second half

Lukas MacNaughton and Marcel Hartel scored four minutes apart late in the first half to break open St. Louis City’s 3-1 victory over the Galaxy on Wednesday night.

Simon Becher scored in the second half after Galaxy defender Emiro Garcés was sent off in the 49th minute with his second yellow card, and St. Louis cruised to its third straight win.

St. Louis, which is unbeaten in six straight since early May, also leapfrogged the Galaxy into the Western Conference’s playoff positions with this victory.

Troy Elgersma scored his first MLS goal in the 86th minute for the Galaxy, who have lost two home matches by a combined 6-1 since selling top goal-scorer Gabriel Pec to Brazil’s Cruzeiro for a club-record fee of at least $12 million during the World Cup break. Pec had 43 goals and 28 assists across 101 matches for the Galaxy.

MacNaughton opened the scoring in the 42nd minute when he glided through the box and headed Hartel’s corner in off the Galaxy’s back post.

With Galaxy captain Marco Reus down behind the play after a St. Louis player stepped on his foot in the first minute of stoppage time, Hartel dribbled outside the penalty area and looped in a shot that froze goalkeeper JT Marcinkowski, who made eight saves. The teams exchanged shoves after the goal, with Reus and Garcés receiving yellow cards.

Garcés was sent off shortly after the break for kicking the ball away after a foul.

Becher sneaked behind L.A.’s back line and chipped home on the counter in the 68th minute.

Elgersma, a 22-year-old midfielder who starred at Redlands High, entered his second MLS match as a late substitute and ruined Roman Bürki’s clean sheet.

Harbor Miller started in Pec’s place on LA’s front line for the Galaxy, whose fans chanted “We want better!” in the second half. The Galaxy are awaiting the arrival of Kyōgo Furuhashi after acquiring the Japanese striker from Birmingham City on Tuesday.

João Klauss, the longtime St. Louis forward acquired by the Galaxy in January, has been out since undergoing foot surgery in April.

Dodgers pitching coach Mark Prior was worried. But how worried? He couldn’t say at first.

The team had taken major steps to address Shohei Ohtani’s lingering left knee condition, presenting him with a plan to skip his last start before the All-Star break and have his knee drained that Sunday. And he’d co-signed it.

The swelling in Ohtani’s knee, however, had been more persistent than the team expected. And pitching seemed to irritate it.

“I would say, moderately concerned,” Prior eventually said in a conversation with The Times last weekend. “But no more concerned than I probably am with anybody else who’s had to deal with aches and pains. Hopefully, this break and this rest will get it to calm down a little bit, and then we’ll see where we’re at next weekend.”

Coming out of the All-Star break, the Dodgers face the most pressing question for their second half: Will they be able to manage Ohtani’s knee condition?

Of course, plenty of other questions loom: What approach will the Dodgers take at the trade deadline? Will the pitchers coming off the injured list in the second half provide enough depth? Can they maintain the best record in the majors?

But naturally, Ohtani’s health is tangled up in all those answers.

The Dodgers have enough star power and enough of a lead in the division to still make the playoffs without Ohtani replicating his first half on the mound (8-2, 1.79 ERA). And they showed last year that they can win a World Series even if their postseason path begins with a wild-card series.

They’d prefer, however, to take a different route, with a strong second half that ensures home-field advantage all the way through the postseason.

“At the end of the day, it’s just trying to expect the best of your ballclub,” manager Dave Roberts said before the break. “And with the talent that we have, we expect to have the best record in baseball, and so that’s our standard. And so, what falls out of it is X, Y and Z. So that’s what we’re playing for.”

That’s also what they need a healthy Ohtani for.

Workload is part of the equation, and an aspect that’s garnered plenty of attention in Ohtani’s first full season balancing two-way duties since 2023.

“I’ve been much more open and watching … his workload, and not just taking for granted that he can be a two-way player, take every at-bat, pitch like a normal pitcher,” Roberts said. “I think that would be unfair. So for me, if anything, it’s just, keep having those conversations with him, bringing them to him, and saying, ‘Hey, this is what we see. This might be a different option, a better option for your best interest and our best interest.’ And I think that with that, he’s responded really well.”

That approach will continue in the second half. But refining Ohtani’s mechanics also will be vital to keeping his knee from becoming an issue again.

Ohtani said it himself, through interpreter Will Ireton, last week: “I have to kind of find a way to adjust my mechanics so that my knee doesn’t get affected.”

He’s been trying to do so since the swelling in his knee first cropped up.

“I think we’ve identified the issue,” Prior said. “Sometimes the fix isn’t always the easiest, especially with a guy who doesn’t spend probably the same amount of time on the mechanics of it.”

As a two-way player, Ohtani doesn’t have the “physical bandwidth,” as Prior put it, for things like multiple bullpen sessions between starts, even if they are a week apart. He has to keep the long, grueling season in mind when he’s also in the lineup every day.

Looking back at Ohtani’s pitching start against the Pittsburgh Pirates last month, the day before he exited the series finale because of inflammation in his knee, the Dodgers observed his right leg landing a little farther across his body in his delivery, probably putting extra strain on that plant leg as he moved around it.

“He fixed it, and then I’m wondering if it got aggravated just in-game,” Prior said. “These guys are extreme compensators, and in the moment they don’t necessarily know what they’re doing, but they’re finding other ways to pitch, and then afterwards you find out that things are a little sore.”

Ohtani had a dominant first half, but, whether because of the knee condition or mechanics or some combination of the two, he wasn’t quite as sharp in his last four starts (4.38 ERA).

“If he can fix the delivery, then he can fix a little bit more of the execution,” Prior said.

But will the delivery adjustment, All-Star break intervention and attention to workload fix Ohtani’s knee at least through the postseason? The Dodgers’ second-half trajectory will be tied up in the answer.

PHILADELPHIA — For years, as stars such as Shohei Ohtani and Bryce Harper pleaded for the chance to play in the Los Angeles Olympics, and for Major League Baseball to back up its talk of growing the game internationally by participating in the world’s greatest sporting festival, the league was reluctant: Would the owners truly benefit from shutting down the season for a week and lending their best players to an event beyond their control?

Now that MLB is on board, the league wants the players to make an extraordinary commitment to back up their talk: If you’re selected to play in the Olympics, you must play. Or else.

The “or else” is not rhetorical. If a player is not on the injured list and is selected for the Olympics but declines to participate, the player would be subject to fine and/or suspension. In addition, the players would be ineligible to play for the first 14 days when the season resumes after the Olympics, according to a proposal from the commissioner’s office to the players’ union and obtained by The Times.

Under a tentative MLB plan, the first half of the 2028 season would end on July 9, with the All-Star Game on July 11. The Olympic baseball competition would start on July 13, with the second half of the season starting on July 21.

So as to discourage placement on the injured list as a way to avoid playing in the Games, a player selected for the Olympics but on the injured list as of July 9 would be excused, but he could not be reinstated to his team’s major league roster until Aug. 4, even if he had recovered from the injury before then.

“We went down the road on LA 2028 because we saw it as a unique opportunity to market the sport with our very, very best players,” Commissioner Rob Manfred said Tuesday in a meeting with the Baseball Writers Assn. of America.

“It is a disruptive undertaking for us … If we’re disrupting an entire season and we’re going to undertake that effort, we want our very best out there, so that people see how great our game really is.”

The league also does not want to undermine its All-Star Game, and it is reasonably foreseeable that some players might wish to skip the All-Star Game for a two-day summer break if they are going to play the next week at the Olympics.

In that scenario, under its proposal, the league would have the right to declare the player ineligible for the Olympics, and the player would be subject to fine and/or suspension as well as ineligibility for the first 14 days of the second half.

Bruce Meyer, the executive director of the players’ union, said the MLBPA plans a counterproposal.

“They want to make it mandatory for players who are selected to appear at the All-Star Game and the Olympics,” Meyer said Tuesday. “The proposals that they made in terms of what the discipline would be, the ramifications if a player doesn’t want to do that, in our view, are extreme.”

To use a Dodgers example, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was selected for this year’s All-Star Game, but Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said last week that he would not pitch.

Given that situation in 2028, if Yamamoto wished to pitch for Japan, he would have to be available for the All-Star Game. If not, Japan could lose him for the Olympics, and the Dodgers could lose him for his first two starts of the second half.

Meyer said the union is in “a very early stage of discussions” with the league. It is unclear how much time might be needed to resolve the issue, as well as what Meyer called “travel and accommodation” issues, which involve LA28.

It also is uncertain how long MLB would be willing to wait before committing to an All-Star site and date, although the league moved the 2021 game from Atlanta to Denver three months before the game date. San Francisco is expected to host the 2028 game, in large part because Los Angeles is a short flight away for an Olympic competition that would start two days later.

It is clear, however, that the league is getting tired of not always securing participation from marquee players in marquee events. The “you can’t pitch in the All-Star Game if you pitched on the previous Sunday” rule was intended to protect pitchers.

“It’s clear to me that teams are managing their pitching in a way to take advantage of the Sunday pitcher rule,” Manfred said. “I do think it’s really important that we always re-evaluate our approach to the All-Star Game in order to get the very, very best players that can participate in that game.”

The World Baseball Classic was a smashing success this year, even as the United States started a rookie pitcher in the championship game. Do we really need to mandate player participation in the Olympics, especially since so many great players already have said they want to be there?

“The WBC takes place at a point in time that the players are just beginning to ramp up for the season,” Manfred said. “There’s a whole host of reasons why, at that point in the calendar, players might not be ready to play.

“In contrast, the schedule for the Olympics is going to cover days that players otherwise would be playing in major league games — if they’re not on an injured list, they’d be out there playing. That is a huge difference.”

In another column, we could argue the merits of moving the final round of the WBC — the semifinals and championship game — to July, when players “otherwise would be playing in major league games.” That would grow the game, too.

But that is for another day. It would be absurd for MLB to miss out on the global marketing platform that is the Olympics. The issues MLB raises are legitimate; the solutions need not be so draconian.

The opening ceremonies in Los Angeles take place two years from Tuesday. The Olympics have taught us this about boycotts: No matter how worthy the cause, no one pays attention once the Games start. The Soviet Union boycotted the L.A. Games in 1984, and we had a grand time without the Russians.

No one cares if you’re not there. In MLB, a star-studded core wants to be there. Seize the moment.

SEATTLE — Folarin Balogun will be able to play for the U.S. in Monday’s World Cup elimination game with Belgium after FIFA rescinded the one-game suspension it handed down when Balogun drew a red card in the second half of the team’s round of 32 match against Bosnia and Herzegovina last week.

In a statement released Sunday morning, FIFA said “In line with article 27 of the FIFA Disciplinary Code, the implementation of the match suspension is suspended for a probationary period of one year. If Folarin Balogun commits another infringement of a similar nature and gravity during the probationary period, the suspension shall be revoked and the sanction enforced without prejudice to any additional sanction imposed for the new infringement.”

Balogun leads the U.S. with three goals in as many games. He is the first American to score three times in a World Cup since 1930.

Balogun got the red card after colliding with Bosnia’s Tarik Muharemovic 16 minutes into the second half when the Bosnian defender planted his right leg below Balogun’s right foot, the American inadvertently stomped on his right ankle, twisting it awkwardly.

Both players went down and referee Raphael Claus did not signal a foul or pull a card. But after the video assistant referee urged him to watch a replay, Claus walked away from the monitor and flashed the red card.

After the game Balogun shook Claus’ hand on the pitch. And on Friday, in his first public comments, he spoke respectfully of the decision to give him a red card.

U.S. Soccer also released a statement Sunday.

“We accept the decision of the Disciplinary Committee and are pleased that Folarin Balogun is eligible to compete tomorrow,” the statement said. ”Our full attention is focused on the Round of 16 match against Belgium in Seattle, and we look forward to the continued support of our amazing fans.”

A U.S. Soccer spokesman said the team was informed of FIFA’s decision Sunday morning and Balogun was told the suspension had been lifted during a bus ride to training.

Fox is under fire for missing on-field action during the first match of the World Cup last week. .

Many sports fans were irate when the network aired a full-screen ad when play resumed after a water break during last Thursday’s Mexico–South Africa match.

In the second half, the referee called for the newly instated hydration break, but the call came during a replay, which led to a miscommunication over when the three-minute break actually started.

Fox ran its full-screen ad late, and because the break didn’t last the full three minutes, players were reportedly left stalling on the field — and many Fox viewers missed the restart entirely.

“The reason that I keep coming back to these games as a fan is for 45 solid minutes of entertainment. Anything that interrupts that, whether it’s [these hydration breaks] or anything else, is not great for the game,” Garrett Denney, an avid World Cup fan and frequent user of the World Cup Reddit page, said. “What we want to see is that kind of rhythm and tempo, the intensity for a full half of soccer.”

Fox declined to comment.

The hydration break is new to the World Cup. FIFA announced it in December as a way to protect players’ health in the summer heat. In every match, the referee is to call for a break around the 22-minute mark of both halves, regardless of weather.

A FIFA spoesperson declined to comment, but pointed to a previous press release describing the breaks as a “focused attempt to ensure the best possible conditions for players, drawing upon the experiences of previous tournaments.”

The extra minutes also created something else — a new advertising window, and broadcasters are taking advantage.

Networks are supposed to leave the on-field action 20 seconds after the referee signals the break and return 30 seconds before play resumes, allowing for ads of up to two minutes and 10 seconds in total. They can air any full-screen ad they’d like, or run a split-screen ad — though a split-screen has to feature a FIFA partner, like Coca-Cola or Adidas.

The stakes are especially high for Fox, which is also leaning on the tournament to promote Fox One, its streaming service that lets subscribers watch its programming without a traditional pay-TV subscription. The World Cup broadcast has been a major plus for the platform, which costs $19.99 a month.

For some soccer fans, though, the commercial breaks are an intrusions.

“The FIFA hydration break is pure capitalism,” comedian Kevin Fredericks wrote on X.

Musician Lloyd Cole made a similar point about the new ad windows: “US tv finally got their 4 quarters. Fifa, corrupt? Fifa?”

After Fox’s stumble, many fans started questioning the intention behind the rule itself.

That frustration has pushed some viewers toward an alternative: Telemundo. The Spanish-language network, available through the Peacock streaming platform, opted for minimal hydration-break ads instead of full-screen takeovers.

During the same Mexico–South Africa match, while Fox aired its full-screen ad, Telemundo kept players on camera, let its commentators share their thoughts, and ran a Lays ad in the corner of the screen. The network has described it as a conscious decision to prioritize authenticity and keep viewers immersed.

“No ads on Telemundo and I’m learning Spanish at the same time!” one user quipped on the World Cup subreddit.

Denney, who’s rooting for Team USA, said his family prefers the Telemundo stream too — even with only part of the household fluent in Spanish.

“Part of our household is fully fluent in Spanish, part is not. And even despite the language barrier, we’ve really gravitated toward the quality of the Telemundo stream,” Denney said. “It’s really more of a rhythmic commentary. You can get deep into the game, you’re not pulled so far out of that experience and it feels almost like you’re at the stadium.”