Connect with us

Published

on

NEW YORK — Arizona Diamondbacks ace Zac Gallen appears headed to the injured list after straining his right hamstring five pitches into Thursday night’s 3-2 loss to the New York Mets.

The 28-year-old right-hander, who finished among the top five in NL Cy Young Award voting in each of the last two seasons, was scheduled to return to Phoenix on Friday for a scan.

Gallen felt the injury on his knuckle-curve that Francisco Lindor lined to center for a leadoff single.

Gallen hopped after releasing a fastball to DJ Stewart, his second batter. Manager Torey Lovullo and an athletic trainer went to the mound, and Gallen limped as he walked to the dugout.

“Hamstring grabbed on me, so I threw another pitch to see if it was severe and sense if I could keep pitching or not, if it was more like a cramp,” Gallen said. “Just knew that I couldn’t really keep going or if I did I would put the team in jeopardy of not giving them a chance to win.”

Lovullo was forced to use his bullpen to get 24 outs from Bryce Jarvis (one inning), Brandon Hughes (1 2/3 innings), Justin Martinez (three innings), Joe Mantiply (two outs), Ryan Thompson (one inning) and Kevin Ginkel (two outs).

Lovullo said he likely would wait until results of the scan to determine a roster move. Seattle’s Triple-A team, the Reno Aces, was at home, complicating bringing a minor leaguer to New York as a replacement for Gallen, who is 5-2 with a 3.12 ERA in 11 starts.

“We’re going to get him back to Arizona. We feel comfortable doing that and we feel like that’s the safest bet to get the right evaluation and get more detail on exactly what he’s feeling,” Lovullo said. “It’s not great news. I’m not going to lie, and we will eventually find out what the solutions are.”

Gallen left a start on April 26 at Seattle with a man on and no outs in the sixth after a fastball to Julio Rodriguez because of right hamstring tightness, and said he felt tightness akin to a cramp during the third or fourth inning of a May 18 outing against Detroit.

“The one in Seattle was a little bit more minor,” Gallen said. “This one, it’s a mild, I guess. It felt similar to kind of what I did in ’21.”

Gallen said the area of hamstring trouble was slightly different all three times this season.

“Just up and down,” he said.

Gallen missed two weeks because of his right hamstring in July 2021, when he didn’t pitch between July 2 and 17, and he also experienced a hamstring issue in 2019.

Gallen hoped any layoff will be similar to the one in 2021.

“It’s been three years now, so maybe my memory’s kind of a little bit fogged on that but, yeah, that one, it didn’t feel great, either, and wound up missing I think a start or two,” he said.

NL champion Arizona matched its season-low of six games under .500 at 25-31. The Diamondbacks already were missing right-hander Merrill Kelly, sidelined since April 15 by a strained right shoulder, and left-hander Eduardo Rodriguez, who signed an $80 million, four-year contract as a free agent and hasn’t pitched this season because of a strained pitching shoulder.

Arizona wasted a two-run lead and lost its fourth straight. The Diamondbacks have scored nine runs in their last six games.

“They’re absorbing it right now, and it’s painful. It hurts,” Lovullo said. “It hurts a lot because we care, and I’m OK with that. But at some point we got to be able to cycle through and understand why we lost this baseball game. There were some things we did wrong, and we just got to find a way to make them right, and we’re going to be just fine.”

Continue Reading

Sports

Ohtani blasts two HRs to halt 10-game drought

Published

on

By

Ohtani blasts two HRs to halt 10-game drought

LOS ANGELES — Shohei Ohtani hit two homers in an 11-5 win over the San Francisco Giants on Saturday night, emphatically ending the three-time MVP’s longest homer drought since joining the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Ohtani led off the bottom of the first with his 24th homer, hammering Landen Roupp‘s fourth pitch 419 feet deep into the right-field bleachers with an exit velocity of 110.3 mph.

The slugger had been in a 10-game homer drought since June 2, going 10-for-40 in that stretch with no RBIs, although he still had an eight-game hitting streak during his power outage.

Ohtani led off the sixth with his 25th homer, sending Tristan Beck‘s breaking ball outside the strike zone into the bleachers in right. He also moved one homer behind the Yankees’ Aaron Judge and Seattle’s Cal Raleigh for the overall major league lead.

Dodgers fans brought him home with a standing ovation as Ohtani produced his third multihomer game of the season and the 22nd of his career.

Ohtani reached base four times and scored three runs in his first four at-bats, drawing two walks to go with his two homers.

Ohtani hadn’t played in 10 straight games without hitting a homer since 2023 in the final 10 games of his six-year tenure with the Los Angeles Angels.

Ohtani had slowed down a bit over the past two weeks after he was named the NL Player of the Month for May with a formidable performance, racking up 15 homers and 28 RBIs.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

Sports

Dobbins’ second win over Yanks caps ‘fun’ week

Published

on

By

Dobbins' second win over Yanks caps 'fun' week

BOSTON — Hunter Dobbins had quite the week.

First, he said last weekend that he would rather retire than pitch for the Yankees because his father was drafted by New York twice before being traded.

Then, he went out and beat the Yankees.

A few days after his comments about never wanting to pitch for New York, he had to defend his dad’s story about being drafted by the Yankees in response to a New York Post article that cited multiple official databases and the Yankees’ own records that couldn’t confirm Lance Dobbins ever played with the organization.

On Saturday night, Dobbins (4-1) followed up by going six shutout innings in Boston’s 4-3 victory over New York, his second win over the Yankees in less than a week.

“It’s a lot of fun,” he said. “I’m more worried about just the win column, whether it’s against them or anybody. My job is to try and help this team win as many ballgames as we can, and pitch in meaningful playoff baseball games. That’s what I’m more focused on.”

But he realizes what it means to the fan base in this longtime rivalry, with the Red Sox fans heard chanting about the Yankees outside the park before he spoke in an interview room.

“Yeah, I love being able to perform and get those wins for the fans here,” he said. “They deserve it. It’s a great city, passionate fan base, so being able to get those wins — especially twice in one week — means a lot and looking forward to trying to build on that going forward.”

In his victory over New York last Sunday, Dobbins held the Yankees to three runs over five innings, two on a first-inning homer by Aaron Judge.

On Saturday night, Judge went 0-for-3 against him, striking out twice on curveballs.

“It was just kind of scouting,” Dobbins said of his game plan against New York’s slugger after Garrett Crochet struck him out three times in the series opener Friday.

“Crochet has an electric fastball. I can throw it hard, but the shape isn’t quite as elite,” he said. “So we knew we had better weapons to go at him with, so I felt like we did a good job of kind of keeping a balanced attack throughout the order.”

Dobbins struck out five and gave up only two singles Saturday.

Continue Reading

Sports

Rockies have worst 70-game mark since 1899

Published

on

By

Rockies have worst 70-game mark since 1899

ATLANTA — Kyle Farmer just shrugged when asked about being part of a Colorado Rockies team that has the fewest wins through 70 games since the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.

“We don’t care,” Farmer said after Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the Atlanta Braves left Colorado with a 13-57 record.

The Rockies have the fourth-fewest wins by any team through their first 70 decisions in a season in MLB history, and the fewest since the 1899 Spiders won 12 of their first 70 decisions. Colorado (.186 win percentage) is currently on pace to go 30-132 this season.

“I mean, there’s nothing we can do about it,” Farmer said. “It is what it is. We’ve just got to show up tomorrow and play. There’s nothing you can really say about it except that if it happens, it happens.”

The Rockies made more inglorious history by setting a franchise nine-inning record with 19 strikeouts. That’s a lot of futility for one team to absorb in one day.

The 19 strikeouts by Braves pitchers also set an Atlanta record for a nine-inning game. Spencer Strider recorded 13 strikeouts in six innings, followed by relievers Rafael Montero and Dylan Lee, who combined for six more whiffs.

The only bright spot for the Rockies was the encouraging start by rookie right-hander Chase Dollander, a native of Evans, Georgia, who allowed four runs, three earned, in six innings.

The Rockies have 10 fewer wins than the Chicago White Sox, who have the second-worst record in the majors at 23-48.

Dollander said “just having a neutral mindset” is the key to remaining positive through a season already filled with low points for the team.

“Don’t ride the roller coaster,” Dollander said. “You know, there’s going to be lots of ups and downs in this game. This game is really hard. So it’s just, you know, staying neutral and we just keep going.”

Dollander was the No. 9 overall pick in the 2023 summer draft. Among other top young players on the team are catcher Hunter Goodman, who might return to Atlanta for the All-Star Game on July 15, and outfielders Jordan Beck and Brenton Doyle.

“You know we’re going to have our time,” Dollander said. “I mean, it’s just one of those things that you kind of learn as you go. I’ve been very fortunate to be here for a little bit now, and I can help us going forward.”

The 34-year-old Farmer said one of his jobs is to help the younger players endure the losses.

“For sure, keeping guys accountable and teaching them the right way to do stuff,” said Farmer, the first baseman whose double off Strider was one of only four hits for the Rockies.

“Keeping their heads up and they’ve got to show up each day and play, no matter our record. It’s your job and you worked your whole life to get here. Enjoy it. This is a great opportunity for a young guy to show what they can do.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Continue Reading

Trending