Muncy

From Jack Harris: The now two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers made their first moves of the offseason on Thursday.

The biggest one will ensure will ensure a familiar face is back for their pursuit of a three-peat next year.

The team picked up its $10-million club option for third baseman Max Muncy, according to a person with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak publicly, bringing the now longest-tenured member of the roster back for what will be his ninth season in Los Angeles.

The Dodgers also picked up a $3.55-million club option for reliever Alex Vesia (keeping him out of arbitration), according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak publicly. Additionally, they shook up the 40-man roster with a series of maneuvers that included Tony Gonsolin being designated for assignment.

None of the moves were overly surprising, starting with the option the Dodgers exercised at the end of a two-year, $24-million deal Muncy signed in the 2023 offseason.

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From Ryan Kartje: The drill is simple. Just a basic throw-and-catch warm-up, called “Pat-and-Go,” that USC and many other football programs do virtually every day. Quarterbacks loosen their arms, while pass catchers get their legs warm, running routes on air. It’s the sort of drill where it’s easy enough to slough off a rep or two. Or to get a little casual, like playing catch in the yard.

But when Makai Lemon lines up during Pat-and-Go, there is nothing casual about what comes next. Every rep is taken seriously, every reception reeled in with intention. The junior has taken thousands of these reps, caught thousands of these passes over three seasons at USC, each filed away as a data point for Lemon to later access.

“I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one he didn’t catch game-like,” USC coach Lincoln Riley says. “Rarely does he ever take a rep that isn’t very intentional.”

It’s a fitting snapshot of the Trojans’ top receiver, one that captures more than just his prowess as a football player. Every action with Lemon is deliberate, every detail accounted for. That singular focus has made him the most reliable receiver in college football and, come April, a surefire first-round NFL draft pick, all while somehow maintaining a strikingly low profile for a pass catcher of his caliber.

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UCLA BASKETBALL

From Ben Bolch: At her players’ request, Cori Close showed up inside Pauley Pavilion five hours before tipoff. The UCLA women’s basketball coach was joined by her assistants and managers for pregame shooting at 6:30 a.m., so many players filling the court that the sessions had to be staggered.

Three days after a lackluster showing in their season opener, the Bruins felt they had something to prove in their first game at home. The additional work before facing UC Santa Barbara on Thursday reflected their commitment.

“I mean, I never have to coach this team’s work ethic,” Close said. “That is never in question. And so that’s a really fun place to be in.”

The day’s biggest gratification would come later, the third-ranked Bruins resembling an All-Star team at times during an 87-50 rout of the Gauchos that showed glimpses of the firepower they hope to fully unleash by season’s end.

Forward Gabriela Jaquez revealed one of the best long-range shooting displays of her career, making four of seven three-pointers on the way to 21 points. Point guard Kiki Rice was a constant playmaker in her return to the starting lineup while scoring 20 points, grabbing eight rebounds and distributing three assists. Shooting guard Gianna Kneepkens added another dimension to the offense with four more three-pointers and 20 points.

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UCLA box score

LAKERS

From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: The only way that game could have ended was with a free throw.

Thanks to two missed free throws from San Antonio’s Julian Champagnie with 0.2 seconds remaining, the Lakers survived 118-116 Wednesday against the San Antonio Spurs in a disjointed game that dragged on for nearly three hours and included 66 total fouls and 84 free throws.

The Lakers (7-2) won their fifth consecutive game, fighting through exhaustion from playing in their third game in four days and a short rotation without guard Austin Reaves. At halftime, players and coaches acknowledged how tired they felt. Coach JJ Redick said when he woke up at 6:30 a.m. Wednesday “it was like a bus had hit me.”

Here are three takeaways from the game:

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Ex-NBA player accused of selling LeBron James injury secrets pleads not guilty

CLIPPERS

Jalen Green scored 29 points in his Phoenix debut, Devin Booker added 24 points and the host Suns beat the short-handed Clippers 115-102 on Thursday night.

Green, who missed the Suns’ first eight games with a right hamstring strain, played 23 minutes and was 10 of 20 from the field, including six of 13 from behind the three-point line.

Grayson Allen, playing through an illness, scored 18, Mark Williams had 13 points and nine rebounds and Royce O’Neale scored 17, 11 in the third quarter when Phoenix outscored the Clippers 40-23 to take a 91-74 lead.

The Clippers lost their third straight. They played without James Harden, who missed the game for personal reasons, and Kawhi Leonard, sidelined with a right ankle sprain.

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Clippers box score

NBA standings

Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra returns from a game in Denver to find his home on fire

KINGS

Brad Marchand scored two goals and Sam Reinhart got the go-ahead goal on his 30th birthday in the Florida Panthers’ 5-2 victory over the Kings on Thursday night.

Anton Lundell got a short-handed goal in the third period and Sam Bennett also scored for the back-to-back Stanley Cup champion Panthers, who rebounded from a 7-3 loss against the Ducks to get their first victory on their four-game West Coast road trip.

Marchand has scored a goal in three straight games since returning to the Panthers from a one-game absence to travel to Nova Scotia to support a close friend who lost his daughter to cancer last month. The veteran tied the game late in the first period after taking the puck from Anton Forsberg behind Los Angeles’ net, and he added his ninth goal of the season in the third.

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Kings summary

NHL standings

DUCKS

Leo Carlsson‘s short-handed goal midway through the third period proved to be the winner as the Ducks rallied to beat the Dallas Stars 7-5 on Thursday night.

Carlsson scored on a slap shot 10:38 into the third period to give the Ducks a 6-4 lead. Troy Terry had an assist on the goal.

Chris Kreider scored twice, Cutter Gauthier, Olen Zellweger, Ian Moore added goals and Mason McTavish added an empty-netter for the Ducks, who’ve won five consecutive games and seven of their last eight. Lukas Dostal finished with 21 saves.

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Ducks summary

NHL standings

2028 OLYMPICS

From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: With no permanent structures to build for the 2028 Olympics, LA28 hopes the lasting legacy of the Summer Games will live on in the hearts of Angelenos through one of the largest volunteer programs ever.

The private organizing committee launched registration for an expanded volunteer program on Thursday, allowing potential volunteers to express interest in participating in community events now, helping with the Games in 2028 or both.

LA28 will partner with local organizations and nonprofits for community volunteering events that will begin before the end of 2025. Potential volunteers for the Olympics, which begin on July 14, 2028, and follow with the Paralympics opening on Aug. 15, can also register their interest now, but applications will not open until summer of 2026.

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THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY

1943 — The Detroit Lions and New York Giants play the last scoreless tie in the NFL.

1968 — Red Berenson scores six goals, including four in the second period, to lead the St. Louis Blues to an 8-0 victory over Philadelphia.

1974 — South Africa is awarded the Davis Cup against India. India refuses to play in the final because of its opponent’s apartheid policy. It’s the first time the final is not played.

1985 — Rubin “Hurricane” Carter, the former middleweight boxer convicted twice of a triple murder in 1966 and the hero of a Bob Dylan song, is released after 19 years in prison. Carter, 48, is freed after a federal judge rules the boxer and a co-defendant were denied their civil rights by prosecutors during trials in 1967 and 1976.

1991 — Magic Johnson, who helped the Lakers to five NBA championships, announces he has tested positive for the AIDS virus and is retiring.

1998 — Awesome Again steals Skip Away’s thunder and the $5.12 million Breeders’ Cup Classic at Churchill Downs with a three-quarter length victory over Silver Charm. Skip Away finishes sixth and misses becoming the first horse to earn $10 million.

1999 — Tiger Woods becomes the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win four straight tournaments, capturing the American Express Championship.

2003 — The defending champion U.S. baseball team fails to qualify for the 2004 Athens Olympics, losing to Mexico 2-1 in the quarterfinals of a qualifying tournament in Panama City, Panama.

2008 — Jerry Sloan is the first NBA coach to win 1,000 games with one team when his Utah Jazz beat the Oklahoma City Thunder, 104-97. Sloan, 1,000-596 with the Jazz, has an overall coaching record of 1,094-717 with the Jazz and Chicago Bulls.

2009 — Zenyatta comes from last after a poor start and fights off Gio Ponti in the stretch to win the $5 million Breeders’ Cup Classic. The 5-year-old mare, ridden by Mike Smith, beats a loaded field of 11 males and becomes the first female to win the race in its 26-year history.

2010 — Indianapolis quarterback Peyton Manning starts his 200th consecutive game, a 26-24 loss at Philadelphia. Manning joins Brett Favre as the only quarterbacks in NFL history to start 200 consecutive games.

2016 — Stephen Curry sets an NBA record with 13 three-pointers — one game after missing all his long-range attempts for the first time in two years — and the Golden State Warriors beat the winless New Orleans Pelicans 116-106. Curry finishes with 46 points, three days after his league-record streak of 157 games with at least one three was snapped.

2018 — For the second straight year, France wins the Six Nations Rugby Championship on points difference from Ireland.

2021 — Kyle Larson holds off Martin Trues Jr. in the NASCAR Cup Series Championship Race at Phoenix Raceway to earn his 10th win of the season and claim his first Cup Series championship.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

The now two-time defending World Series champion Dodgers made their first move of the offseason on Thursday.

It will ensure a familiar face is back for their pursuit of a three-peat next year.

The team picked up its $10-million club option for third baseman Max Muncy, according to a person with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak publicly, bringing the now longest-tenured member of the roster back for what will be his ninth season in Los Angeles.

The decision was not surprising. This year, Muncy had perhaps his best all-around season at the plate since a 2021 campaign in which he received MVP votes. He hit .243, his highest mark since that 2021 season, with 19 home runs, 67 RBIs and an .846 OPS in 100 games. He atoned for a relatively quiet postseason by hitting a crucial home run in the eighth inning of Game 7 of the World Series, setting the stage for the team’s ninth-inning comeback and eventual extra-innings, title-clinching victory.

Muncy was in the final season of a two-year, $24-million extension he signed in the 2023 offseason. And injuries have been a problem for the 35-year-old in recent years (he was limited this past season by a knee contusion in July and an oblique strain in August).

However, the $10-million option was a relative bargain for a player who, prior to second-half injuries, had shaken off a slow start to the year by being one of the hottest hitters in the majors in May and June.

His return will also help keep a key part of the club’s veteran core intact, bringing back a player who — in the wake of Clayton Kershaw’s retirement — has been with the Dodgers longer than anybody else.

Muncy’s 2025 season did not start well. After an offseason in which trade rumors involving Nolan Arenado swirled, and a spring training spent working through the lingering after-effects of an oblique and rib injury that limited him in 2024, Muncy hit .176 through his first 34 games, and had only one home run.

In early May, however, he started wearing glasses to address an astigmatism in his right eye. Around that same time, he also found a breakthrough with his swing, one that helped him begin punishing fastballs up the zone. From May 7 to the end of June, he hit .315 with 12 home runs and a 1.039 OPS, one of the best stretches of his 10-year, two-time All-Star career.

That streak was derailed on July 2, when Muncy suffered his knee injury after being slid into at third base. His return a month later was cut short, too, when his oblique began bothering him during a batting practice session in August.

Those IL stints preceded a September slump that carried into the postseason, when Muncy hit just .173 entering Game 7 of the World Series.

But that night, he collected three hits, had the pivotal eighth-inning home run off Trey Yesavage that got the Dodgers back within a run, and became one of six players to contribute to all three of the Dodgers’ recent World Series titles.

“It’s starting to get a little bit comfortable up here,” he joked from atop the stage at the Dodgers’ World Series celebration on Monday. “Let’s keep it going.”

On Thursday, the team ensured his run with the Dodgers will, for at least one more season.

Alex Vesia’s option also picked up

The Dodgers on Thursday also picked up their $3.55-million club option for reliever Alex Vesia in 2026, according to multiple people with knowledge of the situation not authorized to speak publicly. That was also not a surprise, though Vesia still would’ve been under team control and eligible for arbitration if they hadn’t.

Vesia was one of the few consistent performers in the Dodgers’ bullpen this year, posting a 3.02 ERA in a career-high 68 appearances. He was also one of their most trusted relief arms in the playoffs, bouncing back from a two-run outing in the wild-card series opener with 4 ⅓ scoreless innings the rest of the way.

Vesia was not available for the World Series as he and his wife dealt with what the team described as a “deeply personal family matter.” But he figures to be a key cog in their bullpen again next season, in what will be his last before reaching free agency.

From the outside, the Dodgers know the easy narrative to their season.

About how, after beginning the campaign with the highest expectations imaginable, they spent much of the year failing to live up to the hype.

How, during what was already a dismal second-half slump, they seemed to reach rock bottom when they squandered a no-hitter and three-run lead in a stunning ninth-inning loss in Baltimore last month.

How, in the six weeks since, they’ve looked like a rejuvenated and refocused club, following that nightmarish defeat with a 15-5 finish to the regular season and torrid march through October — going 9-1 en route to a National League pennant and return trip to the World Series, which will begin with Game 1 on Friday night.

In hindsight, however, the Dodgers also insist the story isn’t that simple.

The peaks and valleys of this season, they felt, were never as extreme as they appeared.

“Obviously, the season went the way it went,” veteran third baseman Max Muncy said of a 93-win campaign that, despite including another NL West title, qualified as a disappointment compared to their preseason prognostications. “It’s a long season. It’s a lot of games. We dealt with a lot.”

But, Muncy added as beer and sparkling wine were sprayed all around him in the Dodgers’ clubhouse Friday night, in celebration of the team’s fifth Fall Classic trip in the last nine seasons: “We always knew what we had in the clubhouse. We always knew what we had on the field. Now, you’re starting to see it.”

This, indeed, was always the plan. One that, even in their worst moments, they believed would happen all along.

Last fall, the Dodgers’ run to a World Series championship truly did feel surprising. Their starting rotation was ravaged. Freddie Freeman entered the playoffs with ankle and rib injuries. And there were genuine October doubts to overcome, after upset first-round eliminations the two previous years.

That team also had identifiable turning points, from a belief-instilling clubhouse meeting called by manager Dave Roberts in mid-September, to an NL Division Series comeback against the San Diego Padres that catapulted them through the remainder of the playoffs.

When they finally reached the mountaintop, led by a hobbled Freeman and heroic performances from an overachieving bullpen, it was an accomplishment of determination and perseverance; a triumph that, even internally, not everyone always saw coming.

This year, by contrast, the Dodgers viewed their path differently.

On paper, the defining point of the season appeared to be that Sept. 6 loss to the Orioles — a day that began with another clubhouse meeting from Roberts, who gathered his team amid a stunning 22-31 slump that stretched to early July; then ended in disastrous fashion, when Yoshinobu Yamamoto lost a no-hit bid with two outs in the ninth, before a withering bullpen imploded to lose the game in a walk-off meltdown.

“Losing that game, to a team that’s not even in playoff contention, you started thinking, ‘What’s wrong with us?’” infielder Miguel Rojas recalled.

But looking back last week, several other teammates said, the Dodgers never fully felt the panic that was swirling around them.

Instead, they trusted the talent of their record-setting $415-million roster to eventually rise to surface. They banked on getting healthy, then eventually turning the ship.

“We’ve been there before,” Freeman said. “We knew we were OK.”

“At some point, we were gonna start clicking,” Muncy added. “[We just needed] guys coming back and getting healthy.”

Early in the season, after all, the Dodgers had been healthy and clicking. Their 8-0 start was better than any defending champion in MLB history. Their 29-15 record through mid-May had them on a 107-win pace.

“You look at the start of the season, when we had everybody, we were playing really good,” Muncy said. “If our team was our team the whole year, maybe we would’ve lived up to those expectations.”

The Dodgers, of course, did not have their full team for much of the next three months, when they played exactly .500 baseball (49-49) from May 16 through that Sept. 6 loss in Baltimore.

On the mound, the rotation was battered by injuries to Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow, Roki Sasaki and Tony Gonsolin. That put added strain (and innings) on a bullpen still feeling the aftereffects of the previous October.

The lineup also dealt with its own injury problems. Freeman started the year still nursing his ankle, which required surgery over the offseason. Mookie Betts was behind the eight ball from the start following a spring-training stomach virus. In the summer, Tommy Edman, Teoscar Hernández and Kiké Hernández each missed time, then returned playing less than 100%. Muncy was in and out of action during the second half, too, suffering a knee injury in July and oblique strain in August.

In retrospect, Muncy noted, it was a dynamic that the Dodgers (who have MLB’s oldest average lineup age at 30.7 years old, and were coming off a physically taxing postseason run the previous year) always figured to grapple with.

“The reality of it is — and we all know this, everyone up top knows it — our team wasn’t going to make it through the full season without breaking at some point,” he said. “So it was just, how do you weather those [low] moments?”

Problem was, they didn’t always do that well, either.

For much of July and August, the Dodgers had one of the lowest-scoring offenses in baseball, suffering from an occasional lack of focus and intensity some people in the organization later attributed to a World Series hangover.

Their faulty bullpen only made matters worse, contributing to a 5-20 record in games decided by two runs or less from early July to early September.

When Roberts called for his pregame clubhouse meeting that day in Baltimore, it was only the latest in a string of speeches he’d delivered to different groups of players on the team in prior weeks. By that point, efforts to snap out of the second-half malaise had been ongoing for a while.

“We’re doing everything in our power, having closed meetings, doing everything that we can, to try to right the ship,” Shohei Ohtani said through an interpreter on the night the Dodgers fell to second place in the division after being swept by the Angels in August. “We just have to do a better job.”

“There’s no sugarcoating this,” Freeman echoed a few weeks later, when another confounding sweep to the Pittsburgh Pirates in early September was followed by another walk-off loss to the Orioles in team’s series-opener in Baltimore. “We need to figure this out, and figure this out quick.”

That, however, is where the 2025 Dodgers differed from the previous year’s team.

Even at their lowest, they didn’t feel hopeless.

Once they got healthy again, they believed better play would follow.

“Everyone was like, ‘We’re going to hit. We’re going to pitch well out of the bullpen. It’s just going to happen,’” Freeman said. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll get there.”

The main driver of the turnaround since was the pitching. Snell and Glasnow had already returned from their injuries by September, but didn’t find a rhythm until the final weeks of the year. Yamamoto also got hot, giving up just one run in his three starts after the near no-hitter. Emmet Sheehan and Clayton Kershaw, who had been out at the start of the year recovering from surgeries, flourished to give the rotation added depth.

Ohtani (while posting MVP numbers offensively) also built his way up to a full starter’s workload, after previously being limited to short outings coming off his second career Tommy John surgery.

Sasaki, meanwhile, made a late-season return in the bullpen, giving that group an anchor it had previously been missing.

“We started winning because our starting pitching was just so good,” Freeman said, after the group produced a 2.07 ERA in September and 1.40 mark in the first three rounds of the playoffs.

“As an offense, when you see your starting pitcher just throwing zeros over and over and over again, it’s like, ‘C’mon, just get one, get two, get three.’”

That kind of consistent production indeed began to reemerge too.

There was better health and improved individual performances, especially from Ohtani, Betts and Freeman (who combined for 22 home runs and 54 RBIs during the Dodgers’ resurgence in September). There was renewed emphasis from the coaching staff on quality at-bats and team offense (helping the Dodgers average 5.6 runs per game over their final 20 contests).

There was also increased accountability the players placed on one another, challenging themselves to elevate their game the closer they got to postseason baseball.

“We always knew we were going to be a really, really good team in October,” Muncy said. “Once you get to October, it’s, ‘Alright, it’s game time.’ That’s how we’re taking it.”

That mindset has continued to manifest in the playoffs, where many of the Dodgers’ biggest moments — from the wheel play they turned in Philadelphia, to the 11-inning marathon that sent them to the NLCS, to the string of low-scoring victories they pulled out against the Milwaukee Brewers — have been born of veteran poise and a battle-tested composure.

“It’s an advantage to having such a veteran group,” Kiké Hernández said. “We’ve played in a lot of big games together.”

And now, they’ll do so again in yet another World Series appearance, playing the kind of baseball just like they expected all along.

“Showing up to spring this year, it was, ‘Hey, we need to repeat,’” Muncy recalled. “It wasn’t like we wanted to repeat. It was like, ‘Hey, we need to’ … Because that’s just how good we are.”

PHILADELPHIA — Even Dodgers fans steeped in the lore of Kirk Gibson might not remember the name of Mel Didier.

Didier was the scout who had issued this warning to the 1988 Dodgers: If you’re facing Dennis Eckersley, the mighty closer for the Oakland Athletics, and the count runs full, he’s going to throw a backdoor slider.

Eckersley threw it, Gibson hit it for a home run, and the Dodgers went on to win the World Series.

If these Dodgers go on to win the World Series, no one will struggle to remember the name of Mookie Betts, of course. On Monday, however, Betts pushed the Dodgers to within one win of the National League Championship Series — not with his bat and not with his glove, but with memory and aptitude to rival Didier.

“His mind is so far advanced,” Dodgers coach Dino Ebel said of Betts. “That was the ballgame right there.”

With the tying run at second base and none out in the ninth inning, he was the calm in a screaming madhouse. As the Dodgers infielders gathered at the mound and Alex Vesia entered from the bullpen, Betts thought back to a play he had participated in once, in an August game against the Angels. Miguel Rojas had taught him the so-called “wheel play.”

“All he had to do was tell me once,” Betts said. “To me, that was like a do-or-die situation. Them tying the game up turns all the momentum there. If we can find a way to stop it, that would be great.

“I just made a decision and rolled with it.”

On the mound, amid the bedlam, Betts put on the wheel play. It’s a bunt coverage: with a runner on second base, the third baseman and first baseman charge home, with the idea that one would field the bunt and throw out the runner at third.

In any previous decade, the Dodgers would have practiced this play in spring training, repeatedly.

“We don’t really even practice the wheel play, with pitchers not hitting any more,” third baseman Max Muncy said. “There’s very few times where you’re 100% sure that a guy is going to bunt.”

This was the time. The Phillies had opened the ninth with three consecutive hits, including a two-run double from Nick Castellanos.

The Dodgers led 4-3 with none out and Castellanos on second base. Phillies manager Rob Thomson said he wanted to play for the tie and take his chances to match his team’s bullpen against the Dodgers bullpen in extra innings.

And for the “never bunt” crowd: the chance to score one run is slightly higher with a runner on third base with one out than with a runner on second base and none out. The Phillies had the bottom of the order coming up — starting with infielder Bryson Stott, whom the Dodgers had evaluated as a good bunter.

Betts remembered how he had asked Rojas when to run the wheel play.

“In a do-or-die situation,” Rojas had told him.

So Betts took charge and put on the play.

“I don’t know if it was very comfortable, but somebody’s got to do it,” Betts said.

“I figured, if there was ever a good time to make a decision and roll with it, that was the time.”

Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy throws to third after fielding a bunt from Phillies second baseman Bryson Stott in the ninth inning in Game 2 of the NLDS on Monday.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

Muncy would charge and, if the ball was bunted to him, would throw to Betts covering third base. First baseman Freddie Freeman then said he would charge and, if the ball was not bunted to him, would cover second base so Stott could not advance there, since second baseman Tommy Edman would be covering first. Later, on his PItchCom, Vesia said he heard an order to cover second base.

By the time Dodgers manager Dave Roberts got to the mound, the infielders said the play was on.

“When Doc came out and made the pitching change, we talked to him about it and he was all on board,” Muncy said. “I am going to credit Mook. It was his idea.”

Said Betts: “That was one of times where Doc called on us and said, you guys figure it out — in a very positive way. And we did.”

Rojas called Betts “an extension of the manager on the field.”

Said Rojas: “I’m happy that he called it right there on the field. Because it was the right play with the right runner, knowing the guy was going to bunt.”

All of this speaks well of Betts’ intuition and intelligence, but the postseason is not the time for “trust the process” blather. The postseason is the time when the right call is the one that actually works.

For Stott or anyone else, Thomson said, a batter that sees the wheel play in motion should forget about the bunt and swing away, given the holes left by two infielders charging the plate and the other two rushing to cover a base.

Stott bunted.

The first problem for the Phillies was that they had no one available to pinch-run for Castellanos. Aside from a backup catcher, they had two position players left: Harrison Bader, playing with a sore groin, and Weston Wilson, whom the Phillies had to save to run for Bader.

The second problem for the Phillies was that the Dodgers had only run the wheel play once this season, so even the best advance scouts could not have been warning the Phillies to beware.

“It’s something we have under our sleeve,” Rojas said.

The third and most critical problem for the Phillies was that Betts had lingered close to second base, shadowing Castellanos. By the time Stott could have seen Betts take off for third, it was too late.

“Mookie did a great job of disguising the wheel play,” Thomson said.

Muncy fielded the ball cleanly, and Betts beat Castellanos to the bag by so much that Betts had time to drop his knee and block the bag before tagging out Castellanos, holding onto the ball even as Castellanos upended him.

“Those guys executed it to perfection,” Roberts said. “It was a lot tougher — they made it look a lot easier than it was. And for me, that was our only chance, really, to win that game in that moment.”

If Muncy did not field the ball cleanly or did not make a good throw, or if Betts did not beat Castellanos to the bag or tag him out, the Phillies would have had the tying run at third base and the winning run at first base with none out.

But they did not, which meant the ensuing single did not tie the score. Two batters later, the Dodgers had won.

The play would be difficult enough for a lifelong shortstop. Betts is in his first season as a full-time shortstop.

“It shows his intuition in the game,” Muncy said. “It’s second to none out there. It doesn’t matter what position you put that guy at — he knows what’s going on. It’s honestly really impressive.”

Said Ebel: “He’s obsessed with being a great player. And he’s still learning. He’s still going to get better. That’s the scary thing about it.”

As the Dodgers headed for a happy flight back to Los Angeles, Betts offered this game a five-star review.

“I’ll take off my Dodgers hat and just put on a fan hat,” he said. “I think that was a really dope baseball game.”

At this time last year, the pressure was palpable.

Up until last October, the Dodgers had a reputation as postseason failures.

It wasn’t an unwarranted distinction. In each of the previous two seasons, the team had been upset in the National League Division Series by lesser opponents in the San Diego Padres and Arizona Diamondbacks. The fall before that, their title defense flamed out against the underdog Atlanta Braves in the NL Championship Series. Yes, they won a World Series in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season. But outside of that, it’d been more than three decades since they last triumphed under typical circumstances.

That checkered history weighed on them. Their urgency to change it in last year’s playoffs was fervent.

“That kind of sour taste that you have when you make an early exit from the postseason, our guys are tired of it,” manager Dave Roberts said on the eve of last year’s postseason. “So this is another opportunity. I do sense that edge.”

This week, of course, the Dodgers face a different kind of dynamic.

After their memorable run to a championship last year, the team has gotten the monkey of its full-season title drought off its back. And while expectations are still high, with the Dodgers and their record-setting $400-million roster set to begin the playoffs with a best-of-three wild-card round starting Tuesday against the Cincinnati Reds, the questions about past October disappointments have dissipated.

So, does the pressure of this postseason feel different?

“You would think,” veteran third baseman Max Muncy said. “But the pressure’s always going to be there. Especially when you’re this team, when you’re the Los Angeles Dodgers, there’s a lot of expectations around you. There’s a lot of pressure.”

Indeed, after an underwhelming regular season that saw the Dodgers win the NL West for the 12th time in the last 13 years, but fail to secure a first-round bye as one of the NL’s top two playoff seeds, the Dodgers have a new task before them.

Erase the frustrations of their 93-win campaign. Maintain the momentum they built with a 15-5 regular-season finish. And recreate the desperation that carried them to the promised land last fall, as they try to become MLB’s first repeat champion in 25 years.

“For us, the challenge is not letting that pressure get to you and finding our rhythm, finding what’s going to work for us this year,” Muncy said. “Each year the team has to find their identity when they get to this point. You have an identity during the regular season, and you have to find a whole ‘nother identity in the postseason.”

The Dodgers’ preferred identity for this year’s team figures to be the opposite of what worked last October.

Unlike last year, the team has a healthy and star-studded starting rotation entering the playoffs. Also unlike last year, the bullpen is a major question mark despite an encouraging end to the regular season.

For the wild-card series, it means the team will need big innings out of Game 1 starter Blake Snell, Game 2 starter Yoshinobu Yamamoto and (if necessary) Game 3 starter Shohei Ohtani — who is being saved for the potential winner-take-all contest in part to help manage his two-way workload.

Ideally, their production should ease the burden on a relief corps that ranked 21st in the majors in ERA during the regular season, and has no clear-cut hierarchy for its most trusted arms.

“The starting pitching is considerably better” than it was last year, Roberts said Monday. “That’s probably the biggest difference between last year’s team.”

Granted, the Dodgers do feel better about their bullpen right now, thanks to the return of Roki Sasaki, the reallocation (at least for this series) of Emmet Sheehan and Tyler Glasnow from the rotation to relief roles, and recent improvements from Blake Treinen and Tanner Scott.

“[We have] much more confidence than we had a couple weeks ago,” Roberts said of the bullpen. “I think that it’s because those guys have shown the confidence in themselves, where they’re throwing the baseball. I think last week we saw guys more on the attack setting the tone, versus pitching behind or pitching too careful.”

Dodgers reliever Tanner Scott delivers against the San Francisco Giants on Sept. 19.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Still, it’s anyone’s guess as to who will pitch in the ninth inning, or be called upon in the highest-leverage moments.

Close, late contests would be best for the Dodgers to avoid.

To that end, the continuation of the Dodgers’ recent uptick at the plate would also help. During a dismal 22-32 stretch from July 4 to Sept. 6, the Dodgers ranked 27th in scoring, struggling to overcome injuries to several key pieces, slumps from some of their biggest stars, and a general lack of consistent execution in situational opportunities. Over their closing 20 games, however, the lineup averaged an NL-best 5.55 runs per game behind late-season surges from Ohtani and Mookie Betts, plus team-wide improvements while hitting with runners in scoring position.

“The team is starting to fire on all cylinders, finally,” Muncy said. “It’s something that we haven’t really felt all year.”

The Dodgers had good news on the injury front during Monday’s team workout at Dodger Stadium. Muncy, who missed the last four games of the regular season while battling leg bruises and what Roberts has described as other “overall body” issues, is expected to be in the lineup. So too is Tommy Edman, who hasn’t played in the field since last Wednesday because of a lingering ankle injury.

The big question remains catcher Will Smith, who has been out since Sept. 9 with a right hand fracture.

Roberts said Monday the team has been “encouraged” with Smith’s recent progress. The slugger was even able to take live at-bats Monday night.

“If he can get through today and feel good,” Roberts said, “then it’s a viable thought” that he could be on the final 26-man roster the Dodgers will have to submit ahead of Tuesday’s game for the wild-card series.

Either way, the Dodgers’ biggest concern remains on maintaining their recent level of play. Erasing past October failures might no longer be a motivation. But, like Muncy, Roberts said the urgency to win another World Series remains the same.

“I don’t know if it’s easier or harder that we won last year,” Roberts said. “But, honestly, all we care about is winning this year.”

As Dodgers players packed in for Clayton Kershaw’s retirement news conference last Thursday, Freddie Freeman waved the Kershaw family to a row of seats at the front of the room.

He wanted Kershaw’s wife, Ellen, and their four kids in front of the pitcher right when he sat down at the dais at Dodger Stadium.

How else, Freeman joked, could they get the future Hall of Famer to cry?

Turned out, in a 14-minute address announcing his retirement from baseball at the end of this season, Kershaw did get choked up from behind the mic. But, it happened first when he addressed his teammates. They, he told him, were who he was going to miss most.

“The hardest one is the teammates, so I’m not even going to look at you guys in the eye,” Kershaw said, his eyes quickly turning red. “Just you guys sitting in this room, you mean so much to me. We have so much fun. I’m going to miss it.”

“The game in and of itself, I’m going to miss a lot, but I’ll be OK without that,” he later added. “I think the hard part is the feeling after a win, celebrating with you guys. That’s pretty special.”

Days later, that message continues to reverberate.

For the Dodgers, it served as a reminder and a reset.

Ever since early July, the team had lived in a world blanketed by frustration and wracked with repeated misery. Many players were hurt or uncharacteristically slumping. The team as a whole endured an extended sub-.500 skid. Behind inconsistent offense and unreliable bullpen pitching, a big division lead dwindled. Visions of 120-win grandeur were meekly dashed.

Amid that slump, the club’s focus drifted. From team production to individual mechanics. From collective urgency to internal dissatisfaction.

“Everyone on this team has been so busy this year trying to perfect their craft,” third baseman Max Muncy said, “that sometimes we forget about that moment of just hanging out and enjoying what we’re going through. “

Or, as Kershaw put it after his final regular-season Dodger Stadium start on Friday, “the collective effort to do something hard together.”

“All that stuff is just so impactful, so meaningful,” Kershaw explained.

And if it had gone missing during the depths of mostly difficult summer months, Kershaw’s retirement has thrust it back to the forefront.

“I do think it helps reset,” Muncy said. “Over the course of seven, eight months, you see each other every day and sometimes you take that a little bit for granted … It’s not something that anyone forgot. But sometimes you need a refresher. I think that was a good moment for it.”

Don’t mistake this as a “Win one for Kersh!” attitude. The Dodgers insisted they needed no extra motivation to defend their title, even after what’s been a turbulent repeat campaign.

Dodgers pitcher Clayton Kershaw announces he will retire at the end of the season during a news conference at Dodger Stadium.

But, both players and coaches have noted recently, their efforts this year have sometimes felt misplaced. The togetherness they lauded during last year’s championship march hadn’t always been replicated. A pall was cast over much of the second half.

“When you’re not winning games, it’s not fun,” veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said earlier this month. “But at the end of the day, we gotta put all that aside. … We have to come here and enjoy ourselves around the clubhouse, regardless of the situation.”

The Dodgers did that and more this past weekend, when a celebration of Kershaw — which included nearly team-wide attendance at his Thursday news conference, several on-field ovations Friday, and Kershaw’s address to Dodger Stadium on Sunday — was accompanied by three wins out of four against the San Francisco Giants.

“Watching him get choked up when he started talking about the teammates — it was just a crazy feeling in that room,” pitcher Tyler Glasnow recounted from Thursday’s announcement.

Added Muncy: “You hear when he talks about the stuff he’s gonna miss the most, the stuff that he enjoys the most: It’s being a part of the team. It’s being with the guys. It’s being in the clubhouse.

“To hear a guy like him just reinforce that, I think it’s a good message for a lot of people to hear.”

In Muncy’s estimation, the Dodgers have “seen a reflection of that out on the field” of late, having moved to the verge of a division title (their magic number entering play Monday was three with a 10-4 record over the last two weeks.

“There’s been more of an effort to try and enjoy the moments,” Muncy said. “Make sure we’re still getting our work in, but try to enjoy the moments.”

The Dodgers made a similar transformation last October, when they used their first-round bye week to build the kind of cohesion they had lacked in previous postseason failures — one the team credited constantly in its eventual run to the World Series.

Kershaw’s retirement might’ve provided a similar spark, highlighting the significance of such intangible dynamics while lifting the gloom that had clouded the team’s last two months.

“There’s obviously been a lot of things to point [to this season], as far as adversities, which all teams go through,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But I think that as we’ve gotten to the other side of it … guys have stuck together and they’ve come out of it stronger, which a lot of the times, that’s what adversity does.”

More adversity, of course, figures to lie ahead.

The Dodgers ended the weekend on a sour note, with Blake Treinen suffering the latest bullpen implosion in a 3-1 loss on Sunday. They’ll still enter the playoffs in a somewhat unsettled place, needing to navigate around a struggling relief corps and overcome a hand injury to catcher Will Smith.

It means, like last year, their path through October is unlikely to be smooth.

That, after a second half full of frustrations, they’ll have to lean on a culture Kershaw emphasized, and praised, repeatedly over the weekend.

“To have a group of guys in it together, and kind of understanding that and being together, being able to have a ton of fun all the time, is really important,” Kershaw said. “The older I’ve gotten, the more important [I’ve realized] it is. Like, you can’t just go through your day every day and go through the emotions. You just can’t. It’s too hard, too long to do that.”

“You gotta have Miggy doing the mic on the bus. You gotta have Kiké. You gotta have all these guys that are able to keep us having fun and energized every single day. That’s what this group is, and it’s been a blast.”

Max Muncy was activated Monday following his second stint on the injured list, and the struggling Dodgers wasted no time getting him back in the lineup against the Colorado Rockies, with Muncy starting at third base and batting cleanup.

“I wanted to be back sooner, but obviously that’s just not a realistic option sometimes,” said Muncy, who was hitting .258 with an .880 OPS, 17 homers and 64 RBIs before he sustained an oblique injury that caused him to miss 23 games.

Muncy went 0 for 3 with an intentional walk at the plate. In the field, he snagged Hunter Goodman’s line shot for the final out of the Dodgers’ 3-1 win.

“It’s a big boost. We’ve been waiting for this one for a long time,” said manager Dave Roberts, whose team had a losing record in Muncy’s absence. “Just kind of having his presence in the lineup, that obviously adds length to our lineup.”

Muncy missed 25 games with a bone bruise in his left knee earlier in the summer and returns with the Dodgers stumbling through an offensive slump that saw them lose five of six games to the last-place Pittsburgh Pirates and Baltimore Orioles.

Muncy said he’ll need to fight the urge to do too much too soon.

“What they need is for me to be myself and not try to do anything outside of what I usually do in a baseball game. And so it’s trying to understand that and just letting everyone else get back to being themselves,” said Muncy, who went two for seven with two walks in three games with triple-A Oklahoma City.

“Obviously, it was a rough road trip for the guys,” Muncy said. “We have to keep our focus just one day at a time. Prepare for today. How are we going to beat the pitcher today? And you know, if we get an entire group of guys buying into that, then I’m going to feel pretty good about.”

Muncy is just the first member of a big cavalry riding to the Dodgers’ rescue in time for their playoff stretch drive. Left-hander Alex Vesia could return from an oblique strain on Tuesday, Roberts said, while utility player Tommy Edman, out since Aug. 4 with a sprained ankle, is expected to be activated for the final game of the brief three-game homestand Wednesday.

Right-hander Brock Stewart, who has missed 25 games with shoulder inflammation, threw a bullpen session last Saturday in Arizona and is expected to throw another Tuesday at Dodger Stadium. If that goes well, Stewart said, he‘s expected to throw to live hitters Friday before making a brief rehab assignment with Oklahoma City.

“I’m just trying to take it one day at a time. The odds are good,” he said. “I want to help the team, but I have to focus on myself because I’m not out of the woods yet.”

From Jack Harris: It might be a cliché this time of year, how injured players who return after the trade deadline can serve as de facto deadline acquisitions themselves.

But in the case of Max Muncy and the Dodgers, the team needed it to be true. Badly.

Immediately after Muncy went down with a knee injury in early July, the club’s lineup entered a deep midseason slump. Its actual deadline acquisitions, which included only one hitter in outfielder Alex Call, had underwhelmed the fan base.

Thus, when Muncy returned to action Monday night, the Dodgers were desperately hoping the veteran slugger could provide a spark.

Twenty-four hours later, he did it with two thunderous swings.

In the Dodgers’ 12-6 win over the St. Louis Cardinals, Muncy officially christened his comeback with a four-for-five, four-RBI performance that included a pair of no-doubt home runs off Miles Mikolas — picking up almost exactly where he left off before suffering a July 2 knee injury that he feared would end his season.

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Things are finally turning around for Dodgers’ Roki Sasaki

Dodgers box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

ANGELS

Brandon Lowe hit a two-run homer and Jake Mangum had a two-run single during the Tampa Bay Rays’ seven-run fourth inning in a 7-3 victory over the Angels on Tuesday night.

Yandy Díaz scored a run and drove in another during the decisive inning in Tampa Bay’s third win in 13 games.

Ryan Pepiot (7-9) yielded five hits and two earned runs while pitching into the sixth inning for Tampa Bay, breaking his five-start winless streak.

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Angels box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

SPARKS

From Ira Gorawara: The Indiana Fever arrived in Los Angeles draped in momentum: Five straight wins, a knack for winning without Caitlin Clark and betting lines tilting their way. Their tear was proof they could keep pace even with their franchise centerpiece in street clothes.

But another storyline might’ve been tucked beneath Indiana’s.

The Sparks had ripped off six wins in their previous seven outings, probably fueled by the rare luxury of having every piece of their roster back for the first time in more than a year. And by night’s end at Crypto.com Arena, they had won seven of eight, the Sparks grinding out a 100-91 victory.

“Tonight was a great step in the right direction,” guard Kelsey Plum said. “That’s an incredible team, and they’re as hot as anyone. … They got everything it takes to make a run for a championship. So for us to come out and have that level of intensity, I was really proud.”

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Sex toy tossed onto court during Sparks win over Fever at Crypto.com Arena

Sparks box score

WNBA standings

CHARGERS

From Austin Knoblauch: The Chargers are reuniting with a former franchise star to bolster their receivers unit.

Keenan Allen, who racked up more than 10,000 receiving yards during an 11-season stint with the Chargers before being traded away in a salary-cap move, agreed to a deal with the team Tuesday.

The one-year deal is worth $8.52 million, according to NFL Media.

“Obviously, we know how good he’s been throughout his career,” Chargers general manager Joe Hortiz said, “and he’s out there on the market still, and [it was the] chance to bring someone of his caliber back we know can help us win games.”

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RAMS

From Gary Klein: Kyren Williams spent Tuesday morning meeting with his agent and the Rams to work out the final details of a contract extension.

The Rams running back finished the day dashing, darting and diving on the field during a joint practice with the Dallas Cowboys.

“Life is good,” Williams said after the workout. “Life is good.”

It’s certainly richer.

Williams, a fourth-year pro, received a three-year extension. Terms of the deal were not announced but Williams is guaranteed about $23 million, a person with knowledge of the situation said. The person requested anonymity because the contract has not been processed.

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Ex-NFL player convicted for operating dogfighting ring… again. Now he faces up to 30 years in prison

LAFC

From Kevin Baxter: LAFC’s signing of South Korean national team captain Son Heung-min appears to be one of those rare acquisitions that checks every box and helps everybody. Not only is it one of the most significant signings in MLS history, but it instantly makes LAFC better while boosting the World Cup hopes of the Korean national team and the profile of Korean soccer in the U.S.

But in few places will the influence of the signing, which is expected to be completed Tuesday, be felt more directly than in Southern California’s Korean community, the largest in the U.S.

“The Korean community has been buzzing ever since rumors of Son Heung-min’s potential move to LAFC began to spread,” said Kyeongjun Kim, a writer with the Korean Daily, the largest Korean-language media outlet in the U.S. “The fact that a player of his caliber is coming to L.A. is monumental event.

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Painting lines on soccer and football fields? That’s a job robots can do now

USC BASKETBALL

From Jad El Reda: Don’t call him a traveler. Chad Baker-Mazara said that his journey through four universities allowed him to land in the place he had been looking for since the beginning of his college basketball adventure.

Baker-Mazara, 25, arrived at USC in May. The veteran is hoping to help lead young players in the locker room and on the court after joining his fifth team since 2020.

He began his journey with at Duquesne in 2020-21, then moved on to San Diego State for the 2021-22 season in search of a better fit on the roster. He fell behind academically in San Diego and was dismissed from the team when he couldn’t catch up on classwork. Baker-Mazara then traveled to the East Coast to play for Northwest Florida State College during the 2022-23 season while getting back on track academically before landing a spot on the Auburn roster during the 2023-25 seasons.

It has been a unique journey, but he is confident that he will write the most important chapter of his basketball career with the Trojans during the upcoming season.

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THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY

1958 — Glen Davis of Columbus, Ohio, sets a world record in the 400 hurdles with a time of 49.2 in Budapest, Hungary.

1966 — Muhammad Ali knocks out Brian London in the third round to retain his world heavyweight title.

1972 — South African Gary Player wins his second PGA golf championship with a two-stroke victory over Jim Jamieson and Tommy Aaron.

1978 — John Mahaffey beats Tom Watson and Jerry Pate on the second playoff hole to win the PGA Championship.

1984 — American athlete Carl Lewis wins long jump (8.54m), his second of 4 gold medals at Los Angeles Olympics.

1991 — Debbie Doom of the U.S. pitches her second consecutive perfect game in women’s softball at the Pan American Games. Doom threw a perfect game at the Netherlands Antilles in the opener and matches that performance against Nicaragua, winning 8-0.

1992 — Carl Lewis leads a U.S. sweep in the long jump in the Olympics with a mark of 28 feet, 5 1-2 inches on his first attempt. Mike Powell takes the silver and Joe Greene the bronze. Kevin Young demolishes one of track’s oldest records with a time of 46.78 seconds in the 400 hurdles. Bruce Baumgartner becomes the first American wrestler to win medals in three straight Olympics, taking the gold in the 286-pound freestyle division.

1994 — Jeff Gordon wins the Brickyard 400, the first stock car race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

1995 — Canada’s Donovan Bailey wins the 100 meters at World Track and Field Championships in Goteborg, Sweden, marking the first time since 1976 an American fails to win a medal in the event at a major meet.

2001 — Two-time champion Marion Jones is disqualified and has her string of 42 consecutive 100m final victories snapped by Zhanna Pintusevich-Block of Ukraine at the World Athletics Championships in Edmonton, Canada.

2006 — Tiger Woods (30) becomes the youngest player with 50 PGA Tour wins after a 3 stroke victory over Jim Furyk in the Buick Open.

2006 — Floyd Landis is fired by his team and the Tour de France no longer considers him its champion after his second doping sample tested positive for higher-than-allowable levels of testosterone.

2006 — Sherri Steinhauer wins the Women’s British Open for the third time, and the first since it became a major.

2008 — Sammy Villegas, a former University of Toledo basketball player, is charged with point shaving. Villegas is accused of shaving points during the 2004-05 and 2005-06 seasons.

2008 — Kim Terrell-Kearney wins the first pro championship match featuring two Black bowlers, beating Trisha Reid 216-189 in the U.S. Bowling Congress’ U.S. Women’s Open. Terrell-Kearney collects her second U.S. Women’s Open title and third career major title.

2010 — Tyson Gay upsets the defending world and Olympic champion Usain Bolt in a race between the two fastest runners in history. Gay beats the Jamaican at the DN Galan meet in 9.84 seconds at the same stadium where Bolt last lost a race two years ago. Bolt finishes second in 9.97.

2015 — Ryan Lochte becomes the first man to win the 200-meter individual medley four consecutive times at the world swimming championships. Lochte comes home strong on the freestyle lap and touches first in 1:55.81 in Kazan, Russia.

2017 — I.K. Kim won the Women’s British Open, hanging on with a 1-under 71 for a two-shot victory over Jodi Ewart Shadoff and her first major championship.

THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY

1908 — John Lush threw a six-inning, rain-shortened no-hitter for the St. Louis Cardinals, who beat the Brooklyn Dodgers 2-0. It was Lush’s second no-hitter against the Dodgers.

1933 — Pinky Higgins of the Philadelphia Athletics hit for the cycle and drove in five runs in a 12-8 win over the Washington Senators.

1952 — Satchel Paige, 46, became the oldest pitcher in major league history to pitch a complete game or a shutout when he beat Virgil Trucks and the Detroit Tigers 1-0 in 12 innings.

1972 — Hank Aaron hit his 660th and 661st career home runs to break Babe Ruth’s record for most home runs with one club. The 661st came in the 10th inning to give the Atlanta Braves a 4-3 triumph over the Cincinnati Reds.

1981 — As a result of a seven-week strike, major league baseball players approved a split-season format. The New York Yankees, Oakland A’s, Philadelphia Phillies and Dodgers were declared the first-half champions and automatically qualified for the divisional series.

1985 — The Major League Baseball Players’ Association went on strike.

1986 — The Texas Rangers beat the Baltimore Orioles 13-11 in a record-setting battle of grand slams. Texas’ Toby Harrah hit a grand slam in the second inning before Larry Sheets and Jim Dwyer connected for grand slams in Baltimore’s nine-run fourth.

1988 — Rich Gossage registered his 300th career save, and the Chicago Cubs beat the Philadelphia Phillies 7-4.

1999 — Tony Gwynn went 4-for-5, singling in his first at-bat to become the 22nd major leaguer to reach 3,000 hits, as the San Diego Padres beat the Montreal Expos 12-10.

2001 — Boston’s Scott Hatteberg performed the ultimate baseball opposite. Hatteberg hit a grand slam one at-bat after lining into a triple play as the Red Sox defeated the Texas Rangers 10-7. Hatteberg lined into a triple play in the fourth inning and in the sixth he hit his second career grand slam to move Boston ahead for good.

2002 — At 32, Robb Nen became the youngest player to record 300 saves, as San Francisco beat the Chicago Cubs 11-10. Nen became the 16th member of the 300-save club.

2007 — St. Louis tied a major league record with 10 straight hits in a 10-run fifth inning, with pitcher Braden Looper and Aaron Miles getting two apiece in a 10-5 victory over San Diego.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

It might be a cliché this time of year, how injured players who return after the trade deadline can serve as de facto deadline acquisitions themselves.

But in the case of Max Muncy and the Dodgers, the team needed it to be true. Badly.

Immediately after Muncy went down with a knee injury in early July, the club’s lineup entered a deep midseason slump. Its actual deadline acquisitions, which included only one hitter in outfielder Alex Call, had underwhelmed the fan base.

Thus, when Muncy returned to action Monday night, the Dodgers were desperately hoping the veteran slugger could provide a spark.

Twenty-four hours later, he did it with two thunderous swings.

In the Dodgers’ 12-6 win over the St. Louis Cardinals, Muncy officially christened his comeback with a four-for-five, four-RBI performance that included a pair of no-doubt home runs off Miles Mikolas — picking up almost exactly where he left off before suffering a July 2 knee injury that he feared would end his season.

“As I was laying there on the ground that night, I thought for sure this is it,” Muncy recalled this week, after not only recovering from what proved to be just a bone bruise, but doing it two weeks faster than the initial six-week timeline the team had expected.

“It’s hard to stay positive in a moment like that,” Muncy added, while reliving Michael A. Taylor’s slide into his left knee a month earlier. “But extremely thankful and blessed to be back on a baseball field this year.”

Muncy did have some rust to knock off, going hitless in three at-bats with a walk and strikeout in his first game back Monday night against crafty Cardinals right-hander Sonny Gray.

On Tuesday, however, Mikolas gave him the chance to do some long-awaited damage.

In the first inning, after Shohei Ohtani doubled and scored on a Freddie Freeman sacrifice fly, Muncy clobbered a center-cut, first-pitch sinker 416 feet into the right-field pavilion, giving the Dodgers a quick 2-0 lead.

In the third, after the Cardinals leveled the score on Nolan Gorman’s two-run homer off Emmet Sheehan an inning earlier, Muncy went deep again, whacking an elevated fastball 404 feet for a two-run blast.

The Dodgers (66-48) wouldn’t relinquish the lead again, going on to their first double-digit scoring effort since June 22 thanks to a five-run rally in the seventh, when Muncy also added an RBI single, and two more runs in the eighth, when Muncy tacked on his fourth hit.

There were other positive signs for the Dodgers’ recently scuffling lineup on Tuesday.

Mookie Betts, who was mired in a career-long five-game, 22 at-bat hitless streak, recorded three knocks: A double right before Muncy’s second homer in the third, a line-drive single in the fifth, and a seeing-eye grounder in the eighth.

Andy Pages, who was batting just .211 since the All-Star break, made hard contact on doubles in the sixth and the seventh.

And Teoscar Hernández, who was hitting just .213 since returning from a groin strain in May, came roaring to life with a two-homer game, going back-to-back with Muncy on a solo home run in the third before smashing a game-sealing three-run drive after Muncy’s RBI single in the seventh.

Leading up to the deadline, manager Dave Roberts cited that subset of slumping hitters as potential quasi-deadline additions in their own right. Part of the reason for the team’s relative inaction at the deadline was its trust that the healthy, but scuffling, members of its lineup would get back on track down the stretch.

Still, Muncy’s eventual return had long been seen as the Dodgers’ biggest potential boon, especially after they went from leading the majors in scoring before he got hurt to ranking last in runs over the 25 games he missed.

“We’ve certainly missed him,” Roberts said ahead of Muncy’s return Monday. “The night he came off the field, you’re starting to think of it potentially being season-ending. So to get him back in a month, we’re all excited. He’s put in a lot of work to get back with this timeline. And yeah, we’ve needed him.”

Two games in, the importance of his return is already being felt.

Max Muncy knew he had gotten lucky, after his ugly-looking knee injury earlier this month proved to be nothing more than a bone bruise.

But, when doctors explained how close he came to suffering something so much worse, from when Michael A. Taylor slid into his leg at third base on July 2, even Muncy was amazed by the infinitesimal margins.

“If the timing was just a millisecond different either way,” he was told, “you’re probably looking at surgery, and done for a long time.”

Instead, barely two weeks removed from having the outside of his knee bent inward on that play, Muncy was out doing early work at Dodger Stadium on Friday afternoon; running in the outfield, playing catch with coaches and performing agility drills in front of trainers without any obvious signs of pain or discomfort.

“We’re pleasantly, not surprised, but happy with the spot that I’m in right now,” Muncy said afterward, having also taken swings for the first time since his injury earlier on Friday afternoon. “It feels great. I’m moving well. Progressing quickly. We’re trying to be smart about it, and understand where we’re at, and what it’s gonna take to get back on the field. But we’re in a really good spot … We’re kind of right where we think we should be at.”

If not, it seems, already a few steps ahead.

While Muncy was initially expected to miss roughly six weeks with his left knee bone bruise, manager Dave Roberts struck a more optimistic tone as the Dodgers opened the second half of their season.

“He’s in great shape right now,” Roberts said Friday. “I don’t really know a timeline. But I do know … it’s going to be a lot sooner than anticipated, which is good for all of us.”

Since Muncy — who was one of the hottest hitters in baseball in May and June — got hurt, the Dodgers have not looked like the same offense. In their last 11 games entering Saturday, the club was 3-8, averaging less than three runs per game, and struggling to fill the gaping hole their slugging third baseman has left in the middle of the lineup.

Since the start of July, only the penny-pinching Pittsburgh Pirates have been worse than the Dodgers in batting average (.205) and OPS (.594).

“We’ve still got a lot of good players,” Roberts said. “But yeah, there’s a certain line of demarcation when Max is not in the lineup, what happens to our offense.”

The Dodgers’ problems, of course, go beyond Muncy’s absence. Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman have all been slumping of late (or, in Betts’ case, for much of the season). Teoscar Hernández and Tommy Edman have been nowhere near their typical standard since returning from injuries in May. And the depth options the Dodgers have called upon have provided few sparks of life.

Still, Muncy figures to be a linchpin in the Dodgers’ long-term potential at the plate — with his recovery growing ever-steadily in importance as the rest of the lineup flounders in his wake.

“We got to figure out how to get something going,” said outfielder Michael Conforto, chief among the Dodgers’ underachievers this season. “Every time we go out there, we expect to score, and that’s what we’ve been doing all year. It’s just one of those stretches [where it’s] a little bit tougher to get runs in. But, you know, obviously, we have faith in our guys, and some big names in here that made their careers on scoring runs and driving guys in. I think we’ll be OK.”

Muncy, of course, is one of those proven names.

And in another fortunate stroke with his recovery, he remains confident his injury won’t significantly impact his swing once he does come back.

“If [the injury] was on the inside of the knee, it’d probably be a different story,” Muncy said. “But just being on the outside, I think it’s a good spot, knowing that I don’t feel it at all when I’m pushing off on the backside.”

Muncy tested that theory for the first time Friday, taking some light swings in the cage that he said “felt fine.”

“It’s a lot of work, more work than actually playing in the game, which always sucks,” Muncy said of his rehab process. “But it’s that way for a reason … You don’t want to have any other injuries that are a side effect from it.”

So far, even that latter concern has been quelled, with Muncy noting that “there’s no lingering side effects with it.”

“All in all,” he reiterated, “we’re about as lucky as we could be.”

MILWAUKEE — The Dodgers have been here before.

This time last year, in a season that bore so many similarities to their current one, a first-place and highly touted Dodgers team temporarily lost its way.

Amid a deluge of pitching injuries (sound familiar?) and the absence of one of its hottest early-season hitters (Mookie Betts, who suffered a broken hand close to the same time Max Muncy went down with a knee injury this year), the club stumbled backward into the All-Star break, going 2-8 in its final 10 games of the first half and 1-5 in a Philadelphia/Detroit road trip that exposed undeniable flaws in its star-studded roster.

Twelve months later, another pre-All-Star-break tailspin has struck the now defending champions.

The Dodgers have lost six games in a row, swept in back-to-back series by the Houston Astros and the Milwaukee Brewers. Their romp through June and the first days of July (when they won 20 times in a 30-game stretch) has been stalled by sudden regression lately, with lackluster offense and a worn-down pitching staff contributing to the organization’s longest losing streak since April 2019.

Now, as he did then, manager Dave Roberts has downplayed any alarm.

“I think it is under the ‘it’s just baseball’ type thing,” Roberts said Wednesday after the Dodgers’ most deflating loss of their skid yet. “You never like to lose six in a row. It seems like we’re pitching OK. The defense at times has been really good. It’s just that right now we’re scuffling offensively, to have that big inning or to build an inning and get that big hit.”

But, also like back then, frustration is mounting as the Dodgers approach the trade deadline.

The Dodgers’ Hyeseong Kim looks up while swinging a bat during a game against the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday in Milwaukee.

(Aaron Gash / Associated Press)

“We can’t really feel sorry about ourselves, because there’s a lot of season left, and we know what we’re looking for,” veteran infielder Miguel Rojas said. “We’re looking to win another championship, and playing this kind of baseball is not gonna get us there.”

By “this kind of baseball,” Rojas means this kind of offense.

During the last week, a Dodgers lineup that leads the majors in scoring on the season has suddenly scored the second-fewest runs (10 total, and more than two in just one of their last six contests) of the league’s 30 teams. In that time, they are batting a paltry .190 with only four home runs, a whopping 61 strikeouts and an on-base percentage of .269.

The root causes of that malaise are easy to identify: The Dodgers have been without several key regulars (Muncy, Teoscar Hernández and, until Wednesday, Tommy Edman) in their starting lineup. Their three healthy superstars (Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman) are hitting a combined .194. Their depth options have offered little reprieve (Michael Conforto, Hyeseong Kim and James Outman have gone five for 38 while receiving increased playing time).

And, they’ve run into two talented pitching staffs, struggling against quality opposing starters such as Framber Valdez, Freddy Peralta and rookie sensation Jacob Misiorowski, and two hard-throwing bullpens from the Astros and Brewers.

Granted, even $400-million payrolls like the Dodgers go through such dips in a season. And while the losses have piled up, the team has maintained the best record in the National League (56-38) and a five-game edge in their division.

“We’ve just got to put some at-bats together, keep playing good defense and it’ll turn,” Roberts promised. “When you’re mired in it, it’s frustrating. But we still have some pretty good players.”

The concern, however, is how quickly the offense has turned in the absence of a few key players.

Freeman and Betts were both slumping in June, but the contributions of Muncy and All-Star catcher Will Smith (the only regular who has also stayed hot during this current losing spell) helped compensate. Ohtani’s numbers at the plate have declined since he returned to pitching, but balance at the bottom of the lineup from younger bats like Kim and Andy Pages made such struggles feel moot.

This week, conversely, has highlighted what can happen when the Dodgers face good pitching at anything less than full strength –– the kind of confluence of events that could quickly derail any postseason campaign if it were to happen again in October.

“You can’t replace All-Stars. You can’t replace guys that have won MVPs in the postseason. You can’t replace those type of things,” Betts said this week. “The next man has to step up and do what he can do. But I mean, you can’t replace those guys. You can only have someone come step up and do their best.”

The good news is, Edman has already returned from a broken pinky toe. Hernández is expected back in the lineup Friday from a foot contusion. And, although Muncy’s knee injury is longer-term, he is expected to return this season.

“It’s one of those things,” Roberts said, “where we’ve got to find a way to weather it.”

Still, the questions this week has raised will loom even if the Dodgers start to heat up again (as they did last year, when they started the second half with a five-game winning streak and 26-13 run overall).

Already, the bullpen was an obvious area of need heading into the trade deadline (especially after Michael Kopech recently underwent a meniscus surgery on his right knee that forced him onto the 60-day IL). The rotation could be, too, although the Dodgers remain confident about having Tyler Glasnow (who returned to action with five solid innings Wednesday) and Blake Snell (who is beginning a minor-league rehab assignment this week) healthy for the second half.

Now, the club will have to decide whether it needs another impact bat as well, potentially adding to a shopping list that has grown much longer than the team had expected after another big offseason of lavish spending.

After all, Freeman and Betts have yet to show signs of life amid career-worst slumps. Ohtani’s workload won’t get any easier as he continues to ramp up on the mound. And there’s no guarantee how Muncy will look once he returns, with Roberts noting his bone bruise will probably linger into next year.

It all leaves the Dodgers in a familiar position: Hopeful its talented, but hardly infallible, roster possesses enough firepower to win another World Series, but knowing that — like last year, when the team acquired Edman, Kopech and starter Jack Flaherty at the deadline — more reinforcements might nonetheless be needed.

“We have to do better,” Rojas said, voicing a recognition that has reverberated throughout the clubhouse of late, as the front office evaluates its options ahead of the July 31 trade deadline. “We gotta find ways to be a complete team that we know we can be.”

When Max Muncy first went down on Wednesday night, clutching his left knee and writhing in pain after a collision with Chicago White Sox baserunner Michael A. Taylor on a steal attempt at third base, Dodgers general manager Brandon Gomes couldn’t help but let his mind go to a dark place.

“Obviously, [there were] a lot of emotions,” Gomes said. “From a coping mechanism in my head, it was like, ‘OK, he’s done for the year. We’re gonna have to figure out what the next path is. We have to be prepared for whatever is coming.’”

What came the next day, however, was unexpectedly good news.

Despite having his knee bent awkwardly, gruesomely inward, Muncy escaped with only a bone bruise. There were no ligament tears. No structural damage. No season-ending catastrophe.

Dodger Max Muncy grimaces as he holds his left knee after colliding with White Sox outfielder Michael A. Taylor on Wednesday at Dodger Stadium.

(Gina Ferazzi/Los Angeles Times)

“We’ve had a lot more [injury situations] where we’ve gone in optimistic and then come out the other side not as optimistic,” Gomes said. “So it was nice to have that turned on its head and know that, ‘Hey, he’s gonna be out there.’”

On Thursday, Muncy said he is expected to miss roughly six weeks. But even that timeline would give him a month-plus before the playoffs to try and rediscover the swing that made him one of the hottest hitters in baseball the past two months.

And because Muncy’s injury was to the lower half of his body, manager Dave Roberts noted, the hope is that “it’s not something that should affect the swing” when he does return.

“With the time we have, there’s nothing pressing as far as needing to rush him back,” Roberts said. “I think we’re in a good spot.”

That’s why, as of Friday, Gomes had shelved those contingency plans that were running through his mind 48 hours earlier. His front office wasn’t urgently scouring the trade market looking for an instant replacement.

Instead, Gomes and Roberts insisted the Dodgers’ trade deadline plans are unlikely to be altered in the wake of Muncy’s injury — with the team content to rely on internal options now, while awaiting Muncy’s return later this year.

“Knowing the certainty of Max coming back at some point,” Roberts said, “I don’t think that will really impact our thinking going into the deadline.”

“Even if [his recovery] is way slow,” Gomes added, “you have a full month of baseball before we hit the playoffs. So we’re giving him that time to get back into a good place and try to set a good foundation, like we try to do with all of our guys, to be prepared for that stretch run.”

Fans cheer after Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy hit a three-run homer against the Washington Nationals at Dodger Stadium on June 22.

(Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)

Trade speculation surrounding the Dodgers’ third base position is nothing new.

Earlier this year, when Muncy was struggling mightily through the opening month of the year, there were growing calls from the fanbase for the team to find a more productive replacement before the July 31 deadline.

Lately, however, Muncy had quieted such noise with one of the best stretches of his career. Before getting hurt, he was batting .308 over his past 46 games with 12 home runs, 48 RBIs and more walks (32) than strikeouts (26).

“When he’s not in the lineup,” Roberts said, “our offense tapers off.”

Whether Muncy can return to such levels of production, of course, won’t become clear until well after the deadline passes. But finding impact bats on this year’s trade market might not be an easy task, especially at third base.

Nolan Arenado has long been linked to the Dodgers in trade rumors. But he has career-lows in batting average (.247) and OPS (.701) this year, and is still due some $40 million over the next two-and-a-half seasons on his contract.

The Cardinals’ Nolan Arenado watches his double in the sixth inning of a game against the Cleveland Guardians in Cleveland on June 27.

(Sue Ogrocki / Associated Press)

Lower-profile names such as Eugenio Suárez, Ryan McMahon and Ramón Urías (who could be a better roster fit for the Dodgers as a utility weapon) could also be moved. But the Dodgers won’t be desperate to overpay for an impact bat knowing Muncy should be back well before the start of the playoffs.

“Obviously, he’s been so dialed in, one of the best hitters in the game over the last six weeks, so there’s always some [question of], ‘How are we going to get back to that spot?’” Gomes acknowledged of Muncy.

“But I don’t think that is something that Max has never done before,” he added, referencing Muncy’s ability to contribute to last year’s World Series run despite missing three months in the regular season with an oblique injury. “So there’s a comfort level. We have some time. We’ll make sure that he’s eased back in. We have enough technology that he can take at-bats and see pitches before he ever has to go out on rehab and is back in a major-league game. We should be getting some approximation of what his swing was, and then use that time to get into a rhythm.”

In the meantime, the Dodgers plan to incorporate Tommy Edman at third base, where he has 94 career big-league appearances (mostly in 2019 and 2020 with the St. Louis Cardinals, before Arenado’s arrival there).

“It’s a position I’m comfortable with,” Edman said Friday, after taking grounders at third at the start of his pregame work. “The hops [there] are weird, so you gotta play a little bit more one-handed … But it’s still the infield. You still gotta work on the footwork, just like you would at second and short. Catching the ball, getting behind your throws. It’s a lot of the same concepts.”

Kiké Hernández and Miguel Rojas will also see time at third, typically against left-handed pitching, while triple-A prospect Alex Freeland could offer depth from the minors if needed.

Hyeseong Kim, meanwhile, should also get a bump in playing time at second base on days Edman is at third.

“It’s gonna be a good opportunity for him,” Roberts said of Kim. “It’ll be good to know more and get him some more experience.”

When the deadline rolls around at the end of the month, the Dodgers will have more information to work with — not only on the state of Muncy’s rehab, but also about how their lineup fares without him.

With a top-five farm system in the sport, according to MLB Pipeline and Baseball America, they will have the ammunition to make a splash if needed.

But for now, their expectation is that Muncy’s injury won’t force them into a drastic midseason roster makeover. They are hopeful that what initially appeared to be a season-altering moment will be nothing more than a temporary speed bump in their pursuit of a second consecutive title.

“We’re playing good baseball as a team. We’re in a good position division-wise right now,” Gomes said. “So if we keep doing that, we can weather [Muncy’s absence].”

From Kevin Baxter: The Dodgers will be without Max Muncy for approximately six weeks after the third baseman was placed on the injured list Thursday with what the team is calling a bone bruise in his left knee. Muncy was injured in the sixth inning of Wednesday’s walk-off win over the Chicago White Sox when Chicago’s Michael Taylor slid headfirst into third on an unsuccessful attempt to steal third base.

Taylor’s helmet hit Muncy’s knee, bending it sideways and flipping the infielder to the ground. The collision was so gruesome, SportsNet LA, which was broadcasting the game, did not show replays. Muncy writhed on the ground in obvious pain before being helped to the clubhouse.

Muncy, who entered the Dodger clubhouse Thursday afternoon wearing a blue elastic support bandage on his left leg, said he originally feared the worst, but an MRI found no structural damage.

“It was tough news, but it was also great news,” he said. “I still get to play baseball this year instead of coming back next year around April. So it was kind of best-case scenario.”

Muncy, who said his knee felt stiff but not painful, was scheduled to meet the Dodger doctors later Thursday but said he intended to embark on an aggressive rehabilitation process.

“Everybody’s body is different,” he said. “You know, some guys heal extremely fast, some guys heal extremely slow. Traditionally, I’ve always healed fairly fast.”

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‘Super grateful’ Clayton Kershaw, Dodger teammates bask in glow of 3,000th strikeout

‘I knew he was going to get it.’ Dodgers fans celebrate Clayton Kershaw’s big night

————

Dave Roberts had some goals in mind for starting pitcher Dustin May on Thursday. And they had little to do with the final result.

“The first thing is his ability to go deeper in games,” the Dodger manager said. “The sweeper has got to be a more effective pitch. His sinker has got to be more effective.

“I know he’s working through some delivery things with the pitching coaches. I’m kind waiting to see what to expect tonight.”

May would give Roberts far more than he asked for, setting down the first 16 batters in order and pitching into the eighth inning for the first time in his career in a 6-2 win over the Chicago White Sox.

The win was the Dodgers’ fourth in a row and ninth in their last 10 games.

The start was May’s 16th of the season and the seven innings he threw gave him 89.2 for the year, both career highs. Consistency, however, has been an issue. He won just once in June, when his 5.67 ERA was highest among Dodger starters.

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Dodgers box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

ANGELS

Zach Neto had three hits, including a homer, Nolan Schanuel added a two-run blast and José Soriano gave up only three hits in seven scoreless innings to lead the Angels to a 5-1 victory over the weak-hitting Atlanta Braves on Thursday night.

The Braves avoided a shutout on Jurickson Profar’s ninth-inning homer off left-hander Brock Burke. It was Profar’s second homer in two games since returning from an 80-game PED suspension.

Soriano (6-5) had seven strikeouts and did not allow a base runner to reach second base. Neto scored three runs.

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Angels put Christian Moore on injured list, pick up contract of Chad Stevens

Angels box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

LAKERS

From Dylan Hernández: The Lakers found their next starting center, and they didn’t have to give up Austin Reaves to land him.

There’s a reason why.

As athletic and skilled as Deandre Ayton is for a 7-footer, he’s better known at this stage of his career for his shortcomings.

His maddening inconsistency. His uninspired defense. His lack of motivation. His inability to stay healthy.

Portland Trail Blazers center Deandre Ayton shoots under pressure from Denver Nuggets center Nikola Jokic on Feb. 10 in Denver. (David Zalubowski / Associated Press)
If you didn’t like Anthony Davis, you’re going to hate Ayton. Davis was always accountable or at very least not tone deaf, which Ayton apparently is.

“I got nothing to prove in this league,” Ayton once told veteran NBA reporter Mark Medina. “I’m a max player, and I’ll continue to be a max player.”

Little wonder the Portland Trail Blazers officially gave up on Ayton during the weekend by buying out his contract, opening the door for the Lakers to pick him up at a bargain price.

The Lakers are wagering they can do what the Trail Blazers, and the Phoenix Suns before them, couldn’

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Lakers agree to terms to bring back Jaxson Hayes

SPARKS

Natasha Cloud scored 11 of her 23 points in the third quarter and sparked a huge run to lead the New York Liberty to an 89-79 victory over the Sparks on Thursday night.

Breanna Stewart added 17 points and 14 rebounds and Sabrina Ionescu had 20 points for New York (12-5).

The defending champion Liberty trailed 53-42 midway through the third before Cloud and Ionescu got going. Cloud’s three-point play sparked a 13-0 run and then Ionescu scored 10 straight points for New York to give the Liberty a 63-59 advantage.

Dearica Hamby scored 25 points to lead the Sparks, who got a boost with the return of Rae Burrell. She saw her first action since injuring her knee in the opener. She checked in late in the first quarter and played 12 minutes, finishing with five points.

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Sparks box score

WNBA standings

THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY

1907 — Canadian world heavyweight boxing champion Tommy Burns KOs Bill Squires of Australia in round 1 in Colma, Calif., his 6th title defense.

1910 — Jack Johnson knocks out Jim Jeffries in the 15th round at Reno, Nev., to retain the world heavyweight title and spoil Jeffries’ comeback.

1914 — The Harvard eight wins the Grand Challenge Cup to become the first American crew to capture the top event at the Henley Royal Regatta.

1919 — Jack Dempsey wins the world heavyweight title at Toledo, Ohio, when Jess Willard fails to answer the bell for the fourth round.

1923 — Jack Dempsey beats Tommy Gibbon in 15 for the heavyweight title. The fight almost bankrupts the town of Shelby, Montana, which borrowed heavily to stage it.

1930 — Helen Wills Moody wins her fourth straight singles title at Wimbledon with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Elizabeth Ryan. Moody would go on to win four more Wimbledon singles titles.

1954 — FIFA World Cup Final, Wankdorf Stadium, Bern, Switzerland: Helmut Rahn scores twice as West Germany beats Hungary, 3-2.

1964 — Maria Bueno of Brazil upsets Margaret Smith of Australia 6-4, 7-9, 6-3 for the women’s title at Wimbledon.

1975 — Billie Jean King beats Evonne Goolagong, 6-0, 6-1 for her sixth and final singles title at Wimbledon.

1982 — Jimmy Connors beats John McEnroe 3-6, 6-3, 6-7, 7-6, 6-4 for the men’s singles championship at Wimbledon. The match lasts 4 hours, 16 minutes.

1987 — Martina Navratilova wins her eighth Wimbledon singles title and sixth straight, beating Steffi Graf 7-5, 6-3.

1994 — FIFA World Cup: A Bebeto strike saves Brazil from embarrassment, beat USA 1-0 at Stanford.

1999 — Pete Sampras overwhelms Andre Agassi in three sets to capture his sixth Wimbledon title and tie Roy Emerson’s record with his 12th Grand Slam championship. Sampras is the first man in the Open era with six Wimbledon titles.

2002 — Venus and Serena Williams win in straight sets to set up their third title match at a major in 10 months — and the first all-sister Wimbledon final since 1884. Top-seeded Venus, the two-time defending champion, overpowers Justine Henin 6-3, 6-2. Second-seeded Serena routs Amelie Mauresmo 6-2, 6-1 in 55 minutes.

2003 — Lakers star Kobe Bryant is arrested in Eagle, Colo., for sexual assault, charges eventually dismissed.

2004 — UEFA European Championship Final, Estádio da Luz, Lisbon, Portugal: In a huge upset Greece beats host nation Portugal, 1-0.

2004 — Meg Mallon wins the Women’s U.S. Open with a 6-under 65, the lowest final round by a champion in the 59-year history of the tournament. Mallon finishes at 10-under 274 for a two-shot victory over Annika Sorenstam.

2008 — Dara Torres completes her improbable Olympic comeback, making the U.S. team for the fifth time by winning the 100 freestyle at the U.S. Olympic trials in Omaha, Neb. The 41-year-old wins in 54.78. A nine-time medalist, she already was the first U.S. swimmer to make four Olympic teams.

2009 — Serena Williams beats her big sister Venus 7-6 (3), 6-2 for her third Wimbledon title and 11th Grand Slam championship. In the fourth all-Williams final at Wimbledon, Serena comes out on top for the third time. Later, Venus and Serena win their fourth women’s doubles title at Wimbledon and ninth Grand Slam doubles title as a pair.

2010 — Rafael Nadal beats Tomas Berdych in straight sets, 6-3, 7-5, 6-4, to win his second Wimbledon title and eighth Grand Slam championship.

2011 — Tyler Farrar becomes the first American to win a July 4 Tour de France stage, dominating a sprint finish in the third leg as teammate Thor Hushovd of Norway kept the yellow jersey.

2014 — Germany becomes the first country to reach the semifinals for a fourth straight World Cup by beating France 1-0 in a quarterfinal match settled by a first-half header from Mats Hummels.

2015 — Copa América Final, Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos, Santiago: Chile defeats Argentina, 4-1 penalties to win their first title; 0-0 after extra time.

2015 — Super Rugby Final, Westpac Stadium, Wellington: Otago Highlanders beat Wellington Hurricanes 21-14 for their first title.

THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY

1905 — The Philadelphia Athletics scored two runs in the 20th inning, giving Rube Waddell a 4-2 victory over Cy Young of the Boston Red Sox. Both pitchers went the distance.

1908 — George Wiltse of the New York Giants pitched a 10-inning, 1-0 no-hitter against the Philadelphia Phillies.

1912 — George Mullin of the Detroit Tigers celebrated his 32nd birthday by pitching a no-hitter over the St. Louis Browns.

1925 — Two of the great left-handers of their time, Herb Pennock of the Yankees and Lefty Grove of the Athletics, hooked up in a pitcher’s duel that New York won 1-0 in 15 innings. Pennock gave up four hits and walked none.

1939 — Jim Tabor of the Boston Red Sox hit three home runs, including two grand slams, in an 18-12 triumph over the Philadelphia Athletics in the second game of a doubleheader.

1945 — Augie Bergamo drove in eight runs to lead the St. Louis Cardinals to 19-2 rout of the New York Giants in the second game of a doubleheader. Bergamo, batting leadoff, went 5 for 6 with two home runs and four runs scored.

1976 — The Phillies’ Tim McCarver lost a grand slam when he passed Garry Maddox on the base paths. The Phillies still beat the Pirates 10-5 at Pittsburgh.

1983 — Dave Righetti of the New York Yankees pitched a 4-0 no-hitter against the Boston Red Sox at Yankee Stadium.

1984 — Phil Niekro of the New York Yankees struck out five Texas Rangers to become the ninth pitcher with 3,000 strikeouts. No. 3,000 was Larry Parrish.

1985 — The New York Mets beat the Braves 16-13 in 19 innings at Atlanta. The game went until just before 4 a.m. on July 5, and was followed by a fireworks display for the 10,000 still left in the stands. Keith Hernandez of the Mets hit for the cycle in 10 at-bats. The score was tied 8-8 after innings. Both teams scored two runs apiece in the 13th. The Mets scored a run in the 18th to take an 11-10 lead, but Braves pitcher Rick Camp tied the score with a homer. Camp then gave up five runs in the top the 19th. Ron Darling, the seventh Mets pitcher, closed the game giving up two runs.

2006 — Victor Martinez went 5-for-6 and Jhonny Peralta and Travis Hafner each hit two of Cleveland’s six home runs, powering the Indians to a 19-1 rout of New York. The win was Cleveland’s largest at home in more than 56 years, since a 21-2 victory over the Philadelphia Athletics on June 18, 1950.

2006 — Jose Contreras tossed 6 2-3 scoreless innings to win his 17th straight decision and lead the White Sox to a 13-0 victory over Baltimore.

2008 — The Cardinals drop a 2-1 decision to the Cubs but Albert Pujols socks his 300th career home run. At 28 years, 170 days old, he becomes the fifth youngest player to hit 300, one day ahead of Mel Ott. The younger players were Alex Rodriguez, Jimmie Foxx, Ken Griffey Jr. and Andruw Jones.

2008 — Colorado homered six times to rally from a nine-run deficit for the biggest comeback in franchise history and an 18-17 victory over Florida. Chris Iannetta singled home the winning run off Kevin Gregg in the ninth inning. The Rockies and Marlins combined for 35 runs and 43 hits, 21 of them for extra bases with eight home runs.

2010 — The rosters for the 2010 All-Star Game, to be played at Angel Stadium, are announced today. The top vote getters are Joe Mauer in the American League and Albert Pujols in the National League. Among the first-time All-Stars is 40-year-old reliever Arthur Rhodes of the Reds; he sports a sparkling 1.09 ERA in his 19th big league season.

2012 — Boston Red Sox slugger David Ortiz hit his 400th career home run, a leadoff drive to right in the fourth inning against Oakland’s A.J. Griffin.

2014 — Brian Roberts hit three doubles and a triple, leading the New York Yankees to a 6-5 win over Minnesota.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

The Dodgers will be without Max Muncy for approximately six weeks after the third baseman was placed on the injured list Thursday with what the team is calling a bone bruise in his left knee. Muncy was injured in the sixth inning of Wednesday’s walk-off win over the Chicago White Sox when Chicago’s Michael Taylor slid headfirst into third on an unsuccessful attempt to steal third base.

The Dodgers now have 13 players on the injured list.

Taylor’s helmet hit Muncy’s knee, bending it sideways and flipping the infielder to the ground. The collision was so gruesome, SportsNet LA, which was broadcasting the game, did not show replays. Muncy writhed on the ground in obvious pain before being helped to the clubhouse.

Muncy, who entered the Dodger clubhouse Thursday afternoon wearing a blue elastic support bandage on his left leg, said he originally feared the worst, but an MRI found no structural damage.

“It was tough news, but it was also great news,” he said. “I still get to play baseball this year instead of coming back next year around April. So it was kind of best-case scenario.”

Muncy, who said his knee felt stiff but not painful, was scheduled to meet the Dodger doctors later Thursday but said he intended to embark on an aggressive rehabilitation process.

“Everybody’s body is different,” he said. “You know, some guys heal extremely fast, some guys heal extremely slow. Traditionally, I’ve always healed fairly fast.”

Taylor also left the game with a shoulder contusion. The White Sox have listed his status as day to day.

Muncy’s place on the roster was taken by outfielder Esteury Ruiz, who was acquired on April 2 from the Athletics in exchange for minor league right-handed pitcher Carlos Duran. Ruiz appeared in 66 games for triple-A Oklahoma City, batting .292 with eight homers, 37 RBIs and 38 stolen bases.

Muncy’s absence will leave a big hole in the Dodgers’ lineup. He led the team with a .333 average and 24 RBIs in June, when he matched Shohei Ohtani for the lead in home runs with seven. He is hitting .250/.375/.457 for the season and is third on the team with 55 RBIs.

“He’s huge,” pitcher Clayton Kershaw, who was on the mound when the injury happened, said of Muncy. “I don’t really know why he stole there. It just seemed unnecessary. We’re all holding our breath that Munc is going to be OK.

“He’s obviously a huge part of our team, especially the last two months.”

Michael Taylor’s helmet collided with Max Muncy’s left knee on his unsuccessful attempt to steal third base, injuring Muncy in the process.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Miguel Rojas, who hasn’t played since injuring his left hand on an attempted steal Sunday, started at third base Thursday. Kiké Hernández, who took Muncy’s place Wednesday, is also likely to see some time at third in Muncy’s absence.

Hernández is hitting .204/2.70/.383 while Rojas, primarily a second baseman, is batting .250/.289/.380.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — The glasses might’ve come first. But it was a light bulb moment with the swing that made the most profound change.

Just over a month into the season this year, veteran Dodgers slugger Max Muncy was in a desperate search for answers.

Through the team’s first 30 games, his batting average started with a one and his home run total was stuck on zero. His role as the team’s starting third baseman was being called into question, fueling early-season speculation that the team would need to replace him before the trade deadline. He was absorbing daily criticism from fans, while trying not to succumb to internal self-flagellation.

The 10-year veteran had gone through cold starts before. But nothing quite so frustrating as this.

“It’s a privilege to play under this pressure, and it’s something I’ve always thrived on, but it doesn’t mean it’s been easy,” Muncy said on the last day of April. “It’s been a rough month.”

Starting that afternoon, however, Muncy made one big change. Upon learning he had astigmatism in his right eye, he began wearing glasses at the plate to balance out his vision. In his first game using them, he hit his first home run of the year.

Then, nine days later, came the real breakthrough.

After spending the entirety of the winter tinkering with his swing, and most of the opening month trying to calibrate his mechanics, everything suddenly synced up during a May 9 at-bat in Arizona.

Muncy took a quick hack at a high fastball from Diamondbacks reliever Kevin Ginkel. He lined a ninth-inning, game-tying single through the right side of the infield in the Dodgers’ eventual win at Chase Field. And he realized that, finally, he’d found a feeling in the batter’s box he’d been chasing the last several years.

A demarcation point had just been established.

And Muncy’s season has been transformed ever since.

“The funny thing about baseball is, sometimes, it just takes one swing, one play, one pitch to lock someone in,” he said. “And ever since that day, I’ve had that feeling in the back of my head. Like, ‘That’s what it’s supposed to feel like.’”

In 36 games before then, Muncy was hitting .188 with only one home run, eight RBIs and 43 strikeouts; his early days with the glasses not even leading to an immediate turnaround.

But since May 9, he has been one of the best hitters in baseball, and on one of the most prolific stretches of his entire career. Over his last 43 games, Muncy’s batting average is .313, a personal best over any span that long in the majors. He has 12 home runs and a whopping 47 RBIs, a major-league-leading total in that stretch. According to Fangraphs’ all-encompassing wRC+ statistic, only Ronald Acuña Jr., Cal Raleigh, Aaron Judge and Ketel Marte have been more productive at the plate.

And, most important, he has re-established himself as a central cog in the Dodgers’ lineup.

“He’s one of our most trusted hitters,” manager Dave Roberts said this past weekend. “I haven’t always been able to say that.”

Being a better, more trusted hitter has been a work in progress for Muncy ever since the devastating elbow injury he suffered at the end of 2021.

In Muncy’s prime years with the Dodgers from 2018-2021, he not only blossomed as one of the best sluggers in baseball by belting 118 home runs over a four-year stretch, but did so while posting a .246 batting average and .371 on-base-percentage; solid marks for a power threat occupying a key role in the middle of the Dodgers’ order.

At the core of that all-around approach was an ability to handle pitches to all parts of the plate — none more important than elevated fastballs at the top of the strike zone.

Dodgers first baseman Max Muncy writhes in pain after colliding with the Milwaukee Brewers’ Jace Peterson during the final regular-season game in 2021.

(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)

“When I’m going well, I’m a really good high-fastball hitter,” Muncy said earlier this year.

“When Max is covering that pitch,” added hitting coach Aaron Bates, “it allows him to do so many other things as a hitter.”

Coming off his elbow injury, however, getting to high heat became a weakness in Muncy’s game. For much of the next two years, when he still hit for power but batted only a combined .204, he felt “it was really hard to replicate” his old swing. Last year, he made some incremental progress — when he batted .232 — but was stalled by an oblique strain that cost him the middle three months of the season.

Thus, this winter, Muncy set his mind to rediscovering his old mechanics.

“It really wasn’t that big of a change,” he said. “It was just going back to what I did when I first got here from 2018 to 2021. The same philosophy I had all those years.”

The work started in January, when Bates and fellow Dodgers hitting coach Robert Van Scoyoc visited Muncy at his home in Texas and crafted a simple focus for the 34-year-old’s offseason work: Purposely practice hitting grounders and line drives on a lower trajectory, in hopes it would train his swing to stay on top of the ball even on pitches up in the zone.

“You know he’s naturally going to have loft in his swing to elevate the baseball easily,” Bates said. “So that was a focus point for him, making sure he can hit a hard line drive on a pitch up in the zone, not necessarily trying to elevate it more than he needs to.”

A sound theory, with some disastrous early results.

At the start of the year, Muncy’s new swing thought bred other unexpected bad habits. In his effort to stay on top of the ball, he was opening up his backside and letting his front shoulder drift too far forward at the start of his move. As a result, Muncy had trouble squaring the ball and keeping his bat level through the strike zone. It led to not only a lack of power, but a diminished ability to distinguish the kind of pitches being thrown — evidenced by a nearly 32% strikeout rate in April that was seventh-highest among MLB hitters.

“That’s where it’s tough playing the sport,” Muncy said. “Because you can’t chase results immediately, even though you kind of have to. You have to chase the process in the long run.”

And even as external pressure over his dwindling production mounted, Muncy said the club’s coaches and front office assured him he’d have time to keep working through it.

“It’s easier to stick with something long-term when that’s the case,” Muncy said. “And for me, that’s been my entire career. Trust the process, not the result.”

During late April, Muncy’s process included a visit to the same eye doctor who had diagnosed Kiké Hernández with eye astigmatism last year; a discovery that prompted Hernández to start wearing glasses, and keyed a sudden offensive turnaround in the second half of the season.

Turned out, Muncy had a similar problem. Though his vision was 20/12, astigmatism in his right eye had made him left-eye dominant, a subtle but limiting dynamic for a left-handed hitter.

Thus, on the last day of the month, Muncy also started wearing prescription-lensed glasses, and christened the new eyewear with a home run in his first game using them.

“It’s not necessarily something that I need,” Muncy said. “But just any chance at all it evens out both eyes for me, I’ve been taking it.”

Yet, in his first week using them, he still went just six-for-28 with nine strikeouts and only five walks. He was still grinding through his adjustments to his mechanics. He was still waiting for one swing where everything would feel synced up.

When Muncy came to the plate in that May 9 game against the Diamondbacks to face Ginkel, he surveyed the situation, put his swing mechanics out of his head, and tried to focus on only one objective.

“It was guy on second, no outs,” Muncy recalled, “so I was trying to give up the at-bat, get the ball on the ground to the right side of second base, and move the runner from second to third.”

Throughout his career, this is when Muncy is at his best. When his mind isn’t clouded by the pressure to produce, or the particulars of his swing. When he’s “going out there and just trying to play the situation,” he explained. “Like, ‘What is my at-bat calling for in this moment?’”

And on that day in Arizona, with the Dodgers trailing by one run in the ninth, that simplified mindset gave Muncy his moment of long-awaited clarity.

Ginkel threw a 95 mph fastball up near Muncy’s chest. The slugger hit it with the kind of quick, level swing he’d spent all winter attempting to craft.

As the ball rocketed through the right side of the infield for a game-tying single, Muncy felt a lightbulb go off as he pulled into first base.

Fans cheer as the Dodgers’ Max Muncy rounds the bases after hitting a grand slam on June 22 against the Washington Nationals.

(Luke Johnson/Los Angeles Times)

“I was so short and direct to it, it just triggered something in my head,” Muncy said. “It kind of took all the stuff I’d been working on, even going back to the winter, and was like, ‘OK, this is how I’m trying to get it to feel.’”

Muncy hasn’t looked back ever since.

By being able to cover the top of the strike zone, he hasn’t had to cheat on fastballs or hunt on tougher pitches to hit around his knees. When coupled with the glasses that have helped him better differentiate velocity from spin, he’s been able to be selective and wait out mistakes.

“There’s been spells in his career where it was the three [true] outcomes and that was it,” Roberts said, long a believer in Muncy’s ability to be a more potent hit collector, rather than just a high-powered, high-strikeout slugging presence. “Now, I think he’s a complete hitter. So you see the runs batted in, the homers, the quality of at-bats all tick up.”

During this torrid two-month stretch, highlights have come in bunches for Muncy. He’s had two seven-RBI games and another with six. He hit a game-tying home run in the ninth inning against the New York Mets on June 3. He had two grand slams in the span of three games last week.

He has gone from the subject of trade deadline rumors to a fan-voting finalist to make the All-Star Game.

He knows it’s still only been two months; that, in a sport as fickle as baseball, the feeling he has discovered at the plate can just as quickly disappear again.

But for the first time in years, he’s healthy, in sync and possessing total clarity — in both vision and mind — every time he steps to the dish.

“This is definitely more of what I was envisioning,” Muncy said this weekend, reflecting back on the early-season struggles and laborious swing work over the winter that preceded his two-month tear.

“Now, I have the confidence to know I can accomplish pretty much anything I want to do for that situation. Whereas, before, you don’t always have that.”

DENVER — The rain came out of nowhere. So too, it seemed, did Max Muncy’s infield pop-up.

In the top of the sixth inning at Coors Field on Tuesday night, Muncy was at the plate with two out and two runners aboard when a sudden rainstorm opened up from overcast skies. Within moments, sheets of rain were pouring down. But as fans scattered for cover, umpires let the at-bat roll on.

“My glasses were pretty full of water at that point,” Muncy said. “Was just kind of praying to put the ball in play.”

In a full count, Muncy did, launching a sky-high pop-up down the first base line.

In clear conditions, it would have been a routine catch to end the inning.

But this time, neither Rockies first baseman Michael Toglia nor second baseman Thairo Estrada could locate the blur of leather as it came hurtling back to earth.

“When rain is falling that thick,” Muncy said, “it’s really hard to look up and find a baseball.”

Indeed, as Muncy pulled into first base, and teammates Shohei Ohtani and Dalton Rushing came trotting across the plate, Toglia looked toward Estrada, who initially appeared to be calling for the ball. But then, Estrada looked back at Toglia in confusion, neither appearing certain exactly where the pop-up went. At the last second, both instead ducked for cover, turtling with their arms around their heads. The ball landed between them, seemingly startling Toglia after dropping a few feet to his right.

In the scorebook, the play went down as a two-run single, representing the first runs in a game the Dodgers went on to win 8-1 — with the help of a victory-sealing grand slam from Muncy in the top of the seventh.

But in reality, it was another example of the Rockies’ helplessness in this historically hapless season — and a comical stroke of luck the Dodgers were more than happy to take.

“At first, I was just happy I made contact,” Muncy said. “Then you’re upset you pop it up. Then you see them kind of scrambling around and you start getting a little excited. Then it drops and obviously you’re happy about it.”

Entering this week’s trip to Colorado, manager Dave Roberts emphasized the importance of stacking wins against a Rockies team on pace to set an MLB record for losses in a season. He noted how it was part of a softer overall stretch in the team’s schedule, with the Dodgers (50-31) in a run of 12 straight games against teams with losing records.

“You need to beat the teams you’re supposed to beat,” Roberts said. “That’s just the way it is.”

In both games in Denver this week, the Rockies (18-62) have aided in that cause. On Monday, Toglia misplayed three balls in a six-run fourth-inning rally for the Dodgers that catapulted them to a series-opening win.

Tuesday’s blunder, however, was even more of an egregious eyesore; even if Roberts and Muncy both described it as a tricky play.

“I give Max a lot of credit for just staying in the at-bat, fighting to put the ball in play, to allow for something like that to happen,” Roberts said. “It certainly changed the momentum … With no runs [right there], it might have been a different ballgame.”

The next time Muncy came to the plate, he added to his RBI total in a more traditional way.

With the bases loaded and two out in the seventh, the scorching hot slugger turned on a hanging 0-and-2 slider and launched his second grand slam in the last three games way out to right field.

It gave Muncy six RBIs on the night, and a staggering 42 runs driven in over his last 37 games.

“Not everyone is swinging the bat well,” Roberts said, a group that most notably includes Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman, who went a combined 0-for-nine. “So to have that production from Max in the middle of the lineup has been paramount.”

“He’s got a lot of confidence right now,” Roberts added.

The offensive output — which continued with a towering home run from Michael Conforto in the eighth — marked one of the few times this year the Dodgers provided Yoshinobu Yamamoto with ample run support. On Wednesday alone, they matched the eight total runs they had scored in his previous four starts this month.

It proved to be plenty on a night the right-hander spun a much-needed gem, bouncing back from the 5.23 ERA he had in June entering the night with five scoreless innings that included one hit, one walk and six strikeouts.

Even at mile-high altitude, his ability to locate curveballs and splitters was particularly sharp, helping him rack up 39 strikes out of 56 pitches.

“I started feeling good last week, and going into today’s game,” Yamamoto said. “And then today I was attacking with first-pitch strikes pretty good. I think that was [the biggest difference].”

The only thing that stopped Yamamoto was the rain, forcing him to make an early exit after a one-hour, 27-minute delay that began immediately after Muncy’s pop-up. But by that point, the sudden showers had already done enough, helping the Dodgers take a lead they wouldn’t relinquish on a routine pop-up the Rockies’ infield lost sight of.

Said Muncy, with a laugh: “Hit it to the right spot, I guess.”

From Jack Harris: The rain came out of nowhere. So too, it seemed, did Max Muncy’s infield pop-up.

In the top of the sixth inning at Coors Field on Tuesday night, Muncy was at the plate with two out and two runners aboard when a sudden rainstorm opened up from overcast skies. Within moments, sheets of rain were pouring down. But as fans scattered for cover, umpires let the at-bat roll on.

“My glasses were pretty full of water at that point,” Muncy said. “Was just kind of praying to put the ball in play.”

In a full count, Muncy did, launching a sky-high pop-up down the first base line.

In clear conditions, it would have been a routine catch to end the inning.

But this time, neither Rockies first baseman Michael Toglia nor second baseman Thairo Estrada could locate the blur of leather as it came hurtling back to earth.

“When rain is falling that thick,” Muncy said, “it’s really hard to look up and find a baseball.”

In the scorebook, the play went down as a two-run single, representing the first runs in a game the Dodgers went on to win 8-1 — with the help of a victory-sealing grand slam from Muncy in the top of the seventh.

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Dodgers box score

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ANGELS

Yusei Kikuchi struck out a season-high 12 in seven innings, Jo Adell and Travis d’Arnaud hit solo homers and RBI singles, and the Angels beat the Boston Red Sox 5-2 Wednesday to complete a three-game sweep.

Kikuchi (3-6) gave up two hits, walked one and threw 31 pitches in a shaky first inning when the Red Sox took advantage of shortstop Scott Kingery’s fielding error and scored two unearned runs on Trevor Story’s two-out single with the bases loaded.

The 34-year-old Japanese left-hander recovered and limited Boston to one hit with no walks over the next six innings. Kikuchi struck out the side in the second and fifth innings and retired the Red Sox in order in the fourth, sixth and seventh innings.

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Angels box score

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MLB standings

LAKERS

Dodgers controlling owner Mark Walter and Lakers president and controlling owner Jeanie Buss broke their silence Wednesday on a blockbuster deal that shocked many in and outside of Los Angeles.

A news release issued by Walter’s team confirmed his acquisition of majority ownership stake of the Lakers, with the transaction expected to close in the third or fourth quarter of this year.

During the sale talks, the valuation of the Lakers was placed at $10 billion, a record for a professional sports team, people with knowledge of the deal not authorized to discuss it publicly told The Times. ESPN reported it is possible the value could swell to $12 billion before the transaction is complete.

“The Buss family is deeply honored to have looked after this incredible organization for almost half a century,” Jeanie Buss said in the statement. “From the day our father purchased the Lakers, we have been determined to deliver what the City of Los Angeles deserves and demands: a team that is committed to winning — relentlessly — and to doing so with passion and with style.”

I have gotten to know Mark very well over time and been delighted to learn how he shares those same values. For the last four years, Mark has been an excellent partner to us, and we are thrilled to keep working with him to continue the Lakers’ extraordinary legacy.”

CLIPPERS

From Broderick Turner: Some three hours before the Clippers used the 30th and final pick in the first round of the NBA draft to select Penn State’s Yanic Konan Niederhauser, the two top choices went as predicted and then the rest of the order was all over the place Wednesday.

In Konan Niederhauser, the Clippers got a 7-foot center and that was one of the positions they needed help to back up starter Ivica Zubac.

“We always go into the draft board looking for the best available player, and it also coincides this time with a need,” said Lawrence Frank, the Clippers president of basketball operations. “We’ve kind of looked over the years for a center that complements Zu, that does something different than Zu does. Sometimes it’s resulted with guys being undersized where we haven’t been able to maximize it. Yanic has legit positional size and I think the rim-rolling threat, combined with what Zu’s play is, I think in due time will be really, really good.”

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2025 NBA draft: Pick-by-pick coverage and analysis

LAFC

LAFC closed out the Club World Cup by tying Flamengo 1-1 at Inter & Co Stadium on Tuesday night.

Orlando has a large Brazilian community accustomed to cheering on former Orlando City star Kaká and current Orlando Pride star Marta. As a result, Brazilian club Flamengo enjoyed a strong push from the crowd against LAFC.

Flamengo’s Wallace Yan came off the bench and scored the game’s equalizer in the 86th minute. He received a pass from Jorginho, ran at full speed and scored with a right-footed shot from the penalty spot.

The 20-year-old striker’s goal gave Flamengo a draw. The team will face German giants Bayern Munich in the round of 16. That match will be played on Sunday in Miami.

“I couldn’t be prouder of the guys,” LAFC coach Steve Cherundolo said. “I’m really happy with their effort. … It’s very difficult against a quality side like Flamengo, but I think we did well with the opportunities we had.”

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GALAXY

Djordje Mihailovic and Calvin Harris scored four-minutes apart in the first half and the Colorado Rapids beat the Galaxy 2-0 on Wednesday night in a game delayed two hours due to weather.

Colorado (7-8-4) snapped a three-game losing streak.

The Galaxy (1-13-5) lost to the Rapids for the first time since May 6, 2023.

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Galaxy summary

MLS standings

THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY

1910 — For the second consecutive year, Hazel Hotchkiss wins the singles, doubles and mixed doubles titles at the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championships. Hotchkiss beats Louise Hammond 6-4, 6-2 for the singles title.

1925 — Jim Barnes wins the British Open with a one-stroke win over Ted Ray and Archie Compston at Prestwick Golf Club in South Ayrshire, Scotland.

1959 — Ingemar Johansson knocks out Floyd Patterson in the third round at Yankee Stadium to win the world heavyweight title.

1976 — Japanese pro wrestler Antonio Inoki fights American boxer Muhammad Ali, at the Nippon Budokan in Tokyo, Japan.

1990 — Jennifer Capriati, 14, defeats Helen Kelesi 6-3, 6-1 in the first round to become the youngest winner of a match in Wimbledon history.

1991 — NBA Draft: UNLV power forward Larry Johnson first pick by Charlotte Hornets.

1992 — UEFA European Championship Final, Ullevi, Gothenburg, Sweden: In a huge upset Denmark beats Germany, 2-0.

1993 — NHL Draft: Victoriaville Tigres (QMJHL) center Alexandre Daigle first pick by Ottawa Senators.

1995 — The U.S. Supreme Court upholds a random drug-testing program in Vernonia, Ore. The 6-to-3 decision allows public high school officials to require student-athletes to submit to random urinalysis as a condition of being allowed to play interscholastic sports.

1996 — NBA Draft: Georgetown guard Allen Iverson first pick by Philadelphia 76ers.

1998 — Jamaica becomes the first Caribbean nation to win a World Cup soccer match since Cuba beat Romania in 1938. Theodore Whitmore scores in the 40th and 54th minutes as the Jamaicans beat Japan 2-1.

1999 — NHL Draft: Long Beach Ice Dogs (IHL) center Patrik Stefan first pick by Atlanta Thrashers.

2002 — In one of the most extraordinary days at the All England Club, seven-time champion Pete Sampras, 1992 winner Andre Agassi and No. 2-seeded Marat Safin all lose — throwing the Wimbledon tournament wide open. For the first time in the Open era, five of the top-eight seeded men’s players are eliminated before the third round.

2002 — NBA Draft: Shanghai Sharks (China) center Yao Ming first pick by Houston Rockets.

2003 — NBA Draft: St. Vincent–St. Mary HS (Akron, Ohio) small forward LeBron James first pick by Cleveland Cavaliers.

2005 — Justin Gatlin cements his status as America’s fastest human by winning the 200 meters, becoming the first man in 20 years to sweep the sprints at the U.S. track and field championships. A day after winning the 100, Gatlin wins the 200 in 20.04 seconds. The last man to win both races at the U.S. meet was Kirk Baptiste in 1985.

2008 — Two stunning second-round upsets happen at Wimbledon as former champion Maria Sharapova and two-time runner-up Andy Roddick are ousted.

2008 — NBA Draft: Memphis point guard Derrick Rose first pick by Chicago Bulls.

2011 — Top-ranked Yani Tseng wins the LPGA Championship by 10 strokes and, at 22, becomes the youngest player to win four LPGA Tour majors.

2012 — Major college football finally gets a playoff. A committee of university presidents approve the BCS commissioners’ plan for a four-team playoff to start in the 2014 season.

2013 — Seven-time champion Roger Federer is stunned by 116th-ranked Sergiy Stakhovsky in the second round of Wimbledon, his earliest loss in a Grand Slam tournament in 10 years.

2014 — The United States reaches the knockout stage of consecutive World Cups for the first time. Germany beat the U.S. 1-0 to win Group G, but the Americans held onto second place when Portugal defeats Ghana 2-1 in a game played simultaneously.

2014 — NBA Draft: Kansas small forward Andrew Wiggins first pick by Cleveland Cavaliers.

2015 — NHL Draft: Erie Otters (OHL) center Connor McDavid #1 pick by the Edmonton Oilers.

2017 — Helmsman Peter Burling and Emirates Team New Zealand wins the America’s Cup with a resounding romp against software tycoon Larry Ellison’s two-time defending champion Oracle Team USA. They win Race 9 to clinch the 35th America’s Cup match at 7-1. Burling, at 26, is the youngest helmsman to win sailing’s greatest prize in a competition that dates to 1851.

2021 — Tour de France: The largest pile up in Tour history is caused by a spectator with a sign during Stage 1. The spectator is apprehended and arrested.

2012 — Stanley Cup Final, Amalie Arena, Tampa, FL: Colorado Avalanche beats two-time defending champions Tampa Bay Lightning, 2-1 for a 4-2 series win; Avs 3rd championship in franchise history.

THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY

1916 — The Cleveland Indians wore numbers on their sleeves in a game against the Chicago White Sox. It marked the first time players were identified by numbers corresponding to the scorecard.

1924 — New York right-hander Virgil Barnes faced his older sibling, Jesse, marking the first time brothers started against one another in major league history. Jesse got the loss when the Giants beat the Boston Braves 11-7.

1938 — Lonny Frey of the Cincinnati Reds had eight hits in a doubleheader split with the Philadelphia Phillies. Frey had three hits in a 10-3 opening-game loss and collected five in the nightcap, which the Reds won 8-5.

1944 — In an effort to raise funds for war bonds, the New York Giants, Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Yankees played each other in a six-inning game at the Polo Grounds. More than 50,000 fans turned out. Each team played successive innings against the other two teams then would sit out an inning. The final score was Dodgers 5, Yankees 1, Giants 0.

1962 — Earl Wilson of the Boston Red Sox pitched a 2-0 no-hitter against the Angels at Fenway Park. Wilson, the Red Sox’s first Black pitcher, also homered in the game.

1968 — St. Louis’ Bob Gibson pitched his fifth consecutive shutout as he blanked Pittsburgh, 3-0, in the first game of a doubleheader at Busch Stadium.

1970 — Frank Robinson hit two grand slams to power the Baltimore Orioles to a 12-2 victory over the Washington Senators.

1976 — Shortstop Toby Harrah played an entire doubleheader for the Texas Rangers without handling a batted ball by the Chicago White Sox.

1983 — New York’s Rusty Staub tied a season record with his eighth consecutive pinch hit. Staub equaled the 1958 mark established by Dave Philley of the Phillies when he singled in the ninth inning off reliever Ron Reed in the Mets’ 8-4 loss to Philadelphia at Shea Stadium.

2000 — Minor league sensation Alex Cabrera hit a two-run homer in his first major league at-bat for Arizona as the Diamondbacks beat the Houston Astros 6-1.

2003 — Edgar Martinez, who already holds the Mariners’ all-time records for games played, at-bats, hits, doubles, total bases, extra-base hits, walks and runs scored, passes Ken Griffey Jr.’s mark for team career RBIs. His two-run homer in the Mariners’ 10 – 6 victory over the Angels gives the All-Star designated hitter 1,153 RBIs, one more than Junior.

2006 — Oregon State beats North Carolina 3-2 for its first College World Series title.

2015 — Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg resigns in his third season with his team in last place.

2019 — Vanderbilt University defeats Michigan 8-2 to win the College World Series.

2023 — Louisiana State University wins the 2023 College World Series with an 18-4 win over the University of Florida in the final game, one day after losing 24-4 to the Gators. Paul Skenes is named the recipient of the College World Series Most Outstanding Player award. It is the Tigers’ seventh title overall, and first since 2009.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

From Jack Harris: Upstaging Shohei Ohtani, especially on a day he pitches, is no easy feat.

But at Dodger Stadium on Sunday afternoon, teammate Max Muncy did it twice — hitting two home runs and matching a career high with seven RBIs to lift the Dodgers to a 13-7 defeat of the Washington Nationals, and make Ohtani more of the sideshow in his second pitching start of the season.

Despite two strikeouts over a scoreless first inning from Ohtani to begin the day, Dodger Stadium had sat in relative silence for the next five innings.

Ben Casparius, who replaced the still workload-restricted Ohtani on the mound in the second, gave up a three-run home run in the third, when a flyball deflected off Hyeseong Kim’s glove at the wall before hitting a fan reaching over the barrier.

Michael Soroka, the former All-Star turned inconsistent journeyman, held the Dodgers hitless into the fifth, racking up a career-high 10 strikeouts while protecting the 3-0 lead.

In the bottom of the sixth, however, an opportunity for the Dodgers finally arose.

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Dodgers box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

ANGELS

Mauricio Dubón homered twice and Josh Hader stayed perfect in 19 save chances this season by getting Mike Trout to line out to center field with a runner on second as the Houston Astros held off the Angels 8-7 in the rubber game of their series Sunday.

Dubón’s second career multihomer game began with a leadoff shot against starter Kyle Hendricks in the fifth inning for the Astros’ first run. Dubón added a two-run drive off Hunter Strickland for a 6-5 lead in the sixth.

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Angels box score

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MLB standings

UCLA BASKETBALL

From Ben Bolch: Ben Howland planned it like this. Of course he did.

This was a coach so engrossed in details that he would grumble about the room temperature at news conferences and call a timeout when his team was in the middle of a big run just so that he could set up his defense.

So it should come as no surprise that before his 10-year run as UCLA’s basketball coach ended in 2013, Howland had schemed for his dream retirement.

In 2011, he bought a four-bedroom, ranch-style house in his native Santa Barbara close to so many old friends and family, knowing the full remodel job would take years. The Howlands moved in three years ago, after the coach’s final season at Mississippi State.

The home is now his departure point for frequent trips to see another old friend — the program he guided to back-to-back-to-back Final Fours from 2006-08. Howland likes to leave many hours before tipoff, arranging his schedule so that he can visit friends or fit in a doctor’s appointment.

Perhaps nobody at the school can put a smile on his face like the current basketball coach. Mick Cronin and Howland have known one another since the former helped run Sonny Vaccaro’s ABCD Camp in the 1990s, going on to forge a friendship rooted in mutual respect.

There’s so many similarities between the coaches, from their demanding practices to their relentless defenses to their wry senses of humor to their lack of hair to their admiration for things that are difficult but worthwhile.

“Coaching’s changed and I can still appreciate Mick because he comes from the old school and what he’s doing is no different than what [Bob] Huggins and [Rick] Pitino did as he’s working for them and watching these guys, who are both Hall of Famers, two of the greatest coaches ever,” Howland said.

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RAMS

From Gary Klein: The Rams returned to Southern California nearly a decade ago intent on capturing the heart of NFL fans in Los Angeles.

Now, with two Super Bowl appearances, one championship and a still glistening-like SoFi Stadium, they have their eyes set on a larger territory: the world.

The Rams’ trip to Maui last week for a minicamp was their latest foray into building a global brand.

“In the journey to growing your brand globally, there’s never an ‘Aha, this is a perfect moment,’” Rams president Kevin Demoff said as he stood on the field at War Memorial Stadium after a workout attended by several thousand fans. “But I think this is a great step.”

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GOLF

Minjee Lee closed with a two-over 74 but never gave up the lead Sunday in the final round of the Women’s PGA Championship to win her third major title.

While Lee had three bogeys in a four-hole stretch on the front nine, she had started the day with a four-stroke lead over Jeeno Thitikul. And the world’s No. 2-ranked player, also in that final group, bogeyed both par fives that are among the first three holes on Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco.

Lee, ranked 24th, finished at four-under 284, three strokes ahead of Auston Kim and Chanettee Wannasaen, the only other players under par.

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Women’s PGA championship leaderboard

NBA PLAYOFFS RESULTS

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander walked off the court for the final time this season, collapsed into the arms of coach Mark Daigneault and finally smiled.

It was over.

The climb is complete. The rebuild is done. The Oklahoma City Thunder are champions.

The best team all season was the best team at the end, bringing the NBA title to Oklahoma City for the first time. Gilgeous-Alexander finished off his MVP season with 29 points and 12 assists, and the Thunder beat the Indiana Pacers — who lost Tyrese Haliburton to a serious leg injury in the opening minutes — 103-91 in Game 7 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night.

“It doesn’t feel real,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, the Finals MVP. “So many hours. So many moments. So many emotions. So many nights of disbelief. So many nights of belief. It’s crazy to know that we’re all here, but this group worked for it. This group put in the hours and we deserve this.”

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Kevin Durant traded from the Suns to the Rockets in a blockbuster deal

NBA FINALS

Oklahoma City vs. Indiana
Indiana 111, at Oklahoma City 110 (box score, story)
at Oklahoma City 123, Indiana 107 (box score, story)
at Indiana 116, Oklahoma City 107 (box score, story)
Oklahoma City 111, at Indiana 104 (box score, story)
at Oklahoma City 120, Indiana 109 (box score, story)
at Indiana 108, Oklahoma City 91 (box score, story)
at Oklahoma City 103, Indiana 91 (box score, story)

THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY

1917 — Molla Bjurstedt win the women’s U.S. Lawn Tennis Association title for the third straight year with a 4-6, 6-0, 6-2 victory over Marion Vanderhoef.

1922 — Walter Hagen becomes the first native-born American to win the British Open. Hagen shoots a 300 to beat Jim Barness and George Duncan by one stroke at Royal St. George’s Golf Club.

1939 — Former football great Bronko Nagurski beats Lou Thesz to win the National Wrestling Association World Heavyweight title in at the Coliseum in Houston. Thesz was largely considered the greatest wrestler of all time. Houston Mayor Holcombe reportedly presents Bronko with a $10,000 diamond studded belt.

1963 — Julius Boros wins a three-way playoff to take the U.S. Open. Boros beats Jacky Cupit by three strokes and Arnold Palmer by six.

1969 — Joe Frazier TKOs Jerry Quarry in 8 for heavyweight boxing title.

1972 — President Nixon signs the Higher Education Act of 1972. Title IX of this congressional act bars sex bias in athletics and other activities at colleges receiving federal assistance.

1974 — Sandra Haynie wins the LPGA championship by two strokes over JoAnne Carner.

1980 — West Germany wins European soccer title (2-1 against Belgium).

1985 — Laffit Pincay Jr. rides Greinton to a 1 3/4-length victory over Precisionist in the Hollywood Gold Cup, to join Willie Shoemaker as the only jockeys in history to surpass $100 million in purse earnings.

1988 — Charlotte Hornets & Miami Heat begin their NBA expansion draft.

1991 — A Mazda becomes the first Japanese car to win the Le Mans 24 hours race, overtaking a Mercedes in the last three hours. Bertrand Gachot of Belgium, Johnny Herbert of Britain and Volker Weidler of Germany are the winning drivers of the rotary-powered Mazda.

1996 — Michael Johnson breaks the world record in the 200 meters, running 19.66 seconds at the U.S. track and field trials in Atlanta. The previous mark of 19.72 was set by Italy’s Pietro Mennea in 1979 in Mexico City.

1999 — The Hockey Hall of Fame waives the usual three-year waiting period and announces that Wayne Gretzky will be part of the Class of 1999.

2001 — Ilya Kovalchuk is the first player born in Russia to be taken with the No. 1 pick in the NHL draft when he’s selected by the Atlanta Thrashers.

2005 — Tim Duncan comes up huge in the second half and is chosen finals MVP and Manu Ginobili has another breakthrough performance to lead the San Antonio Spurs past the Detroit Pistons 81-74 in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

2011 — NBA Draft: Duke point guard Kyrie Irving first pick Cleveland Cavaliers.

2013 — Courtney Force claims a Funny Car victory against her father at the Auto-Plus NHRA New England Nationals. In their first final-round matchup, Courtney Force earns her second victory of the year and third in her career. She improves to 4-2 against her father, John Force, a 15-time Funny Car world champion.

2015 — The NHL’s Board of Governors approve the proposed 3-on-3 overtime change.

2017 — NHL Draft: Halifax Mooseheads (QMJHL) center Nico Hischier first pick by New Jersey Devils.

THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY

1917 — In baseball’s greatest relief effort, Ernie Shore of the Boston Red Sox came in for Babe Ruth with nobody out and a man on first. The base runner was cut down stealing and Shore retired all 26 batters he faced to gain a 4-0 victory over Washington. Ruth walked Eddie Foster to open the game and was ejected after arguing with umpire Brick Owens.

1932 — Lou Gehrig plays his 1,103rd successive game in a New York uniform, equaling Joe Sewell’s record with one team (Cleveland).

1950 — Hoot Evers’ winning home run in the ninth inning gave the Detroit Tigers a 10-9 victory over the New York Yankees as the teams combined for 11 home runs, a major league record. The Yankees hit six and the Tigers five.

1963 — Jimmie Piersall, playing for the Mets in New York, hit his 100th career home run and celebrated by running around the bases backward.

1971 — Rick Wise of the Philadelphia Phillies pitched a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds and hit two homers. Wise became the first pitcher to hit two homers while throwing a no-hitter.

1973 — Pitcher Ken Brett of the Philadelphia Phillies hit a home run in the fourth consecutive game that he pitched in June. He beat Montreal 7-2.

1984 — Chicago’s Ryne Sandberg hit two late-inning home runs off St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Bruce Sutter to tie the game twice as the Cubs went on to win 12-11 in 11 innings. Sandberg led off the ninth inning with a solo home run to tie the game 9-9 then hit a two-run, two-out homer in the 10th to tie the game 11-11. Willie McGee hit for the cycle and drove in six runs for St. Louis.

1993 — Seattle OF Jay Buhner hits for the cycle in the Mariners’ 8 – 7, 14-inning win over the Athletics. He is the first Mariner player to ever hit for the cycle..

2003 — Stealing second base at Pacific Bell Park in the 11th inning, Barry Bonds becomes the first player to hit 500 home runs and steal 500 bases in his career.

2008 — Felix Hernandez hit the first grand slam by an American League pitcher in 37 years, then departed with a sprained ankle before he could qualify for a win in Seattle’s 5-2 victory over the New York Mets. The shot to right-center off Johan Santana was the first home run by a pitcher in Mariners history, and the first slam by an AL hurler since Cleveland’s Steve Dunning went deep against Oakland’s Diego Segui on May 11, 1971.

2013 — David Wright homered, tripled and matched a Mets record with four extra-base hits to back Matt Harvey’s splendid start in a lopsided 8-0 victory over Philadelphia. Wright went 4 for 5 with two of New York’s season-high seven doubles.

2020 — After the Players Association ratified proposed COVID-19 safety protocols, an abbreviated 60-game season will begin July 23 or 24.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

Upstaging Shohei Ohtani, especially on a day he pitches, is no easy feat.

But at Dodger Stadium on Sunday afternoon, teammate Max Muncy did it twice — hitting two home runs and matching a career high with seven RBIs to lift the Dodgers to a 13-7 defeat of the Washington Nationals, and make Ohtani more of the sideshow in his second pitching start of the season.

Despite two strikeouts over a scoreless first inning from Ohtani to begin the day, Dodger Stadium had sat in relative silence for the next five innings.

Ben Casparius, who replaced the still workload-restricted Ohtani on the mound in the second, gave up a three-run home run in the third, when a flyball deflected off Hyeseong Kim’s glove at the wall before hitting a fan reaching over the barrier.

Michael Soroka, the former All-Star turned inconsistent journeyman, held the Dodgers hitless into the fifth, racking up a career-high 10 strikeouts while protecting the 3-0 lead.

In the bottom of the sixth, however, an opportunity for the Dodgers finally arose.

Dalton Rushing led off with a slicing ground-rule double down the left-field line. Ohtani drew a walk with the help of two favorable ball-strike calls. Badly slumping Freddie Freeman was bailed out of an 0-and-2 count on a wild slurve from Soroka that hit his foot.

And suddenly, the Nationals had to go to the bullpen, summoning left-hander Jose A. Ferrer to face Muncy with the bases loaded.

After just three pitches to Muncy, Ferrer called out the grounds crew to rake the mound and smooth out his landing area on the downslope.

But at the plate, it gave Muncy time to think about his at-bat against Ferrer the night before, mentally lock in on what to expect, and catch his breath in the biggest moment of the game.

“When he’s ready, he’s ready,” Muncy said he told himself. “And let’s get a swing off.”

Muncy did on each of the next two pitches, fouling off one center-cut sinker before lining the next deep to left for a script-flipping, deficit-erasing, go-ahead grand slam.

“I saw the guy last night, so had a good idea of what he was throwing in there and how to approach it,” Muncy said. “I was trying to keep the ball off the ground, get something in the air, get at least one run in. Just trying to do a job. And I got a good swing off and got the ball in a good spot.”

Ohtani started the day as the main attraction.

Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani delivers in the first inning against the Nationals on Sunday.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

The two-way star drew a crowd as he came onto the field for pregame warm-ups and got loose in the left-field bullpen — prompting fans even up in the upper reserve-level deck to lean over railings and get a look at his dual-role talents.

And once the game began, Ohtani climbed atop the mound and showed progress from his season debut as a pitcher six days before.

“I thought he was considerably better today,” manager Dave Roberts said. “The stuff, the life of the fastball, the command of his pitches — much better.”

Ohtani’s scoreless inning included strikeouts of Luis Garcia Jr. on a sweeper and Nathaniel Lowe on a cutter, representing his first strikeouts since returning from Tommy John surgery. He worked around a dropped infield pop-up from Mookie Betts in an otherwise efficient 18-pitch, 12-strike outing. He hit 99 mph with his fastball while mixing in a healthy dose of sweepers, cutters and splitters to complement it.

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani hits a home run in the eighth inning Sunday against the Nationals.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

“Overall, I was able to relax much better compared to my last outing,” said Ohtani, who noted that the plan for Sunday’s start was to once again be limited to only one inning.

“I think that it’s just more of just trying to get the foundation, the building blocks as he’s taking at-bats,” Roberts added. “Getting an inning here, an inning there, and then just gradually progress.”

Ohtani also quieted recent questions about whether his return to pitching was affecting his bat.

After entering the day two-for-19 in five games since resuming two-way duties, Ohtani helped the Dodgers (48-31) pull away late. In the seventh, he laced a bases-loaded, three-run triple past the first base bag, turning a narrow one-run lead into a comfortable four-score cushion over the Nationals (32-46). In the eighth, he added more insurance, belting a two-run homer to left-center field for his National League-leading 26th long ball.

“When he’s going to the big part of the field, I think he’s really, really good,” Roberts said. “So today was good. And hopefully it quiets the noise a little bit with the days that he pitches.”

Not to be outdone, however, Muncy raised the ante himself in the latter innings, following Ohtani’s seventh-inning triple with a three-run home run to right three batters later.

“You look at the last 30 days, I think he’s been our best hitter,” Roberts said. “We never wavered in our confidence, and we’ve shown that, and he’s proven us all right.”

Indeed, Sunday continued a stunning mid-season turnaround for Muncy — giving him a .305 average with 10 home runs and 38 RBIs over his last 39 games; compared to a .177 average, one home run and seven RBIs in his first 35 contests.

It moved him into third place among National League third basemen this season with an .815 OPS — making a player who once seemed bound for trade rumors this summer unexpectedly on the fringes of the All-Star conversation.

And, it somehow managed to top the all-around production Ohtani displayed in his two-way encore, lifting the Dodgers to a weekend series win and 7-3 record overall on this 10-game homestand.

“It’s definitely a snowball effect,” Muncy said. “Confidence is high right now.”

From Jack Harris: For a few weeks now, the Dodgers have been in the “treading water” portion of their season, trying to work through injuries in their pitching staff and inconsistencies in the lineup to remain atop the National League West standings.

On Tuesday, in a 9-5 win over the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field, two of their coldest hitters finally gave them some comfortable space to breathe.

In a game that was close until the final few innings, Michael Conforto and Max Muncy both showed long-awaited signs of life at the plate, each reaching base three times and each hitting late home runs to help the Dodgers pull away on a cool night in Cleveland.

“It’s big,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It adds the length [to the lineup] that we expected coming into this season.”

For much of this year, that length had been missing, the Dodgers forced to navigate around subpar production from both veteran sluggers — both at the plate and in the field.

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Dodgers box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

NBA PLAYOFFS RESULTS

All Times Pacific

Conference finals

Western Conference

No. 1 Oklahoma City vs. No. 6 Minnesota
at Oklahoma City 114, Minnesota 88 (box score)
at Oklahoma City 118, Minnesota 103 (box score)
at Minnesota 143, Oklahoma City 101 (box score)
Oklahoma City 128, at Minnesota 126 (box score)
Wednesday at Oklahoma City, 5:30 p.m., ESPN
Friday at Minnesota, 5:30 p.m., ESPN*
Sunday at Oklahoma City, 5 p.m., ESPN*

Eastern Conference

No. 3 New York vs. No. 4 Indiana
Indiana 138, at New York 135 (OT) (box score)
Indiana 114, at New York 109 (box score)
New York 106, at Indiana 100 (box score)
at Indiana 130, New York 121 (box score)
Thursday at New York, 5 p.m., TNT
Saturday at Indiana, 5 p.m., TNT*
Monday at New York, 5 p.m., TNT*

*if necessary

ANGELS

From Bill Shaikin: The adjective hit me like a line drive.

Wayne Randazzo, the television voice of the Angels, was detailing just how poorly the team’s relievers had performed. He recited the Angels’ earned-run average in the late innings, inning by inning. Over 5.00. Over 6.00. In the ninth inning, at that time, over 7.00.

“The numbers,” Randazzo said, “are gargantuan.”

What a colorful, descriptive and absolutely apt adjective. Not the “struggling” or “scuffling” or “slumping” a broadcaster typically offers, bland adjectives presented with the assurance that better times are ahead. No team can win with that kind of bullpen performance, and no one can guarantee that better times are ahead for a relief corps where only the closer has a successful track record.

For all that has gone wrong on the field for the Angels in modern times, they have struck gold in the broadcast booth. In pairing Randazzo with longtime analyst Mark Gubicza, the Angels just might have their best broadcast team since Dick Enberg and Don Drysdale half a century ago.

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————

Carlos Rodón pitched seven scoreless innings of five-hit ball, and Devin Williams barely survived a perilous ninth inning to earn his first save since April 17 in the New York Yankees’ 3-2 victory over the Angels on Tuesday night.

Yoán Moncada homered in the ninth as the Angels ended a stretch of 16 scoreless innings in the series with two runs and three hits off Williams, the Yankees’ embattled new reliever. Williams lost the closer role last month after a shaky beginning to his New York tenure, and he hadn’t had a save opportunity since April 25.

After Moncada led off the ninth with a homer on his 30th birthday, Taylor Ward and Luis Rengifo singled to put runners on the corners with one out. Ward scored when Jo Adell grounded into a forceout, but Williams got pinch-hitter Logan O’Hoppe on a foul popup to secure his fifth save and the Yankees’ seventh straight series win.

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Angels box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

SPARKS

From Anthony De Leon: When the Sparks traded for Kelsey Plum, the buzz around her reunion with former championship teammate Dearica Hamby centered on one thing: their pedigree elevating the franchise.

On Tuesday night, fans got a glimpse of the potential that the duo could attain. The chemistry. The comfort. The way they fed off each other’s energy — stepping up when the Sparks needed it most, looking to build momentum off a previous hard-fought victory.

By the fourth quarter of an 88-82 loss to the Atlanta Dream (4-2) on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena, the Sparks (2-4) were on the verge of a comeback. A steal by Hamby near midcourt turned into an outlet on the fastbreak to Plum, who quickly dished it back for the finish, trimming the deficit to 66–63.

The second half belonged to them. Plum and Hamby combined for 39 points to rally the Sparks from a 40–31 halftime hole. Like clockwork, Plum buried a clutch three-pointer to cut the lead to 71–70 — the closest L.A. would get. Hamby’s late free throws pulled them to within two in the final minutes.

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Sparks box score

WNBA standings

LAFC

From Kevin Baxter: Carlos Vela, the first player signed by LAFC and still the club record-holder in goals, assists, games and minutes played, announced his retirement Tuesday. The team said in announcement that Vela will work with LAFC as its first Black and Gold Ambassador. He will also be honored on Carlos Vela Night at BMO Stadium on Sept. 21.

“Helping to build LAFC and winning trophies for the club is a highlight of my career,” Vela, 36, said in a statement issued by the team. “This club means so much to me and my family, and I am proud of everything we have accomplished together with the great fans of Los Angeles. I am excited to begin this next chapter in my journey here in L.A.”

Vela signed a designated-player contract with LAFC in August 2017, eight months before the team’s first game. He led LAFC to the playoffs in his first season, then set the MLS single-season goal-scoring record with 34 in 2019, when the team won the first of two Supporters’ Shields. Vela was named the league’s MVP that season

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GALAXY

From Kevin Baxter: The last time Bruce Arena and Dave Sarachan stood together on the sidelines at Dignity Health Sports Park, the Galaxy were beating the Colorado Rapids in the MLS Western Conference semifinals. That was 2016 and the win was the pair’s 18th playoff victory in eight seasons with the Galaxy.

It was also the last game they coached together in Carson.

They’ll be back on Wednesday, only this time Arena and Sarachan will be in the opposite technical area, standing in front of the San José Earthquakes’ bench. And in some ways it’s a bittersweet return. Because while both men have mostly fond memories of their time with the Galaxy, they return with the home team hungry and winless through 15 games, the longest drought in franchise history.

That makes the homecoming both welcome and challenging.

“I have nothing but good memories of my time in L.A. with the Galaxy. So it’s nice to go back,” Arena said.

“I like watching them and they’ve had tough times. But they’re better than their record indicates. We’re the next team up, which will be in some ways very, very challenging because you know they’re due to have success.”

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U.S. MEN’S SOCCER TEAM

From Kevin Baxter: With the World Cup, one the U.S. will play at home, just 380 days away, Captain America has decided to take a pass on the national team’s last major competition ahead of the tournament.

That’s Pulisic’s choice, of course. He’s played a grueling schedule with AC Milan this season, one that concludes Sunday, a week before the national team reports to camp in Chicago.

And he has permission.

“Christian and his team approached the Federation and the coaching staff about the possibility of stepping back this summer, given the amount of matches he has played,” said Matt Crocker, U.S. Soccer’s sporting director, noting that Pulisic has played more than 4,400 minutes for club and country the last 12 months.

Nor is Pulisic alone in his absence. Weston McKennie, Tim Weah, Gio Reyna, Antonee Robinson, Josh Sargent and Yunus Musah, Pulisic’s teammate in Milan, were also left off the 27-man roster summoned to training camp ahead next month’s Gold Cup, although some of those players will be participating in the Club World Cup.

Yet even if reason and rules are strongly on Pulisic’s side, the optics are bad.

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USC-NOTRE DAME POLL

Let’s hear from you. Could a smoother path to the College Football Playoff be worth losing the Notre Dame-USC rivalry? Vote here and let us know. Results announced next week.

NHL PLAYOFFS SCHEDULE, RESULTS

All times Pacific

Conference finals

Western Conference

Central 2 Dallas vs. Pacific 3 Edmonton
at Dallas 6, Edmonton 3 (summary)
Edmonton 3, at Dallas 0 (summary)
at Edmonton 6, Dallas 1 (summary)
at Edmonton 4, Dallas 1 (summary)
Thursday at Dallas, 5 p.m., ESPN
Saturday at Edmonton, 5 p.m., ABC*
Monday at Dallas, 5 p.m., ESPN*

Eastern Conference

Metro 2 Carolina vs. Atlantic 3 Florida
Florida 5, at Carolina 2 (summary)
Florida 5, at Carolina 0 (summary)
at Florida 6, Carolina 2 (summary)
Carolina 3, at Florida 0 (summary)
Wednesday at Carolina, 5 p.m., TNT
Friday at Florida, 5 p.m., TNT*
Sunday at Carolina, 5 p.m., TNT*

* If necessary

THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY

1901 — Parader, ridden by Fred Landry, overcomes a bad start to win the Preakness Stakes by two lengths over Sadie S.

1904 — Bryn Mawr, ridden by Eugene Hildebrand, wins the Preakness Stakes by one length over Wotan.

1958 — European Cup Final, Brussels: Francisco Gento scores the winner in extra time as Real Madrid beats AC Milan, 3-2; 3rd consecutive title for Los Blancos.

1969 — European Cup Final, Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, Madrid: AC Milan striker Pierino Prati scores 3 in 4-1 win over Ajax; second title for I Rossoneri.

1975 — 19th European Cup: Bayern Munich beats Leeds United 2-0 at Paris.

1978 — Al Unser wins his third Indianapolis 500, the fifth driver to do so, edging Tom Sneva by 8.19 seconds.

1980 — 24th European Cup: Nottingham Forest beats Hamburg 1-0 at Madrid.

1985 — The San Diego Sockers beat the Baltimore Blast 5-3 to win the MISL title in five games.

1995 — Jacques Villeneuve overcomes one penalty and wins by another in the Indianapolis 500. Villeneuve drives to victory after fellow Canadian Scott Goodyear is penalized for passing the pace car on the final restart.

1997 — 5th UEFA Champions League Final: Borussia Dortmund beats Juventus 3-1 at Munich.

2000 — Dutch swimming star Inge de Bruijn sets her third world record in three days, adding the 100 freestyle mark to the 50 and 100 butterfly marks she set previously at the Sheffield Super Grand Prix. De Bruijn becomes the first swimmer to finish under 54.00 in the 100 freestyle at 53.80 seconds.

2003 — Patrick Roy officially announces his retirement from the NHL.

2003 — 11th UEFA Champions League Final: Milan beats Juventus (0-0, 3-2 on penalties) at Manchester.

2006 — Sam Hornish Jr. overcomes a disastrous mistake in the pits and a pair of Andrettis — Marco and father Michael — to win the second-closest Indianapolis 500 ever, by .0635 seconds.

2007 — Duke has an almost unfathomable comeback fall short in a 12-11 loss to Johns Hopkins in the NCAA lacrosse championship game. The Blue Devils never finished their 2006 season, and then make it all the way back to the title game.

2011 — Novak Djokovic extends his perfect start to the season at the French Open, beating Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 for his 40th straight victory this year. Djokovic’s 40-0 start to 2011 is the second-best opening streak in the Open era, which started in 1968.

2011 — UEFA Champions League Final, London: FC Barcelona beats Manchester United, 3-1; 4th title for Barça.

2020 — The Boston Marathon canceled for the first time in its 124-year history. The race had originally been scheduled for April 20 before being postponed for five months because of the coronavirus pandemic.

2022 — UEFA Champions League Final, Paris: Carlo Ancelotti becomes first manager to win CL x 4 as Real Madrid beats Liverpool, 1-0.

THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY

1918 — Boston’s Joe Bush pitched a 1-0 one-hitter against the Chicago White Sox and drove in the lone run. The only Chicago hit was by Happy Felsch. It occurred when he threw his bat at the ball on a hit and run.

1939 — Philadelphia pitcher Robert Joyce was victimized two straight days by New York’s George Selkirk. Joyce gave up two homers to Selkirk a day earlier. Joyce came on in relief on this day and gave up two more homers to Selkirk. Selkirk ended with four homers in four at-bats against the same pitcher over two successive games. The Yankees won 9-5.

1946 — The Washington Senators beat New York 2-1 in the first night game at Yankee Stadium. The first ball was thrown out by General Electric president Charles E. Wilson.

1951 — After going 0-for-12 in his first three major league games, Willie Mays of the New York Giants hit a home run off Warren Spahn in a 4-1 loss to the Boston Braves.

1956 — Dale Long of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit a home run in his eighth consecutive game, a major league record. Long connected off Brooklyn’s Carl Erskine at Forbes Field.

1968 — The American League announced the league will be split into two divisions. The East division will consist of Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, New York and Washington. California, Chicago, Kansas City, Minnesota, Oakland and Seattle will make up the West.

1979 — George Brett of the Kansas City Royals hit for the cycle and added another home run to beat the Baltimore Orioles 5-4 in 16 innings.

1986 — Joe Cowley of the Chicago White Sox set a major league record by striking out the first seven batters he faced. He lasted 4 2-3 innings in a 6-3 loss to the Texas Rangers.

1995 — The White Sox and Tigers set a major league record with 12 homers, and combined for an American League-record 21 extra-base hits in Chicago’s 14-12 victory in Detroit.

1998 — Arizona manager Buck Showalter intentionally walked Barry Bonds with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and the Diamondbacks held on to beat San Francisco 8-7.

2003 – Atlanta became the second team in major league history to start a game with three straight homers in its 15-3 win over the Reds. Rafael Furcal, Mark DeRosa and Gary Sheffield hit consecutive home runs off Jeff Austin in the bottom of the first. The Padres did it against the Giants on April 13, 1987.

2006 — Barry Bonds hit his 715th home run during the San Francisco Giants’ 6-3 loss to the Colorado Rockies to slip past Babe Ruth and pull in behind Hank Aaron and his long-standing record of 755.

2007 — Adrian Beltre tied a franchise record with four extra-base hits, including two homers, as Seattle pounded the Angels 12-5.

2010 — Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera hit three homers in a 5-4 loss to Oakland. Oakland’s Ben Sheets gave up three runs — on Cabrera’s first two homers — worked seven innings in his longest start of the season.

2012 — The Cubs end a twelve-game losing streak, their longest since 1997, with an 11-7 win over the Padres at Wrigley Field.

2013 — The Mets honor Yankees great Mariano Rivera, who has announced his retirement at the end of the year, by having him throw the ceremonial first pitch before the game between the two teams from the Big Apple at Citi Field, with retired Mets closer John Franco acting as his catcher for the occasion.

2016 — In the third inning of a game against the Dodgers, Mets P Noah Syndergaard is ejected for throwing at Chase Utley, in apparent retaliation for Utley’s aggressive slide which injured Mets SS Ruben Tejada in last year’s NLDS. Umpire Adam Hamari also tosses Mets manager Terry Collins for arguing his decision, then Utley gets his revenge when he opens the score with a solo homer off Logan Verrett in the 6th and adds a grand slam off Hansel Robles in the 7th. The Dodgers hit five homers in total as they win the game, 9-1.

2019 — Derek Dietrich continues his unlikely homer binge as he hits three, all two-run shots, in leading the Reds to an 11-6 win over the Pirates. With 17 homers this year, he has already topped his career high, and 12 of his last 17 hits have gone over the fence. For the Pirates, rookie Kevin Newman hits his first career homer, a grand slam off Lucas Sims.

2023 — Spencer Strider of the Braves becomes the fastest starting pitcher to record 100 strikeouts in a season, doing so in his 61st inning in an 11 – 4 win over the Phillies. Last year, Strider set the record for the fastest pitcher to reach 200 Ks in a season.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.