PHILADELPHIA — Shohei Ohtani wrapped up long toss in the Citizens Bank Park outfield Wednesday afternoon, turned and headed for the two-story bullpen stairs.
Ohtani had initially been scheduled to take the mound for the Dodgers Wednesday against the Phillies. But, with the date of his next pitching start up in the air, his bullpen session still drew a lot of eyes.
Ohtani threw off a mound Wednesday for the first time since receiving an Orthovisc injection in his left knee to lubricate the joint. The side session of about 30 pitches, running through multiple pitch types, was similar to a normal between-starts bullpen, pitching coach Mark Prior said.
“It looked good,” Prior said. “Feels good. We’ll see where he’s at tomorrow.”
Asked if Ohtani said his knee was feeling 100%, Prior said they didn’t get into specifics.
“Just said, ‘How did you feel throwing?’ He said it felt great,” Prior said.
Ohtani, who was in the lineup Wednesday as the designated hitter, was not made available to comment before the game.
It’s still unclear when Ohtani will pick up pitching duties again. But manager Dave Roberts ruled out Ohtani starting on the mound this weekend against the Mets.
“It’s day by day with him,” Prior said. “We’re present today. He threw a bullpen, see where he comes in … Friday, since we’re off [Thursday]. We’ll make determinations after that.”
This bullpen session was a chance for Ohtani to test his knee, which before the injection seemed to be aggravated by pitching.
“It’s a big sign,” Roberts said. “Because the grass, the flat ground, all of that stuff is well and good, the arm is fine. So it’s more of getting down the slope, throwing over your front side. That’s kind of the big test. Usually the bullpens are right around 88 (mph), so we’ll see where he’s at.”
Ohtani has already been out long enough that the Dodgers will have to be mindful of his workload whenever he rejoins the rotation. His last start on the mound was July 3 against the Padres.
“I still think it hasn’t been so long that the equity that he’s built up with the pitch count is that much compromised,” Roberts said. “But with that, I can’t foresee him running out there and throwing 100 pitches his first outing.”
If he’s sidelined for too long, he could have to gradually build up with each start. But it’s hard to pinpoint where that delineation lies.
“I think the easy answer is to say every pitcher is different,” Roberts said.
Walbert Ureña pitched six innings of one-run ball, Jorge Soler and Jo Adell each drove in two runs in a five-run first inning and the Angels extended their winning streak to three games with a 5-1 victory over the St. Louis Cardinals on Tuesday night.
The Angels banged out five of their 10 hits in the first inning. Soler hit a two-run double and Adell added a two-run homer for the Angels, who have their longest winning streak since a four-game run from June 9-13.
Ureña (6-7) allowed up six hits, struck out five and walked one while lowering his ERA to 2.78 for the season and 2.49 in 14 starts since May 1. Making his first start since the All-Star break, the rookie right-hander threw 16 pitches of 100 mph or more, including hitting a season-high 101.5-mph sinker to Jordan Walker, in the first. He had thrown 16 pitches of 100 mph or more — total — in 81 1/3 innings of his first 17 games.
St. Louis, which has lost 10 of its last 14 games, scored its only run on JJ Wetherholt’s RBI fielder’s-choice grounder in the fifth.
Angels reliever Mitch Farris struck out two in 1 1/3 innings. Chase Silseth got the final two outs in the eighth, and Ryan Zeferjahn struck out three of five batters in a scoreless ninth.
Angels leadoff man Zach Neto opened the bottom of the first with a single and was thrown out trying to take third on Mike Trout’s single to left.
Nolan Schanuel walked, and Soler hit a two-run double to left. Vaughn Grissom’s RBI single pushed the lead to 3-0, and Adell hit is 15th homer — a two-run shot — to make it 5-0.
St. Louis starter Matthew Liberatore (5-7) recovered from the rocky first and held the Angels to four hits over the next 4 1/3 innings.
Up next
Cardinals RHP Hunter Dobbins (11, 4.03 ERA) will oppose Angels LHP Reid Detmers (3-6, 4.16) on Wednesday.
Vaughn Grissom drove in the tying run with a one-out double in the ninth inning and Jo Adell was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to give the Angels a 3-2 comeback win over the St. Louis Cardinals on Monday night.
Nolan Schanuel, batting .367 since June 21, sparked the late rally with a one-out single off All-Star closer Riley O’Brien, who is tied for the National League lead with 25 saves.
Jorge Soler was hit by a pitch and Grissom sent a line drive off the right-field wall that eluded a leaping Jordan Walker. Pinch-runner Oswald Peraza scored from second base and pinch-runner Jose Siri reached third.
Josh Lowe was walked intentionally to load the bases. Adell, who homered in the third inning, took three straight balls from O’Brien (3-4) before getting plunked by the next pitch to force in the winning run.
Angels reliever José Fermín (3-1) struck out two in a scoreless ninth.
O’Brien’s fifth blown save laid to waste a strong start by St. Louis right-hander Kyle Leahy, who gave up one run and three hits in six innings. He struck out four and walked none.
Angels starter José Soriano threw his best game since early May, giving up two runs and four hits in seven innings while striking out seven and walking one.
The right-hander, who went 3-6 with a 5.15 ERA in his previous 14 starts, retired the side in order five times and became the first Angels starter to get an out in the seventh since June 16.
Walker sparked the Cardinals’ second-inning rally with a leadoff double over Lowe’s head in left field. He went to third on Lars Nootbaar’s single and scored on Nathan Church’s one-out single for a 1-0 lead.
Blaze Jordan followed with a potential inning-ending, double-play grounder to third base, but Denzer Guzman bobbled the ball and his only play was to first as Nootbaar scored for a 2-0 lead.
The Angels cut the deficit to 2-1 in the third when Adell, mired in an 0-for-24 slump that dropped his batting average to .237 entering the game, led off with his 14th homer of the season.
Up next: Cardinals LHP Matthew Liberatore (5-6, 5.00 ERA) faces Angels RHP Walbert Ureña (5-7, 2.88) on Tuesday night.
Tarik Skubal pitched seven dominant innings, Spencer Torkelson homered twice and drove in four runs, and the Detroit Tigers cruised to a 7-0 win over the Angels on Saturday night.
Skubal, winner of the past two AL Cy Young Awards, gave up five hits and struck out nine without issuing a walk. He induced 19 swinging strikes for the third straight start. Of his 87 pitches, 60 were strikes.
The Angels (38-61) advanced only one runner to second base against the left-hander when Logan O’Hoppe and Mike Trout singled with one out in the sixth, but Skubal (6-5) got Vaughn Grissom to ground into an inning-ending double play.
The Tigers (46-52) have won 11 of 14 games and are 24-14 since June 1 to move within 5½ games of the first-place Chicago White Sox in the AL Central and 3½ games of Boston for the third AL wild card. Detroit was 22-38 and 11½ games back in the division on May 31.
It took only five batters for the Tigers to build a 4-0 lead. Kevin McGonigle opened the game with a double, Dillon Dingler was hit by a pitch, Colt Keith hit an RBI single and Torkelson crushed a three-run homer to left-center with one out.
Detroit tacked on two runs in the second after loading the bases with no outs on singles by James Outman and McGonigle and another Dingler hit by pitch, his third in two games. Keith and Riley Greene followed with sacrifice flies for a 6-0 lead.
Torkelson led the fifth with 18th homer, a 420-foot shot to center off left-hander Brent Suter for a 7-0 lead. That gave the Tigers first baseman his first multihomer game since Sept. 7, 2023, at Yankee Stadium.
Grayson Rodriguez (3-3) lasted only four innings, giving up six runs and seven hits in a shaky start that sent the last-place Angels to their fourth straight loss and 12th in 14 games.
Up next: Tigers RHP Casey Mize (4-6, 2.79 ERA) opposes RHP Ryan Johnson (1-4, 6.75) in Sunday’s series finale.
NEW YORK — Shohei Ohtani was at the top of the Dodgers’ lineup Friday against the New York Yankees, five days after receiving an injection in his left knee. And he’s penciled in to pitch against the Philadelphia Phillies on Wednesday.
Ohtani received an orthovisc shot in his knee to lubricate the joint and relieve irritation, manager Dave Roberts said, and did not have it drained.
“It gives him some relief in his knee which we were hoping to get,” Roberts said. “Then the four days off with no activity which gives it a chance to settle in.”
Ohtani was expected to be in the lineup for all three games against the Yankees. He planned to play catch and throw off the mound in the coming days, and the team would monitor his response before finalizing pitching plans.
Taking the mound Wednesday would give Ohtani more recovery time heading into the team’s day off. When asked if Ohtani would shoulder two-way duties Wednesday, Roberts said, “We’ll see when we get there.”
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani hits his 300th career home run against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium on July 7.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
When it isn’t possible to have Ohtani pitch before a day off, Roberts would like to rest him the following day.
“It’s all contingent on how his knee is feeling,” Roberts said of Ohtani’s second-half workload. “I think we are certainly more prepared to back off on the workload if it calls for it. But Shohei wants to be out there as much as he possibly can.”
Asked if Ohtani would need offseason surgery, Roberts said: “I would highly doubt that.”
Coming out of the break, the Dodgers shuffled their rotation to have Roki Sasaki, Emmet Sheehan and Yoshinobu Yamamoto face the Yankees in that order.
That leaves left-handed starters Eric Lauer and Justin Wrobleski (not necessarily in that order), to face the Phillies before Ohtani would take the mound.
Smith shut down
The Dodgers are shutting down catcher Will Smith from all baseball activities for a week as he continues to deal with a lingering neck injury. That pushes his return timeline back to at least August, if not later.
“It was flaring up, wasn’t recovering — however you want to word it,” Roberts said. “He didn’t feel like he was making any improvement.”
Smith has been sidelined since early June because of what he described as an inflamed disk. He initially treated it with rest and then an injection. But it still was bothering him during his latest buildup.
“I talked to the trainer, Thomas [Albert], today and he said that Will doesn’t feel any pain,” Roberts said. “Now with that, I think we’re in a much better spot.”
Dodgers utility player Kiké Hernández (strained left oblique) was set to begin a rehab assignment with triple-A Oklahoma City on Friday. And left-hander Blake Snell was scheduled to take the mound for two innings Saturday in his first minor-league rehab start since undergoing surgery to remove loose bodies in his elbow.
Air quality concerns
The MLB schedule got off to a smoky start out of the All-Star break. With wildfires in Canada raising air-quality concerns in the Northeast and Midwest on Thursday, the New York Mets’ game at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia was moved up an hour.
The smoke cleared over Yankee Stadium on Friday afternoon.
“I know that the players got a players’ union text that says it’s a full go,” Roberts said. “They feel good about it. The league feels good. I haven’t heard anything otherwise.”
2027 schedule
With a lockout widely expected to start Dec. 1 and no guarantee of an agreement in time to preserve the 2027 season, take MLB’s schedule announcement Thursday with a grain of salt.
Should collective bargaining negotiations wrap up in time, however, the Dodgers are set to open the season at Dodger Stadium on March 25 against the Atlanta Braves.
They end the season on the road, facing a pair of division rivals in the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks from Sept. 21-26.
Dodgers left-hander Justin Wrobleski could have been content with his performance the first couple of months this season. After all, he’d come into the year fighting for a rotation spot, and he’d shown in that time that he was ready to be a full-time major-league starter.
That wasn’t enough.
While still holding on to his identity as a pitcher who goes right at hitters, Wrobleski tallied 20 strikeouts over his last two starts of the first half.
“We’re just doing a good job with the plan,” Wrobleski said last week, days before he was named a first-time All-Star. “I feel like I’m continuing to get better at knowing where to go with two strikes, knowing where to go versus a certain hitter with two strikes and just kind of reading the game.”
Wrobleski is the only Dodgers pitcher set to appear in Tuesday’s All-Star Game in Philadelphia. Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani pitched too close to the game, and Ohtani eventually pulled out of All-Star activities altogether in order to have his left knee drained on Sunday.
The story of how Wrobleski got there, in his first full season in the rotation after debuting two years ago, includes plenty of twists and turns.
“It’s a chronicle story in his young career, the down to up, but at the end of the day, he’s been a rock for us these first three months,” Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior said in a conversation with The Times. “Was hoping he got in on the first set of announcements, but at the end of the day, he’s an All-Star, and he’s earned every bit of it.”
When Wrobleski wasn’t included on the initial National League All-Star roster, the Dodgers coaching staff went to work lobbying for him to be a replacement player. Manager Dave Roberts publicly made the case for Wrobleski and closer Tanner Scott whenever he had the chance.
Then, a week later, Wrobleski (10-2, 2.69 ERA) got the call after Cincinnati Reds right-hander Chase Burns bowed out because of tightness in his groin.
“He’s done so many intangible things that I think get lost in the shuffle of numbers and metrics,” Prior said of Wrobleski. “But he’s eaten innings, he’s provided length for us when we needed length. He went toe-to-toe with [Phillies three-time All-Star Zack] Wheeler. He went toe-to-toe with [José] Soriano when he was dealing with the Angels, kept us in ballgames.”
Admittedly, a year and a half ago, Prior wouldn’t have imagined Wrobleski would be an obvious All-Star pick this quickly.
The tipping point came when Wrobleski surrendered eight runs to the Washington Nationals in his first start last season. And it didn’t help that his last start of the previous season was a 10-run slog against the Arizona Diamondbacks.
“It was a long, raw, emotional sit-down with him,” Prior said. He said after the conversation with Roberts, assistant pitching coach Connor McGuiness and the rest of the staff, “we left with like, ‘Which way is this going to go?’”
But persistence has been a hallmark of Wrobleski’s career, dating to his college years, when he infamously bounced back from a car hitting him on a scooter and a baseball breaking his jaw. He also underwent Tommy John surgery two months before the Dodgers selected him in the 11th round of the 2021 MLB draft.
So, committing to a delivery change last season wasn’t all that intimidating.
Wrobleski returned to the majors in mostly a bullpen role. And his steadiness in those shorter outings culminated in a strong postseason run that included four scoreless appearances in the World Series.
“We talk about, who can you depend on to not let the moment get too big?” Prior said. “And I think Wrobo had proved that all the way through September, but clearly proved that the moment is not too big for him to continue to make pitches. And that was exciting to see too as a staff.”
Still, Wrobleski wasn’t guaranteed a rotation role this season. And Prior was frank about that over the offseason.
Wrobleski’s first outing of the season was in relief, but the Dodgers had earmarked him as their sixth starter for the second turn in the rotation.
In his first five starts, Wrobleski posted an eye-popping 0.56 earned-run average.
His swing-and-miss rate and strikeouts were down, but pitching to soft contact was getting him positive results. The most glaring example came against the St. Louis Cardinals in early May, when he threw six shutout innings without recording a punchout.
Dodgers left-hander Justin Wrobleski recorded 20 strikeouts in his last two starts before the All-Star Game.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Wrobleski wasn’t going to coast on that early success, however. He kept fine-tuning his delivery and adjusting his pitch mix, right through a rough patch in late May and into a consistent June.
“He went from paring down his arsenal to kind of two pitches, to regrow his arsenal while he’s learning how to pitch at this level,” Prior said. “I think the big thing is now these guys have different looks.”
Wrobleski’s four-seam fastball and slider have done the heavy lifting. The rest of his secondary pitch mix has been a moving target.
He and the pitching coaches have talked through the most effective use of his curveball. He started integrating his sinker more consistently in late April, especially against left-handed hitters. He’s tinkered with different grips for his change-up, a pitch he started using more in mid-May. Three weeks ago, he introduced a sweeper. And in his last two starts, he threw that pitch 19 times.
“At the heart of it, though, is he never lets off the gas pedal,” Prior said. “He just gets the ball, he’s on the rubber, he puts the hitter on defense from the get-go before they’ve even seen a pitch. And that’s something that not everybody can do.”
So, despite the journey, when Wrobleski looks back at the pitcher he was a year and a half ago, he doesn’t see a complete overhaul.
“Same guy but different, I guess,” he said. “It’s crazy. I’ve had to go through a lot of small tweaks and changes. And it’s just all been about just having belief that I could continue to do it. And I knew that there were a lot of things that I could do just to get better, and I wasn’t as far away as maybe it seemed on the outside — or, as people thought it was.
“I felt like I was close that whole time, even though the results weren’t really there. It’s been cool to see the results come.”
Pieces from the turf used at the stadium will go on sale as memorabilia and will be priced from $450 to $1,200.
By Reuters and The Associated Press
Published On 11 Jul 202611 Jul 2026
FIFA is hoping to make money off the World Cup final even after the match is finished and the tournament is wrapped up.
Segments of the pitch for the World Cup final will be up for sale starting at $450 per piece, football’s governing body announced on Saturday.
Players and coaches have criticised the quality of the field at New Jersey’s MetLife, which usually uses an artificial surface for NFL games of the New York Giants and Jets. FIFA renamed the venue to New Jersey New York Stadium for the World Cup.
FIFA, accused of charging high prices for this year’s tournament in the United States, will earn more than $11m from the sale, according to a report in The Athletic.
“Own a genuine piece of football history with an authentic 2026 FIFA World Cup Piece of the pitch, permanently preserved in a premium acrylic with a USB keepsake,” the website says. “Each piece contains an original fragment of the iconic Final playing surface, making it a unique collectable that celebrates one of the world’s greatest sporting events.”
The official store says each segment of turf is 17.5 by 17.5 by 17.5, although it doesn’t specify whether that figure is inches, centimetres or millimetres.
FIFA said “the acrylic USB features an authenticity film, while offering a sleek, contemporary display piece. Presented in a premium hinged shoulder box with striking spot UV detailing, this exclusive item is designed for collectors, fans, and football enthusiasts alike”.
FIFA is making the turf available to send only to addresses in the United States and Europe.
“Orders will not be shipped until after the FIFA World Cup 2026 Final,” the governing body said.
In addition to the high-priced tickets and memorabilia for the tournament, it will cost $3,000 for the highest-priced tier of souvenir turf. The three-by-three-inch (7.6-by-7.6-centimetre) piece of grass comes with a gold-etched replica ticket, a miniature replica World Cup ball and a crystal-cut World Cup trophy.
The three other tiers of souvenir turf will sell for $450, $900 and $1,200.
There will be no more than 2,026 pieces available in any one tier.
FIFA is selling regular tickets for the final at up to $32,970 for the final and is asking $34,500 and $32,500 for hospitality tickets that include food and drinks.
The report indicated that the turf which will be used for the World Cup final was grown at a turf farm in North Carolina.
For consistency, new turf fields were installed at all World Cup venues, including those that typically have artificial surfaces like the stadiums in Seattle, Washington; Atlanta, Georgia; East Rutherford, New Jersey; Vancouver, Canada; Arlington, Texas; and Inglewood, California.
There is no indication of what will happen to the turf fields that are not being used for the final.
Huey Lewis shared just how much his relationship to music has changed in a recent podcast interview.
“I’m basically deaf,” the former lead singer of Huey Lewis and the News said in an episode of the “Inside of You” podcast released Tuesday. “My life has changed immeasurably. I can’t hear music. Music is not part of my life anymore, which is a hard pill to swallow.”
Lewis explained that he uses a cochlear implant to help him hear and understand speech, but he is unable to distinguish pitch because of the way the device operates.
“My cochlear implant, it breaks everything down into digital bits so I can understand,” he said. “Speech is easier to listen to than music. Music occurs in all frequencies, with overtones and harmonics and everything. It comes at you in a lot of different frequencies, so it distorts for me … It makes pitch impossible to hear.”
”The Power of Love” singer explained that because of this, he can no longer enjoy music.
“When I cook or I have people over for dinner, I always used to play them music,” he said. “I have a great collection of old big band stuff and old New Orleans jazz and I don’t play it at all anymore. … It’s weird. I can hear the beat, I know what’s going on. But I can’t enjoy it.”
“Music used to be so much fun,” he added. But “it just ends up being frustrating for me when I can’t enjoy it. I can’t feel the warmth.”
Lewis previously discussed his struggles with hearing loss with The Times. The “Hip to Be Square” singer said his Meniere’s disease diagnosis in early 2018 was “brutal.”
“When it first happened, I thought I might as well kill myself,” Lewis said in the 2020 interview, which described him as being “surprisingly upbeat” for someone whose life was so deeply affected by the diagnosis. Meniere’s disease is a disorder of the inner ear that can cause severe dizziness, ringing in the ears, hearing loss and ears feeling congested, according to the NIH. Not much is known about its causes and there is not yet a cure.
While it’s clear that Lewis misses aspects of his musician life, he also appears to appreciate having time for his other passions since his life doesn’t revolve around being on the road performing 75 to 100 shows a year.
“I fish a lot,” Lewis said in the “Inside of You” podcast. “I love to fly fish and I love Mother Nature. I get out there by myself in a stream and I’m conducting nature with my fly rod and it’s just a wonderful thing. I love to do it, and hearing not required.”
ARLINGTON, Tex. — Alejandro Osuna hit a three-run homer during a five-run eighth inning and the Texas Rangers pulled away for an 8-3 win over the Angels on Tuesday night.
Osuna’s first homer of the season followed RBI singles by Ezequiel Duran and Justin Foscue in the six-hit inning off Sam Bachman (1-2). Foscue also hit a pinch-hit home run in the seventh, tying the score 3-3.
Peyton Gray (4-0) pitched a scoreless eighth for the win for the Rangers, who pulled within one-half game of first-place Seattle in the AL West.
The last-place Angels have lost seven consecutive games, tying their longest losing streak of the season.
Rangers starter Jacob deGrom left after throwing 80 pitches in five innings because of an issue with his left hip and leg. DeGrom said he’s often felt tightness there between starts, but it usually goes away before he pitches again. This time it remained, preventing him from throwing changeups, and tightened in the fifth inning. He expects to make his next start.
DeGrom suffered first-inning struggles before settling in, his pattern this season. He gave up a pair of two-out runs in the first on Jorge Soler’s double that one-hopped the left-field wall and Josh Lowe’s single to shallow left after a wild pitch.
DeGrom didn’t give up another run, giving up five hits and two walks. In 18 starts this season, deGrom has a 9.50 ERA in the first inning and 2.29 afterward.
Texas tied the score 2-2 in the second on Nicky Lopez’s two-out, opposite-field single to left after two walks by José Soriano, who leads the AL with 51. Soriano didn’t walk another batter and gave up only two hits in six innings.
Rookie Wade Meckler’s RBI single off Chris Martin in the seventh gave the Angels a 3-2 lead before Foscue homered off Tayler Saucedo.
The Angels won the first three games against the Rangers this season.
In Shohei Ohtani, who on Tuesday became the first Japanese player to hit 300 home runs in MLB, the Dodgers had the first National League All-Star voted in this year.
They still have a chance for a late addition.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts has been lobbying for two members of his pitching staff to be named replacement players: left-handed starter Justin Wrobleski and left-handed reliever Tanner Scott.
“There’s going to be some changes and some talks here,” Roberts said before the Dodgers’ 4-3 loss against the Colorado Rockies at Dodger Stadium. “There’s continual talks about both guys.”
Earlier Tuesday, MLB announced replacements for three NL pitchers who won’t be eligible to appear in the All-Star Game. Pittsburgh’s Braxton Ashcraft, Philadelphia’s Jesús Luzardo and St. Louis’ Riley O’Brien claimed spots as Pittsburgh’s Paul Skenes, Milwaukee’s Jacob Misiorowski and Miami’s Max Meyer bowed out.
“Obviously it’s disappointing,” Wrobleski said after holding the Rockies to one run through seven innings. “You want to be an All-Star. It’s something that, regardless of the year, whenever, it’s always a big deal. It’s something I wanted to do. It’s frustrating to not get that nod. But like I said before, it’s just more reason to try and keep getting better. Hopefully I can gain the respect of players and everybody else and maybe be in there next year.”
There should continue to be movement on the All-Star roster, especially on the pitching side, with rotation schedules limiting which starters can participate. Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto, for example, is lined up to start Saturday, which may take him off the table for the All-Star Game next Tuesday.
That could open the door for Wrobleski and Scott.
Asked to make his pitch for Wrobleski, Roberts pointed to his ERA (2.69, No. 8 among qualified NL pitchers), average of more than six innings per start and 10 wins.
“We run a six-man rotation, and I just don’t want him to get dinged for not making a couple more starts that he potentially could have had,” Roberts said. “I just think that he’s performed enough to earn that opportunity.
“And also, Tanner had a rough one [Monday], but I still think that … he’s one of the elite relievers in the National League.”
Scott, after notching just his second blown save Monday, compared to his 12 saves and 2.70 ERA, didn’t have an opening to improve on his All-Star campaign Tuesday.
Wrobleski, however, strengthened his.
He stayed true to his identity, pounding the strike zone and inducing weak contact to go with nine strikeouts. The only run he gave up came on a groundout in the sixth inning with runners on the corners.
In a nod to Wrobleski’s new nickname, “The Shark,” coined by Hall of Fame pitcher Pedro Martínez, Dodger Stadium organist Dieter Ruehle played a snippet of the “Jaws” theme to punctuate Wrobleski’s punchouts, and as he walked off the mound for the last time.
Justin Wrobleski was great for seven innings Tuesday.
(Eric Thayer / Los Angeles Times)
Once Wrobleski’s job was done, he paced in the dugout, interrupted once in a while by a hug or handshakes from a teammate. Catcher Dalton Rushing held his hand up to his forehead like a shark fin.
The name and attacking reputation had stuck. Would it be enough for an All-Star nod?
“If it happens, great,” Wrobleski said. “If it doesn’t happen, some time off and just chill for a couple days. Either way, I’m all good.”
On the offensive side, Ohtani’s leadoff homer made him the first player to notch 300 home runs and 100-plus stolen bases in his first nine MLB seasons, according to ESPN Insights. Tuesday was his 1,101st game with at least one plate appearance. By that measure, he was the fifth-fastest to 300 home runs, according to mlb.com and Elias Sports Bureau, behind only Aaron Judge (953), Ralph Kiner (1,086), Ryan Howard (1,091) and Juan González (1,093).
“It was quite the homer,” Roberts said. “I mean, it was [112 mph] off the bat, low launch angle. It was squared up, got out in a hurry. And 300 — he got there pretty quickly for us. I just marvel at him every day.”
Defense unravels late
The Dodgers widened their lead to two runs but gave it up in the eighth on a pair of errors, including one on a sacrifice bunt.
Shortstop Miguel Rojas, who botched a grounder to his left earlier in the inning that enabled a run to score, was late breaking to cover third, leaving the bag wide open. Second baseman Alex Freeland tried to hit Rojas in stride with his throw and was charged with an error when it got away and the go-ahead run scored.
“Physical errors happen, and I’m OK with that,” Rojas said. “I’m not perfect, and I’m going to make errors, and physical errors are OK. But mental errors are the ones that are disappointing. I should have been on third base, I shouldn’t be putting Alex Freeland in the situation of throwing the ball with me on the run there. That’s the one that I kick myself for.”
Said Roberts: “This guy’s as dependable as they come. So that it happens, we don’t like it, doesn’t feel good, but you know that player. I give him a lot of grace, because he is very dependable.”
Right-hander Evan Phillips made his first major-league appearance in 14 months, after undergoing Tommy John surgery last summer, and had two strikeouts in a scoreless ninth inning. But the Dodgers offense didn’t muster a comeback, as the top of the batting order went down in order with two runners on.
Ohtani on track
Ohtani is still in line to pitch Friday against the Arizona Diamondbacks, Roberts said.
The right biceps issue that flared in Ohtani’s final at-bat last Friday, and sidelined him Saturday, raised the question of whether he should skip his last start before the All-Star break. But Roberts said Ohtani’s catch play has been normal and he hasn’t reported any concerns with his biceps.
“As he goes through the next couple days, if he doesn’t feel great, we’ll pivot, and we’re prepared to pivot,” Roberts said. “But as we sit here, I don’t see that changing.”
Roberts said he doesn’t think Ohtani will pitch in the All-Star Game or participate in the home run derby. But he does expect him to take an at-bat or two as the NL’s starting designated hitter.
“He understands the responsibility he has,” Roberts said. “So I do think that there’s a middle for what’s best for him, what potentially could be downside, but also what’s best for the game.”
A post-game fireworks show went awry at BMO Stadium on Friday night, when fireworks set off on the playing pitch sent flares streaming into the stands, forcing fans to scatter to safety.
Angel City FC played the Orlando Pride at BMO Stadium, coming back from a month-long break to win the match 2-0. But it was the promised post-game fireworks celebration that made the biggest splash.
Videos of the pyrotechnics display show the pitch filling with tall showers of sparks and dense smoke as dozens of fireworks launched upward. At what was to be the climactic finale of the show, however, fireworks began to take off horizontally, headed into the half-filled stands.
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From her club seat with her friends, season ticket-holder Jade Greenhut captured the center circle spectacle. She said she took out her phone and started recording after the first errant missile from the fusillade sped directly toward the Angel City team bench.
“Oh my god!” a woman’s voice on Greenhut’s video screams as at least two fireworks launched into the stands nearby, sending fans scrambling to get clear. Two more fireworks bounded across the field and into the stands. Off-camera, a man says, “Everybody’s running!”
A spokesperson for the soccer club said the organization had no information “of any serious injury” from the wayward pyrotechnics.
“A third party vendor was hired to facilitate the pyrotechnics,” said Stephanie Rudnick, head of communications for the Angel City Football Club, from her home in Australia.
“A fireworks malfunction did occur during last night’s post-match celebration at Angel City FC’s game vs. Orlando at BMO Stadium,” the team said in a statement to The Times. “Our medical and safety teams were on site and ready to respond. Stadium operations confirmed the venue was secure and guests, staff, players, and crew were able to depart safely.
“We are working closely with our pyrotechnics vendor to review the incident and evaluating appropriate next steps.”
Greenhut was nonplussed about the post-match mayhem. She said many fans had already left in the 20-minute interlude between the end of the game and the fireworks show, leaving the stands relatively empty and reducing the likelihood of injuries.
The air was already clearing by the time the stadium was evacuated. Her ticket ambassador approached her afterward to apologize. “He was like, ‘We did this for the [Los Angeles Football Club], and everything was fine,’” she said. “I don’t blame them at all.
“Honestly, the game was great. We played phenomenal,” Greenhut said.
But perhaps next time, she said, Angel City could go with drones.
Dodgers two-way phenom Shohei Ohtani waddled through the clubhouse after the Dodgers’ 4-3 comeback victory against the Padres on Friday night, the bulging ice wraps around his left knee and right arm creating a penguin-like effect to his gait.
That in and of itself wasn’t noteworthy — ice after starts is a regular part of any pitcher’s recovery and arm care. But for Ohtani, the awkward wraps were reminders of one ailment he’s getting over, knee inflammation, and one that popped up Friday night — a right biceps problem.
“More precautionary reason,” Ohtani said through interpreter Will Ireton about being replaced by a pinch-hitter in the seventh inning. “I was a little concerned with my biceps with the last at-bat that I took.”
Ohtani limited the Padres (43-44) to three runs over 110 pitches when he stepped up to the plate in the sixth.
Teoscar Hernández hits a grand slam for the Dodgers against the San Diego Padres on Friday.
He worked a full count and then flew out to right field. Ohtani paused on his follow-through, his lips pursed, before jogging up the line.
“It’s the same location that I felt a couple months ago,” Ohtani said. “It went away relatively quickly, so I expect that to happen again.”
That Ohtani dealt with a biceps problem earlier this season was not disclosed before Friday. Even manager Dave Roberts said after the game that he had just learned about the previous ailment.
Ohtani will take off Saturday to recover, Roberts said. And Ohtani skipping his last pitching start before the All-Star break is “on the table.”
Ohtani was voted the starting designated hitter for the National League, marking his sixth straight All-Star selection. But even before Friday, it seemed unlikely he would pitch in the All-Star Game given his rotation schedule.
“He’s a quick healer, and finds a way to get back,” Roberts said. “But I do think that for us to read and react and hear what his body is telling him is really important, given the toll it takes on his body to be a two-way player.”
The injury concern replaced now-assuaged questions about Ohtani’s pairing with catcher Dalton Rushing with Will Smith (neck) on the injured list. Smith has at least resumed throwing and took swings Thursday, Roberts said, but he isn’t expected to return before the All-Star break.
The last time Rushing caught Ohtani, the pitcher took over pitch-calling after a disastrous second inning against the Twins last week.
“I just overthought last time,” Rushing said in a conversation with The Times on Thursday night. “I was trying to be perfect, and with a guy like that, you don’t have to be perfect. You just need to call the right pitches at the right time and allow his stuff to just beat them naturally. And that’s the plan [Friday]. Whether I call the pitch, he calls the pitch. I want to make sure we’re both convicted in what we’re throwing, and we can execute it to the best of our ability.”
On Friday, Ohtani handed back over pitch-calling duties, communicating with head shakes and nods instead of the PitchCom buttons on his arm.
Ohtani walked the first two batters he faced. But then he struck out three of the next four, escaping the jam down just 1-0, courtesy of an RBI single from Gavin Sheets.
That started a streak of 10 batters who Ohtani retired in order, fanning six of them.
“The best way that I can describe it is, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” Rushing said when asked what he’d learned from following along last week. “That’s the way he pitches. … Trust what you do, trust how good his stuff is, and just go from there.”
Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani, left, gets a fist bump from catcher Dalton Rushing during the first inning of a 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Ohtani’s back-to-back strikeouts to end the second inning were a good example. Against left-handed hitting Sung-Mun Song, he threw mostly four-seam fastballs and splitters, finishing off the six-pitch at-bat with a sweeper, according to Statcast.
Against right-handed hitting Rodolfo Durán, Ohtani threw mostly sinkers and sweepers, with one four-seamer mixed in out of seven pitches.
Ohtani eventually relented a second run with two outs in the fourth inning. He fell behind 0-2 in the count to Jackson Merrill, who flipped a strike call with an ABS challenge. Then Merrill hammered a fastball over the plate for a solo homer.
Ohtani successfully navigated traffic to throw a scoreless fifth, but Xander Bogaerts tagged him for an RBI double in the sixth.
“I think I did the bare minimum,” Ohtani said. “To get through six, to give the team the chance to win, keep the game in check. But there were some good and some bad.”
Ohtani gave up seven hits for a quality start that wasn’t his cleanest. The Dodgers (58-31), who had struggled to get anything going against Padres starter Michael King, were trailing 3-0 when Ohtani exited. But Teoscar Hernández took care of the deficit.
Teoscar Hernández hits a grand slam in the seventh inning of the Dodgers’ 4-3 win over the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium on Friday night.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Facing reliever Adrian Morejon with the bases loaded and no outs in the seventh, Hernández ambushed a first-pitch slider.
“Knowing him, every pitch is hard,” Hernández said. “I was looking for the hardest one, the fastball, middle-in. But just reacted to that one in the middle of the plate.”
Hernández drifted up the first-base line as he watched the ball fly. When it landed, he launched his bat back toward the dugout, and it made it halfway there.
“I’m just trying to find the same swing that I had before I got hurt,” Hernández said. “And at the same time, just do something for the team. It happened to be a big swing.”
Gaza’s first women’s amputee football team is reclaiming a space that war tried to take from them, challenging stigma around women and people with disabilities in sport.
SEATTLE — Cole Young hit two home runs to back eight strong innings from George Kirby as the Seattle Mariners came from behind to beat the Angels 6-2 on Monday night.
Dominic Canzone also went deep to help Seattle (43-43) get back to .500 and stay a half-game behind the first-place Texas Rangers in the American League West.
Zach Neto doubled to center field leading off the game against Kirby (7-7), and Denzer Guzman singled two pitches later for a 1-0 lead. Neto hit his 18th home run in the third — a two-out shot that made it 2-0.
Kirby gave up a one-out double to Josh Lowe in the fifth but struck out the side — including Neto — to end the inning. The right-hander used 16 pitches to get six straight outs from there until Lowe doubled leading off the eighth.
Kirby issued his only walk, to Neto, with one out before striking out Guzman looking and Nolan Schanuel swinging on his 100th pitch.
Kirby gave up seven hits and fanned seven before José A. Ferrer pitched a scoreless ninth.
Young led off the third against Angels rookie Ryan Johnson (1-3) with his eighth homer to cut it to 2-1. Josh Naylor walked and stole second in front of Young’s two-out shot in the sixth off Mitch Farris to make it 6-2.
Randy Arozarena was hit by a two-out pitch in the fourth before advancing on a two-base fielding error by Guzman at third base on a grounder from Naylor. Both runners scored on Cal Raleigh’s bloop single for a 3-2 lead.
Canzone hit his 13th homer to make it 4-2 in the sixth, a leadoff shot against Farris.
Johnson gave up three runs (one earned) in five innings. Farris was tagged for three runs in three innings.
Ginn (6-4) gave up three runs and eight hits, striking out five and walking one, to provide a much-needed boost to a pitching staff that had major league highs in June with a 6.14 ERA and 44 home runs given up.
The last-place Angels appointed former St. Louis Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak to be their interim GM and baseball operations consultant.
Angels starter Walbert Ureña (5-6) was perfect through four innings, opening the game with 15 straight strikes and needing only 36 pitches — 31 strikes — to retire his first 12 batters.
But the 22-year-old right-hander, who had a 1.93 ERA in his previous 10 starts, walked two of his first three batters in the fifth, throwing nearly as many pitches in the inning (36) as he did in the first four.
Max Muncy broke up Ureña’s no-hit bid with an infield single that load the bases, and the A’s followed with Jeff McNeil’s two-run single, Alika Williams’ RBI single, Henry Bolte’s two-run single and RBI singles by Nick Kurtz and Langeliers that built a 7-1 lead.
Donovan Walton’s RBI single had put the Angels ahead in the fourth. Jo Adell hit a two-run homer in the fifth.
Up next: Athletics RHP Jack Perkins (2-3, 6.26 ERA) and Angels LHP Reid Detmers (3-5, 3.93 ERA) start Saturday night.
An eye-watering, cough-inducing thick stench of burning plastic permeated Dodger Stadium on Sunday morning. The smoke from the Boyle Heights warehouse fire had spread into every crevice and corner of the facility, inescapable despite the masks handed out to staff.
“It’s a little dark out there, little Gotham City when I was driving up,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.
Major League Baseball approved the Father’s Day game to be played, according to Roberts. Still, the ominous atmosphere was hard to miss. When rolling up Vin Scully Avenue, a white smoke hung like a curtain behind the small hills on the other side of outfield walls, obscuring the normally scenic view of the San Gabriel Mountains.
Perhaps that should’ve been the first sign things wouldn’t go as planned for the Dodgers, who lost 12-1 to the Orioles. The loss marked the first time the Dodgers (49-29) have lost consecutive games since May 12.
“It’s everywhere in baseball, to be quite honest, but my concern is our team,” Roberts said of the Dodgers’ recent performances. “I don’t know the answer. It happens sporadically with all teams.”
By the time Emmet Sheehan took the mound, the smell had diluted, and the sunshine broke through the haze. The 26-year-old hasn’t won in more than a month, despite what at the time appeared to be a bounce-back performance against the Chicago White Sox last week. Sheehan lasted 3 1/3 innings against Baltimore, none particularly worse than the first.
Sheehan (3-5) loaded the bases, and Orioles catcher Samuel Basallo put Baltimore (37-42) on the scoreboard with a softly hit ball that split first baseman Freddie Freeman and right fielder Kyle Tucker. A two-out single by Colton Cowser put the Orioles up by two. With the bases loaded, Sheehan worked out of trouble with two strikeouts and a pop out. But the inning cost him four hits and nearly 30 pitches.
“We just got to have a better approach or plan with respect to the game situation,” Roberts said before the game. “Go out there and conduct, good and bad, not always gonna get the results, but I just think that we’re just missing at times the layer of the right approach in that particular situation.”
Sheehan struggled the most with his slider. Normally, the pitch elicits about a 43% chase rate, though against Baltimore it plummeted to 18%. The nose-dive, mainly caused by his inability to throw the slider in the zone, made his other pitches look less competitive, and the Orioles started connecting with his fastball. He gave up two home runs on the pitch to Taylor Ward in the second and Cowser in the third.
Meanwhile, Max Muncy drove in the Dodgers’ only run in the first with a line drive to left field. Shohei Ohtani, who had reached first on a walk and took second on Freddie Freeman’s single, slid home as the throw came in. However, the ball bounced off Basallo’s gear and ricocheted away from the plate.
The Orioles scored runs in four consecutive innings before Edgardo Henriquez threw a 1-2-3 inning in the fifth. The team tacked on four runs in the seventh, when, with a man on, the Dodgers ereliever Jonathan Hernández intentionally walked Gunner Henderson, who had gone two for four. So, He then threw a belt-high sinker down the middle of the plate that Pete Alonso smashed into the right field bleachers for a three-run homer. Hernández could only watch the ball soar, hunched over.
Blaze Alexander hit a two-run homer in the eighth. But position-player pitcher Miguel Rojas dealt a 1-2-3 ninth inning, one of the team’s three innings it held the Orioles scoreless. By then, the skies had cleared enough for the faint outline of the San Gabriel Mountains to appear. The Dodgers, though, finished the game as uncompetitive as it had started.
Injury Updates
Catcher Will Smith will not travel with the team this week as the team takes on the Twins and the Padres, Roberts said before the game. Smith is expected to participate in some baseball activities and will have a better estimate of his return depending on how he feels after.
Teoscar Hernández is slated to play in a rehab assignment Tuesday with the triple-A Oklahoma City Comets before joining the team in its final June series against the Athletics.
Reliever Blake Treinen, on the 15-day injured list with right elbow inflammation, got some good news. The MRI did not show any structural damage, only inflammation that Roberts attributed to the wear and tear of the season. “I don’t think it’ll be a long thing,” Roberts said. “Obviously, he’s on the IL, so it’s going to be two weeks, but hopefully it’s not much more beyond that.”
SACRAMENTO — Pinch-hitter Jonah Heim launched a tying homer with two outs in the ninth and the Athletics surrendered 11 straight runs before rallying from seven down to defeat the Angels 12-11 in 10 innings Friday night.
Zack Gelof started the comeback with an RBI single in the sixth, and the A’s got two-run homers from Jacob Wilson in the seventh, Max Muncy in the eighth and Heim in the ninth to tie it 11-11.
Nick Kurtz walked with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th to force home the winning run. It was the largest comeback win for the A’s (38-38) this season.
Gelof extended his hitting streak to 23 games — the longest active run in the majors.
Tyler Soderstrom hit a one-out double in the ninth before Heim connected for his second career-tying pinch-hit homer. The first came earlier this month in a 15-14 loss to Milwaukee in Las Vegas.
Henry Bolte drew a leadoff walk from Kirby Yates (0-3) in the 10th. Following a double steal, Muncy flied out and Gelof was hit by a pitch to load the bases. Samy Natera Jr. entered and walked Kurtz on five pitches, scoring automatic runner Lawrence Butler.
A’s starter Jeffrey Springs gave up six runs on four hits and four walks in 3 2/3 innings. Elvis Alvarado (3-1) pitched two scoreless innings to earn the win.
José Soriano struck out six in five innings. He permitted six hits, four runs and four walks.
Up next: RHP J.T. Ginn (5-3, 2.91 ERA) pitches Saturday for the A’s in the third game of the four-game series. The Angels had not announced their starter.
Photo: Humberto Villalobos in February 2023, months before the last opposition primaries
While Washington’s focus seems to be shifting toward security and armed groups, Machado’s team keeps its priorities clear, looking beyond the immediate circumstances. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate keeps saying that an election will be the vehicle to channel a transition to democracy—an event where the anti-chavista movement sees itself as the clear winner. Following the 2023 and especially the 2024 elections (where the coalition successfully defended a clear victory for Edmundo González by collecting and publishing 85% of the official tally sheets), it is not far-fetched to say that this is where the Venezuelan opposition’s greatest strengths lie, even under adverse conditions.
At Caracas Chronicles, we sat down with Humberto Villalobos—Vente Venezuela’s electoral chief, who coordinated Machado’s famous defense machinery—to discuss the current gap between ideal electoral conditions and reality, now that the publication of the Panama Manifesto has opened the opposition to negotiating elections with chavismo, naming Machado as the leader (or conductora) of the process.
Machado’s team is proposing changes that, to a large extent, aim to “demolish” the electoral system as we know it. Among other measures, this involves migrating to a hybrid system that would get rid of the ExCle voting machines, (paper ballots would be counted by hand), establishing a CNE in a novel fashion, improving the Venezuelan Electoral Registry so it accurately reflects how the population is scattered both inside and abroad, and implementing a mechanism to legalize political party competition in practice.
Once a new CNE is formed and the electoral calendar is published, Villalobos says this study could contribute to the renewal of the Electoral Registry. Under the proposal, the Registry would be renewed in three months.
This is a baseline proposal that could change in a scenario where Villalobos views the US as the guarantor of an agreement: “Delcy will make proposals, we will too, and in the end, all those things will be considered to yield something reasonable.” He envisions an election that is “simpler to produce,” stripping away the obvious strategic advantages that chavismo has historically claimed for itself during elections. “Under other conditions,” Villalobos says, “none of this would even be on the table. But here they proved to us that they can pass an energy reform in 15 days. You could do something similar to make elections happen, something just as important as pumping oil.”
First: an independent citizen register
Villalobos began by describing the need to produce a rigorous study of the local and migrant populations to understand the country’s actual electoral reality. The opposition would gather information directly from the people to understand who still lives where the Electoral Registry says they do, who left the country, and how many voters would require a change in their polling station. Villalobos calls this empadronamiento: the creation of a citizen residency register. The objective, he notes, is for the majority of voters to update their addresses through a digital platform featuring biometric facial recognition (ABIS) identification mechanisms, or at registration points operated by a network of enumerators or empadronadores
Once a new CNE is established and the electoral calendar is released, this study could assist in overhauling the Electoral Registry, the current state of which Villalobos calls “disastrous.”
“While citizens are changing their voting addresses, they could also support a political party. From that, you would yield parties with validated groups of voters.”
The digital platform and the network already exist. Vente has started the process with its own members, and all current enumerators hold positions within the party: “We originally thought of it just for Vente, and as we grew, we envisioned it as a solution for all Venezuelans.” They would only need the people’s consent to use their data. Villalobos admits that managing a database of this scale carries an enormous burden of responsibility, but the alternative would mean negotiating while relying exclusively on data managed by the chavista state, which “treats it as its own asset.”
“At the end of the day, we are the only ones ready to do it. The systems being employed are the ones we already used in the 2024 presidential election. We simply added an extra feature that allows for enrollment of this type,” Villalobos asserts. “That feature handled half of the tally sheets we transcribed. And that gives you the certainty that you can handle millions. Furthermore, the guarantee is being provided by María Corina Machado.”
Second: ad hoc CNE, Electoral Registry, and political parties
The proposal rests on the premise that the CNE’s current structure is too flawed to fix simply by appointing a new board of rectors (or “electoral commission,” as Marco Rubio has called it). They propose a new, temporary electoral authority termed ad hoc CNE, an entity created specifically to manage an electoral transition. From that point on, it would only require a new specialized company to carry out the formal overhaul of the Electoral Registry
“More than one company is already preparing its bid under the terms we are working with,” Villalobos says. “That bidding process would have to be run by the new CNE, a natural process that nobody else can handle.”
Data from the independent, citizen register “would serve as a foundation” for the state provider to shorten the process. Villalobos assures that, in this manner, the new Registry could be ready in three months. Meanwhile, political parties that have been suspended or intervened since the last decade would be legalized through groups of voters that endorse these political organizations. “While citizens are changing their voting addresses, they could also support a political party. From that, you would yield parties with validated groups of voters. That would save us a lot of time.” The concept of groups of voters (grupos de electores) exists in Venezuelan legislation, though not necessarily for these purposes. A new statute for the ad hoc CNE, Villalobos suggests, could change that.
The electoral expert noted that one additional provider would be needed to manage the calendar and the elections. Identity verification made possible by the technology first implemented in the independent citizen register would thus help the ad hoc CNE assign party representatives and witnesses.
Third: goodbye to the machines
The most ambitious part of the proposal is to discard the electronic voting system that has been in place in Venezuela throughout this century and move to a mixed system featuring manual counting and automatic transmission.
According to Villalobos, paper ballots would be counted by hand by polling station members in the presence of party representatives. Afterward, a photo and a scan of the voting tally sheet would be taken. The data of all votes would then be transmitted from the polling station to the CNE, the political parties, international institutions linked to the electoral process, universities, and media outlets.
“It works almost like a blockchain, because you will have multiple repositories of the original document, which prevents it from being altered. It isn’t a galactic development like a voting machine that does absolutely everything,” Villalobos says. “It would be a matter of scanning something, transcribing it, and sending it. That fits on a smartphone.”
Villalobos noted they will push to ensure there are no polling stations where it is impossible to deploy a witness.
He maintains that the current system operates like a “black box” where voters are forced to accept the results transmitted by the machines, which he claims can be manipulated by those managing the CNE. But didn’t the physical tally sheets printed by these machines on July 28, 2024—which proved Edmundo González won the election by a 2-to-1 margin—serve to show that the count itself wasn’t manipulated, but rather that the CNE simply fabricated results declaring Maduro the winner? Villalobos insists that the current technology failed because, regardless, opposition witnesses were unable to obtain 15% of the tally sheets. He asserts that without representatives at a polling center, “there are ways they can change your result.”
“The extraordinary concept of having a machine that does everything is not dominant worldwide. In Colombia [referring to the first round of presidential elections where Abelardo de la Espriella secured the majority of votes], where the process was not the fastest, we already had the results of all tally sheets within an hour and a half. All of them, not a single one was missing.”
Finally, Villalobos was emphatic that voting must end strictly at a specific hour (in Venezuela, polling stations commonly close at 6 pm, but voting can be extended if there are still voters in line). He also stressed that the opposition will push to ensure there are no polling stations where it is impossible to deploy a witness. In the 2024 presidential election and previous ones, voting centers were set up inside Misiones Vivienda (state housing complexes), communal council headquarters controlled by the ruling party, and military bases—places where the likelihood of a clean process and of collecting the printed tally sheet is usually much lower.
“Voting systems were created to resolve conflicts. The first step is for all of us to believe we won’t be cheated, because otherwise, we go right back to the same thing,” he concludes. “In any election, they can change the result of a polling center if you don’t have anyone there. That’s why we are going to motivate people to stay at the centers, to have the fiesta right there. So that you walk away from that center knowing it is impossible for them to change the results.”
Tyra Banks has filed a defamation lawsuit against Netflix and the directors of “Reality Check: Inside America’s Next Top Model” claiming that she was manipulated and misrepresented in the series.
The three-part documentary, directed by married duo Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan, revisited the reality show’s rise and many controversies, including former contestant Shandi Sullivan discussing what she described as a blackout sexual encounter that took place during Cycle 2 of the series and was a major plot point because Sullivan was in a relationship.
Sullivan said in “Reality Check” that she felt like producers should have stepped in considering she was heavily intoxicated, but instead they followed her into the bathroom and bedroom to record a sexual encounter with a male model. In a following scene, Banks lectures Sullivan about cheating and “carnal” temptation.
“Tyra Banks participated in the Netflix documentary series about ‘America’s Next Top Model’ because she believed viewers deserved a candid conversation about the show’s legacy — its successes and its shortcomings,” reads the lawsuit. “There are aspects of the show for which Ms. Banks takes accountability and she wanted ANTM viewers to hear that from her directly.”
The lawsuit, filed on Saturday in the Central District of California, claims that the supermodel turned media personality participated in a 3½-hour interview, of which about 16 minutes was used.
“The producers used what could be stripped of context and reassembled to support a false and defamatory narrative unrelated to what she actually expressed,” reads the suit. “The accountability Banks took ended up on the cutting room floor.”
The suit alleges that producers used “selective editing, deliberate omission and surgical manipulation of continuous footage” to create a false narrative that Banks “knowingly allowed a contestant to be sexually assaulted on her show, exploited that contestant’s trauma for ratings, and then could not even remember it when asked.”
Banks claims that she asked Netflix and the producers of the docuseries for access to the unedited footage of her 3½-hour interview, and proposed they work together to “correct the record.”
“Had they agreed, Ms. Banks could have made the truth public and this litigation would likely have been unnecessary,” reads the suit.
According to the suit, Banks was pitched the docuseries as a “definitive three-hour Netflix docuseries exploring America’s Next Top Model as a groundbreaking popculture phenomenon.” The pitch had a Netflix logo on its cover, and Banks had “long trusted and admired Netflix.” The streamer’s involvement was the reason Banks claims she considered the project.
Banks claims the pitch included promises that the documentary would unpack the show’s legacy “not as a takedown, but as a thoughtful in-depth reflection on its influence, evolution, and impact on fashion, television, and culture.”
The suit claims Banks was prepared for a fair comeuppance, but ultimately the former supermodel felt hoodwinked. “Nothing suggested that the project would falsely accuse Ms. Banks of covering up a sexual assault, or being indifferent to what a contestant characterizes as a traumatic experience.”
In February, directors for “Reality Check” revealed that Banks wasn’t invited to participate in the docuseries until well after production began
“It was like, ‘Hey, this can be a great addition, but definitely not a necessity,’” Sivan said. “People talking trash about her is very easy to find. … But having her passion, bringing this program to life, is something that only she could tell.”
Sivan and Loushy, who also helmed the acclaimed 2025 docuseries “American Manhunt: Osama bin Laden,” said they treated “Reality Check” with the same level of care as previous heavyweight projects.
“There were things that were sensitive and important for me,” Loushy said, from the harassment that she said “ANTM” contestants endured to the insecurities that “to us as women, are sitting tight and hard every day on our heart.”
The directing duo hoped to examine the good intentions Banks and producers had, of turning the fashion industry on its head, empowering women and championing diversity, and the way those intentions evolved as the show moved through cycles.
“At the end of the day, was it a force of good, or was it a force of evil? I hope people keep debating that,” Sivan said.
Former Times staff writer Malia Mendez contributed to this report.
CHICAGO — Dodgers left-hander Jack Dreyer rubbed a new baseball between his hands as he walked back to the mound, a sold-out Rate Field coming alive around him.
Fireworks crackled over the center-field scoreboard. Digital pinwheels spun. Dreyer had just surrendered his second home run of the inning, transforming a low-scoring battle into a lopsided White Sox advantage.
The Dodgers’ recent bullpen problems persisted in a 6-4 loss Sunday, overshadowing a bounce-back effort from Emmet Sheehan. The Dodgers tried to come back in the ninth, but fell short.
“We’ve gotten bit by the long ball, obviously in Pittsburgh, and here tonight,” said bench coach Danny Lehmann, filling in Sunday for manager Dave Roberts while he attended his daughter’s college graduation. “But overall, it’s more the strike throwing and just getting ahead of guys and doing what they’re supposed to do.”
The Dodgers dropped the series 2-1, marking their first series loss since May 8-10 against the Braves.
Sheehan was charged with three runs in five-plus innings, a massive turnaround coming off the second-shortest start of his career, only rivaled by a planned one-inning outing at the end of last season.
On Sunday, he didn’t give up a hit until the fourth inning.
“He got strike one and then understood when to leave the zone when he needed to,” catcher Dalton Rushing said. “He did a great job of that. I think a couple of those guys picked up on tendencies, jumped on a pitch. I felt they were good pitches. I thought he did his job today and gave us a chance to win.”
Sheehan’s velocity has been an indicator of how synced up his delivery has been on any given start this season.
Dodgers starting pitcher Emmet Sheehan delivers against the Chicago White Sox in the first inning Sunday.
(Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press)
On Sunday, his 95.1-mph average fastball velocity was 0.7 mph above his season average, according to Statcast — a promising sign. Results followed.
Sheehan retired 11 of the first 12 batters he faced, just a hit batter away from perfection. With two outs in the fourth, he gave up a double to Colson Montgomery, on a low line drive up the first-base line, just out of reach of Freddie Freeman as he made a diving attempt.
Then against Braden Montgomery, Sheehan worked back from a 2-1 count for an inning-ending strikeout.
Out of Sheehan’s hand, the pitch looked like it was going to cross the plate on the inside corner, about belt high. But as Montgomery started his swing, the firm changeup veered away from his bat at a sharp downward angle.
Montgomery swung over the pitch. A fired-up Sheehan buried his fist in his glove and shouted. With that strikeout, he preserved the Dodgers’ one-run lead.
Freeman provided that run with a solo homer in the first inning. And Sheehan gave the Dodgers plenty of time to extend that lead. In the sixth inning, however, the White Sox finally got to him.
“I definitely felt better early,” Sheehan said. “And then more of the same towards the end. Just pretty frustrating.”
Sheehan’s fastball to Sam Antonacci wasn’t in a bad spot. But in an 0-2 count, he could have put it a little higher or farther inside. Antonacci drove it over the right-field fence.
A single, a stolen base and an RBI double later, Sheehan walked off the mound, the Dodgers trailing 2-1.
Just a few weeks ago, turning the ball over to the Dodgers’ bullpen was a promising move. They were still riding a franchise-record streak of 38 consecutive scoreless innings.
Lately, however, it’s been a rocky ride. The bullpen entered Sunday with a 6.71 ERA since ending that scoreless streak on May 25. Only the Giants and Rockies produced a worse mark over that stretch.
None of the Dodgers’ relievers have been dominant in recent games. Tanner Scott has been credited with three saves but also two losses. Kyle Hurt’s ERA has risen from 0.60 to 4.22. Dreyer, who went 10 straight games without giving up a run before landing on the injured list with left shoulder discomfort, has surrendered five home runs in seven appearances since returning on May 31.
Dreyer gave up three runs and three hits. Then Blake Treinen and Jonathan Hernández held the White Sox the rest of the way.
The Dodgers tacked on three more runs, on a sacrifice fly and an RBI double from Alex Freeland, and a solo homer from Mookie Betts. They stranded runners at the corners in the ninth.
Junior Caminero hit a tiebreaking two-run homer in the eighth inning, and the Tampa Bay Rays avoided a series sweep with an 8-3 victory over the Angels on Sunday.
Victor Mesa Jr. added a two-run homer later in a five-run eighth for the Rays, who have won four of six despite losing the first two in their weekend visit to Angel Stadium. Ben Williamson connected early for his second career homer.
Cedric Mullins drew a leadoff walk from Sam Bachman (1-1) before Caminero hit his 15th home run to left field, ending his 10-game homer drought. Hunter Feduccia added an RBI single before Mesa hit his third career homer off Bachman, who hadn’t allowed a homer since May 5.
Donovan Walton hit his first homer for the Angels, whose four-game winning streak ended. The last-place Angels had won five of six during the best stretch of its dismal season, winning both of its home series this week.
Angels starter Grayson Rodriguez left the game with low-back tightness in the third inning after 47 pitches.
Kevin Kelly (4-2) pitched two scoreless innings in a Rays bullpen game. Garrett Cleavinger escaped a bases-loaded, one-out jam in the eighth created by Craig Kimbrel, who walked two and hit a batter with a pitch in the veteran reliever’s third appearance for Tampa Bay.
Chandler Simpson had a two-run single for Tampa Bay in the third, and Williamson added his first homer in a Rays uniform in the fourth for a 3-1 lead.
Angels outfielder Wade Meckler left in the fifth inning after crashing into the wall while trying to catch Williamson’s homer.
Walton connected in the fifth for his first major league homer since 2024 and only the fifth of his seven-year career. Jo Adell poked a tying single through the infield moments later.
Up next for the Angels: Walbert Ureña (4-4, 2.44 ERA) has made five consecutive outstanding starts going into Monday night at Arizona.
CHICAGO — Fans around Rate Field rose to their feet as Yoshinobu Yamamoto embraced his teammates before walking off the mound.
Of course, the Dodgers fans stood. But fans clad in White Sox jerseys joined them, waving White Sox hats in the air, acknowledging the brilliance they’d just witnessed.
In the Dodgers’ 7-1 win against the White Sox on Saturday, Yamamoto carried a perfect game bid into the eighth inning and a no-hit bid into the ninth.
Dating back to Yamamoto’s last start, against the Angels, he retired 45 straight batters, one shy of the major-league record set by Yusmeiro Petit in 2014.
In an eventful game, which included Shohei Ohtani returning to the lineup to homer in his first at-bat, a two-homer performance from Max Muncy, and a team-effort bounce-back after getting blown out the night before, Yamamoto’s performance on the mound stole the show.
Yamamoto, who exited with one out in the ninth inning and a pitch count of 109, was efficient even within each out. A 10-pitch strikeout in the third inning showed how Yamamoto wasn’t going to give in.
The Dodgers right-hander was one pitch away from striking out Jacob Gonzalez for seven straight pitches. But Gonzalez kept fouling off anything close to the strike zone.
For the 10th pitch of the at-bat, Yamamoto challenged Gonzalez with a cutter over the plate. And finally, Gonzalez swung through it.
The next inning, Yamamoto retired the side in eight pitches.
The only thing that slowed his roll was the mound itself. Yamamoto asked for the grounds crew to fix it in the sixth. And then he kept cruising.
Dodgers catcher Dalton Rushing slaps hands with Dodgers pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto in the ninth inning Saturday against the White Sox.
(Zoe Davis / Getty Images)
He had help from a steady defense behind him for much of the game.
The sixth inning included two highlight-worthy plays. Tristan Peters hit a sharp ground ball up the first-base line, and first baseman Freddie Freeman made a sliding stop, tossing the ball to Yamamoto at first to complete the play. Then left-fielder Alex Call ran into the retaining wall in foul territory to catch Edgar Quero’s fly ball for the final out of the inning.
For the most part, Yamamoto made it look easy. The hardest contact against Yamamoto came the third time through the lineup. In the seventh, he pumped a heater to the top rail against Miguel Vargas, who stayed on top of the pitch to send a line drive to left field — and right to Call.
In the eighth, he fell behind Colson Montgomery 3-1. But he worked back to a full count. Montgomery then scorched a line drive up the first-base line — into Freeman’s glove.
His perfect game bid ended two batters later, with two outs, on an error.
Yamamoto got Chase Meidroth to chase a slider, hitting a ground ball to shortstop Mookie Betts. But Betts mishandled the hop. The ball shot to his left, where second baseman Santiago Espinal tried to salvage the play but couldn’t pick up the ricochet cleanly.
The no-hit bid was next to fall. Yamamoto piped a fastball down the middle to Peters, who sent it over the wall in right field.
Yamamoto stayed in for one more batter, inducing Quero to fly out, before handing the ball over to manager Dave Roberts. Left-hander Alex Vesia took over for the final two outs.
Ohtani returns, hits home run
Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani runs the bases after hitting a home run against the White Sox on Saturday.
(Matt Marton / Associated Press)
Before Yamamoto took the mound, Ohtani’s return was the big story of the day.
As Ohtani stepped into the batter’s box for the first time, he was greeted by a smattering of boos.
He took his first swing at the second pitch of the game. And he sent it into the right-field stands. A no-doubter, proclaiming that his availability was no longer in doubt.
Ohtani returned to the Dodgers lineup after exiting against the Pirates on Thursday because of inflammation in his left knee.
“I think Shohei drove it,” Roberts said of the decision to play. “Training staff drove it. We took him out of the game the other night just for precautionary reasons. Yesterday, treated it up. Today he feels great. All the confidence that he can go out there and hit, feel good, not regress at all.”
The Dodgers (45-26) will continue to monitor Ohtani’s knee as he prepares to take the mound Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Rays at Dodger Stadium.
“I think we’re full go,” Roberts said before Ohtani threw on flat ground Saturday. “But I do think once he’s out there playing catch and we see how his knee responds to the pressure, the torque will be some good information.”
Even before Ohtani’s knee swelled (it’s still unclear what caused the inflammation) the Dodgers planned to have him pitch the day before their off-day on Thursday.
They switched Ohtani and left-hander Justin Wrobleski in the rotation order, with Wrobleski set to pitch Tuesday on regular rest.
That remains the plan, even after Wrobleski was hit in the leg by a comebacker Thursday. He left the game with a bruised right hamstring.
The Dodgers considered bringing in a spot starter, Roberts said, in order to keep the full rotation on extra rest.
“But considering how Wrobo’s start went short, feels good after it, we feel the four days’ rest will be fine for him,” Roberts said. “And then where Shohei is at, we feel good about just leaving it status quo.”
Ohtani returned without restrictions in his designated-hitter role — except for one request from his manager, after a couple days of parsing whether a steal attempt that was snuffed out by a foul ball had contributed to Ohtani’s injury.
Though they didn’t find a clear inciting incident, Roberts made it clear Saturday: “There will be no base stealing.”
