Shohei Ohtani was the first Dodger to be named a 2026 All-Star, after leading the majors in Phase 1 voting for the All-Star game on July 14 in Philadelphia. Six other Dodgers were finalists through the fan ballot, giving them a chance to claim starting spots in Phase 2 of voting.
Ohtani locked down the starting DH spot for the National League squad, with 3,341,257 votes. The top vote-getters in each league bypass Phase 2. Second baseman Ernie Clement of the Toronto Blue Jays was the top vote-getter in the Amlerican League, with 3,232,932 votes.
Ohtani was the expected choice, despite a slow offensive start. His red-hot June boosted him up the leaderboards. He entered Thursday with the second-highest OPS in the National League (.963), barely trailing Mets outfielder Juan Soto (.965).
Pitchers aren’t chosen through the fan vote — hurlers and reserves have to wait for the player ballot (which includes votes from players, coaches and managers) and commissioners picks. But Ohtani has been just as impressive on the mound this year.
He has a 1.58 ERA, the fourth-best mark among NL pitchers who have thrown at least 50 innings this season.
Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman (2,666,008 votes), third baseman Max Muncy (2,890,181) and outfielder Andy Pages (2,158,664) also led their respective NL position groups in voting. Other Dodgers finalists, who advance to voting Phase 2, include catcher Will Smith (1,871,805), shortstop Mookie Betts (1,762,343 ) and outfielder Teoscar Hernandez (1,569,932).
The vote totals reset for Phase 2, which runs from next Monday through Thursday. The remainder of the All-Star starters are set to be announced on July 4 on Fox Sports.
MINNEAPOLIS — Dodgers manager Dave Roberts is planning for right fielder Kyle Tucker to be out for the rest of the series against the Minnesota Twins, after he left Monday’s game with low back spasms.
Roberts hopes to write Tucker into the lineup Friday, when the Dodgers open a three-game series in San Diego, after three days off, plus most of the game Monday.
“Hopefully he [can take] advantage of this, obviously to get right, but also kind of a mental reset,” Roberts said. “Hopefully the four days will suffice.”
Tucker, who said he felt a little better Tuesday but still sore, especially when rotating, is “pretty confident” that he’ll be able to avoid the injured list. And if he can take swings on Wednesday, he’ll probably be on track for that Friday return.
“But if he doesn’t, then we’ll have probably a tougher decision on Friday,” Roberts said.
Tucker, who has a .707 on-base-plus-slugging-percentage this season, has had a slow offensive start to his Dodgers’ tenure. He wasn’t ready to make any declarations about the potential benefits of time off to reset.
“Maybe,” he said. “We’ll see after I get back. We’ll see how that goes.”
The news on catcher Dalton Rushing, who exited Monday’s game to rule out a concussion, was more straightforward.
Rushing hadn’t yet gone through the second round of concussion testing needed to clear him to play when Roberts addressed the media Tuesday afternoon. But Rushing had told Roberts he was ready to play.
“That doesn’t carry too much weight until I hear from the medical staff,” Roberts said. “But it is good to know that he said he’s good to go. My hope is that he’ll be available off the bench in some capacity.”
As a downpour hammered the tarped field early Tuesday evening, it was unclear when exactly the Dodgers would be playing. But despite plenty of rain in the forecast Tuesday evening, the teams and Major League Baseball identified a window for the game.
The Twins announced an estimated 5:05 p.m. PDT first pitch, representing a 25-minute rain delay.
It was Andy Pages’ wife, Alondra, who told the Dodgers’ center fielder on June 3 that MLB All-Star voting had opened.
“I simply just told her, [the ballots] don’t really matter to me,” Pages said through interpreter Juan Dorado, in a conversation with The Times earlier this month. “I’m just going to keep doing what I’m doing.”
Doing just that has worked out well for Pages. When MLB released the first All-Star balloting update Monday, Pages led all National League outfielders with 800,496 fan votes, putting him in prime position to claim a starter’s spot.
He has added to his All-Star case against the Baltimore Orioles this weekend, largely with his defense. In the Dodgers’ 3-2 loss Saturday, he authored his third highlight-worthy play of the series. Ranging into right field, Pages tracked down a line drive off Tyler Ward’s bat and made a sliding catch for the first out of the third inning.
The day before, on the first play of the game, Pages cut off Ward’s hit to the right-field gap before it could reach the warning track, spun, and threw a dart to second base to nab him trying to stretch a single into a double.
Dodgers fans chanted Pages’ name in the sixth inning Friday, after he robbed Jeremiah Jackson of a hit with another sliding grab in shallow left-center field.
“He’s going to be in that Gold Glove conversation,” manager Dave Roberts said Saturday. “He’s engaged every pitch. It’s just fun to see a young player value the defense, all the while taking care of business in the batters’ box. He’s a complete player, he really is.”
Phase 1 of All-Star fan voting, which lasts until June 25, determines the starter finalists — two at each position (six outfielders) in each league. Pitchers and reserves are chosen through the player ballot (which includes votes from players, coaches and managers) and commissioner’s office selections.
Pages was one of four Dodgers leading their respective position groups, joined by first baseman Freddie Freeman, third baseman Max Muncy and designated hitter Shohei Ohtani, who led all players with 1,165,133 votes. Catcher Will Smith and shortstop Mookie Betts were sitting in second place, and Teoscar Hernández was No. 5 among NL outfielders.
The others have all won multiple All-Star nods. This would be Pages’ first.
He entered Saturday with top-five defensive fWAR (4.9) among NL outfielders and a top-nine slugging percentage (.490). He carried the Dodgers’ offense early in the year, while the team’s established stars got off to a slow offensive start.
Dodgers center fielder Andy Pages celebrates in the dugout with Miguel Rojas after hitting a solo home run against the Colorado Rockies on May 27.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“It would mean a lot to me for all the work, and all the things that I do to get ready for the game and to prepare,” Pages said. “It would mean a lot in that sense. But I also know it’s completely out of my control, especially having gone through it last year, where I didn’t really have any chance to dictate whether I was going to make it or if I didn’t make it.”
Going into the All-Star break last year, Pages was on the cusp. Because the outfield pool doesn’t take specific positions into account, it didn’t matter that among qualified National League center fielders he had the second-highest fWAR (2.8) and OPS (.804), behind the Cubs’ Pete Crow-Armstrong — while leading that group in batting average (.285).
Pages was instead competing with all NL outfielders. In those same categories he still ranked an impressive eighth and 10th (among qualified hitters).
Fans voted in Crow-Armstrong, the Cubs’ Kyle Tucker and the Braves’ Ronald Acuña Jr. as All-Star starters. So, Pages’ All-Star fate was in the hands of the player ballot (which includes votes from players, managers and coaches) and the commissioner’s office selection process.
Pages didn’t quite make the cut, with the Diamondbacks’ Corbin Carroll, the Marlins’ Kyle Stowers, the Padres’ Fernando Tatís Jr. and the Nationals’ James Wood claiming the reserve spots.
This year is already playing out differently.
“He’s been just up the top of the leaderboards, one of our better hitters the whole season,” hitting coach Aaron Bates said earlier this month. “It’s not just a good two or three weeks. So I definitely feel like he’s an All-Star.”
Still, when the ballots first came out, Pages knew better than to make any assumptions. That same focus on controllables, turning the page on from failure, has helped spur Pages’ consistency.
“The work ethic, obviously, those changes, and how I prepare for the games has changed a lot,” Pages said. “But also, I just don’t really focus on anything like I used to. I just focus on getting ready and prepared and do the best I can that day.”
Roberts had seen that shift. He noticed all the work Pages put in over the offseason and through the spring, drilling down on his plate discipline, a soft spot in his game. And Roberts named Pages his pick to click at the end of camp, saying he wouldn’t be surprised if Pages made the All-Star team.
Since then, Roberts, who will also manage the NL All-Star team, has appreciated how diligent Pages has remained in his routine.
“As we all know, he’s not a self-promoter at all,” Roberts said. “He just wants to play baseball, and so for the fans to recognize that, they’re getting it right, as far as the person, the talent, the performance. And so that’s really good to see. So hopefully he can keep playing well, and then solidify that No. 1 spot. That’d be fun. That’ll be fun to have him in Philly with me.”
Dodgers fall to Orioles
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers against the Orioles in the fourth inning Saturday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Ohtani hit a solo home run in the ninth inning in his first game back after missing Friday’s walk-off win for the birth of his second child, but it wasn’t enough to ignite a ninth-inning comeback in a 3-2 loss to the Orioles.
Dodgers starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto didn’t put together as dominant of a performance as he did a week ago against the White Sox, when he took a no-hit bid into the ninth inning.
He gave up six hits and issued two walks in six innings. But he managed to hold the Orioles (36-42) to three runs, getting out of jams in the second and fourth innings.
“It took me a little time to get the feel for the splitter,” said Yamamoto through interpreter Yoshihiro Sonoda. “And then in the meantime I was trying to grind it out with different options, with other pitches.”
Shohei Ohtani hits a solo home run in the ninth inning Saturday against the Baltimore Orioles.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
The Dodgers (49-28) wasted the quality start with a four-hit offensive night, which included two from Tommy Edman and one from Betts.
The Dodgers finally recorded their only hit against Orioles starter Trevor Rogers in the fifth inning, when Edman reached on a weak pop fly to center field. Rogers turned the game over to the Orioles’ bullpen after the seventh, and it did enough to maintain the lead, despite shaky defense in the ninth.
“It wasn’t our night,” said Miguel Rojas, whose deep fly out in the seventh inning fell just shy of a two-run homer. “We’ve got to bounce back and come back tomorrow and get the series.”
Blake Treinen placed on injured list
The Dodgers put right-handed reliever Blake Treinen on the 15-day injured list with right elbow inflammation.
Treinen was the winning pitcher in the Dodgers’ 6-5 victory Friday, after retiring the side in order in the top of the ninth.
According to Roberts, Treinen felt normal after the game. But when he woke up Saturday morning, he had trouble fully extending his right arm. When he went in for treatment, it became clear the Dodgers would have to put him on the IL.
Dodgers relief pitcher Blake Treinen delivers against the San Francisco Giants on May 11.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
Treinen underwent imaging, but Roberts did not have his exact diagnosis.
“He’ll be down for a minute,” Roberts said. “I think it was more of just staying away, getting rest, versus anything more aggressive right now.”
Treinen has a 3.52 ERA after bouncing back from a rocky 2025.
In a corresponding move, the Dodgers recalled right-hander Chayce McDermott. The 27-year-old has only thrown one major-league inning this season, when he limited the Angels to one hit in a scoreless inning.
The Dodgers acquired McDermott from the Orioles in mid-April, after Baltimore designated him for assignment. He’s been a frequent short-term call-up and taxi squad member since.
The Dodgers have more bullpen help coming. They hope to reinstate right-hander Brock Stewart (left foot bone spur) from the injured list Monday, Roberts said. And right-hander Evan Phillips (Tommy John surgery) is expected to return in early July.
Dalton Rushing was frustrated. He just chased a slider in the dirt — again. And this time, the game was on the line. The Dodgers were down to their last out. He was down to his last strike.
So he took a moment, took a breath, and looked to the Dodgers dugout.
The first person he spotted was Mookie Betts, who had just cut the Orioles’ lead to a run with a solo homer. Betts was locked in with Rushing, brimming with confidence, cheering him on.
“For a guy like that, a guy that’s lived in that moment, he’s succeeded in that moment, he’s failed in that moment, he knows what it feels like, it’s pretty special,” Rushing recounted.
Rushing’s eyes traveled along the railing, noting his teammates all on the top step, all relying on him.
He dug into the box, expecting the slider that Baltimore’s Ryan Helsley threw next — it was high, for a ball. Then Rushing got a fastball he could drive. And he did not miss.
The next moments in the Dodgers’ 6-5 walk-off win Friday were chaos.
Rushing lined a tying single into right field, giving Alex Call time to score from second. Call slid across the plate as the throw from Orioles right fielder Tyler O’Neill took for a long hop to catcher Samuel Basallo.
Basallo misjudged it, taking an unhurried shuffle up the line, before the ball glanced off his glove and rolled toward the Dodgers dugout.
Third base coach Dino Ebel waved home Ryan Ward, who scored standing up.
Manager Dave Roberts, who looked down at his card when the throw was in the air, was already thinking through extra innings when the crowd erupted again. He heard field coordinator Bob Geren shouting something like, “The run counts.”
The Dodgers (49-27) ran onto the field and swarmed Rushing, who had just reached second. They jumped and yelled as the Dodgers Stadium lights flashed around them.
“It was good to get Freddie [Freeman] a night off for being the guy in the middle for a change, you know?” Rushing said with a grin. “No, it’s a great feeling, and I think it honestly just feels great that we won that baseball game.”
For several innings, it looked like they wouldn’t.
Dalton Rushing celebrates after hitting a run-scoring single in the ninth to help lift the Dodgers to a 6-5 walk-off win over the Baltimore Orioles at Dodger Stadium.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
The Dodgers had jumped out to an early 3-0 lead, on a two-run single from Max Muncy in the first inning and an RBI double from Andy Pages in the second. Then their scoring dried up.
Rushing was having as frustrating of a night as anyone, with a line out and three strikeouts.
His first strikeout was part of a brutal sequence. The Dodgers loaded the bases with no outs in the third. Then Ward, Rushing and Alex Freeland, all went down swinging.
Rushing struck out on a slider in the dirt. And Orioles starter Trey Gibson got him to bite on the same putaway pitch in the fifth.
Rushing’s reactions steadily grew more animated, on the field and in the dugout.
Mookie Betts celebrates as he runs the bases after hitting a solo home run in the ninth inning Friday against the Orioles.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Alex Freeland signals safe after sliding past Baltimore catcher Samuel Basallo to score on a double by Andy Pages in the second inning Friday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
“He plays with a fire under his ass,” Freeland said. “He gets after it. He expects nothing but the best for himself day in and day out, and that comes with it.”
Said Roberts: “After he … vents, he does a good job of collecting himself to get back into the next play, the next at-bat, catching.”
On Friday, he was catching Roki Sasaki, who faced just one batter over the minimum through five innings. But during the third time through the order, the Orioles finally figured him out and hit back-to-back home runs.
With two outs and a runner on, Sasaki yanked a splitter to the inside edge of the strike zone to Gunnar Henderson, who lifted it over the wall in right field. Pete Alonso then homered to left-center field on an inside fastball about belt high to tie the score.
“I thought he threw the baseball really well,” Roberts said. “I liked the way he competed. The fastball command was good. He was fantastic tonight.”
The Orioles (35-42) pulled ahead against the Dodgers bullpen. Will Klein surrendered a seventh-inning single to Jackson that sent two baserunners, including one inherited from Dodgers left-hander Jack Dreyer, across the plate.
Kyle Hurt and Blake Treinen threw clean eighth and ninth innings.
Finally, in the bottom of the ninth, Betts ended the Dodgers’ scoring drought. Then Muncy — later replaced by the pinch-running Call — and Ward drew walks.
With two outs, Rushing stepped up to the plate, fell behind in the count 0-2 and reset.
“I look in the dugout, and all those guys care about is that next pitch, and the next pitch after that, and the next pitch after that,” Rushing said. “They just want you to win one pitch at a time.”
Not much good comes to mind when you think about the effects of climate change.
Wildfires, floods, melting ice caps, heat waves, the bleaching of ocean reefs.
But then there’s baseball, and one possible silver lining.
Has global warming turned Dodger Stadium into a home run launching pad?
I was watching Monday night’s ESPN telecast of the L.A. game against Tampa Bay when the play-by-play announcer said that once upon a time, it was an article of faith that fly balls didn’t carry far in the heavy night air of Chavez Ravine.
However, the announcer continued, a Dodger executive had told him that over the last several years, “in general, the marine layer is gone, and the ball has started to carry at night, and you can see it now in the numbers. It is a great home run hitters park.”
This is statistically true. Between 2020 and 2025, Dodger Stadium had more home runs than any other major league park, although this year’s total is lagging behind last year’s pace. In all of Major League Baseball, home run totals have fluctuated but gradually increased over the years, with this year’s pace running slightly ahead of last year’s.
That can’t all be attributed to climate change, as retired Dodger great Steve Garvey is going to explain in a minute. When considered city by city and decade by decade, there are lots of factors in home run totals, from ballpark dimensions to playing strategies to the number of long ball hitters in each lineup.
And now we have to ask ourselves: Is global warming producing more home runs than steroids did?
The warm-up is real, but it isn’t new. In Game 2 of the 2017 World Series, the temperature at Dodger Stadium topped 100 when the first pitch was thrown, and the ballpark was like a popcorn machine. The Dodgers and Astros combined for a record eight home runs, and The Times’ story quoted a NASA climate scientist who noted that the marine layer was a no-show.
While watching Monday night’s game, I emailed Dodger fan Edgar McGregor, the meteorologist who warned neighbors about the catastrophic weather conditions that resulted in the Eaton fire. I asked what he thought about this theory of a link between a diminished marine layer and the number of home runs.
“There is absolute truth to that,” said McGregor, explaining that “when oceanic temperatures are warmer, the marine layer is weaker.”
McGregor broke down the aerodynamics: “Cold air is dense, so a baseball has to push more atoms out of the way as it travels deep. Warm air has lower density, so balls travel farther.”
UC climate scientist Daniel Swain said this pattern will accelerate “for the rest of our lives as air continues to warm and baseballs continue to meet less and less resistance.”
This doesn’t mean that an infield pop-up will become a home run, but Swain said balls travel four inches farther per 1 degree Fahrenheit increase, “meaning that the average hit goes about 1-2 feet further than it would have in the early 20th century.”
That doesn’t sound like a staggering difference, but with thousands of batted balls over the years, that’s a lot of outs turning into doubles, triples and home runs. Swain sent me a 2023 study from the American Meteorological Society journal titled “Global warming, home runs, and the future of America’s pastime.”
Researchers reviewed data between 2010 and 2019, finding that “higher temperatures substantially increase home runs,” with about 50 per year “attributable to historical warming.” That adds up to about 500 more home runs.
The scientists concluded: “Each degree of global warming is associated with an additional 95 home runs per baseball season.”
Home runs bring fans to their feet, as in Monday night’s game, when Kyle Tucker pumped one that made it just over the right field wall and Miguel Rojas popped the game-winner with a shot that barely cleared the left field fence. So I don’t want to sound like a party pooper, but there is no bigger story in the world than the accelerating destruction of the only sandlot we’ve got.
If the right team hits a homer, feel free to go ahead and cheer. But if the wrong team hits one, you can remind friends and loved ones that each homer is like a fossil fuel bugle call signaling the end of the world as we know it.
Thankfully, the marine layer has not yet disappeared entirely. We still got some May gray this year and some June gloom as well. I wondered, though, if there were any retired Dodgers out there who might be thinking they’d have walloped more home runs if they’d had the advantage of warmer air.
“I do remember some balls just not traveling far, especially compared to day games,” said James Loney, who played first base for the Dodgers from 2006 to 2012 and had 106 career homers with three teams.
Today’s Dodgers hit a lot of home runs primarily because the lineup is stacked, Loney said. But he said he recalled players from visiting teams hammering a long ball and passing him at first base, thinking “they had a home run, and then making a right turn back to the dugout.”
Garvey, also a first baseman, slugged 272 home runs in his 18-year career and told me that if he were playing in this era, “I probably would have hit another 40 or 50 home runs.”
But Garvey, who started with the Dodgers in 1969, said weather is just one of many factors that have led to more home runs in today’s game, which has abandoned finesse in favor of brute force.
Garvey said the bats are harder, the balls are livelier, the pitchers throw harder (more velocity means more pop for batters) and launch angles are talked about more in baseball than at Cape Canaveral.
“We never heard the term ‘launch angle,’” said Garvey, who told me he went up to the plate trying to hit a line drive, not a moon shot.
“My goal used to be a .300 average, 200 hits, 100 RBIs and 20-plus home runs,” said Garvey, who hit 20 or more homers six times, with a high of 33 in 1977.
Today’s Dodgers have plenty of swat in their lineup, ranking behind only the Yankees in home runs so far as they chase a third straight World Series ring. They’re in first place even though one of their biggest bombers, Shohei Ohtani, is about a dozen homers shy of last year’s pace.
But Swain has good news for Ohtani, for Dodger fans and for manufacturers of short-sleeved shirts.
“This year, there is going to be exceptionally high humidity for most of baseball season in SoCal due to the developing very strong El Niño event and record warm coastal ocean temperatures,” he said.
“So, it’s indeed plausible,” Swain continued, “that the combination of long-term warming from climate change, plus shorter-term warming and humidity increase from El Niño and near-shore ocean warming, might increase the number of home runs this season.”
One can only hope the home team does the most celebrating.
Because this time, with the newest historical exhibit at Dodger Stadium, the team got it right.
Amid all the historical installations and tributes in the open-air museum that is the Centerfield Plaza, and just a few feet from a Fernando Valenzuela mural, a new display honors Glenn Burke and Billy Bean, two former Dodgers outfielders who were the first and second professional baseball players to come out as gay.
It’s not a fleeting mention on Pride night, it’s a permanent record. A static reminder of progress made — and still to be made. And a much-deserved thank-you.
A wall inside Dodger Stadium honors former Dodgers and LGBTQ+ pioneers Billy Bean and Glenn Burke.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
“It’ll be here tomorrow, it’ll be here on the weekend and if you come next month, it’ll be here,” said the Dodgers’ team historian Mark Langill, who pointed to a spot just down the hall where in 1976 he was an 11-year-old getting Burke’s autograph.
Baseball is steeped in such history. The personal, the statistical, the societal. And the Dodgers’ is incomplete without their stories — Burke’s and Bean’s.
But the Dodgers have not, of course, always gotten this stuff right.
In 1978, they did Burke wrong, trading him — he believed — after management learned he was gay.
In his three seasons in L.A., Burke had proved himself a capable reserve outfielder who was popular with his teammates.
As far as we know, in 1977, he was the first guy to initiate a high five — spontaneously reaching above his head to slap hands with Dusty Baker after the home run that made Baker the fourth Dodger, along with Ron Cey, Steve Garvey and Reggie Smith, to hit at least 30 home runs that season, a MLB first.
Glenn Burke, left, goes to give a high-five to teammate Dusty Baker after Baker hit a home run in 1977. It is believed to be the first instance a high five was exchanged.
(Los Angeles Times)
There’s a fantastic photo of the historic high five included in the tribute to Burke and Bean, which is situated on a hallway wall beneath the left-field bleachers, beside the “Dodger Dugout” augmented reality photo booth.
Burke was also the first guy in that Dodgers clubhouse to crack a joke when the team needed it, his former teammate Rick Monday said.
“When called upon, he could play really well,” Monday said before the Dodgers took the field against the Angels on Friday, when the Dodgers and many of their rainbow-sporting fans celebrated the team’s 13th annual LGBTQ+ Pride Night. “And when we needed a moment of levity, Glenn was not afraid to come forward and put a smile on people’s face.”
But shortly before he died of AIDS in 1995 at 42, Burke published an autobiography, “Out at Home,” in which he described the team’s management being “afraid of my sexual orientation, even though I never flaunted it. To this day, the Dodgers deny trading me because I was gay. But it was painfully obvious.”
“Oh, what he had to deal with and keep it hid,” said Joyce Burke-Henderson, one of Glenn’s sisters at Friday’s pregame unveiling, where family members of both players gasped and cried and cheered the installation’s reveal.
“But as time went on, people did know. And then I think he came to the point where he just didn’t care and he just told it like it was.”
Joyce Henderson, sister of Glenn Burke, speaks about her brother during a ceremony honoring the former Dodger and LGBTQ+ pioneer at Dodger Stadium Friday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
Burke came out in 1982, three years after playing his 225th and final big league game, in an Inside Sports article, “The Double Life of a Gay Dodger.”
“We just appreciate that now people are opening their eyes and just trusting in the Lord,” Burke-Henderson said Friday, “that things will go forward and work out and everybody will be loved regardless of their situation.”
The Dodgers first honored Burke in 2022, at their ninth Pride Night.
The next season, they made a mess of the Pride festivities, inviting and uninviting and then reinviting the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, a group known for its work in support of AIDS patients and whose members dress in drag, as nuns.
In 2023, the Dodgers also invited Bean — who was MLB’s senior vice president for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. He appeared in a pregame ceremony on the field while protesters gathered outside the stadium.
Bean died the next year, at 60, 11 months after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.
Greg Baker, husband of the late Billy Bean, wipes away tears during a tribute honor Bean as a LGBTQ+ pioneer at Dodger Stadium on Friday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
Once a Northeast Santa Ana Little Leaguer, Bean became valedictorian at Santa Ana High, played for Loyola Marymount and went on to appear in 272 big-league games — including 51 for the Dodgers in 1989 — before abruptly walking away from baseball in 1995.
It got to be too much, he’d explain later, continuing to hustle to keep his baseball career afloat while keeping his sexuality secret, acutely aware of the blowback he’d get if it got out.
“For nine years,” he told the New York Times, “I felt as though I had one foot in the major leagues and one on a banana peel.”
“When he left baseball suddenly, I knew something was wrong,” Bean’s mother, Linda Kovac, said Friday, pausing to wipe away tears. “He was playing very well, it wasn’t like he was kicked out or anything. And it just didn’t make any sense.”
When Bean finally told his family he was gay, in 1996 — three years before clueing in an unsuspecting public via a Miami Herald article — none of his loved ones blinked. That included his stepfather, Ed Kovac, the homicide cop and former Marine who’d had a partner on the force who was gay.
“He worked with someone that he respected, side by side, on criminal cases,” Linda said. “We’re still friends with that guy.”
Linda and Ed Kovac, parents of Billy Bean, hold hands in front of a tribute dedicated to their son at Dodger Stadium on Friday.
(Ronaldo Bolanos/Los Angeles Times)
Knowing someone — or of someone — who is gay or lesbian has long tended to dispel falsehoods and quell fears that might exist.
“One of the most important things any one of us can do in our community is be out, to be proud,” said Greg Baker, Bean’s husband. “The fact that someone can be out in a world that typically doesn’t have a lot of role models of the same ilk, it’s a brave thing to stick your neck out. It’s also very important.”
And it’s not a surprise, Baker said, that more athletes aren’t out in sports like baseball. Not with Gallup polling released last week telling us that with public acceptance of same-sex marriage and relationships in the U.S. has flattened after two-plus decades of growing support — down from 71% to about 65%.
“I want to thank the Dodgers organization,” Baker said. “It’s brave of them in this day and age to spotlight someone in our community when other organizations are trying to erase us.”
The Dodgers have done the opposite, putting up a permanent marker. A long time coming, a tribute to last.
The chasm between the Freeway Series rivals was on display in the Dodgers’ 9-2 win against the Angels at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night.
The bottom of the first inning took so long that Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto resorted to throwing a ball against the back of the dugout to stay warm.
The one-run lead the Angels (24-41) had jumped out to in the top of the inning — when a leaping center fielder Andy Pages couldn’t quite reel in Oswald Peraza’s deep line drive for an RBI triple — was long forgotten after the Dodgers rallied for nine runs in the first.
Andy Pages celebrates with teammates in the dugout after hitting a two-run home run as part of a nine-run first inning for the Dodgers.
(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
It was the most runs the Dodgers scored in a single inning in nearly five years, matching their seventh-inning rally against the Nationals on July 2, 2021.
The Dodgers (42-23) helped themselves with a show of power. Pages drove in the first two runs by crushing a center-cut changeup from Angels starting pitcher Jack Kochanowicz over the left-field wall.
Judging by his stroll out of the batter’s box, Pages seemed to know it was a homer on contact.
The ball had so much loft that reliever Blake Treinen parked under it in the bullpen and caught it with his hat. His fellow relievers mobbed him in an impromptu mosh pit.
Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto delivers against the Angels in the first inning Saturday at Dodger Stadium.
(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
Later in the same inning, after the lineup turned over, Shohei Ohtani also notched a two-run homer, for his second hit. In between, rookie Ryan Ward hit a two-run double off the wall.
The Dodgers brought 12 batters to the plate and recorded six hits in a row — seven total.
The Angels’ shoddy defense exacerbated the scoring spree. They had a chance to get out of it just four runs into the rally.
Kochanowicz had faced eight hitters and only recorded one out when Angels manager Kurt Suzuki turned to his bullpen.
Veteran left-hander Brent Suter jogged in with the bases loaded. Immediately, Suter got Alex Freeland to hit a ground ball to shortstop Zach Neto, for what should have been an inning-ending double play.
Instead, Neto’s throw across his body sailed past second and into foul territory on the other side of the diamond. By the time Angels right fielder Jo Adell collected the ball and threw to the cutoff man, three runs were scored.
Rams defensive end Myles Garrett throws out the ceremonial first pitch Saturday at Dodger Stadium.
(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
Ohtani was up next. And in a two-strike count, he stayed inside a sinker to launch his two-run blast to left-center field.
The Angels’ defense didn’t fare much better in the second, although Suter navigated a pair of misplays — Neto muffed a one-hopper up the middle, which was ruled a single, and third baseman Donovan Walton overthrew first on a chopper — to escape without the Dodgers extending their lead.
Yamamoto retired 22 straight en route to eight innings of two-hit ball.
By mid-game, both teams were putting in replacements. The Angels had time to chip away, but they didn’t score again until Neto’s solo homer off Dodgers reliever Jack Dreyer in the ninth inning.
The contrast was glaring.
Smith scratched
Dodgers catcher Will Smith was scratched from the lineup because of a stiff neck, manager Dave Roberts said. The issue “came out of nowhere,” Roberts said, pointing to a “bad night’s sleep or a bad pillow.”
“He was going to play two out of three [against the Angels] regardless,” Roberts said. “So it’s nice that we could kind of tap Dalton [Rushing] on the shoulder and get him in there.”
Roberts said he expects Smith will return to the lineup Sunday.
Injury update
Right-handed reliever Brock Stewart (left foot bone spur) is progressing after a setback a week and a half ago stymied his throwing progression.
The last time Stewart threw live batting practice, he aggravated the injury by running afterward. But throwing to hitters Saturday went better. He’s scheduled to throw one more live BP session before going out on a minor-league rehab assignment, Roberts said.
Roster moves
The Dodgers added right-hander Nick Frasso to the 40-man roster and transferred right-hander Tyler Glasnow (back spasms) to the 60-day injured list.
The team originally expected Glasnow to avoid the IL altogether, but his back issues have persisted. He remains shut down from throwing after a flare-up.
“He wants to get cranking again,” Roberts said, “but the doctors just aren’t allowing it and the body is not allowing for it right now.”
The Dodgers also traded left-hander Antoine Kelly, whom they signed to a minor-league deal in November to the Cubs.
The Tanner Scott redemption story took a dark, twisted turn Saturday night.
Not because the Dodgers reliever gave up three runs in the eighth inning to the Philadelphia Phillies, blowing a save opportunity and getting tagged with his first loss of the season. Getting knocked around happens.
But comments directed toward Scott’s wife on social media afterward were beyond alarming. Maddie Scott reposted vile comments from one user in particular that threatened not only her and her husband, but also their newborn son.
“When did it stop being a game?” Maddie Scott wrote on an Instagram story that has expired but was captured by the New York Post. “I don’t speak out often. Ever actually. I promise you, you don’t know what it’s like unless you’re living it.”
The answer to her rhetorical question is layered. Maybe baseball stopped being a game when her husband signed a four-year, $72 million contract with the Dodgers before the 2025 season, elevating expectations.
Maybe the end came seven years ago when a Supreme Court ruling led to sports gambling becoming legal. Or maybe fun and games ceased some 20 years ago when Facebook, Twitter and Instagram launched and anonymous threats could be dispatched by anyone with an account.
Death threats directed toward athletes have become disturbingly frequent. Without giving oxygen to the threats by repeating them, Scott is hardly the first pitcher whose family has been targeted after a loss.
Scott took heat last year when he pitched poorly in his first season with the Dodgers. Expected to become the team’s closer, the left-hander had an MLB-high 10 blown saves and did not pitch in the postseason.
This year, however, Scott has bounced back admirably. Even after the loss Saturday, he has a sparkling 2.19 earned-run average and five saves.
An eerie silence descended upon Dodger Stadium as the swatted ball soared toward the right field corner.
What was this? Who was this?
This wasn’t a crowd-roaring drive by a future Hall of Famer. This wasn’t a Ravine-rattling shot by a perennial All-Star.
This was rare. This was weird. This was a long fly by a long-shot outfielder ending a long minor-league journey with his first appearance at Dodger Stadium.
The ball flew and flew and, suddenly, this was a home run. A home run? Who was that again?
Yeah, the sunny 28-year-old did the Freddie Freeman Hop as he rounded second base in a wonderful show of giddy celebration by a guy who’s earned it.
“Kind of a blackout, if I’m going to be honest with you,” Ward said. “Hit it and kind of just went numb.”
Feel free to go numb with him. With his fourth-inning solo blast in Sunday’s 9-1 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies, this not-exactly-a-kid-anymore was the once-in-a-lifetime story.
After seven minor league seasons, his first major-league home run.
After 156 minor-league homers, his first big-league dinger.
After years of trudging through Great Lakes and Ogden and Tulsa and Oklahoma City, his first big fly at 1000 Vin Scully Ave.
In fact, it was his first game at Dodger Stadium, period, and he soaked in the atmosphere with the same wide-eyed wonder as all those little leaguers who marched around the field before the game.
”When I went out to left field, kind of just looking around, taking it in, just realizing how special it was, just have fun with it, enjoy it all,” he said.
The Dodgers’ series win against a team that will challenge them in October was especially a blast for the “others,” the role players who wind up being so important, with Ward and Alex Freeland homering while Alex Call hit a two-run single.
“Everybody in this locker room is a superstar,” Freeland said. “A lot of us get overlooked just because we have guys like Shohei and Freddie. Everybody in this clubhouse can ball.”
Nobody was as excited to just be in the clubhouse as Ward, who is one of the little-known casualties of the Dodgers’ success, a decent hitter from their farm system who has never gotten a chance because the Dodgers don’t have a need for just-decent hitters.
”When I went out to left field, kind of just looking around, taking it in, just realizing how special it was, just have fun with it, enjoy it all,” Ryan Ward said after hitting a solo home run Sunday.
(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
When it comes to position players, with the exception of the former prospect Andy Pages, they buy stars, they trade for stars, they hoard stars, and they rarely give a long look to anybody who isn’t guaranteed to be a star.
It is in this environment that Ward has surely asked himself, what does he have to do?
He was drafted out of Rhode Island’s Bryant University in 2019 and by 2021 he was showing home-run power with 27 jacks at class-A Great Lakes. Every year he climbed the minor league ladder, and every year he grew stronger, with 34 homers and 104 RBIs two years ago, and 36 homers with 122 RBIs last year when he was named Pacific Coast League MVP.
How long has he been in the bush leagues? He is triple-A Oklahoma City’s career leader in home runs.
But he was prone to slumps, and oversized swings, and average defensive skills, and last season at Oklahoma City his strikeouts equaled his RBIs.
So he never got even a major-league sniff, leading him to spend his winters working a snow plow with his father to stay in shape, yet he never complained.
“Even talking to Freeland today on the bench, and he made a note that Ryan was probably the most positive guy down there in triple A, and that speaks to his character,” said manager Dave Roberts. “And if there’s anyone that has the right to be salty and frustrated, it’s him, but he was professional about it, and he was an easy one to recall and get him here.”
This finally happened late last month when Ward was recalled to briefly fill a hole when Freddie Freeman went on paternity leave. He played two games in Colorado, had a couple of hits, and was sent back down.
This weekend, he was recalled again to replace Teoscar Hernández, who was placed on the injured list with a strained left hamstring. Ward was jammed in the lineup Sunday, struck out against Phillies’ rookie Andrew Painter in the second inning, then made contact on a 1-and-0 pitch and sent it whirling into the right-field bullpen.
“Watching it go over the fence was really cool,” he said.
Ryan Ward celebrates as he runs the bases after hitting a home run in the fourth inning against the Phillies.
(Ronaldo Bolaños / Los Angeles Times)
Watching the ball returned to his locker in a glass cube was perhaps just as cool. And then celebrating afterward by getting doused with all sorts of stuff by his thrilled teammates? Off the charts.
“I’m probably gonna smell for a little bit,” he said.
Smell of what?
“You name it.”
Considering Ward hit his homer in the fourth inning, you’re probably wondering how he performed the rest of the game. Well, um, there was no rest of the game. He was almost immediately benched again for Call.
And the struggle continues.
“Keep trying to grind your game as much as you can and just kind of force the door down,” he said.
Hi, and welcome to another edition of Prep Rally. I’m Eric Sondheimer. The greatest day in high school baseball for City Section players is when you make it to the Open Division or Division I championship game and get to play on Dodger Stadium. Another memorable day happened on Saturday.
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The Field of Dreams
Verdugo Hills players celebrate a 3-1 win over Taft in the City Section Division I final on Saturday at Dodger Stadium.
(Craig Weston / For The Times)
For Birmingham and Verdugo Hills, there was a celebration at Dodger Stadium after winning the City Open Division and Division I championships, respectively. But runner-ups Taft and El Camino Real got their moment of appreciation and memories, too.
It’s become clear to win the Open Division, the key requirement is having three pitchers. Birmingham’s two starters, Carlos Acuna and Nathan Soto, did their job. Acuna (11-0) had complete games in the first round and semifinals. Closer Aidan Martinez was waiting to be called upon and delivered at Dodger Stadium in support of Soto with four strikeouts in two innings.
Even with its pitching, Birmingham still needed someone to deliver a clutch hit in a 4-2 win. It was the improbable that happened. Masen Ruiz, who hadn’t come to the plate since May 7 while stuck on the bench, hit a three-run triple to break open the game after being put in as a defensive replacement. Here’s the report.
Verdugo Hills was the biggest surprise. The Dons entered the playoffs at 10-18 after finishing fourth in the Valley Mission League and defeated Taft 3-1. Anthony Velasquez threw a complete game, but the story was the Dons’ defense, from the infielders to the outfielders. Here’s the report.
Baseball
Lachlan Clark of Sherman Oaks Notre Dame will be on the mound against Norco. He threw a shutout the last time he faced the Cougars.
(Eric Sondheimer / Los Angeles Times)
The Southern Section Division 1 semifinals are set for Tuesday, and no one knows who’s going to make it to Cal State Fullerton. The games could go either way, with Harvard-Westlake at St. John Bosco and Sherman Oaks Notre Dame at Norco.
The last time Lachlan Clark faced Norco two weeks ago, he threw a shutout. He’s expected to face left-hander Landon Hovermale. It’s Notre Dame’’s first road game of the playoffs. Harvard-Westlake is also facing its first road game against the defending Division 1 champions.
Norco received a tremendous performance from Jordan Ayala in a 3-0 win over Orange Lutheran. He struck out 10 with no walks and also hit a home run. James Clark hit two home runs and Julian Garcia struck out 14 in St. John Bosco’s 5-2 win over La Mirada.
Newport Harbor and Laguna Beach are surging in the playoffs. Here’s a report.
The state softball and baseball playoff pairings that will be announced next Sunday will be missing lots of teams. In City Section baseball, opting out are Birmingham, Granada Hills and El Camino Real. In softball, it’s Carson and Granada Hills.
Birmingham and El Camino Real have chosen to opt out of the state baseball playoffs. Pairings will be announced Sunday. It’s likely the final time that teams decide they don’t want to play in state playoffs because next season the first state championship games will take place, motivating schools to participate.
Softball
Liliana Escobar of JSerra threw a shutout in 1-0 win over Garden Grove Pacifica.
(Dylan Stewart)
The Southern Section Division 1 final in softball will take place probably Saturday with JSerra facing La Mirada at Bill Barber Park in Irvine.
The playoffs have been about the dominant performances of JSerra pitcher Liliana Escobar, who struck out 14 in eliminating defending champion Norco 2-0 last week.
The Southern Section will release final dates and times for its championships Monday.
In the City Section, Carson and Granada Hills could be headed for fourth straight final. First they each have to win their Wednesday semifinal games. Granada Hills hosts San Pedro and Carson hosts Birmingham. The championship game is expected to be Saturday in Long Beach.
Track
The moment Lawrence Kensinger of Venice broke a 53-year-old City Section record in the shotput with a mark of 65-11.
(Steve Galluzzo / For The Times)
Things couldn’t have been more exciting at the City Section track and field finals when Lawrence Kensinger of Venice broke the second-longest held record in the shotput. It was set in 1973 and he obliterated it with a staggering mark of 65-11 putting him squarely in the competetion for a state title at the CIF state championships Friday and Saturday at Buchanan High School in Clovis.
At the Southern Section Masters Meet, there were plenty of outstanding marks in the girls’ competition, and sprinter Benjamin Harris of Servite set himself up to win multiple state titles. Here’s a look at top qualifiers.
Volleyball
Mira Costa has proven itself to be the No. 1 boys volleyball team in the state and the Mustangs are one win away from a Division I title. They face Northern California champion Northgate on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at Fresno City College.
They’ve already accomplished what few teams have done — beat rival Loyola in three matches this season. They won the Southern California regional title with a five-set win over the Cubs.
Golf
The Southern California Regional championships are set for Thursday.
Austin Downing of San Marcos won the individual championship.
Notes . . .
Richard Simms has resigned after 21 years as girls’ soccer coach at Harvard-Westlake. His teams won four CIF championships and 18 Mission League titles. He coached the Thompson sisters, Alyssa and Gisele. Another Thompson sister is arriving in the fall….
In tennis, Harvard-Westlake continued its success by winning the Southern California Regional championship….
Steve Kennedy has resigned as softball coach at Newbury Park….
Loyola track star Ejam Yohannes has committed to Stanford….
Ernest Baskerville has resigned after seven years as basketball coach at South Pasadena….
Hurdler Peyton Brown from Trabuco Hills has committed to Cal Poly….
Terrence Worthy is the new basketball coach at West Covina….
Update from Orange Lutheran: “A serious allegation has been raised involving a former staff member at Orange Lutheran. The matter is currently under investigation by the Orange Police Department, and we are cooperating fully with their work. As the situation continues to develop,…
Orange Lutheran announced that the Orange Police Department is investigating “a serious allegation” made against a former staff member believed to have worked with the football program….
Sage Hill has promoted Jethro Julian to girls basketball coach after being the interim coach last season….
Dezi Delgado, who was all-Mission League as a sophomore baseball player at Sierra Canyon, said he is transferring to Sherman Oaks Notre Dame for his senior year….
From the archives: Trent Grindlinger
Former Huntington Beach catcher Trent Grindlinger.
(Nick Koza)
After a terrific high school career playing catcher for Huntington Beach, Trent Grindlinger has been equally impressive as a freshman for Tennessee.
He led the team going into last week’s SEC tournament action with a .357 batting average, eight home runs and 28 RBIs.
His younger brother, Jared, is expected to be a first-round pick in this summer’s amateur draft.
From the Los Angeles Times, a story on three-year JV player JJ Saffie of El Camino Real taking advantage of his opportunity to finally play varsity. He had two hits at Dodger Stadium.
Tweets you might have missed
Culver City’s volleyball team won the Southern Section Division 6 title with just two home matches all season because the gym was flooded in the fall. Sophomore Ken Hasegawa and senior Casey Brennan, who attended Palisades before the fire, have been big contributors.
Planet Fitness today announced the return of its annual High School Summer Pass program, which invites high school teens ages 14-19 to work out for FREE at any of its more than 2,900+ Planet Fitness locations throughout the U.S. and Canada between June 1 through Aug. 31. Teens…
Lawrence Kensinger of Venice sets City record in shotput 65-11. Amazing. He worked so hard with Notre Dame coach Nick Garcia. A record to remember today. pic.twitter.com/vAG1wJ42uI
In honor of Donovan Dent retiring from playing basketball, here’s a story from 2022 when he was The Times’ player of the year playing for Corona Centennial. https://t.co/mMA8gVgUT2
Have a question, comment or something you’d like to see in a future Prep Rally newsletter? Email me at eric.sondheimer@latimes.com, and follow me on Twitter at @latsondheimer.
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On the eve of the City Section championship baseball game at Dodger Stadium, let’s explore a sometimes forgotten character trait: Patience.
When JJ Saffie walks onto hallowed ground Saturday as a starting left fielder for 10-time City champion El Camino Real High in the Open Division championship game against Birmingham, he will be finishing a journey few want to travel these days.
He spent three years on the junior varsity team waiting and grinding before getting his chance to start on varsity this season.
“Very patient,” he said. “Freshman year, played frosh-soph, called up for a few JV games. Sophomore year, on and off starter on JVs. Junior year is when it started clicking for me. I found my bat, I found the style I like to play, I started hitting real good.”
He was part of an outstanding JV team his junior year, called up as a pinch runner for the playoffs. He developed power and a knack for hitting balls over El Camino Real’s left-field fence during batting practice.
“I’ve hit two windows and six cars,” said the 18-year-old, who likes to cause mayhem for insurance companies.
El Camino Real celebrates a 4-3 win over Granada Hills to earn a trip to Dodger Stadium on Saturday.
(Craig Weston)
He’s hit two home runs this season and become a key player for the Royals.
Now he gets to start at Dodger Stadium, a moment every high school baseball player in the City Section dreams of reaching.
“I’m a big believer in good things will come to those who are patient,” he said. “I knew I needed to be patient, work on my game and eventually success would come my way and I’d have my opportunities and here’s my opportunity. I’m trying to prove that Saturday.”
El Camino Real needed a two-run single by RJ De La Rosa in the bottom of the sixth inning on Wednesday to defeat Granada Hills 4-3 in the semifinals at Cal State Northridge.
“I saw my pitch,” De La Rosa said. “I wanted to take advantage. It was the bottom of the sixth. The team needed me most and I pulled through. It was an amazing moment. These boys are my brothers. I will fight for them. I will do everything for them. I can’t wait to make some memories at Dodger Stadium.”
For Saffie, staying and fighting to get better rather than running away from a challenge is a great lesson for others.
“I had a few people tell me to transfer,” he said. “But my sister came here, my dad. I want to prove myself at this school.”
Top-seeded Birmingham will have junior Nathan Soto starting on the mound in the 1 p.m. game. It’s a big assignment and he’ll be working on his mental part of the game.
“It’s just another game,” he said after the Patriots’ 4-1 semifinal win over Carson. “I think it’s everyone’s dream to pitch there, but you have to keep it as a normal game.”
Pitcher Carlos Acuna grinded out a complete game in Birmingham’s 4-1 win over Carson to send the Patriots to Dodger Stadium.
(Craig Weston)
Birmingham can thank Carlos Acuna for putting together a sophomore season to remember. His pitching season is done. He finished with an 11-0 record after a complete-game win against Carson.
“It’s an amazing season he’s having,” coach Matt Mowry said.
In six of the seven innings on Wednesday, Carson got the leadoff batter aboard, forcing Acuna to work extra hard while throwing 102 pitches.
“He was on the edge of coming out,” Mowry said.
Acuna wouldn’t let him.
“I love this team,” Acuna said. “I want to play one last game.”
He’ll start on Saturday at second or third base in a game matching two of the most successful programs in City baseball history. El Camino Real is seeking a record 11th title. Birmingham wants its ninth title.
The 10 a.m. game at Dodger Stadium has Verdugo Hills taking on Taft in the Division I final.
Fans will come for the sun, the hot dogs, the fun of cheering on someone they know or enjoying a moment of distraction at Los Angeles’ most sacred stadium.
Just remember those are teenagers out there who’ve sacrificed and spent years working toward this moment. There’s no losers when you get to play at Dodger Stadium as a high school kid.
For Saffie, it validates his belief in trusting the process and trusting himself. He didn’t run when the going got tough. He persevered and learned a valuable lesson: patience still pays off.
As the Dodgers navigate the ripple effects of a series of recent pitching injuries, they added bullpen depth on Sunday by acquiring left-hander Eric Lauer from the Blue Jays for cash considerations.
The Blue Jays designated Lauer for assignment last week, after a bumpy start to the season. Lauer had yielded a league-leading 11 home runs in eight appearances.
It was a contrast to the far steadier presence he’d provided on the mound last year en route to an American League pennant, when he posted a 3.18 ERA in the regular season and 3.12 in the postseason. Lauer didn’t give up a run against the Dodgers in two World Series appearances, including 4 2/3 innings in Game 3.
To make room on the 40-man roster, the Dodgers transferred right-hander Brusdar Graterol (right shoulder surgery recovery) to the 60-day injured list.
They put left-hander Jack Dreyer on the 15-day IL with left shoulder discomfort. Imaging showed “nothing relevant,” other than inflammation, manager Dave Roberts said. The Dodgers hope he’ll be ready to be reinstated after a minimum stint.
“He was warming up yesterday and then felt something in his shoulder, some soreness,” Roberts said. “We just wanted to be proactive.
For Ross Stripling, baseball was something of an accidental career.
He walked onto the team at Texas A&M, majoring in business finance, planning to stick around campus long enough to earn a master’s degree. After his junior year, he turned down a six-figure bonus offered by the Colorado Rockies. After his senior year, he accepted a six-figure bonus to sign with the Dodgers, only to blow out his elbow after one season in the minor leagues.
He was 24. He was at peace. He called home.
“I think the right thing to do is to say I did this baseball thing and go start my life,” he told his father.
If you’re a Dodgers fan, you know the rest of his baseball story: In his major league debut, Stripling was five outs from a no-hitter when Dodgers manager Dave Roberts yanked him. In his nine years in the major leagues, including five with the Dodgers, he pitched in the All-Star Game and the World Series, and he once pitched with his “Chicken Strip” nickname on the back of his game jersey.
His father knew best. Instead of giving up on baseball when he needed Tommy John surgery, his father encouraged Stripling to use the yearlong rehabilitation process as a way to explore what a future without baseball might look like. His grandfather set him up with an internship at an investment firm.
Five years ago, Stripling and his mentor from that firm founded their own financial services company, called Skyward Financial. Now, 21 months after Stripling threw his last pitch in the major leagues, he is throwing a new one: Hey, young athletes coming into a lot of money, I’ve lived in that world, and I’ll show you how to protect your money and build toward generational wealth.
“It’s not me trying to become the next Wolf of Wall Street,” Stripling said. “This is genuine. I want to help kids and their families out in a space that has gotten out of hand in a hurry.”
Matthew Houston, the mentor, said Stripling blew away the brokers when he interviewed for that internship.
“He brings with him, like, a two-inch folder stuffed with handwritten stock reports he had written on minor league bus trips,” Houston said. “He handed us a couple of them, and they were legit Wall Street reports, him doing analysis of stocks. We were falling out of our chair.”
Stripling soon earned his broker’s license. Over the past decade, Houston estimated, he and Stripling might have traded messages about markets and clients “25 to 50 times a day.” One night, Houston watched Stripling pitch on television. Not long after the game ended, he heard the ping of a text message.
“I had just seen him on TV, and it’s like, ‘What do you think about Celgene and Gilead in the biotech sector?’” Houston said. “My mind was blown.”
You don’t need to have played in the major leagues to realize how much money athletes make. Major brokerages want a piece of that money. Some even use former athletes to recruit current ones.
Marc Isenberg, the former director of financial education for Morgan Stanley’s sports and entertainment group and author of the “Money Players” guide for young athletes, wished Stripling well but said he would face significant competition from firms with bigger names and greater resources.
“It’s oversaturated,” Isenberg said. “Almost every single Wall Street firm, to compete for athletes and entertainers, has a sports and entertainment group.”
And it’s not just the behemoths. Stripling checked with a basketball agent, who said he represents 24 college players that each have a different money manager.
There is nothing revolutionary about Stripling’s message: limit the flashy spending now in favor of prudent savings and investment, so you can grow your money through and beyond your career.
Stripling believes he can win by concentrating on young athletes, the ones suddenly showered in six- or seven-figure payments from draft bonuses, college revenue sharing payments, and name, image and likeness deals.
“I’ve seen the first-rounders come in and blow money on cars and houses and gambling,” Stripling said, “and I’ve seen the first-rounders like (former Dodgers shortstop Corey) Seager, who probably hasn’t spent a dime of his signing bonus.”
In a presentation for young athletes — and for the pro teams and college athletic departments that might invite him to speak — Stripling’s firm uses his story of a baseball prospect that got a $900,000 up-front payment and spent the $500,000 after taxes on a red Lamborghini. If the prospect had invested that $500,000 over 30 years into a fund that tracked the S&P 500, he would have made $8.6 million.
“That was the dumbest decision I’ve ever seen anyone make,” Stripling said.
“I have these stories from being in the locker room. I hope that, as a player, my story resonates more than a guy from Goldman Sachs saying, ‘Yeah, we’ve got a couple good ETFs.’”
Stripling would love the chance to speak at one of the Dodgers’ morning meetings in spring training, where players hear briefings about everything from safety and security to social media.
“I’d like to learn more about it, but I’d be open to putting him in front of the guys,” Roberts said. “I definitely trust him.”
In the meantime, Stripling has a federal record. All brokers do. One form requires brokers to list their employers and job descriptions over the last 10 years. Among all the wealth strategists and financial advisors and registered representatives, Stripling’s form is the one with the job history that starts with this line: “LA Dodgers, Pitcher.”
The Dodgers added a bounce-back candidate to their organization’s outfield depth, trading for Diamondbacks center fielder Alek Thomas on Tuesday.
In exchange, the Dodgers sent 18-year-old outfielder Jose Requena to the Diamondbacks. They also designated outfielder Michael Siani for assignment to clear a spot on the 40-man roster.
Thomas, in his fifth major-league season, had a slow start to the year after establishing himself as a standout for Team Mexico in the World Baseball Classic.
“He’s an absolute stud,” Team Mexico manager Benji Gil told reporters after Thomas went three-for-three with a home run against Team Brazil. “He’s about to have a breakout year. I think he’s going to become a perennial All-Star, a Gold Glove candidate every single year.”
Thomas’ offensive production, however, didn’t continue into the regular season. He was hitting .181 with a .563 OPS when the Diamondbacks designated him for assignment last week.
The Dodgers signed Requena out of Caracas, Venezuela in January, and he has yet to appear in a professional game.
Siani, who the Dodgers twice claimed off waivers this offseason, had a .659 OPS in Triple-A Oklahoma City.
The decisive blow in the Dodgers’ 12-4 win against the Chicago Cubs on Saturday at Dodger Stadium was the kind of unrelenting rally they hadn’t mustered since leaving Colorado on Monday.
The Dodgers were trailing by a run going into the bottom of the fourth inning. Then they put together a six-run rally.
They stacked up six hits, only one of which was for extra bases, and two walks in the inning, to knock Cubs starter Colin Rea out of the game before piling on against long reliever Javier Assad.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts acknowledged Friday that the offense hadn’t been clicking as a whole for much of the week. That changed Saturday, with contributions from across the lineup.
Shohei Ohtani ended a three-game hitless streak (0 for 12) with a single in the first inning. He went on to draw two walks to reach base three times.
Max Muncy — batting third because he was feeling under the weather and Roberts wanted to take advantage of the matchup with Rea before replacing Muncy with Santiago Espinal — drove in the Dodgers’ first runs. Muncy’s two-run blast in the third inning was his ninth home run of the season.
Dodgers No. 8 hitter Hyeseong Kim started the fourth-inning rally with a line-drive single up the middle. Then Alex Freeland, Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernández, Dalton Rushing and Andy Pages combined for six RBIs.
Dodgers starting pitcher Roki Sasaki delivers against the Cubs in the first inning Saturday at Dodger Stadium.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
They kept applying pressure against the Cubs’ injury-depleted bullpen, putting together a four-run sixth inning that added two more RBIs to Pages’ tally.
The Dodgers (18-9) forced the Cubs (17-10) to use two multi-inning relievers, which could affect the rubber match Sunday.
Dodgers starter Roki Sasaki gave up three home runs, but they were all solo shots since he limited traffic on the bases. Sasaki surrendered four runs, each in different innings, and left the game in the sixth after putting two runners on base with a walk and single.
Left-hander Jack Dreyer entered and immediately walked designated hitter Moisés Ballesteros to load the bases. But he struck out the next two batters, and right-hander Will Klein finished the escape job.
The bullpen, with Kyle Hurt and Jake Eder also contributing, held back the Cubs the rest of the way. The Dodgers’ victory stopped the red-hot Cubs’ 10-game win streak.
DENVER — The Dodgers announced Monday that Edwin Díaz will undergo surgery to remove “loose bodies” in his right elbow and the closer isn’t expected to return until some point in the second half of the season.
Díaz, 32, has a 10.50 ERA in seven appearances this season for the Dodgers, who made a splash signing the high-profile free agent to a three-year $69-million deal, a record for a reliever.
The Dodgers recalled 27-year-old left-handed long reliever Jake Eder to replace Díaz on the roster.
Díaz gave up three runs and failed to get an out in the Dodgers’ 9-6 loss to the Colorado Rockies in a non-save situation Sunday, in what was his first appearance in nine days.
He entered the game and gave up a walk and three base hits, including a two-RBI single to Edouard Julien. Afterward, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts expressed concern about Díaz’s performance: “I know what it’s supposed to look like, and when it doesn’t look like that, it gets a little concerning, really.”
Before the Dodgers played their final game of the four-game series against the Colorado Rockies on Monday, Roberts said that the diagnosis provides some clarity, and that Díaz only began feeling discomfort in his elbow Sunday.
Before that Roberts said the plan was to “tread lightly” with the pitcher’s workload, unsure why the velocity of his pitches was down.
“Obviously, we all saw the stuff [Sunday], and it sent up red flags,” Roberts said. “And so, after the game, he had a conversation with our training staff, and felt that he had some elbow discomfort. So we just wanted to be proactive, and felt that it was smart to get an MRI, get imaging, which we did do, and it showed loose bodies.”
Having experienced the same thing as a player, Roberts explained, “you have loose bodies and they’re asymptomatic until they’re not.”
Dodgers closer Edwin Díaz jogs to the mound during the ninth inning against the Cleveland Guardians at Dodger Stadium on March 31.
(Ronaldo Bolanos / Los Angeles Times)
A 10-year veteran, Díaz is a three-time All-Star. For his career, he has 257 saves in 300 opportunities with 849 strikeouts.
General manager Brandon Gomes said the Dodgers are “as confident as we can be” that Díaz will return to top form.
“Our understanding is that it’s a pretty straightforward procedure,” Gomes said. “We’re going to take our time with getting him back and being mindful of the buildup, and make sure he’s in a really good position to come out and compete at the highest level of what we expect.
“It’s the benefit of having a deeper staff and a talented team that it’s never easy to lose somebody like Edwin, but we’ll get through it and it’ll be a collective effort to keep winning baseball games.”
Roberts said he doesn’t plan to name a substitute closer in Díaz’s place, and the manager acknowledged that the news will significantly alter how he’ll use the bullpen.
“It does change it. In a big way,” Roberts said. “I do think being able to deploy guys in their right lanes or pockets has been helpful. But with that, I do think that Alex [Vesia] has been throwing the baseball really well. Tanner [Scott has] been throwing the baseball really well, and outside of last night, Blake [Treinen] was throwing the baseball really well.
“But it does kind of not allow us to work from the back end, which is certainly a luxury.”
The Dodgers have had unfortunate luck signing big-name relievers. In 2025 they signed left-hander Scott to a four-year $72-million deal. He then led the league with 10 blown saves last season and the Dodgers removed him from their postseason roster, replacing him with left-hander Justin Wrobleski, who was set to start Monday as the team played for a series split at Coors Field.
