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LOS ANGELES — Trayce Thompson not only took out his frustrations on a left-hander, he helped one as well with a career night to spark the Los Angeles Dodgers to an easy victory.

Thompson hit three home runs, including a grand slam in his first at-bat of the season, and had a career-high eight RBIs as the Dodgers rolled to a 10-1 victory over the Arizona Diamondbacks on Saturday. He’s the first player to drive in eight or more runs in a season debut since the RBI became an official statistic in 1920.

The offensive outburst came in support of lefty Clayton Kershaw, who got the best of an old personal rival as Los Angeles beat Arizona for the 16th time in the past 22 meetings. Kershaw earned the victory opposite Arizona’s Madison Bumgarner, with the left-handers facing each other for the 12th time.

After struggling to hit left-handed pitching as a platoon player last season, with the right-handed hitting Thompson batting .174 with a .621 OPS against lefties, his first-inning grand slam off Bumgarner felt like an exclamation point.

Was it satisfying since the struggles were a topic of conversation in the spring?

“Not necessarily because I know I can do it,” said Thompson, the brother of Golden State Warriors star Klay Thompson and son of former NBA player Mychal Thompson. “It’s just a good way to start the year. It’s still early. You still have to wake up tomorrow and go out and help this team win a game but I know I can do it.”

Kershaw (1-0) gave up one run on four hits with no walks and nine strikeouts in an efficient 76 pitches over his first start of 2023. Bumgarner (0-1) gave up five runs on four hits with four walks and two strikeouts in four innings (85 pitches). Each pitcher’s team has won six times in the all-time meetings.

“I have a lot of respect for Bum,” Kershaw said. “We’ve done it a lot now and we’re still trying to do it. I think there is a level of respect on both sides that it’s fun to compete against [each other] and we’ll probably do it again here in a few days [at Arizona].”

Thompson’s grand slam came in a five-run first inning for the Dodgers before he added a three-run shot in the fifth inning.

“I couldn’t be happier for Trayce; it was really cool,” Kershaw said. “That’s a good month right there. He can sit on that for a while. But he’s the best, man, so I’m happy for him and it’s a great way to get going for the season.”

Christian Walker hit a home run for the Diamondbacks, the fifth of his career against Kershaw.

The Dodgers wasted little time jumping on Bumgarner. Mookie Betts opened the bottom of the first with a double, Freddie Freeman singled and Max Muncy was hit by a slow curveball to load the bases. Chris Taylor‘s sacrifice fly gave the Dodgers a 1-0 lead with a Miguel Vargas walk loading the bases again before Thompson’s slam.

“My mechanics were fine, it was just one of those days you have during the year and mine just happened to be the first one,” Bumgarner said. “It wasn’t like I went out there and threw the ball really well, but I was just one pitch away in the first of it being a completely different game. After that, it wasn’t bad.”

Walker’s home run in the second inning pulled the Diamondbacks to 5-1 and gave him nine hits in his first 29 career at-bats against Kershaw.

Bumgarner gave way to right-hander Kevin Ginkel in the fifth inning before Thompson cashed in a double from Martinez and another walk to Vargas with his second-career multihomer game for an 8-1 lead.

J.D. Martinez‘s first home run in a Dodgers’ uniform came in the seventh inning, while Thompson’s third of the night came in the eighth. All three of Thompson’s home runs went to left-center field and traveled 409, 418 and 440 feet, in that order.

“It’s just one night but I felt really good tonight and I felt like I was seeing the ball well,” said Thompson, who received a curtain call from Dodgers fans after his third home run. “That last week of spring training, I felt pretty good. We worked on some stuff and it started to click.”

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said Thompson will start in the outfield again Sunday with Betts getting his first start of the season at second base.

“I developed a new three-homer rule,” Roberts said. “It you hit three homers, you’ll play the next day.”

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MLB-best Brewers put SS Ortiz (hamstring) on IL

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MLB-best Brewers put SS Ortiz (hamstring) on IL

MILWAUKEE — Milwaukee’s Joey Ortiz went on the 10-day injured list with a strained left hamstring Friday, leaving the NL Central-leading Brewers without their starting shortstop.

The Brewers also reinstated first baseman/outfielder Jake Bauers from the injured list and sent outfielder Jackson Chourio to a rehabilitation assignment with Triple-A Nashville.

Ortiz left a 4-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs on Thursday after hurting himself while grounding out in the fifth inning. Manager Pat Murphy said he has been told it’s a low-grade strain, an indication that Ortiz’s stay on the IL might not be too long.

Ortiz, 27, is hitting .233 with seven homers, 43 RBIs and 11 steals in 125 games. He has batted .343 with an .830 OPS in August.

“I felt like I was finally kind of getting a groove going, especially offensively, that I was starting to swing the bat as I feel I can,” Ortiz said. “Things happen. It’s baseball. It’s going to happen. I’ve just got to do what I can to get back.”

Murphy said Andruw Monasterio will be the Brewers’ primary shortstop while Ortiz is out. Monasterio, 28, has hit .254 with two homers and 11 RBIs in 43 games.

Bauers, 29, was dealing with a left shoulder impingement and last played in the majors on July 18. Bauers is hitting .197 with five homers and 18 RBIs in 59 games. He had gone just 2-for-23 in July while dealing with the shoulder issue before finally going on the injured list.

“Since April, May, I’ve been dealing with it,” Bauers said.

Chourio, 21, hasn’t played since straining his right hamstring while running out a triple in a 9-3 victory over the Cubs on July 29.

“He’s got to be able to get comfortable standing on the diamond back-to-back days,” Murphy said. “He’s got to be comfortable playing all nine (innings) in the outfield back-to-back days, because you can’t bring him back here and then just [go] zero to 100.”

Chourio is hitting .276 with 17 homers, 67 RBIs and 18 steals in 106 games.

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Red Sox move Buehler to pen as RHP eyes ‘reset’

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Red Sox move Buehler to pen as RHP eyes 'reset'

NEW YORK — The Boston Red Sox are pulling Walker Buehler from their rotation and sending the struggling right-hander to the bullpen.

“It’s going to be his new role,” manager Alex Cora said Friday before the Red Sox continued a four-game series with the Yankees. “We’ll figure out how it goes, maybe one inning, multiple innings. Whatever it is, we don’t know yet.”

Buehler’s next scheduled start would have been the opener of a four-game series in Baltimore on Monday. The Red Sox did not immediately announce who would take his turn. Right-hander Richard Fitts, currently with the Red Sox, and left-hander Kyle Harrison, who is at Triple A after being acquired in the Rafael Devers trade, are options.

“It’s obviously disappointing,” Buehler said. “It’s the first time in my career that I’ve been in a situation like that, but at the end of the day, the organization and, to a lesser extent, myself, kind of think it’s probably the right thing for our group and it gives me an opportunity to kind of reset in some ways.”

In his first season with the Red Sox after seven seasons with the Dodgers, Buehler is 7-7 with a 5.40 ERA in 22 starts and has allowed a career-worst 21 homers. He was 4-1 with a 4.28 ERA in his first six starts but is 3-6 with a 6.37 ERA over his past 16 outings. He also missed two weeks in May because of bursitis in his pitching shoulder.

“He’s been very frustrated with the way he has pitched,” Cora said. “I still believe in him. He’s a big part of what we’re trying to accomplish.”

Buehler last started in Wednesday’s 11-inning loss to the Orioles and allowed two runs in four innings while throwing 75 pitches. It was the ninth time this season he did not complete five innings.

After the game, he didn’t fault Cora for the quick hook.

“At some point, the leash I’m given has been earned,” he told reporters. “I think they did the right thing in coming to get me before the [Gunnar] Henderson at-bat. Our bullpen has been great. For me, personally, I think everything went according to plan until the fifth. You go double, four-pitch walk. The way I’ve been throwing it, it all kind of makes sense.”

Buehler also issued 54 walks in 110 innings this season for a career-high 4.4 walks per nine innings.

The Red Sox signed Buehler to a one-year, $21.05 million contract in December. The deal contains an additional $2.5 million in performance bonuses. The Red Sox also gave Buehler a $3.05 million signing bonus and includes a $25 million mutual option for 2026 with a $3 million buyout.

Buehler was 1-6 with a 5.38 ERA and pitched 75⅓ innings in the 2024 regular season for the Dodgers after missing all of 2023 recovering from Tommy John surgery. He helped the Dodgers win their second championship since 1988 by going 1-1 with a 3.60 ERA and pitched a perfect ninth for the save in Game 5 of the World Series against the Yankees.

Buehler’s only previous relief experience was eight appearances as a rookie in 2017. His last relief appearance was June 28, 2018, when he allowed a run in five innings after missing time because of a rib injury.

A two-time All Star in 2019 and 2021, Buehler is 54-29 in 153 appearances. He finished fourth in voting for the National League Cy Young Award in 2021 after going 16-4 with a 2.47 ERA in 33 starts when he threw 207⅔ innings.

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.

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Bronzed Beltré: Rangers honor HOFer with statue

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Bronzed Beltré: Rangers honor HOFer with statue

ARLINGTON, Texas — Hall of Fame third baseman Adrian Beltré now has a statue in Arlington to go with his bust in Cooperstown.

The Texas Rangers unveiled a life-sized bronze statue of the first-ballot Hall of Famer on Friday, one with him posed hitting a home run with his knee on the ground like he did so often in his career. Beltré is the third player to have a statue outside the team’s stadium, joining two other Hall of Famers, strikeout king Nolan Ryan and 14-time All-Star catcher Iván “Pudge” Rodríguez.

Beltré spent the last eight of his 21 big league seasons with Texas, the team he played with the longest. He retired after the 2018 season, had his No. 29 jersey retired by the Rangers the following year and was enshrined in baseball’s Hall of Fame last summer.

The statue is situated where it appears that Beltré is glancing toward the old ballpark that still stands across the street. It was there that he became the first player from the Dominican Republic to reach 3,000 career hits on July 30, 2017, two years after hitting his 400th homer. That is also where he had all three of his MLB record-tying three career cycles, one as a visitor with Seattle in 2008, and two more with the Rangers, on Aug. 24, 2012, and Aug. 3, 2015.

The dedication came before the opener of a three-game series against the Cleveland Guardians. The Rangers on Saturday will present Beltré with a smaller version of his bronze statue and he will catch a ceremonial first pitch thrown by Mike Tabor, the Texas artist who sculpted it, and the first 20,000 fans entering the ballpark before that game will get replica versions.

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