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Christian Walker, Yainer Diaz and Jose Altuve homer in Astros' 5-1 win to complete sweep of Dodgers

Christian Walker, Yainer Diaz and Jose Altuve homer in Astros' 5-1 win to complete sweep of Dodgers

Yahoo06-07-2025
Houston Astros pitcher Ryan Gusto throws to a Los Angeles Dodgers batter during the first inning of a baseball game Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)
Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani watches his fly ball during the first inning of a baseball game against the Houston Astros, Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)
Houston Astros' Jose Altuve, center, reacts after hitting a single as first base coach Dave Clark, right, looks on and Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman (5) walks away during the first inning of a baseball game, Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)
Houston Astros' Jose Altuve drops his bat after hitting a single during the first inning of a baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)
Houston Astros' Jose Altuve drops his bat after hitting a single during the first inning of a baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)
Houston Astros pitcher Ryan Gusto throws to a Los Angeles Dodgers batter during the first inning of a baseball game Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)
Los Angeles Dodgers designated hitter Shohei Ohtani watches his fly ball during the first inning of a baseball game against the Houston Astros, Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)
Houston Astros' Jose Altuve, center, reacts after hitting a single as first base coach Dave Clark, right, looks on and Los Angeles Dodgers first baseman Freddie Freeman (5) walks away during the first inning of a baseball game, Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)
Houston Astros' Jose Altuve drops his bat after hitting a single during the first inning of a baseball game against the Los Angeles Dodgers, Sunday, July 6, 2025, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Jessie Alcheh)
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Christian Walker, Yainer Diaz and Jose Altuve each homered, Ryan Gusto threw six strong innings, and the Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 on Sunday to complete their first three-game sweep at Dodger Stadium since May 9-11, 2008.
The Astros scored the go-ahead run in the sixth when No. 9 batter Zack Short capped an eight-pitch at-bat by drawing a two-out bases-loaded walk off reliever Will Klein (1-1) for a 2-1 lead.
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Walker and Diaz opened the eighth with homers off Dodgers closer Tanner Scott for a 4-1 lead, and Altuve added a solo shot in the ninth off Anthony Banda, as the Astros improved to a major league-best 24-8 since June 1.
Gusto (6-3) wasn't dominant, allowing one run and four hits and striking out one, but he held the top four Dodgers batters — Shohei Ohtani, Mookie Betts, Freddie Freeman and Andy Pages — to two singles in 12 at-bats.
Bennett Sousa, Bryan King and Bryan Abreu each threw scoreless innings of relief for Houston.
The Dodgers took a 1-0 lead in the second, an inning that began with Michael Conforto's walk and Hyeseong Kim's single. Conforto took third on Miguel Rojas' double play grounder and scored on Dalton Rushing's RBI double.
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Houston tied the score 1-1 in the third when Short singled, took third on Isaac Paredes' double and scored on Altuve's sacrifice fly, a ball that Dodgers right fielder Esteury Ruiz caught while leaping into the screen in foul territory.
Dodgers right-hander Emmet Sheehan, recalled from Triple-A to make his second big-league start in his return from Tommy John surgery, gave up one run and five hits in five innings, striking out four and walking one.
Key moment
The Dodgers threatened off reliever King in the eighth when Rushing singled and took second on Betts' two-out single, but Astros center fielder Taylor Trammell, who entered for defensive purposes in the sixth, raced in to make a sliding catch of Freeman's 104-mph liner to preserve a 4-1 lead.
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Key stat
Walker, who entered with a major league-best 1.203 career OPS in Dodger Stadium, is batting .349 (53 for 152) with 21 homers and 38 RBIs in 45 games in Chavez Ravine.
Up next
Dodgers right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto (8-6, 2.51 ERA) will face Brewers right-hander Freddy Peralta (9-4, 2.91 ERA) Monday in Milwaukee.
Astros left-hander Colton Gordon (3-1, 4.37 ERA) will face Guardians right-hander Tanner Bibee (4-9, 4.20 ERA) Monday in Houston.
___
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
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The 3 preseason San Francisco Giants predictions I wish I'd made
The 3 preseason San Francisco Giants predictions I wish I'd made

New York Times

time38 minutes ago

  • New York Times

The 3 preseason San Francisco Giants predictions I wish I'd made

I once made a prediction that was accurate and amusing enough to be included on my Wikipedia page. Because of this, you might assume that I'm good at predictions. I am not. That was the only good prediction I have ever made. I am better at fixing transmissions than I am at making predictions, and you don't want me within 50 feet of your car. Advertisement It's probably for the best that I don't remember any of the predictions my corporate overlords forced me to make before this season, because I'm sure they're already shot to heck. What I do remember, though, are the educated guesses and half-baked hunches about the Giants that I had before the season. Some of them came close to happening. If I had any courage at all, I would have published them as predictions and ended up looking smart. I didn't. They're only the preseason predictions I wish I made. To be fair, I at least hinted at the idea in a predictions article, but that was even more wishy-washy than my normal stuff. These were the actual words that were in my brain all winter: This dude might struggle something fierce. Every time I clicked on his Baseball Savant page, it was like a blinking red siren. He wasn't just making weak contact; he was making some of the weakest contact in the league. He wasn't just swinging and missing; he had some of the worst strikeout and whiff rates in the league. Then there was his batted-ball profile, which has him as one of the most extreme pull hitters in baseball. It all adds up to the profile of a hitter the league will catch up with. Then you get to the evidence that the league already did catch up to him at the end of his breakout season: His OPS for September of last season was under .700, and his strikeout-to-walk ratio was all cattywampus. It's a shame, because there's so much already right with him as a player. His speed, instincts, pull-side power and versatility are all helpful to a major-league team right now, which helps explain why Baseball-Reference's WAR still has him as the fourth-most valuable position player on the Giants this season, behind only Matt Chapman, Mike Yastrzemski and Willy Adames. He's still young, and there's still time for him to make the adjustments he needs to. Advertisement It was always unlikely for him to repeat what he did last year, though. It was unlikely for him to come close, even. That's pretty much what's happened. His OPS vs. lefties is 22 points lower than his OPS against right-handers this year, which is both great and horrible news, but his overall production is roughly the same. His adjusted OPS was 25 percent better than the National League last season, and it's 22 percent better this season. He's still as streaky as hitters get, but he's at least shown that last season's second half was just a slump, not a result of the league solving him. The caveat to all this is that I did not see the defensive calamity coming. There have been rough defensive patches for Ramos throughout his Giants career, but nothing like the rough defense he's shown all season. Ramos is between Fitzgerald and Christian Koss in WAR this season, according to Baseball-Reference, which gives you an idea of just how much Ramos' defense is hurting him. And I can't disagree with the numbers, either. They match the eyeball test, and the eyeballs hurt. Still, the offense is a welcome not-surprise. Ramos is a healthy part of a balanced lineup, just like he was last year. Not only is that welcome for this season, but the Giants can start expecting it for future seasons, too. I'd imagine there's quite the generational split among Giants fans when it comes to expectations for pitching prospects. In one corner, you have the old guard, the ones who spent decades expecting doom. Between the Bob Knepper trade in 1980 and Matt Cain's debut in 2005, there wasn't a more dangerous job on the planet than 'exciting young Giants pitcher.' Every time a pitcher would start to fly, they'd fly too close to the sun on shoulders made out of wax. Can you believe there was a time when the Giants had five starting pitchers in the top-100 prospects, including the best pitching prospect in baseball? Only one of them lived up to expectations, and only after he was traded for A.J. Pierzynski. It was always doom for the young pitchers. Doom, doom, doom. Advertisement And in the other corner, you have newer fans, who watched the Giants thrive beyond their wildest dreams because of young pitching. They understand that pitching is a cruel profession, and they know that success can be fleeting, but they're not terrified of young pitchers in general. Sometimes they work. Look at Logan Webb over there. Came up, got good, stayed good for a long time. What's the big deal? That happens with young pitchers sometimes. I'll always be the one in the first example, though. It doesn't surprise me when other teams develop pitchers. The Mariners had a couple seasons where they were consistently making homegrown pitchers out of glowing dirt they dug up behind old Boeing test grounds, and that made sense to me. When it comes to the Giants, though, I always hold my breath. Young pitchers, you say? Sounds risky. There was a point this season where the Giants had too many young pitchers. They sent an incumbent starter to the minors. They had a battle for the one and final spot in the rotation. They had to use starting pitchers as relievers because, well, there were just too many young pitchers. I was scared for them. 'There's no way it will work,' the oldest, crustiest lobe of my brain croaked. And I nodded in agreement. For these were promising young Giants pitchers we were talking about. Except this prediction makes it in here because it's both correct and incorrect. Yes, Hayden Birdsong is caught in a developmental maelstrom right now, and Kyle Harrison is currently on the Pawtucket Red Sox, but Landen Roupp has been stellar. It's been enjoyable to watch his changeup develop as the season progresses, and you can see the curveball become even more effective the less he has to rely on it. Sometimes it's better to be wrong. Maybe there's a way to scoop this lobe of the brain out and replace it with something more optimistic. 'Oops! All Lincecums!' or something like that. I wish I were more wrong in public about the Giants' plan to rely on young pitchers, which I was quietly skeptical about. If the Giants make the postseason this year, young pitching will be a major reason why. Sometimes young pitchers end up helping, and they don't have to stop for a long time. (Top photo of Tyler Fitzgerald: Emilee Chinn / Getty Images)

Rosenthal: Why Padres GM A.J. Preller's trade deadline approach will be as urgent as ever
Rosenthal: Why Padres GM A.J. Preller's trade deadline approach will be as urgent as ever

New York Times

time38 minutes ago

  • New York Times

Rosenthal: Why Padres GM A.J. Preller's trade deadline approach will be as urgent as ever

Some rival executives contend that San Diego Padres general manager A.J. Preller needs to act with urgency at the trade deadline. Their premise is not unreasonable. Future Hall of Fame third baseman Manny Machado, 33, is still in his prime. Several top Padres pitchers are likely headed to free agency. And the defending World Series champion Los Angeles Dodgers look more vulnerable than expected. Advertisement Here's the thing, though: Preller always acts with urgency. He would do that if he were under contract through 2036 instead of 2026. He also would do it if every Padres pitcher were eligible for free agency. Pitching turnover is not something Preller frets over. It's actually part of his plan. As usual, Preller will be one of the prime executives to watch at the deadline, pricing every available player, including his own. He will buy. He will sell. He again will distinguish himself as one of the few lead executives who operate without fear. What exactly does he intend? Check back Aug. 1. Preller might trade potential free-agent right-hander Dylan Cease and replace him with another starter. He might move closer Robert Suarez, who can hit the open market by declining a pair of $8 million player options, and pick off some other high-leverage reliever to keep his bullpen a strength. How much payroll flexibility Preller has — the Padres, according to FanGraphs, are slightly over the second, $261 million luxury tax threshold — is not known. Preller's stated goal, in an interview with MLB Network Radio, is adding 'a bat or two.' Left field, where the Padres ranked 28th in OPS entering Thursday's play, and catcher, where they ranked 26th, are the obvious positions to upgrade. But rarely does Preller follow a straight line. The Padres, since the offseason, have fielded offers on all of their potential free agents, including right-hander Michael King and first baseman Luis Arraez. When they are open to trading a player or interested in acquiring another team's player, it never qualifies as a surprise. What is surprising about the Padres is that they entered Thursday ranked 25th in runs per game, despite Preller's long-term commitments to Machado, right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr., shortstop Xander Bogaerts, center fielder Jackson Merrill and infielder Jake Cronenworth. Machado and Tatis are the only Padres with an OPS above .800. The lineup's lack of depth only adds to the pressure on the other supposed anchors. Advertisement Many in the industry expect the Padres to eventually crash under the weight of their big contracts. Bogaerts, 32, is earning $25 million per season through 2033. Machado, 33, has a backloaded deal that will pay him $35 million annually from 2027 to 2033. Tatis, 26, has a similar structure and will earn $36 million annually from 2029 to 2036. Those contracts may or may not prove albatrosses. But Preller's ability to continually regenerate his pitching staff, largely at club-friendly rates, is a big reason the Padres might reach the postseason for the fourth time in six years — and keep their competitive window open for the foreseeable future. The need for Preller to win with Cease, King and Suarez is no greater than the urgency he faced in 2023, when Blake Snell, Seth Lugo, Michael Wacha and Nick Martinez were headed to free agency. How did Preller recover from their departures? By trading Juan Soto for pitchers King, Drew Thorpe, Randy Vásquez and Jhonny Brito, then flipping Thorpe in a package for Cease. Preller doesn't exactly view pitchers as expendable, but he knows few stand the test of time the way a position player like Machado will. His long-term contracts for starters — five years, $100 million for Joe Musgrove, and six years, $108 million for Yu Darvish — were reasonable gambles (well, as reasonable as a deal extending through Darvish's age-42 season can be). Nick Pivetta's four-year, $55 million deal, which pays him only $4 million this season and gives him the ability to decline a player option after 2026, looks like a bargain. Yet, for all of Preller's best-laid plans, the Padres' rotation this season is not at all what he envisioned. Cease has been inconsistent. Musgrove is recovering from Tommy John surgery. King and Darvish also have missed huge chunks of time. Not to worry. The Padres entered Thursday ranked 12th in rotation ERA, in part because Preller keeps coming up with new arms. Advertisement Three relatively unheralded pitchers — Vásquez, Ryan Bergert (sixth round pick in 2021) and Stephen Kolek (Rule 5 pick from Seattle in 2023) — have combined for a 3.79 ERA in 204 1/3 innings. The Padres are drawing trade inquiries on Bergert and Kolek as well as Double-A prospects Henry Baez and Braden Nett, according to a source briefed on their discussions. All could contribute to next year's rotation, provided they are still with the team. Cease, a top-five Cy Young finisher in 2022 and '24, obviously has greater value, particularly in a market starved for top-of-the-rotation starters. To interested teams — which is to say, pretty much every contender — his 4.59 ERA matters only so much. His 3.48 expected ERA is more than a run per nine innings lower than his actual figure. His average fastball velocity (97.1 mph) and strikeout rate are in the top 12 percent of the league. Preller could use Cease to get the hitter he wants or to acquire prospects who would enable him to upgrade his offense in a larger deal. His farm system, ravaged by the Soto trade and other deals, includes two top prospects — shortstop Leodalis De Vries and catcher Ethan Salas — but little else beyond the lower levels. And Salas has been out since April 26 with a stress fracture in his back, effectively putting his trade value on hold. The Athletic's Keith Law and Baseball America ranked the Padres' system 26th before the start of spring training. Padres officials take such evaluations only so seriously. In 2022, the year the Padres acquired Soto and Josh Hader at the deadline, Law had them 15th before the season started, Baseball America 21st. Preller will figure out something. He always does. Let other teams sweat their models, fuss over surplus values and engage in paralysis by analysis. Urgency is Preller's default setting.

'It came down to me wanting to be back home': Nico Iamaleava details move to UCLA
'It came down to me wanting to be back home': Nico Iamaleava details move to UCLA

Yahoo

timean hour ago

  • Yahoo

'It came down to me wanting to be back home': Nico Iamaleava details move to UCLA

Wearing horn-rimmed glasses, a light blue suit with a UCLA lapel pin and tan wingtips, Nico Iamaleava settled into his seat on an elevated platform in front of about 30 reporters. 'How's everybody doing?' the new Bruins quarterback asked casually inside the convention center hall late Thursday afternoon, giving no hint that this was the most pressure he had faced since an attacking Ohio State defense sacked him four times in the opening round of the College Football Playoff. These reporters were almost as relentless. For more than 25 minutes during the final Big Ten media day, they peppered Iamaleava with questions about his decision to leave Tennessee on the eve of its spring game for a program with a lesser pedigree, prompting UCLA quarterback Joey Aguilar to take Iamaleava's spot in what essentially amounted to a college football trade. Read more: A year after stumbling at Big Ten media days, UCLA's DeShaun Foster is poised and confident What was Iamaleava's motivation in making his move? Was his dissatisfaction with Tennessee's name, image and likeness package a factor? Did he have to take a pay cut to come to UCLA? What was it like dealing with the fallout from jilted Tennessee fans? While failing to offer many specifics, Iamaleava patiently engaged every question, the Southern California native saying he was driven by a desire to play for a top program closer to his family in Long Beach. 'Ultimately,' the 6-foot-6 quarterback had told a small group of Los Angeles-based reporters earlier in the afternoon, 'it came down to me wanting to be back home, you know, be back home next to my family while still competing at the highest level.' Iamaleava pinned the timing of his departure from Tennessee on 'false reports' about financial demands that 'made me not feel comfortable in the position I was in. But, you know, in the back of my head, I always wanted to come back home and be closer to my mom, be closer to my dad.' Tennessee was reportedly set to pay Iamaleava more than $2 million to play for the Volunteers this season. Declining to discuss his new NIL deal at UCLA, Iamaleava said he was focused on football and academics while trying to revive a program that has not won a conference championship since 1998. 'The realistic expectation for us,' Iamaleava said, 'is to bring championships back to Westwood, and, you know, the first day I stepped into the locker room, I felt that from every guy in there, that they've got a chip on their shoulder and that they want to go out there and prove people wrong.' Iamaleava will have to do it wearing a new number after attempts to get his preferred No. 8 — retired in honor of Troy Aikman — failed, leaving him with No. 9. He said he'll proudly wear the number to represent his seven siblings and two parents whom he credited for his humble nature. One of those siblings is now a teammate. Freshman quarterback Madden Iamaleava, who verbally committed to UCLA before signing with Arkansas, flipped his allegiance back to the Bruins in the spring after his older brother decided to come home. Depending on how he fares in training camp, Madden could become Nico's top backup. 'I think he's ready, man,' Nico said of his sibling. 'My little brother was a bonus from me, you know, for him to come home with me. And just being a helping hand to him in anything he needs, I think, was the biggest thing for me.' If everything goes as planned, Nico acknowledged, his stay at UCLA will be a short one. Should the Bruins win a lot of games and Iamaleava further establish himself as a top NFL prospect, the redshirt sophomore will move on after this final college season. 'This is a year where, you know, I'm really trying to get out after,' Iamaleava said. 'So, you know, I'm going to give my all to UCLA, and, you know, if I have the year I want, you know, I want to get out.' Everything about Iamaleava's stay might have an accelerated feel. He said he received the offensive playbook after signing in April and has participated in player-run practices since arriving on campus in June, quickly impressing his new teammates with not just his talent but also his savvy. 'He's good at looking off people,' linebacker JonJon Vaughns said of Iamaleava's ability to deceive a defense, 'and his arm is big, it's powerful.' Read more: Three years after USC and UCLA led mass defections, Pac-12 adds Texas State as 8th member There will be no easing into a training camp that starts next Wednesday in Costa Mesa given that UCLA opens the season exactly one month later against Utah on Aug. 30 at the Rose Bowl. The strength staff has already provided Iamaleava an indication of the high expectations he'll face on the field. 'I've never been pushed like this by a staff before,' Iamaleava said, 'so I'm excited to go to work for these guys.' Calling it 'a fun challenge,' Iamaleava said he was trying to quickly absorb a pro-style offense that he described as 'a little more condensed formations' than what he ran at Tennessee. The chance to play for offensive coordinator Tino Sunseri, who has a history of immediate success with new quarterbacks, has invigorated Iamaleava. 'He's a high-energy guy,' Iamaleava said of Sunseri, 'and I wanted to go play for him the first day I met him.' Praising his entire wide receiving corps, Iamaleava said he had already developed good chemistry with Kwazi Gilmer, Mikey Matthews, Ezavier Staples and Titus Mokiao-Atimalala. He's gotten to know the offensive linemen through a bowling outing that also included the quarterbacks. Read more: Wide receiver Kaedin Robinson suing NCAA in bid to play for UCLA this season 'He's a great person,' right tackle Garrett DiGiorgio said. 'He's got a good heart, and he really cares.' Not always. Iamaleava said he tuned out social media during his departure from Tennessee, shielding himself from the vitriol. He found solace in video games such as NBA 2K25 and UFC. 'I was playing a lot of video games with my friends and my cousins, man, and, you know, really paid no mind to it,' he said. 'Sometimes I had no idea [what was happening]; my cousins would come and tell me about stuff they would see and I was like, 'I don't care.' So, you know, I think a lot of that just comes with, you know, protecting your peace.' Later, as he rose from the platform and thanked reporters, Iamaleava appeared fully zen. After all the speculation about his future, he'll have the final say on the field. Sign up for UCLA sports for big game takeaways, recruiting buzz and more UCLA sports insights. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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