From Jack Harris: It was not supposed to be this difficult. It was not expected to feel so frustrating.
Six months ago, the question was not whether the Dodgers would win the National League West, but how far out of the water they’d blow the competition.
It wasn’t whether they’d enter October in position to defend their World Series title, but if they could set a single-season wins record along the way.
“Everyone,” first baseman Freddie Freeman recalled, “was talking about our “superteam.’”
What played out instead, of course, was a disappointing regular season relative to the club’s lofty preseason expectations.
The team will not win 100 games, let alone the 120 that some predicted ahead of the year. It will not have a bye for the first round of the playoffs, having limped through much of the second half of the schedule. It did not realize the full potential of its $400 million roster, hampered by starting pitching injuries early in the year, bullpen implosions down the stretch and an extended funk from the lineup in the middle of the summer. It did not play like the star-studded juggernaut or villainous evil empire or ascendant dynastic power the rest of the baseball world had labeled it to be.
Continue reading here
Shaikin: Dodgers fans should take a moment to appreciate team’s success before anxiety returns
Dodgers box score
MLB standings
ANGELS
Vinnie Pasquantino homered and drove in three runs, Bobby Witt Jr. had four hits and the Kansas City Royals beat the Angels 9-4 on Thursday night.
Michael Lorenzen (7-11) gave up two earned runs and five hits with a season-high nine strikeouts and no walks in 5⅔ innings for the Royals.
Jo Adell, Nolan Schanuel and Mike Trout each homered for the Angels (71-88). Trout’s two-run shot — his 23rd of the season and 401st of his career — cut Kansas City’s lead to 5-4 in eighth.
Continue reading here
Angels box score
MLB standings
LAKERS
From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: The Lakers kicked off their summer break by signing their star player to a contract extension in a flashy news conference featuring Balkan walk-up music and a photo gallery display of Luka Doncic’s best Lakers moments. The team returned Thursday by announcing their continued commitment to their coach.
Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka announced head coach JJ Redick had signed a contract extension at a news conference with the coach as the Lakers begin training camp next Tuesday.
Redick signed a four-year, $32-million contract last year as a first-time head coach and led the Lakers to a 50-32 regular-season record and the No. 3 seed in the Western Conference before losing to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the first round of playoffs. The terms of the new deal were not announced.
Continue reading here
From Ben Bolch: UCLA’s five-member search committee for its next football coach that was revealed Thursday features heavy hitters from various corners of the professional sports world, including two who helped engineer a quick turnaround with the NFL’s Washington Commanders.
Commanders general manager Adam Peters and adviser Bob Myers — who will be joined on the committee by sports executive Casey Wasserman, former NFL star linebacker Eric Kendricks and UCLA executive senior associate athletics director Erin Adkins — were part of the team that hired Washington coach Dan Quinn, who took the Commanders to the NFC Championship Game in his first season.
They will hope to have similar success in selecting the successor to Bruins coach DeShaun Foster, who was fired earlier this month after his team started the season with three consecutive losses. Every member of the committee will be driven to find a winner given they either graduated from UCLA or work for the school’s athletic department.
Continue reading here
Abandon all hope, ye who enter? What to watch when UCLA faces Northwestern
THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY
1942 — Jockey Club stewards revoke Eddie Arcaro’s license for one year after his display of “rough riding” aboard odds-on favorite Occupation in the Cowdin Stakes on Sept. 19, in which he attempted to injure a fellow rider during the race.
1981 — Kelvin Bryant of North Carolina rushes for 173 yards and scores four touchdowns in a 56-14 victory over Boston College, giving him 15 touchdowns over the last three games, an NCAA record.
1983 — Australia II wins America’s Cup yacht race to end the longest winning streak in sporting history. Australia II, skippered by John Bertrand, wins the title in the seventh and final race. Australia II crosses the finish line with a winning margin of 41 seconds over Liberty, which is skippered by Dennis Conner. The U.S. had successfully defended the cup over a period of 132 years, since the schooner America won it in a fleet race around England’s Isle of Wight in 1851.
1992 — Rocky Mountain’s Steve Thompson rushes for 405 yards and six touchdowns in a 42-36 overtime victory over Carroll College. The rushing total is the second highest in NAIA history.
1998 — Prairie View A&M ends its NCAA-record 80-game losing streak by stopping a 2-point conversion in the final minute for a 14-12 victory over Langston. The victory is the Panthers’ first since Oct. 28, 1989, when they defeated Mississippi Valley 21-12.
2000 — At the Sydney Olympics, the U.S. softball team completes a stunning comeback by edging Japan 2-1 in extra innings to win its second straight gold medal.
2004 — Peyton Manning of Indianapolis passes for 393 yards and five first-half touchdowns in a 45-31 win over Green Bay. Manning has the most TD throws in one half since Tommy Kramer in 1986, and the most yards in a quarter, 247, since Boomer Esiason in 1996.
2004 — San Francisco’s 34-0 loss at Seattle ends a 420-game streak of not being blanked for the 49ers, an NFL record.
2010 — Christine Sinclair has two goals and Marta adds a goal and two assists as the FC Gold Pride beat the Philadelphia Independence 4-0 to win the Women’s Professional Soccer championship.
2010 — Seattle’s Leon Washington returns two kickoffs — 101 and 99 yards — for touchdowns in the Seahawks’ 27-20 win over San Diego.
2015 — Aaron Green catches a tipped pass in the back of the end zone with 23 seconds left and No. 3 TCU outlasts Texas Tech 55-52 in the Big 12 opener for both teams. On fourth-and-goal from the 4, Trevor Boykin throws four touchdown passes and finishes with a career-high 509 yards for TCU.
2015 — Sebastian Giovinco breaks the MLS single-season points record, assisting on two goals in Toronto FC’s 3-2 victory over the Chicago Fire to push his total to 35.
2017 — Sylvia Fowles grabs a WNBA Finals-record 17 rebounds and scores 13 points to lead the Minnesota Lynx to a 70-68 victory over the Sparks in Game 2, evening the series at one game apiece.
2021 — United States regains the Ryder Cup beating Team Europe 19-9 at Whistling Straits, Haven, Wisc.
THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY
1908 — Ed Reulbach of the Chicago Cubs became the only pitcher to throw two shutouts in a doubleheader, beating the Dodgers 5-0 and 3-0.
1926 — The St. Louis Browns beat the New York Yankees 6-1 and 6-2 in two hours and seven minutes. The first game took 55 minutes.
1952 — The New York Yankees clinched their fourth straight AL pennant with a 5-1, 11-inning win over the Philadelphia A’s.
1961 — Roger Maris tied Babe Ruth’s 34-year-old record with his 60th homer, off Baltimore’s Jack Fisher.
1981 — Nolan Ryan of the Houston Astros became the first player to pitch five no-hitters, hurling a 5-0 victory over the Dodgers at the Astrodome.
1983 — Bob Forsch of the St. Louis Cardinals pitched the second no-hitter of his career by defeating Montreal 3-0.
1993 — Randy Johnson of the Seattle Mariners became the eighth pitcher to strike out 300 batters in a season with 13 strikeouts in 10 innings of a 3-2, 12-inning loss to Oakland.
1998 — Curt Schilling became the fifth pitcher to strike out 300 batters in consecutive seasons when he fanned Kevin Orie in the seventh inning of Philadelphia’s 4-3 loss to Florida in the first game of a doubleheader.
2000 — The Atlanta Braves beat the New York Mets 7-1 to clinch the NL East and win their record ninth straight division title.
2007 — The New York Yankees clinched their 13th straight postseason appearance, beating Tampa Bay 12-4.
2007 — Michael Young reached 200 hits for the fifth consecutive season with a pair of RBI singles among his three hits and Texas pounded the Angels 16-2. Young joined Wade Boggs and Ichiro Suzuki as the only players since 1940 with five consecutive 200-hit seasons.
2008 — The Tampa Bay Rays won their first AL East championship when the Boston Red Sox lost to the New York Yankees. They became the first team other than Boston and New York to win the division since Baltimore did it in 1997.
2008 — Seattle outfielder Ichiro Suzuki matched Lou Gehrig’s record with his eighth season of at least 200 hits and 100 runs. Suzuki scored his 100th run of the season in the third inning against Oakland. Gehrig reached the marks in 1927-28, 1930-32, 1934 and 1936-37.
2018 — Jacob deGrom was dominant, throwing eight stellar innings and leaving with a major league-best 1.70 ERA as the New York Mets blanked the Atlanta Braves 3-0. DeGrom (10-9) made his final regular-season start, striking out 10 and allowing just two singles against the NL East champions.
2018 — Colorado Rockies right-hander German Marquez started with eight straight strikeouts to match a modern-era big league record, and the Colorado Rockies routed the Philadelphia Phillies 14-0. By striking out his first eight batters, he tied a post-1900 mark set by Houston’s Jim Deshaies on Sept. 23, 1986, and equaled by the New York Mets’ Jacob deGrom on Sept. 15, 2014.
2019 — The Minnesota Twins become the first team to hit 300 home runs in a season.
Compiled by the Associated Press
Until next time…