home run

In Shohei Ohtani, who on Tuesday became the first Japanese player to hit 300 home runs in MLB, the Dodgers had the first National League All-Star voted in this year.

They still have a chance for a late addition.

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has been lobbying for two members of his pitching staff to be named replacement players: left-handed starter Justin Wrobleski and left-handed reliever Tanner Scott.

“There’s going to be some changes and some talks here,” Roberts said before the Dodgers’ 4-3 loss against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium. “There’s continual talks about both guys.”

Earlier Tuesday, MLB announced replacements for three NL pitchers who won’t be eligible to appear in the All-Star Game. Pittsburgh’s Braxton Ashcraft, Philadelphia’s Jesús Luzardo and St. Louis’ Riley O’Brien claimed spots as Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes, Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski and Miami’s Max Meyer bowed out.

“Obviously it’s disappointing,” Wrobleski said after holding the Rockies to one run through seven innings. “You want to be an All-Star. It’s something that, regardless of the year, whenever, it’s always a big deal. It’s something I wanted to do. It’s frustrating to not get that nod. But like I said before, it’s just more reason to try and keep getting better. Hopefully I can gain the respect of players and everybody else and maybe be in there next year.”

There should continue to be movement on the All-Star roster, especially on the pitching side, with rotation schedules limiting which starters can participate. Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, for example, is lined up to start Saturday, which may take him off the table for the All-Star Game next Tuesday.

That could open the door for Wrobleski and Scott.

Asked to make his pitch for Wrobleski, Roberts pointed to his ERA (2.69, No. 8 among qualified NL pitchers), average of more than six innings per start and 10 wins.

“We run a six-man rotation, and I just don’t want him to get dinged for not making a couple more starts that he potentially could have had,” Roberts said. “I just think that he’s performed enough to earn that opportunity.

“And also, Tanner had a rough one [Monday], but I still think that … he’s one of the elite relievers in the National League.”

Scott, after notching just his second blown save Monday, compared to his 12 saves and 2.70 ERA, didn’t have an opening to improve on his All-Star campaign Tuesday.

Wrobleski, however, strengthened his.

He stayed true to his identity, pounding the strike zone and inducing weak contact to go with nine strikeouts. The only run he gave up came on a groundout in the sixth inning with runners on the corners.

In a nod to Wrobleski’s new nickname, “The Shark,” coined by Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martínez, Dodger Stadium organist Dieter Ruehle played a snippet of the “Jaws” theme to punctuate Wrobleski’s punchouts, and as he walked off the mound for the last time.

Justin Wrobleski was great for seven innings Tuesday.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

Once Wrobleski’s job was done, he paced in the dugout, interrupted once in a while by a hug or handshakes from a teammate. Catcher Dalton Rushing held his hand up to his forehead like a shark fin.

The name and attacking reputation had stuck. Would it be enough for an All-Star nod?

“If it happens, great,” Wrobleski said. “If it doesn’t happen, some time off and just chill for a couple days. Either way, I’m all good.”

On the offensive side, Ohtani’s leadoff homer made him the first player to notch 300 home runs and 100-plus stolen bases in his first nine MLB seasons, according to ESPN Insights. Tuesday was his 1,101st game with at least one plate appearance. By that measure, he was the fifth-fastest to 300 home runs, according to mlb.com and Elias Sports Bureau, behind only Aaron Judge (953), Ralph Kiner (1,086), Ryan Howard (1,091) and Juan González (1,093).

“It was quite the homer,” Roberts said. “I mean, it was [112 mph] off the bat, low launch angle. It was squared up, got out in a hurry. And 300 — he got there pretty quickly for us. I just marvel at him every day.”

Defense unravels late

The Dodgers widened their lead to two runs but gave it up in the eighth on a pair of errors, including one on a sacrifice bunt.

Shortstop Miguel Rojas, who botched a grounder to his left earlier in the inning that enabled a run to score, was late breaking to cover third, leaving the bag wide open. Second baseman Alex Freeland tried to hit Rojas in stride with his throw and was charged with an error when it got away and the go-ahead run scored.

“Physical errors happen, and I’m OK with that,” Rojas said. “I’m not perfect, and I’m going to make errors, and physical errors are OK. But mental errors are the ones that are disappointing. I should have been on third base, I shouldn’t be putting Alex Freeland in the situation of throwing the ball with me on the run there. That’s the one that I kick myself for.”

Said Roberts: “This guy’s as dependable as they come. So that it happens, we don’t like it, doesn’t feel good, but you know that player. I give him a lot of grace, because he is very dependable.”

Right-hander Evan Phillips made his first major-league appearance in 14 months, after undergoing Tommy John surgery last summer, and had two strikeouts in a scoreless ninth inning. But the Dodgers offense didn’t muster a comeback, as the top of the batting order went down in order with two runners on.

Ohtani on track

Ohtani is still in line to pitch Friday against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Roberts said.

The right biceps issue that flared in Ohtani’s final at-bat last Friday, and sidelined him Saturday, raised the question of whether he should skip his last start before the All-Star break. But Roberts said Ohtani’s catch play has been normal and he hasn’t reported any concerns with his biceps.

“As he goes through the next couple days, if he doesn’t feel great, we’ll pivot, and we’re prepared to pivot,” Roberts said. “But as we sit here, I don’t see that changing.”

Roberts said he doesn’t think Ohtani will pitch in the All-Star Game or participate in the home run derby. But he does expect him to take an at-bat or two as the NL’s starting designated hitter.

“He understands the responsibility he has,” Roberts said. “So I do think that there’s a middle for what’s best for him, what potentially could be downside, but also what’s best for the game.”

Roki Sasaki’s abysmal appearance faded away in the Dodgers’ 12-7 win over the San Diego Padres after Los Angeles rose from a catatonic first inning. The Dodgers roared back from a 6-0 deficit as Andy Pages skirted a tying double down the left-field line, and Mookie Betts and Max Muncy each drove in runs to give them the lead in a four-run fourth inning. All of which sent the sellout crowd into jubilant celebrations, some jumping, others breaking out World Cup chants.

“I don’t know,” manager Dave Roberts said of the team’s ability to turn the game around. “Thankfully, it played out the way I didn’t expect, or the way it started.”

By the time the game ended, Sasaki’s three-inning start seemed like a murky nightmare the Dodgers awoke from in a sweat. Except the Dodgers weren’t dreaming, and the team hadn’t done much to assuage the concerns with Sasaki.

The problem with Sasaki isn’t his stuff. On his best nights, when the velocity and command combine, Sasaki blows past batters with a triple-digit fastball and cutting off-speed pitches. The problem has been how to tick the radar without making the strike zone look like a Jackson Pollock painting — and recently, it has.

Sasaki’s June swoon, impervious to the calendar change, continued into Thursday’s series opener against the Padres, in which the right-hander gave up three home runs and seven hits before Roberts called it quits going into the fourth inning.

“They were on everything,” Roberts said. “You could see it.”

One possible concern? Tipping pitches. While Roberts and catcher Dalton Rushing said the team would need to do some more research into Sasaki’s start, both left the door open to this answer.

“That would be a big explanation as to how they felt like they were on every pitch,” Rushing said.

As San Diego chugged through its lineup, Sasaki struggled to keep up. With his first pitch, he gave up a double to Fernando Tatis Jr., who scored on Manny Machado’s home run that left center fielder Pages staring at the ball’s path as it plopped down on the other side of the blue outfield fence.

The inning was only a preview of the Padres’ power. Each of the nine San Diego batters got his chance against Sasaki in the second, and the team quickly dug the Dodgers into a six-run hole. He surrendered two home runs in the second inning. First, Jackson Merrill blasted a ball to left-center field, and, two outs later, Jake Cronenworth drove in two runs with a shot to right-center.

Sasaki said through interpreter Kensuke Okubo that he felt like he needed work on his command to improve, but he felt like his fastball was good.

Roki Sasaki has his head down after giving up a solo homer to Jackson Merrill in the second inning.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“I don’t think my stuff was bad today,” Sasaki said. “Overall, it wasn’t great but a lot of things evolved.”

Part of Sasaki’s issue lies with his approach. Roberts said he wants the second-year pitcher to be aggressive, to play the cat-and-mouse game required to beat batters in the box. But when given the opportunity, Sasaki has shrunken in recent outings, struggling with his command and his ability to pitch deep into games.

“We had a great May, so let’s just get back to competing and making pitches,” Roberts said.

When reliever Will Klein walked out to the mound in the fourth to the aggressive, rambunctious clamor of the Dropkick Murphys’ “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” and collected two scoreless, one-hit innings, the relief was immediate: The Dodgers took the lead.

The lineup already was revving, as Dalton Rushing homered in the second inning while Sasaki was still in the game, and both Kyle Tucker and Max Muncy drove in runs in the third, cutting the deficit to two. The Dodgers broke through against the Padres’ bullpen to score six runs in the fourth and fifth innings.

“The bullpen was fantastic tonight, and then the offense came up big,” Roberts said.

A late catch by Pages helped close out the game after he gloved a ball despite ramming into the padding of the center field wall. A combined effort by Paul Gervase and Tanner Scott shut down San Diego’s ninth-inning momentum after it pushed across a run.

“Turned back around, was able to find the ball and make a really good catch right there,” Tucker said. “That was a huge out.”

The Dodgers (57-31) beat their division rivals for the fifth time in seven games to open a 13-game lead over both San Diego and Arizona. The Padres, meanwhile, have given up 65 runs over the last six days, the most in such a span in franchise history.

But San Diego’s flaws don’t negate the Dodgers’ as they burned through six relievers in their win. So, while the Dodgers crawled out of the hole with a season-high 17 hits, the steep cost heightens the pressure on the rest of the rotation the rest of the series.

SEATTLE — Cole Young hit two home runs to back eight strong innings from George Kirby as the Seattle Mariners came from behind to beat the Angels 6-2 on Monday night.

Dominic Canzone also went deep to help Seattle (43-43) get back to .500 and stay a half-game behind the first-place Texas Rangers in the American League West.

Zach Neto doubled to center field leading off the game against Kirby (7-7), and Denzer Guzman singled two pitches later for a 1-0 lead. Neto hit his 18th home run in the third — a two-out shot that made it 2-0.

Kirby gave up a one-out double to Josh Lowe in the fifth but struck out the side — including Neto — to end the inning. The right-hander used 16 pitches to get six straight outs from there until Lowe doubled leading off the eighth.

Kirby issued his only walk, to Neto, with one out before striking out Guzman looking and Nolan Schanuel swinging on his 100th pitch.

Kirby gave up seven hits and fanned seven before José A. Ferrer pitched a scoreless ninth.

Young led off the third against Angels rookie Ryan Johnson (1-3) with his eighth homer to cut it to 2-1. Josh Naylor walked and stole second in front of Young’s two-out shot in the sixth off Mitch Farris to make it 6-2.

Randy Arozarena was hit by a two-out pitch in the fourth before advancing on a two-base fielding error by Guzman at third base on a grounder from Naylor. Both runners scored on Cal Raleigh’s bloop single for a 3-2 lead.

Canzone hit his 13th homer to make it 4-2 in the sixth, a leadoff shot against Farris.

Johnson gave up three runs (one earned) in five innings. Farris was tagged for three runs in three innings.

If only. If Rob Pelinka could use the Dodgers’ blueprint to renovate, Lakers fans wouldn’t even be sweating this summer.

But, you know. Baseballs and basketballs, apples and oranges.

The windup and sales pitch are the same, though: Deliver a sustainable, high-rising, championship build. On time and … about that budget. One team has none. The other’s is tight.

In baseball, they wear caps. In the NBA, they’re compelled to stay under them.

In baseball, they can swing freely (for now). In basketball, they’re hamstrung by aprons.

Ned Colletti had it easier, and he lasted only two relatively successful seasons in his role as Dodgers general manager after Mark Walter’s Guggenheim Baseball Management group bought the ballclub in 2012.

Pelinka has it tougher as the Lakers’ general manager and president of basketball operations. But like Colletti before him, with Walter having purchased the majority stake in the Lakers, Pelinka is going to have to crash the hourglass and build a winner with haste. Er, the winner.

If the Lakers lay anything but an 18th brick on their championship foundation in the next couple seasons, Pelinka’s story probably is going to go a lot like Colletti’s.

When free agency opens Tuesday, Pelinka is just going to have to show us how creative he can be, how clever and cunning.

He already hit a grand slam with the Luka Doncic trade in 2025. In one of the NBA’s all-time heists, Pelinka brought the then-25-year-old Slovenian superstar to L.A. from the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for essentially an aging and injury-prone Anthony Davis and just one first-round draft pick.

Before that, Pelinka hit another home run with Austin Reaves; a four-bagger so deep that Doncic’s undrafted backcourt-mate has now procured the proverbial bag. (Four years, $185 million worth of baggage to the Lakers.)

With those pillars cemented, Pelinka’s job is delivering the A-list center Doncic reportedly desires.

Lakers GM Rob Pelinka pulled off a blockbuster trade to acquire Slovenian superstar Luka Doncic. Can Pelinka build a winner around Doncic?

(Carlin Stiehl / Los Angeles Times)

Doesn’t matter that all the perceivable candidates — from the Utah Jazz’s Walker Kessler to the New York Knicks’ Mitchell Robinson, the Milwaukee Bucks’ Myles Turner, the Detroit Pistons’ Jalen Duren, the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Jarrett Allen, the Mavericks’ Daniel Gafford, even old friend A.D. — sit on a spectrum of unlikely to unwise.

Still, the best plan: Make Doncic happy; make a run at Kessler.

He’s a 24-year-old, defensively adept big man who would be a great pickup, just hard to get. But whether it’s overpaying in restricted free agency or working out a sign-and-trade deal, pry him away from the Jazz.

After nailing down a center, Pelinka also needs to really hit on the margins. Because in the modern NBA, the marginal is major.

The current contenders have depth borne of seasons spent tanking and loading up in the draft on athletic, affordable young talent or, in the case of the recently crowned Knicks, having a leading man take $113 million less than he was eligible for, as Jalen Brunson effectively did, to be able to play with his best buds.

In L.A., the Lakers don’t really have the first option and shouldn’t ever expect the second.

But Pelinka doesn’t have to swing for the fences every time; he doesn’t need to wow us now, he needs to have wowed us later. Take swings like he did trading for Rui Hachimura or netting sharpshooter Luke Kennard.

Former Laker Pau Gasol, right, speaks with GM Rob Pelinka during a Lakers practice in 2025.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

No one bats 1.000, of course, not even Andrew Friedman, the architect of the Dodgers’ three World Series titles since taking over as president of baseball operations in 2014.

But for the Lakers’ potential $51 million of cap space, for all of this summer’s much-hyped optionality, Pelinka’s competitive new boss isn’t the type to forgive errors that are forever front of mind for the Lakers’ faithful.

Pelinka can’t strike out on free agent signees like Gabe Vincent and Kendrick Nunn. Can’t let someone like Alex Caruso walk. Can’t whiff on draftees like Dalton Knecht or Jalen Hood-Schifino — and better hope he hasn’t on this year’s selection, Cameron Carr, who fell to the Lakers at No. 24.

The wrinkle, this offseason: Last year’s Lakers — 41-year-old LeBron James, Hachimura, Kennard and, if he opts out, Marcus Smart — will be among the most attractive free agents on the market, and they’re proven fits for a team that reached the second round of the playoffs.

But merely re-signing those guys won’t improve the Lakers’ odds of getting past the Oklahoma City Thunder or San Antonio Spurs in the playoffs.

And simply outspending those teams isn’t an option, either. So Pelinka is going to have to go bargain hunting, he’s got to find some hidden gems, pull some tricks out of his sleeve. Surprise us, like great general managers are supposed to do.

This is Pelinka’s opportunity to show us his blueprint for bringing another title to Los Angeles, to build a case for himself.

SAN DIEGO — One after another, Kyle Tucker and Dalton Rushing broke up their offensive slumps with home runs.

The Dodgers’ sixth-inning rally, en route to a 15-3 victory against the Padres at Petco Park Saturday, featured blasts from the two hitters who needed individual victories at the plate.

Tucker, who entered Saturday with just a .700 OPS, had gone four straight games without a hit. Rushing went hitless in the previous five, in a rough seven-week stretch.

“It’s tough,” Tucker said of his uncharacteristically slow offensive start. “You just have to try and stay positive as much as you can. … We’re going to enjoy the win, but you’ve got another game tomorrow, and you’ve gotta move on to that. Anything that happened yesterday, you’ve got to move on, do your best at that, move on to the next game, and try to improve and try to help your team win.”

Tucker and Rushing’s home runs started the sunflower seed showers in a nine-run inning, which included a home run by Mookie Betts. Four of the runs scored in the sixth were unearned.

The Dodgers’ Dalton Rushing celebrates with Alex Freeland after hitting a home run against the Padres Saturday in San Diego.

(Tony Ding / Ap Photo/tony Ding)

The Dodgers took full advantage of the Padres’ defensive mistakes to jump-start their offense.

In the second inning, Max Muncy hit a line drive into the corner, and Padres right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. dove after it. But he missed the catch, and the ball bounced behind him. Muncy legged out a triple. And that put him in position to score easily on Tommy Edman’s double to the center-field warning track for the first run of the game.

The Padres evened the score with a Gavin Sheets’ solo home run off Dodgers starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto, who’d go on to limit the Padres to two runs through six innings.

Shaky defense, however, came back to haunt the Padres the next inning.

With Freddie Freeman standing on second base, after a leadoff double against Padres right-hander Randy Vásquez, Muncy hit a sharp grounder to second baseman Will Wagner, who muffed the play. Freeman raced around the bases, scoring on a close play at the plate.

Then Edman, who’s been swinging a hot bat since making his season debut last week, tripled to drive in Muncy.

That’s when Tucker, who went three for five with four RBIs Saturday, stepped up to the plate. He won a nine-pitch battle, sending a cutter over the right-field fence.

“Kind of been looking for it all year,” Tucker said. “I just kind of caught the ball at the right point of contact. I didn’t really stay through it great, but I put a decent enough swing on it, got it to work out.”

Rushing was next, and also went long in a two-strike count.

The Dodgers kept extending the inning, with two walks and three more hits, including Betts’ three-run homer off Padres reliever Ron Marinaccio. It was Betts’ third home run in as many games.

The Padres chipped away at the lead with an RBI single from Sheets off Yamamoto in the sixth and another run against Dodgers reliever Kyle Hurt, who gave up two hits and issued two walks in one-third of an inning.

But the lead the Dodgers compiled in the sixth inning, plus the four runs they tacked on in the eighth with Muncy’s infield single, Edman’s bases-loaded groundout, and Tucker’s opposite-field single, was too steep to overcome.

By the ninth inning, both teams had position players pitching.

Injury update

The Dodgers hope to activate Teoscar Hernández (strained left hamstring) from the 10-day injured list on Monday, manager Dave Roberts said before Saturday’s game.

Hernández homered in all three of his triple-A rehab games, entering Saturday.

“Triple-A pitching is not comparative to big league pitching, I think we all know that,” Roberts said. “But if he’s healthy, he’s an easy guy to bet on.”

Catcher Will Smith, on the other hand, has not returned to baseball activities since receiving an injection to address his neck injury.

“I think we’re all surprised how long it’s taken,” Roberts said. “I hope he’s back before the All-Star break. But the more time he’s off, he’s going to have to play some [rehab] games. So that kind of cuts into the time of return to us. So I don’t really know. I don’t want to add any pressure to him. I want him to be healthy and then once he’s healthy we can have that conversation.”

SAN DIEGO — The home run that Roki Sasaki gave up to San Diego’s Ty France was more dramatic than the two walks he issued to open the inning. But it was the free passes that really hurt him.

In the Dodgers’ 7-1 loss to the Padres on Friday, Sasaki was out of the game before he could record an out in the fifth inning. He gave up only three hits but issued five walks, tying his season high, and hit a batter.

“I actually felt different than I ever felt before, mechanically,” Sasaki said through interpreter Kensuke Okubo, noting that his lower body felt a little off. “So I need to go over it and see what was really happening.”

Sasaki successfully pitched around traffic for much of his outing, other than the three-run homer to France in the second inning. But the inefficiency sent his pitch count past 80 before he exited with runners on first and second in the fifth.

“I’m not going to have it every time out, so that’s something I have to improve,” Sasaki said. “And also the game plan. I was able to execute some of the pitches, but some of the pitches I couldn’t, so that’s something I have to go through before next start.”

Earlier this month, when Sasaki held the Angels scoreless through seven two-hit innings, it seemed as if he’d had a breakthrough. But in three starts since, including a seven-run dud against the Chicago White Sox two weeks ago, he has yet to pitch through the sixth inning.

“I am a little surprised, because there was such good momentum going on,” manager Dave Roberts said. “Hopefully we can get him back to throwing the way he did in May.”

The Padres’ Walker Buehler walks off after holding his old team to one run for 5-1/3 innings Friday at Petco Park.

(Derrick Tuskan / Ap Photo/derrick Tuskan)

Sasaki’s command issues Friday showed up almost immediately. After striking out Padres leadoff hitter Fernando Tatis Jr., Sasaki walked Samad Taylor on 10 pitches. But Sasaki bounced back by inducing a double play.

The next inning, there would be no such escape. Sasaki walked both Manny Machado, whom he also battled for 10 pitches, and Gavin Sheets to open the frame. Then Xander Bogaerts’ sharp line drive to center field found leather.

France’s long fly ball to left field, however, found the seats.

Sasaki’s only clean inning, the third, was made possible by catcher Dalton Rushing’s successful challenge of a called ball four against Tatís, flipping a walk into a strikeout.

“I know that there’s confidence in there,” Roberts said. “But when you feel good and you don’t feel good mechanically and can’t execute pitches, then the results are walks, and 1-2 [count] homers, and things like that. But I do think that we can kind of tackle the mechanical things that he’s probably looking for right now.”

The Padres piled on in the eighth inning against reliever Jonathan Hernandez, as the sold-out crowd chanted “Beat L.A.!”

Mookie Betts hit a home run off former teammate Walker Buehler for his second homer in as many games. Betts seems to have come out of his offensive funk, entering Friday with a 1.061 on-base-plus-slugging percentage over the previous 11 games.

Buehler earned the win, delivering five strikeouts in 5⅓ innings.

“[Buehler] is reinventing himself,” Roberts said. “He’s throwing the kitchen sink at you. Cutter, slider, changeup, two-seamers. He doesn’t just try to bully you, and he’s finding ways to just get guys out. So yeah, he’s gonna still go up there and compete.”

The Dodgers went 0 for 4 with runners in scoring position and squandered a bases-loaded opportunity with one out in the sixth inning after chasing Buehler. Max Muncy popped out and Kyle Tucker, back in the lineup after exiting Monday’s game because of back spasms, flied out.

The Dodgers have built such a big lead in the division that the loss barely made a dent. The Padres, in second place, trail by eight games.

SACRAMENTO — Zach Neto hit a two-run homer in the ninth inning that gave them their first lead, Denzer Guzman tied the score with a three-run home run in the eighth, and the Angels beat the Athletics 9-7 on Sunday.

Donovan Walton also homered and had three RBIs, while Nolan Schanuel and Jose Siri each added two hits to help the Angels (32-47) split the series after losing the first two games, including blowing an 11-4 lead Friday night.

Nick Kurtz hit his 19th home run, and Zac Gelof had a single and a double to extend his hit streak to 24 games for the A’s (38-40). Kurtz has 55 career homers, tied with Bob Johnson (1933-34) for the most in franchise history through the first two seasons of a career.

Five players drove in runs for the A’s. Joey Meneses had an RBI single in his Athletics debut after being called up from the minors before the game.

Chase Silseth (2-1) had two strikeouts and worked a scoreless eighth for the win. Sam Bachman pitched a 1-2-3 ninth for his first save of the season.

Guzman’s third home run in as many days, a three-run drive off Hogan Harris (3-1), tied the score at 7-7.

After Siri singled with one out in the ninth, Neto belted an 0-and-1 fastball that landed just beyond the fence in left field.

Angels starter Reid Detmers gave up five runs and walked four in six innings.

Gelof singled leading off the game, doubled in the fourth, then reached on an error in the seventh before Kurtz’s home run. His hitting streak is tied for the second-longest in franchise history since 1961.

A’s starter Jack Perkins had eight strikeouts in five innings and gave up four runs.

Up next for the Angels: LHP Sam Aldegheri (2-2, 4.50 ERA) faces the Baltimore Orioles on Monday.

An eye-watering, cough-inducing thick stench of burning plastic permeated Dodger Stadium on Sunday morning. The smoke from the Boyle Heights warehouse fire had spread into every crevice and corner of the facility, inescapable despite the masks handed out to staff.

“It’s a little dark out there, little Gotham City when I was driving up,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.

Major League Baseball approved the Father’s Day game to be played, according to Roberts. Still, the ominous atmosphere was hard to miss. When rolling up Vin Scully Avenue, a white smoke hung like a curtain behind the small hills on the other side of outfield walls, obscuring the normally scenic view of the San Gabriel Mountains.

Perhaps that should’ve been the first sign things wouldn’t go as planned for the Dodgers, who lost 12-1 to the Orioles. The loss marked the first time the Dodgers (49-29) have lost consecutive games since May 12.

“It’s everywhere in baseball, to be quite honest, but my concern is our team,” Roberts said of the Dodgers’ recent performances. “I don’t know the answer. It happens sporadically with all teams.”

By the time Emmet Sheehan took the mound, the smell had diluted, and the sunshine broke through the haze. The 26-year-old hasn’t won in more than a month, despite what at the time appeared to be a bounce-back performance against the Chicago White Sox last week. Sheehan lasted 3 1/3 innings against Baltimore, none particularly worse than the first.

Sheehan (3-5) loaded the bases, and Orioles catcher Samuel Basallo put Baltimore (37-42) on the scoreboard with a softly hit ball that split first baseman Freddie Freeman and right fielder Kyle Tucker. A two-out single by Colton Cowser put the Orioles up by two. With the bases loaded, Sheehan worked out of trouble with two strikeouts and a pop out. But the inning cost him four hits and nearly 30 pitches.

“We just got to have a better approach or plan with respect to the game situation,” Roberts said before the game. “Go out there and conduct, good and bad, not always gonna get the results, but I just think that we’re just missing at times the layer of the right approach in that particular situation.”

Sheehan struggled the most with his slider. Normally, the pitch elicits about a 43% chase rate, though against Baltimore it plummeted to 18%. The nose-dive, mainly caused by his inability to throw the slider in the zone, made his other pitches look less competitive, and the Orioles started connecting with his fastball. He gave up two home runs on the pitch to Taylor Ward in the second and Cowser in the third.

Meanwhile, Max Muncy drove in the Dodgers’ only run in the first with a line drive to left field. Shohei Ohtani, who had reached first on a walk and took second on Freddie Freeman’s single, slid home as the throw came in. However, the ball bounced off Basallo’s gear and ricocheted away from the plate.

The Orioles scored runs in four consecutive innings before Edgardo Henriquez threw a 1-2-3 inning in the fifth. The team tacked on four runs in the seventh, when, with a man on, the Dodgers ereliever Jonathan Hernández intentionally walked Gunner Henderson, who had gone two for four. So, He then threw a belt-high sinker down the middle of the plate that Pete Alonso smashed into the right field bleachers for a three-run homer. Hernández could only watch the ball soar, hunched over.

Blaze Alexander hit a two-run homer in the eighth. But position-player pitcher Miguel Rojas dealt a 1-2-3 ninth inning, one of the team’s three innings it held the Orioles scoreless. By then, the skies had cleared enough for the faint outline of the San Gabriel Mountains to appear. The Dodgers, though, finished the game as uncompetitive as it had started.

Injury Updates

Catcher Will Smith will not travel with the team this week as the team takes on the Twins and the Padres, Roberts said before the game. Smith is expected to participate in some baseball activities and will have a better estimate of his return depending on how he feels after.

Teoscar Hernández is slated to play in a rehab assignment Tuesday with the triple-A Oklahoma City Comets before joining the team in its final June series against the Athletics.

Reliever Blake Treinen, on the 15-day injured list with right elbow inflammation, got some good news. The MRI did not show any structural damage, only inflammation that Roberts attributed to the wear and tear of the season. “I don’t think it’ll be a long thing,” Roberts said. “Obviously, he’s on the IL, so it’s going to be two weeks, but hopefully it’s not much more beyond that.”

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.

But with Dodger Stadium, the marine layer angle jumped out at me because I’m always on the lookout for relatable ways to tell the climate change story. In the past, I’d written about the gradual demise of Joshua trees, the effect of receding fog and higher heat on the California wine industry, the growing nuisance of backyard bug bites and the gradual migration of juvenile great white sharks up the coast.

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.

Go Dodgers.

steve.lopez@latimes.com

Miguel Rojas had practiced his dance moves in the Dodgers dugout Monday, long before he hit the go-ahead home run. Before the game, he strutted around, at one point even grabbing Dalton Rushing, decked in full catcher’s gear, to get hyped.

Rojas, who pinch-hit for Alex Freeland in the bottom of the seventh and homered to center, was more measured as he crossed the plate without any antics. His veteran steadiness never indicated that he‘d hit a pinch-hit home run only one other time in his career.

The Dodgers’ 4-3 win over Tampa Bay rid them of their middling road performance. The team split a six-game trip, capped by a Sunday loss to the Chicago White Sox, before returning home.

No one found more immediate success than Kyle Tucker, who temporarily put his .227 batting average on the trip in the rearview mirror. For how long remains a question. Tucker’s season so far has looked more like a teenager testing out their driver’s license: stopping and starting and stopping again. Yet everything seemed to be working when the Dodgers (46-27) beat the Rays (41-28).

Of the five Dodgers who’ve played at least 60 games, Tucker has the lowest batting average (.238). Still, he battled in an eight-pitch duel in the second inning before taking a changeup 384 feet over the wall in right-center. His home run tied the score at three apiece, and Tucker wasn’t finished.

The next inning, the Rays’ Ben Williamson hit a two-out single to Tucker in right field, and Tampa’s Jonathan Aranda darted around third toward home. Tucker lasered a ball to Rushing, who tagged Aranda out on the slide.

Miguel Rojas acknowledges the bullpen after homering in the seventh inning.

(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)

The defensive play helped buoy an otherwise precarious start by pitcher Eric Lauer. The left-hander had been undefeated in three starts with the Dodgers, a large departure from the 1-5 record he had with the Toronto Blue Jays. After starting his year with a 6.69 ERA, Lauer had dropped it to 2.76 with the Dodgers.

But inconsistencies plagued Lauer’s start, ranging from the three earned runs he gave up in the first two innings to a pitch clock violation in the fourth. While Lauer eventually settled, the command of his fastball remained absent. He normally crosses the strike zone with 53.7% accuracy on his fastball, getting batters to chase about 37% of the time. In the series opener, Lauer threw his four-seamer in the zone only 42% of the time, cutting his chase rate to 23%.

In other words, the best pitch in Lauer’s arsenal became one of his worst, and the Rays took advantage. Junior Caminero doubled in the first inning, and Ryan Vilade followed with a home run on a cutter, silencing a sold-out Dodger Stadium before the game could even heat up. The Rays tacked on another run on a safety squeeze, taking the lead until Tucker’s home run. Lauer finished after six innings, giving up the three earned runs on six hits and three walks, striking out four.

Tampa Bay starter Nick Martinez fared about as well. The right-hander lasted 5-1/3 innings of three-run baseball, striking out six and walking one.

While there was movement on the bases for both starters, the game lulled until the seventh. A couple of feet separated Rushing’s foul ball from a home run. Reliever Steven Matz didn’t get so lucky with Rojas, who delivered his first homer since April 20.

Let’s go Dodgers. High fives all around.

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.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — Grant Govel was good, but Jason DeCaro was almost perfect.

USC baseball lost 4-0 in Game 2 of the NCAA Chapel Hill Super Regional, meaning its season and quest to break a 25-year College World Series drought will come down to a single game on Sunday.

North Carolina (49-12-1) turned to DeCaro with its season on the line, the seventh career NCAA tournament start for the veteran right-hander. DeCaro delivered a complete-game masterpiece, allowing just two hits — singles in the first and fifth innings — with eight strikeouts and one walk on a career-high 117 pitches.

Outside of giving up a solo home run to Colin Hynek in the second inning, Govel had a strong performance. After throwing 153 pitches across two appearances in the NCAA regionals, including 64 pitches in Monday’s clinching win over Texas A&M, he gave up just five hits and struck out three over five innings and 83 pitches to keep the Trojans in the game. His final pitch was a crucial one, inducing an inning-ending double play with runners on the corners to hold the game at 1-0.

But for all of his great work, the day was all about DeCaro’s dominance.

North Carolina found success against the Trojans’ bullpen in the sixth. Erik Paulsen hit a 339-foot home run over the left-field corner wall to double the Tar Heels’ lead, just the second home run given up by USC’s Sax Matson all season. The Tar Heels added two more on sacrifice flies in the sixth and seventh innings, but failed to drive in more with the bases loaded in the seventh and ninth innings.

Game 3 will be Sunday, with time and broadcast information still to be determined.

Nothing could possibly generate a headline Tuesday night when the worst American League team — the Angels — played host to the perhaps the worst National League team — the Colorado Rockies.

Except. . .

This.

A fly ball conked Angels right fielder Jo Adell on the head and bounced over the fence for a home run, reminding fans of José Canseco’s similar gaffe 33 years ago.

Adell chased TJ Rumfield’s fourth-inning drive onto the Angel Stadium warning track and reached up to catch it. The ball grazed his glove before bouncing squarely on his noggin and over the wall.

The ball caromed back into the outfield and Rumfield momentarily stopped at second base. But the umpires confirmed the home run, coupling Adell with Canseco in numerous social media posts.

Canseco, the steroids-fueled, defensively challenged left fielder of the Texas Rangers, made a similar blunder on May 26, 1993, when a ball hit by Cleveland’s Carlos Martínez bounced off his head and over the wall.

Mike Trout presumably has witnessed every possible blooper, blunder and boo-boo in 16 seasons with the woeful Angels. The center fielder stood only a few feet from Adell when this one occurred and did not make himself available for comment afterward.

To his credit, Adell faced reporters.

“It looks like I’ve never played in the field before, which is disappointing, because it’s beyond the truth,” he said. “I’m the only one that really knows what happened. I was out there, and it happened to me, so it is what it is.

“It was kind of the icing on the cake, because I was [expletive] all the way around the whole day today.”

Adell was hitless in four at-bats, striking out twice, in the 8-2 loss that dropped the Angels to 23-39, the worst record in the AL.

The play was emblematic of Adell’s seven-year career with the Angels, who made him a first-round draft pick in 2017. At first blush, his lifetime Wins Above Replacement of 0.3 would indicate that he’s little better than the fictional minor league “replacement player” to which MLB players are compared in calculating the statistic.

Yet Adell’s physical tools and occasional highlights scream stardom. He shouldn’t be an ordinary Jo. The antithesis of the embarrassing episode Tuesday night came less than two months ago when he robbed the Seattle Mariners of three home runs in one game.

“It was the Jo Show,” Angels manager Kurt Suzuki said at the time. “This guy works as hard as anybody I’ve ever been around. His work ethic, attention to detail, his desire to improve every single day. To see him do that, I don’t believe you’ll see that again.”

Suzuki, who was Adell’s teammate in 2021 and 2022, likely never thought he would see a fly ball bounce off the outfielder’s head and into the stands, the Jo Show shifting to Oh, No!

“I saw the play, but for me, Jo’s made great strides defensively from when I played with him,” Suzuki said Tuesday. “And obviously, he had the night he robbed three home runs. It was a tough play tonight, but at the same time, the strides that he’s made defensively have been great.”

Adell was considered a defensive liability early in his career and was saddled with a four-base error in 2020 when a fly ball hit his glove and went over the fence. But he steadily improved and became a Gold Glove Award finalist in 2024.

That didn’t stop the “Tarps Off” throng of shirtless fans at Angel Stadium from chanting Adell’s name after the gaffe against the Rockies. For his sake, they likely will revert to imploring Angels owner Arte Moreno to “sell the team” soon enough.

Adell might have to stay away from social media forever, but he would like to forget the ball bouncing off his head as soon as possible.

“That’s what we have to do,” he said. “I mean, there’s really no other way around it. Let it fester and tumble over, but these are plays I’ve made hundreds and thousands of times. I’ve got to just keep going, and as a team, we’ve got to keep going.”

Jared Grindlinger is not ready to say goodbye to his friends at Huntington Beach High. The likely first-round draft pick didn’t have to play for the Oilers in the Southern California Division I regional playoffs, let alone pitch. But he did both to help Huntington Beach knock off San Diego Open Division champion Patrick Henry 10-3 on Tuesday.

Grindlinger went four for four, including a home run, and finished with three RBIs. He also struck out five in three innings on the mound. Dane Cunningham had a three-run home run. Huntington Beach advances to play the winner of Wednesday’s game between Corona and Chula Vista Eastlake on Thursday.

Cathedral Catholic 4, St. John Bosco 2: The impressive two-year run of St. John Bosco’s baseball team has come to an end. The Braves had the bases loaded with one out in the bottom of the seventh but couldn’t push across any runs and were eliminated in a first-round Division I game. They won the Southern Section Division 1 title the last two seasons and the regional title last season.

La Mirada 7, Liberty 6: A three-run seventh inning helped the Matadores enjoy their bus ride home from Bakersfield. The big hit was a three-run home run by Justin Torres. La Mirada will face Cathedral Catholic on Thursday in the semifinals.

Arroyo Grande 4, Loyola 3: An RBI single in the eighth inning by Colton Gotchal pushed Arroyo Grande to victory over top-seeded Loyola in Division 2. Jack Murray had a home run and two RBIs for Loyola.

Newport Harbor 2, Madison 0: Gavin Guy threw the shutout with seven strikeouts.

South El Monte 3, Brentwood 2: South El Monte went on the road and pulled off the upset of Division 6 champion Brentwood. Anthony Mata had an RBI single and Gabriel Canchola limited the Eagles to four hits while striking out nine in six innings.

Westview 7, Carson 1: Leadoff hitter Eli Irvine had three hits for the winners.

North Torrance 2, Bell 0: Seth Narasaki and Joey Banuelos combined for the shutout.

Verdugo Hills 11, Rolling Hills Prep 2: Cutlor Fannon finished with three hits and three RBIs for the Dons.

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?

The stunned crowd erupted.

And Ryan Ward danced.

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.

Bang. Bang. Bang.

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — On a night when the crowd at Blue Bell Park saw some of the most majestic home runs you’ll see in college baseball, USC’s Andrew Johnson showed why pitching is still paramount.

The sophomore right-hander delivered arguably the most important pitching performance of the season for USC on Sunday night, beating Texas A&M 14-3 to propel the Trojans to a winner-take-all College Station Regional Final on Monday.

After needing five pitchers in a rout over Texas State earlier in the day just to reach the regional final out of the losers’ bracket, USC coach Andy Stankiewicz rode Johnson.

Two nights after throwing 21 pitches over 1⅔ innings, Johnson threw 124 pitches over 7⅓ strong innings to beat the host Aggies (41-14) before a crowd of 6,934.

“I’ll say this, I’ve been here [as USC’s head coach] four years,” Stankiewicz said. “That’s the best pitching performance I’ve seen in four years, hands down.

“In a big moment when we needed somebody to step up to take the ball, there hasn’t been a guy that’s done that as well as [he] did … this evening.”

Leading 11-2, Johnson retired the first batter in the top of the eighth inning before Nico Partida singled to right. Jake Duer followed with an RBI triple to right field, prompting a call to right-hander Rohan Kasanagottu.

Johnson (8-2) held the Aggies to three runs on nine hits and two home runs with one walk and four strikeouts. Kasanagottu added 1⅔ perfect innings of relief with two strikeouts.

“It was just basically [Stankiewicz] coming up to me and looking at me, and me just nodding at him,” Johnson said. “And he’s like, ‘All right, let’s go.’

“I don’t know if I’ve thrown 120-whatever before, but I honestly feel pretty good. I’ll pitch tomorrow if it [means] we’re going to win some more.”

USC junior Kevin Takeuchi bats against Texas A&M in the NCAA regionals on Sunday.

(Chris Mora / USC Athletics)

The Trojans (46-16) have scored 48 runs over three wins since falling into the losers’ bracket. They beat Lamar 19-6 on Saturday, and then they beat Texas State 15-4 on Sunday afternoon before pummeling the Aggies (41-15).

Chris Hacopian gave the Aggies a 1-0 lead with a home run in the first. The Trojans countered with four runs in the bottom of the inning with Kevin Takeuchi’s two-run single and Andrew Lamb’s two-run double.

“Yeah, we never want to lose,” Texas A&M coach Michael Earley said. “We never want to get our [butt] kicked. That always sucks, but it is what it is. It’s baseball.

“They beat us, period, from the freaking first pitch. But we got a game tomorrow, and we’re excited to get out there.”

Lamb greeted reliever Cooper Powell with a three-run home run over the right-field bleachers in the third inning. Augie Lopez gave USC a 9-1 lead with a two-run home run in the fourth.

Gavin Grahovac tagged Johnson for a monstrous solo home run to cut USC’s lead to 9-2 in the fifth. Lamb, who singled in the fifth, added another two-run double in the ninth.

“I’m going to flush this thing here in about five minutes,” Earley said. “We’re going to move forward and we’re going to come out tomorrow and get to play in front of our home crowd.

“What more could you want, man? What more could you want?”

That’s the same mentality USC has taken since losing their opener.

“I think we’re seeing the ball really well,” Takeuchi said. “We’re sticking to the middle of the field and kinda just letting the park do its thing. Just trying to put [the] barrel on the ball.

“But when you have pitching like these guys have been, they’ve been lights out. They keep us in every ballgame, so it’s really good for us to just be able to compete for them and kinda just to rack up the hits. I think we’re just seeing the ball really well, and we’re going to continue to do that tomorrow.”

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — USC couldn’t hold on to the lead Adrian Lopez provided with a home run in the bottom of the eighth Friday night.

Texas State’s Chase Mora greeted reliever Adam Troy with a monstrous two-run home run to left field in the top of ninth inning, propelling the Bobcats to a 5-4 upset before a crowd of 6,956 at Blue Bell Park.

The Trojans had plenty of chances, and they wasted most of them in the opening round of the NCAA tournament’s College Station Regional.

Even though the Bobcats’ shaky defense spotted USC two unearned runs, the Trojans will surely lament stranding runners in scoring position in each of the first seven innings.

The Trojans will face Lamar University, which blew a five-run lead in a 7-5 loss against host Texas A&M, on Saturday at 1 p.m. PT.

If coach Andy Stankiewicz’s Trojans return to the Men’s College World Series for the first time since 2001, the 12-time national champions must do it out of the losers bracket.

USC right-hander Grant Govel, an All-Big Ten First Team selection, settled for a no-decision after giving up three runs on four hits with two walks and six strikeouts over 5⅔ innings.

He was relieved by freshman left-hander Sax Matson with one on and two outs in the top of the sixth. Matson escaped unscathed in the sixth, but he was relieved by right-hander Andrew Johnson with one on and two outs in the seventh.

The Trojans (43-16), who reached the Big Ten Tournament semifinals, have lost four of their last five games.

Mora’s sacrifice fly to right field gave the Bobcats a 1-0 lead in the second inning. The Trojans countered to tie the score with a run in the bottom of the second.

With runners on first and second and two outs, Abbrie Covarrubias hit a grounder to first. Texas State first baseman Jaquae Stewart booted the grounder for an error, allowing Isaac Cadena to score. Stewart almost made the situation worse with a wild throw to second, but Dean Carpentier was thrown out trying to reach third on the poor throw to second.

The Trojans benefited from more poor defense in the third. With one out in the inning, Augie Lopez reached on an error by Mora at third. Kevin Takeuchi followed with a double off the center-field wall. Jack Basseer broke the tie with an RBI single through the left side.

Covarrubias hit a solo home run to left in the fourth to put USC ahead 3-1. Texas State sophomore shortstop Brady Boles, who entered the regional with only one home run this season and two in his college career, tied the score 3-3 with a two-run home run to left field in the top of the fifth.

The Southern Section will hold nine baseball championship games this weekend, led by the Division 1 final at 7 p.m. Friday at Cal State Fullerton between St. John Bosco and Norco.

Here’s a look at top matchups:

FRIDAY

Division 1: St. John Bosco vs. Norco at Cal State Fullerton, 7 p.m. Both schools will have their top pitchers ready to go, which means runs will be at a premium. Julian Garcia of St. John Bosco was in the dugout last season when the Braves won the title but couldn’t play as he was rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. He’s come back with a flourish, going 8-1 with a 0.88 ERA. All the Braves’ key pitchers are available, including closers Jack Champlin and Brayden Krakowski. Norco will start Jordan Ayala, who shut out Orange Lutheran in the quarterfinals. It’s going to come down to defense and someone getting a clutch hit against very good pitching.

SATURDAY

Division 2: Ganesha vs. Loyola at Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, 5:30 p.m.: Likely first-round draft pick Logan Schmidt will be on the mound for Ganesha, offering a huge challenge for the Cubs. He’s also the team’s top hitter. Loyola has faced top pitching all season in the Mission League and will have rising freshman Sheriff Hall on the mound. The Cubs also have players who can hit home runs, such as Jack Murray and Luca Marucci.

Division 3: Mira Costa vs. Agoura at Cal State Fullerton, 4 p.m.. Both schools have prom in the evening, so watch for players rushing to cars after the game. Mira Costa has somehow made it to the final despite losing its No. 1 and No. 2 pitchers to injury. Others have stepped forward, and the hitting attack has been good in the playoffs. Austin Olness hit a two-run home run in a 12-0 semifinal win over St. Francis. Agoura, under first-year coach Adam Goldstein, is another overachiever. Senior Tyler Starling hits and pitches with the best, but it’s been underclassmen pushing the Chargers toward a title.

Division 4: Glendora vs. Laguna Beach at Cal State Fullerton, 7:30 p.m. Senior Tanner Grable leads Glendora with 36 hits and four home runs and also can pitch. Junior Dylan Yencho is having a big season for Laguna Beach, batting .455 with 50 hits and an 0.94 ERA as a closer.

Division 5: Kaiser vs. Culver City at Rancho Cucamonga Quakes, 11 a.m. Senior Tino Cuellar is Kaiser’s leadoff hitter with 34 hits. Culver City finished second to Santa Monica in the Ocean League and has a productive freshman in Matthew Riesenberg, who has 36 hits, a .431 batting average and 29 RBIs.

Division 6: Brentwood vs. Covina at Cal State Fullerton, 1 p.m. The Eagles won’t have ace Jack Kaplan available after he threw a shutout in the semifinals, but there’s plenty of hot hitters, including junior Hudson Chase, who has 42 hits and seven home runs. Covina, which knocked out Lakewood and longtime coach Spud O’Neil in the semifinals, was second in the Valle Vista League to Charter Oak. Senior Lucas Thorpe has been providing key hits all season, including four in the semifinals.

This is a daily look at the positive happenings in high school sports. To submit any news, please email eric.sondheimer@latimes.com.

The Granada Hills and Carson softball programs know each other so well they might as well put on their MaxPreps schedule before the season a date for their annual game to decide the City Section Open Division championship.

It’s happening for a fourth consecutive season Friday at 6:30 p.m. at Legacy High in South Gate. Last season, Granada Hills ended a three-game losing streak to the Colts.

On Wednesday, both teams won their semifinal games. Granada Hills’ No. 1 and No. 2 batters in the lineup, Elysse Diaz and Zoe Justman, had big games in a 12-9 win over San Pedro. They combined to go five for eight with five RBIs. Justman had a home run. Gina Evangelista hit an inside-the-park grand slam.

San Pedro scored five runs in the seventh to give the Highlanders a little scare.

At Carson, the Colts came away with a 12-2 semifinal win over Birmingham. Sophomore Anaiyah Popoalii had a home run, double and three RBIs. Olivia Lomeli went three for four with three RBIs. Pitcher Isabella Campos threw a complete game.

UCLA softball coach Kelly Inouye-Perez expected sophomore Rylee Slimp to deliver under pressure.

Slimp earned first-team all-Big Ten honors as the leadoff hitter for a Bruins team that features slugging stars Megan Grant and Jordan Woolery. She leads a group of underclassmen who helped send UCLA to the Women’s College World Series.

“I have seen Rylee Slimp just play big from travel ball to big moments in high school, and she came here to play on this big stage,” Inouye-Perez said. “I think her biggest asset, besides the fact that she can hit a home run, is that she can hit to all areas of the field, and she has such a good eye.

“I think she wanted to be in this position this year. She wanted to be the leadoff and be an impact player.”

The Austin, Texas, native is hitting .428 with 16 home runs, 56 RBIs, and 94 runs. Slimp broke Natasha Watley’s UCLA single-season runs record of 75, set in 2001, with 94 runs so far this season.

The following interview with Slimp ahead of the Bruins’ WCWS opener against No. 1 seed Alabama on Thursday has been edited for length and clarity.

How do you feel about being recognized by national media, including ESPN, for your role in UCLA’s a lineup?

Slimp: It’s surreal. We’ve broken records and accomplished so much as an offense this year. I’m grateful to be the leadoff and for all of the publicity we’re receiving.

How did you get started playing softball?

Slimp: I played T-ball. My dad gave me lessons and stuff on hitting when I was four. My dad was the one who taught me everything from a young age and kind of grew with me through the sport, and as I got older.

What inspired you to continue to work at softball so that you can compete at UCLA?

Slimp: It was this dream I had when I was a little girl, just starting off playing. I always looked up to the girls playing in the College World Series, and I knew that was a dream of mine very early on.

What was your first contact with the UCLA coaching staff while you were in high school and how did that impact your decision to join the Bruins?

Slimp: Coach Lisa [Fernandez] saw me play at a tournament the summer of my sophomore year. It was right before Sept. 1st and all of that big recruiting stuff. So it happened pretty late in the process with UCLA for me. Coach Lisa saw me play a tournament, and then a few days later, I was out of camp and it kind of took off after that. … I canceled all the other [visits] that I had, and I was like, ‘Oh, I know that this is the place for me, like, I don’t want to be anywhere else.’

What has helped the younger players on this year’s team stay calm under pressure?

Slimp: We do have a new team. We have 10 returners and 10 new Bruins. So we are pretty young as a team. … I think the upperclassmen like Taylor [Tinsley] and Megan [Grant], the seniors, do a good job of sharing their wisdom and helping us grow.

What is something they have taught you?

Slimp: I think, honestly, that the game isn’t as deep as we make it. I think sometimes, as underclassmen, we can make it the end of the world if we go 0 for 3 in a game or we have a bad outing. … The game is meant to be fun, and you’re supposed to enjoy it.

What’s the story behind the Michael Jackson glove the team has been passing around the dugout and featuring on social media?

Slimp: We went and saw the [Michael Jackson] movie as a team. I think 12 of us went, something like that, and since then we’ve just been obsessed with all things Michael Jackson. … We got the gloves. We are doing the second base [celebrations.] We are all things Michael Jackson right now after that movie.

Who bought the glove?

Slimp: That’s a good question because I actually don’t know the answer. I think most of our props and stuff just pop up. I think the [stress ball in the shape of] butter started with [Tinsley] because she’s really into stress balls. … But the home run boxing gloves came from Coach Lisa [Fernandez] and her boxing analogy.

We have a team motto that we’re like boxers. … That’s been the vibe and motto of this team this year to symbolize that. … One of the girl’s sisters bedazzled them, so they are wearing bedazzled boxing gloves that we put around our necks, whoever hits a home run.

Being from Texas, do you have an opinion on what’s better — Whataburger or In-n-Out?

Slimp: I need to be careful how I answer this question because I need to know my audience here, but y’all take your In-N-Out very seriously. I do have to say, I do like In-N-Out more.

What about Texas tacos versus Los Angeles tacos?

Slimp: Oh, yeah, I can talk tacos. The tacos in Texas are definitely better because we have flour tortillas, and apparently, flour tortillas aren’t a thing in California.

What is your go-to taco?

Slimp: I love steak fajita with flour tortilla, of course, cheese, and guac. And honestly, that’s it. I’m pretty simple.

The power of power, you know?

The power of friendship, the power of persuasion. Power of positive thinking, power at the plate.

Megan Grant’s power.

If there’s one thing in American sports that’s going to get people to sit up, lean forward and engage, it’s the home run. We all dig the long ball.

If anything can get someone to run home and turn on a softball game, it’s a big-time slugger from a big-time school mashing homers like nobody before.

Heard about Grant? She’s the UCLA softball player who’s hit an NCAA-record 40 home runs (so far) this season.

UCLA senior Megan Grant leans over and holds her helmet between pitches during a super regional game against UCF on Friday at Easton Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Forty! In 147 at-bats! That’s a home run every 3.68 at-bats!

If you’re wondering, Mark McGwire hit a home run every 7.3 at-bats in 1998, the year he finished with 70. And Barry Bonds went deep every 6.52 at-bats in 2001, when he hit his MLB-record 73 home runs.

Whenever she gets asked about her historic home runs, the red-hot, red-haired hitter is like, shucks: “I mean, it’s incredible,” she said. “I’m just honestly blessed to be able to say the number 40. But, yeah, that’s all I can say.”

She just wants to be thought of as a hard worker and a good teammate. But what Grant is going to be remembered for most is as the founding member of softball’s 40-home run club.

Her 40th home run came in her 58th game this season and on her seventh career grand slam — Grant Slam? — in the Bruins’ NCAA regional final victory over South Carolina last weekend.

Forty, a round number of round-trippers with a ring to it. And a sweet echo coming so soon after the Bruins women’s basketball team won its first NCAA championship, history to which Grant also contributed as a reserve before softball beckoned.

Side quest completed, the left-handed-hitting senior stepped back into the box to help the Bruins chase a 13th championship on the softball field.

Grant is soaking up the experience, and encouraging her younger teammates to, too: “‘Enjoy this, it’s so rare to be here’ … and, ‘Hey, we can do this, we can do it together.’”

A .469 hitter, she leads the nation in slugging percentage (1.333), on-base percentage (.650) and OPS (1.983). She bats second in UCLA’s NCAA record-breaking lineup that shattered Oklahoma’s 25-year-old previous record of 160 home runs. UCLA hit seven home runs during two super regional wins against Central Florida this weekend to push that record to 200.

With a 9-1 win Friday and a 14-4 victory Saturday, the Bruins advanced to the Women’s College World Series for the 34th time and for the third time in Grant’s astounding tenure.

UCLA senior Megan Grant (43) high-fives teammates during a win over UCF Friday at Easton Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

Tip your helmet and toss Grant her bouquets — flower power — because there she is popping up on ESPN’s “SportsCenter” and on the MLB Network. One of three finalists for the USA Softball Collegiate Player of the Year award, she’s got guys discussing her exploits on a dad pod otherwise dedicated to NBA takes. Fans dressed up as chefs as a tribute to her nickname, “Chef Megan.”

Star power, power broker. Grant is a lift-all-boats attraction for a sport that’s been steadily carving out space in the public consciousness.

All over the country, college softball teams have been breaking attendance records. And ratings are up, up, up; ESPN said this has been its most-watched college softball regular season since 2009, with games averaging 292,000 viewers. The MLB-backed Athletes Unlimited Softball League is entering Season 2; Grant was drafted No. 4 overall by the Portland Cascade.

“People will pay to see her play,” said Lisa Fernandez, UCLA softball legend and associate head coach.

Fernandez also is the general manager of the AUSL’s Utah Talons, for whom UCLA’s other senior slugger Jordan Woolery will play this summer.

The Bruins imported the latest in a lineage of Bay Area dynamic duos. The Oakland Athletics had the Bash Brothers, Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire; the Golden State Warriors gave us the Splash Brothers, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. And now UCLA has Walnut Creek’s Woolery and Grant, of San Bruno — the Bruin Bombers.

They’re the first teammates in NCAA history to each hit 30-plus homers in the same season, with 74 between them.

And, yes, chefs! Like Curry before her, Grant is cookin’ the competition, breaking the 31-year-old NCAA single-season home run record with No. 38 on May 9 against Nebraska.

Included among the record wreckage she’s leaving in her wake: Stacey Nuveman’s UCLA single-season record of 31 homers. For her career, Grant needs only one more to tie Nuveman’s Bruins record of 90.

But Grant’s got to get a pitch to hit first. After UCF walked her six times in two games, she has 74 walks this season and 69 base hits. She also has 13 hit by pitches.

“It’s very similar to Barry Bonds, right?” Fernandez said. “It’s either a walk or a home run. Like, you pick.”

The tale of the tape measure behind Grant’s greatness is the down-to-the inch precision of her preparation. The Mamba-esque magic is in the embracing behind-the-scenes monotony, powering through it.

“She was the hardest worker, always working. Never enough,” said Ray McDonald, Grant’s coach at the San Mateo-based Warrior Softball Academy since she was that kid with an electric, bat-busting swing. “It was eating and sleeping, hitting, and you know, shower. The essentials.”

“When we recruited her, Ray, he was like, ‘Coach, you better be ready to work,’” said Fernandez. “And I’m like, ‘Oh, I know how to work.’ And [then] I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, now I understand how people must have felt when I played.’

“There is an aspect of this game that people don’t realize unless you are in it. To be great, there’s a — for lack of a better word — monotony to the process. Can you master the same move over and over again? And she’s committed to it. To her drills, to the process, to her routine, all of it. There’s a lot of people who are committed to it when they’re not doing well: ‘Oh, got to get back to my drills.’ She has been committed to that process from the day she stepped on campus.”

The process includes working on her mind. That deep, deep breath before every deep, deep home run is a way to stay centered. To stay in the moment — and it is a moment.

For softball. For UCLA. For Grant, who, with all this power and responsibility, is hitting it out of the park.

Beware the Bruins Bombers.

UCLA claimed the first of a best-of-three super regional over Central Florida with a 9-1 run-rule win Friday at Easton Stadium, putting the Bruins one win away from reaching the Women’s College World Series.

Freshman infielder Bri Alejandre squared up and smashed a home run over the center-field wall to give UCLA the lead in the second inning. She tied the Big Ten freshman home-run record with her 23rd of the season.

“You don’t want this heat,” one fan yelled from behind home plate. The Bruins, though, were just getting started.

UCF struggled to find answers to match UCLA’s offensive firepower. Three Knights pitchers tried in vain as the Bruins diced up the diamond even though UCF walked UCLA and NCAA home-run leader Megan Grant three times.

Ava Stuewe ended her night in the fourth inning after she walked one Bruin and hit another. But her replacement, sophomore Isabella Vega, couldn’t find her footing, either.

UCLA strung together a sacrifice bunt and an RBI-ground out to score one run. Ramsey Suarez sliced a double down the left-field line as the ball landed less than a foot into fair territory.

Second baseman Kaniya Bragg’s three-run home run put UCLA up by five in the fifth inning. And Rylee Slimp ended the game with a three-run homer.

Yet, UCLA wasn’t perfect. The Bruins left the bases loaded when UCF’s Sierra Humphreys made a diving catch to end the fourth.

The Knights clawed back a run when Humphrey, the first batter of the fifth inning, homered to left. The hit was a small smudge on Bruins ace Taylor Tinsley’s line, finishing with two strikeouts and three hits across the five innings.

She looked shaky earlier in the game when she worked herself into a 3-2 count during the Knights’ first at-bat of the super regionals. As she took a moment to breathe, staring out at the blue wall, center fielder Jolyna Lamar nodded her head three times.

Tinsley then pitched three hitless innings before UCF’s Aubrey Evans doubled off to right in the fourth. Evans ran to third on a wild pitch, but Tinsley worked out of the jam with a groundout that she fielded herself and a lineout to Garcia at shortstop.

UCLA and UCF will play Game 2 Saturday at 7 p.m. and the game will air on ESPN. If the Bruins win, they advance to the WCWS. If they lose, the teams play again Sunday for the WCWS bid.