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Taylor Ward hit a game-ending three-run homer in the ninth inning, Zach Neto had a home run and three RBIs and the Angels beat the Chicago White Sox 8-5 on Sunday to avoid a three-game sweep.

In a tie game, Nolan Schanuel doubled with one out in the ninth before Mike Trout was walked intentionally. Ward went deep against left-hander Tyler Alexander (4-10) to set a career high with 26 home runs.

Right-hander Kenley Jansen (4-2) pitched a scoreless ninth for the Angels (54-58).

Colson Montgomery hit a three-run home run and drove in four runs for the White Sox. They lost for just the third time in their last 12 road games.

The White Sox (42-70) took a 4-0 lead in the first inning when Robert had an RBI single and Montgomery followed with a three-run home run against Jack Kochanowicz.

Chicago made it 5-0 in the third on Montgomery’s RBI single.

The Angels started their rally in the sixth with a leadoff home from Neto. Ward had an RBI single, and Trout scored on a wild pitch. The Angels tied it in the seventh on a two-run double from Neto.

Key moment: The White Sox brought in the lefty Alexander to face left-handed hitting Schanuel in the ninth and his second hit of the game was a double to right to start the decisive rally.

Key stat: Montgomery played in his 24th career game since his debut July 4, with all seven of his home runs coming over his past 10 games.

Up next: Angels LHP Yusei Kikuchi (4-7, 3.30) is scheduled to start at home against Tampa Bay on Monday.

Aaron Civale pitched one-hit ball into the seventh inning and the Chicago White Sox beat the Angels 1-0 on Saturday night to surpass their win total from last season.

Chicago improved to 42-69 with its 10th win in 14 games since the All-Star break. It finished with a 41-121 record in 2024, breaking the modern major league record for most losses in a season.

The White Sox scored their only run on Kyle Teel’s RBI single in the second against Kyle Hendricks (6-8). Teel drove in Luis Robert Jr., who reached on a leadoff single.

Civale (3-6) struck out eight in 6⅓ innings. He is 2-0 in his last three starts, yielding an unearned run and seven hits in 17⅓ innings.

The Angels (53-58) got their only hit when Zach Neto beat out a slow roller down the third base line leading off the fourth. It was the team’s third consecutive loss. Nolan Schanuel walked after Neto’s hit. But Civale retired the next three batters.

Mike Trout sat out a second straight game after he missed Friday’s series opener with illness.

Brandon Eisert retired each of his five batters, and Jordan Leasure finished the one-hitter for his third save in seven opportunities.

Brooks Baldwin had two of Chicago’s six hits.

The White Sox (42-69) played without infielder Miguel Vargas, who was scratched because of a left oblique strain.

Andrew Benintendi had a double and a home run, Lenyn Sosa also homered among his two hits, and the Chicago White Sox beat the Angels 6-3 on Friday night.

White Sox starter Shane Smith gave up two runs and two hits while striking out four over 4⅓ innings in his first start since July 11 following a stint on the 15-day injured list. Jordan Leasure (4-6) earned the win in relief, striking out four in 1⅔ innings.

Benintendi and Sosa each hit solo home runs in the second inning off Angels starter Tyler Anderson (2-7), and Luis Robert Jr. had a sacrifice fly drove Miguel Vargas home in the fourth inning to make it 3-0.

Gustavo Campero‘s second home run of the year, a two-run blast to deep center field in the fifth, got the Angels within one, but Colson Montgomery answered with a deep homer of his own in the sixth inning.

Campero’s baserunning error prevented the game-tying run from scoring in the seventh, ending what was a bases-loaded, one-out threat for the Angels.

Logan O’Hoppe scored on Zach Neto‘s sacrifice fly to bring the Angels within one again, and Nolan Schanuel appeared to drive in Travis D’Arnaud with a two-out single, but Campero was thrown out at third prior to d’Arnaud crossing the plate.

Sosa had an RBI single in the eighth and Josh Rojas added a solo homer in the ninth.

Steven Wilson got the last six outs for his second save of the year for Chicago (41-69).

Mike Trout did not play for the Angels (53-57) because of illness.

Montgomery continued his second-half tear with a solo home run, which represented his 18th RBI since the All-Star break. He is now tied with Philadelphia’s Kyle Schwarber for the most RBIs since the break.

Landon Hodge, the Mission League player of the year from Crespi, was selected with the first pick of the fourth round by the Chicago White Sox in Monday’s MLB amateur draft. The catcher is an LSU commit.

Day 2 involved rounds four through 20. Pitcher Riley Kelly from Tustin High and UC Irvine went to the Rockies with the 107th pick. Shortstop Colin Yeaman from Saugus and UC Irvine was a fourth-round pick (No. 124) of the Orioles. Pitcher Sean Youngerman, who attended Chaminade, Westmont College and Oklahoma State, went to the Phillies at No. 131.

Outfielder Josiah Hartshorn from Orange Lutheran went to the Cubs in the sixth round (No. 181). USC pitcher Caden Hunter was a sixth-round pick (No. 184) by the Orioles.

In the eighth round (No. 237), Tampa Bay took former Burroughs and Fresno State pitcher Aidan Cremarosa. Outfielder Nick Dumesnil from Huntington Beach and Cal Baptist went to the Tigers are No. 249.

In the ninth round (No. 279), the Tigers selected pitcher Trevor Heishman, who helped St. John Bosco win the Southern Section Division 1 title.

When Clayton Kershaw made his major league debut as a gangly 20-year-old with a devastating curveball, he was considered a one-in-a-million talent.

On Wednesday he entered a much smaller club, becoming the 20th pitcher in history to strike out 3,000 batters. The milestone came in the sixth inning on his 100th pitch of the night, a 1-and-2 slider the Chicago White Sox’s Vinny Capra took for a called strike.

Kershaw then walked off the mound alone with his thoughts before being mobbed by his teammates on the warning track in front of the dugout. The Dodgers marked the moment with a video of his considerable career highlights on the video boards above the outfield pavilions.

An hour later the Dodgers had even more to celebrate when Freddie Freeman’s two-out RBI single capped a three-run ninth-inning rally in a walk-off 5-4 win.

“It’s the last box for Clayton to check in his tremendous career,” said Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, who doubted many more pitchers will ever join the 3K club.

“You’ve got to stay healthy, you’ve got to be good early in your career, you’ve got to be good for a long time,” he said. “I’m a fan first and I’ve kind of appreciated longevity and moments like that, as opposed to one moment in time. The consistency is something that should be valued.”

Roberts said before the game he would manage differently as Kershaw approached the milestone and he did, allowing him to start the sixth inning despite having made 92 pitches, the most he’s thrown in a game in more than two years.

He would need just eight more. Capra was the 27th batter Kershaw faced and the 15th he took to a two-strike count.

“It’s a little bit harder when you’re actually trying to strike people out,” Kershaw said. “I never really did that before.”

But he could sense the sellout crowd of 53,536 pulling for him every time he got close.

“They wanted it for me so bad,” he said. “And strikeouts tonight, I didn’t really do my part. But you could feel the tension and the fans. They were trying to will me to do it.”

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The Dodgers entered the ninth trailing 4-2 but loaded the bases with no outs on a single by Michael Conforto and walks to Tommy Edman and Hyeseong Kim.

Shohei Ohtani drove in one run on a ground ball to second, hustling up the line to avoid the double play. Mookie Betts followed with a sacrifice fly to the warning track in left-center to score Edman with the tying run.

Ohtani then stole second, scoring two batters later on Freeman’s single to right.

That kept Kershaw, who gave up a season-high nine hits, from taking his first loss of the season. But the Dodgers may have suffered an even bigger loss on the first pitch of the Capra at-bat when Chicago’s Michael Taylor slid hard into Max Muncy on an unsuccessful attempt to steal third.

Muncy, who hit a team-high .333 in June, writhed on the ground before being helped off the field, favoring his left knee. His condition was not immediately known.

Roberts said Muncy will undergo an MRI exam on Thursday but added “that we feel optimistic and our hope is that it’s a sprain.”

Taylor also left the game with a left shoulder bruise.

Nearly three hours earlier Kershaw had been greeted by a loud ovation when he stepped onto the field to stretch about 40 minutes before game time. But the loudest roar — aside the one for the record strikeout — came when Kershaw bounded out of the dugout to start the sixth.

“The energy in the crowd definitely palpable,” he said. “That ovation was something that I’ll never forget, for sure. And then the toast after the game with everybody. I’ll remember those things.”

The White Sox, meanwhile, wanted no part of the party. They forced Kershaw to labor through a 29-pitch first inning in which he faced six hitters, giving up a run and three hits. And it could have been worse, with a leaping Conforto robbing Lenyn Sosa of a three-run home run at the bullpen gate in left field for the final out.

Will Smith, announced as an All-Star starter along with Freeman and Ohtani earlier in the day, got that run back with two out in the bottom of the first, lining a full-count pitch into the left-field bleachers. White Sox opener Brandon Eisert did not return for the second inning and Andy Pages greeted his replacement rudely, driving Sean Burke’s first pitch over the wall in center for his 17th homer.

The Dodgers’ lead was short-lived, however, with Chase Meidroth opening the Chicago third with a single, then trotting home on Austin Slater’s two-run homer. Chicago added another run later in the inning on a one-out double from Andrew Benintendi and an RBI single from Edgar Quero.

Kershaw and the Dodgers, however, endured and at the end of the night the team had a win and the pitcher had joined an exclusive club.

“It’s an incredible list,” Kershaw said. “I’m super, super grateful to be a part of it.”

Etc.

Before Wednesday’s game, pitchers Blake Snell and Blake Treinen threw to hitters for the first time since going on the injured list in April. Snell, a two-time Cy Young winner, went on the injured list because of shoulder inflammation April 6 while Treinen has been sidelined because of forearm tightness since April 19. “They’ll go again in a couple days,” Roberts said. “But both guys looked really good.” Right-hander Tyler Glasnow, also out since April because of shoulder inflammation, is scheduled to make his third minor league rehab start for Oklahoma City on Thursday.

Staff writer Ira Gorawara contributed to this report.

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

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

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

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

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

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

His first start in July was a different story, with May (5-5) giving up just two hits and striking out nine — one shy of his career high — in seven shutout innings before tiring in the eighth.

The Dodgers needed just three batters to give the right-hander the lead with Shohei Ohtani drawing a lead-off walk, then scoring on Freddie Freeman’s one-out double into the right-field corner.

Freeman padded that lead in the third, going the other way and looping a two-run double into the left-field corner. It was Freeman’s first three-RBI game in nearly two months. When Michael Conforto followed two batters later with a two-run homer, it was 5-0 Dodgers.

And the lead could have been larger: Freeman lost a homer of his own in his next at-bat when Chicago right fielder Michael Tauchman reached a couple of rows into the right-field bleachers near the foul pole to bring his fifth-inning drive back.

Mookie Betts closed the Dodgers’ scoring with a one-out solo homer in the seventh, just his second since May 19.

May, meanwhile, was cruising, talking a perfect game into the sixth before Brooks Baldwin singled sharply to right. He took a shutout into the eighth before Baldwin ended that, too, with a two-run homer.

May got help from a couple of sterling defensive plays, with Conforto taking a hit away from Miguel Vargas with a sliding catch in left to the start the fifth and Freeman diving to his right to stab Josh Rojas’ low line drive to start the sixth.

Relievers Tanner Scott and Kirby Yates followed May to the mound, throwing a hitless inning apiece to close out the win.

For the Chicago White Sox, it was not a question of whether Shane Smith was the best pitcher they had to offer against the Dodgers — he was very likely their best.

Among White Sox pitchers with 10 or more starts, the rookie right-hander had the best strikeout-per-nine inning rate (8.2), as well as the lowest earned-run average (3.38) entering the game. Smith had been respectably good on a young White Sox roster that has been anything but.

Yet, Smith couldn’t make up the gulf in quality between the best-in-the-National-League Dodgers (54-32) and the worst-in-the-American-League White Sox (28-57). The Dodgers would make sure of that in quick fashion. A four-run, two-out rally in the first inning separated the teams quickly in a 6-1 victory to begin the six-game homestand.

“I think we’re really pitching well,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “We’re getting a lot of contributions from guys in the middle to the bottom of the order which is huge. We’re getting timely hits.”

“Obviously, that gauntlet of going through 26 games of some really good opponents record-wise, getting through that, not letting down, staying on the gas — I think that’s good, and finishing strong going into the break.”

Whereas Smith was chased from the game in the fifth inning, Yoshinobu Yamamoto was excellent again. A week after being pulled after five innings in Denver — because of a lengthy rain delay — Roberts called on the sure-to-be All-Star to pitch with an extended leash.

Yamamoto gave up one run, a two-out RBI double to Lenyn Sosa in the fourth inning, but twirled his way through an otherwise overmatched White Sox lineup, retiring the final 10 batters he faced. The right-hander tossed seven innings, gave up one run and three hits, while striking out eight, walking one and bringing his earned-run average down to 2.51.

“Any given night, a big league team can get you,” Roberts said, “and I was just happy that he was still aggressive and using the split, putting hitters away, but he’s doing what he needs to do.”

Across his last 12 innings, Yamamoto has given up just four hits.

Shohei Ohtani runs the bases after hitting his 30th homer of the season.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“I think I’m pitching with really good form,” Yamamoto said through his interpreter after the game. “I think it’s becoming very clear what I have to do.”

White Sox first baseman Miguel Vargas — the former Dodgers top prospect who the franchise parted ways with at the 2024 trade deadline in exchange for Michael Kopech and Tommy Edman — represented the heart of the Chicago lineup, batting cleanup with his .229 batting average and 10 home runs entering the game.

Vargas, who failed to bring the power in an 0-for-4 effort, received a 2024 World Series ring from Roberts and general manager Brandon Gomes during pregame batting practice. Yamamoto set him down his first three times at the plate Tuesday.

“Yoshinobu did spectacular work today,” Shohei Ohtani told NHK, a Japanese television station, after the game.

Of more promising White Sox prospects, rookie Chase Meidroth faced a potential NL Cy Young award candidate. In the third inning, Yamamoto struck out Meidroth with a three-pitch combo: 95-mph fastball on the edge of the strike zone, a 92-mph cutter on the outside corner and a splitter down and in, forcing a swing more than a foot above where the pitch landed.

Andy Pages struck two run-scoring hits — a double and a single — en route to a two-for-four day at the plate. The 24-year-old Cuban slugger sits in sixth in the most recent NL All-Star outfielder voting, and ended Tuesday with a .294 batting average and 57 RBIs, the latter statistic being the best on the Dodgers.

“He’s earned it,” Michael Conforto, who struck the two-RBI single that capped off the four-run first, said of Pages’ All-Star candidacy. “What you may or may not see is just how hard he works… really just doesn’t seem to take days off.”

Ohtani, who was not a part of the Dodgers’ hit parade that led to their first five runs across three innings, joined the run-scoring effort in the fourth with a no-doubt solo home run — 408 feet and 116.3 mph, halfway up the right-field pavilion — off of Smith, his 30th this season. As fireworks unexpectedly shot up from the Dodger Stadium parking lot during the ninth inning — it was a reminder that Wednesday could bring fireworks on the field as Clayton Kershaw takes the mound three strikeouts away from being the 20th MLB player to reach the 3,000-strikeout milestone.

Etc.

Kopech returned to the 15-day injured list — of which he recently returned from on June 7 — with right-knee inflammation. He said before Tuesday’s game that he wasn’t sure what caused the injury, and would characterize the ailment as discomfort rather than pain.

Roberts said there isn’t a timeline for Kopech’s return, but said it was a short-term issue. The 29-year-old, who received a cortisone shot in his knee, had yet to give up a run in eight scoreless appearances out of the bullpen.

In pitchers on their way back from injuries, Tyler Glasnow (right shoulder inflammation) will throw his third rehabilitation with triple-A Oklahoma City on Thursday. The expectation is that Glasnow will pitch five innings/75 pitches, Roberts said.

The Dodgers manager added that Blake Snell (left shoulder inflammation) and Blake Treinen (right forearm sprain) will throw to live hitters Wednesday, the next step in their recovery progression.

“Hopefully we’re starting to turn the corner a little bit,” Roberts said.

Next Ohtani start

Ohtani will next start on the mound Saturday against the Houston Astros — a 4:05 p.m. start — and southpaw Justin Wrobleski will again piggyback off the two-way star’s opening effort.

In his first words directed specifically to Americans, Pope Leo XIV told young people on Saturday how to find hope and meaning in their lives through God and in service to others.

“So many people who suffer from different experiences of depression or sadness — they can discover that the love of God is truly healing, that it brings hope,” the first American pope said in a video broadcast on the giant screen at Rate Field, the White Sox baseball stadium on Chicago’s South Side.

The event — set in Leo’s hometown and at the home stadium of his favorite major league team — was organized by the Archdiocese of Chicago in honor of his recent election as pope. Leo seized the opportunity to speak directly to young people, tying his message to the Roman Catholic Church’s ongoing Jubilee year of hope that was declared by Pope Francis.

In Saturday’s message, Leo urged those listening in the stadium and online to be beacons of hope capable of inspiring others.

“To share that message of hope with one another — in outreach, in service, in looking for ways to make our world a better place — gives true life to all of us, and is a sign of hope for the whole world,” he said.

The afternoon program, emceed by Chicago Bulls announcer Chuck Swirsky, highlighted Leo’s roots, including music by the city’s Leo Catholic High School Choir and a musician from Peru, where Leo lived and worked for years. There was also a discussion featuring a former teacher of the future pope as well as a high school classmate and fellow Augustinian.

The event also celebrated the mixing of Catholicism and baseball, including a special invitation from the team for Leo to throw out a ceremonial first pitch at a future White Sox game.

Leo, formerly Robert Prevost, was elected May 8, becoming the first American pope in the 2,000-year history of the church.

Leo, 69, spent his career serving as an Augustinian missionary and ministering in Peru before taking over the Vatican’s powerful office of bishops. He succeeded Pope Francis, who died April 21.

“When I see each and every one of you, when I see how people gather together to celebrate their faith, I discover myself how much hope there is in the world,” Leo said in the video message.

The program was followed by a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Blase Cupich, the archbishop of Chicago who was part of the conclave that elected Leo.

Meyer writes for the Associated Press.