against India before coming in for the fifth.

He only played one County Championship match for Warwickshire in-between and as a result has only faced 387 balls in all formats this summer compared to 1,480 in 2024, leading to questions around England’s management of the talented left-hander.

“If I’m honest, when I wasn’t playing in those Tests, I should probably have played a bit more [in domestic cricket],” Bethell told Sky Sports.

“But I’ll take that on and learn from it. I’ve got a lot of cricket ahead now so maybe that gap was quite nice for me.”