Tense Pads-Dodgers tilt sees 3 hit, Roberts tossed
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Alden Gonzalez
LOS ANGELES — The first pitch Randy Vasquez threw to Shohei Ohtani in Tuesday’s third inning was a fastball low and inside enough to brush him back. The second hit the two-way superstar squarely on his right quad, prompting umpires to issue warnings to both sides and triggering the first ejection of the year for Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts.
Vasquez said the pitch, which occurred a half-inning after Fernando Tatis Jr. was hit by Lou Trivino, “wasn’t intentional,” adding that the attack plan against Ohtani was to hammer the fastball inside and Vasquez “didn’t execute the pitch.”
Roberts disagreed.
“Absolutely,” Roberts, speaking after his team’s 8-6 win, said when asked if he believes Vasquez hit Ohtani on purpose. “He hasn’t come close. For me, if they feel that’s warranted on their side — part of baseball, that’s what they feel. I give him credit because they hit him in the leg. Own it, and we move on. It’s not a misfire. I do feel it was intentional. Again, that’s part of baseball, which we all understand.”
On Monday night, Dodgers center fielder Andy Pages took a fastball to the left elbow guard from Padres starter Dylan Cease and yelled in Cease’s direction. Later, Pages said he felt he was hit on purpose, perhaps because the Padres believed he was trying to relay the catcher’s signs from second base earlier in the game.
The following night, Trivino threw an 0-1 sinker with first base open and none out in the top of the third that caught Tatis in the upper back. Tatis, who was also hit by Trivino while leading off a game from Petco Park seven days earlier, was clearly upset but said nothing in Trivino’s direction. He walked slowly to first base, then watched from right field when Ohtani was hit — with none on, one out and the count 1-0 — in the bottom half.
“Just trying to make quality pitches and fight for the inner part of the plate,” Padres manager Mike Shildt said, “and a ball got away from Vasquez.”
But Roberts was irate that his side was warned, then spilled out of the dugout and yelled in the face of third-base umpire Tripp Gibson after he had tossed him.
“I didn’t feel a warning on both sides was warranted,” Roberts said, “so I just wanted to know an explanation. I wanted an explanation on their thought process. I didn’t come in hot. I just wanted to know why; why they issued [the warnings]. I realized later I got tossed, which I didn’t understand or appreciate. Even looking back, to see Mike get the opportunity to talk to umpires after I was tossed and [get] their explanation, and he was still in the game. I think what anyone wants is consistency, right?”
A fourth hit by pitch occurred at the start of the seventh inning, when Dodgers reliever Matt Sauer plunked Padres infielder Jose Iglesias in the left wrist — postgame X-rays were negative — but was not tossed. Manny Machado — who, along with Tatis, left Dodger Stadium before media was allowed in the clubhouse — yelled toward the umpires wondering why Sauer was not tossed. But Shildt said he did not believe that pitch was intentional.
It was nonetheless a flash point in yet another hotly contested matchup between the Padres and Dodgers, two bitter rivals who are near the end of a 10-day stretch in which they face each other seven times.
“I think it’s fantastic,” Shildt said of the tension in this series. “Look, the best part about a rivalry is people are going to bring their best shot. Good news is both teams are bringing it every night. We love it. We can’t do it, but I wish we played them every night.”
On this night, it was Pages who stole the show, going 4-for-4 with two home runs to increase his OPS to .845 and solidify himself as one of the sport’s breakout stars. After Pages reacted angrily to Cease’s hit by pitch on Monday night, cameras caught Shildt yelling, “Who the f— do you think you are?” from his dugout. Later, Machado, while praising Pages’ season, said, “They got way more superstars over there if we want to hit somebody.”
Pages got the last laugh, leading the Dodgers to their fourth win in five games against the Padres this season — with two more to follow over the next two nights.
“I think Andy spoke for himself today,” Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy said. “I think Andy told him who he was today.”
TAMPA, Fla. — The Tampa Bay Rays overcame an eight-run deficit to beat the Baltimore Orioles 12-8 on Wednesday night in the largest comeback in the majors this season.
Tampa Bay matched the biggest comeback in franchise history. The Rays also rallied from eight down in a 10-8 victory over the Los Angeles Angels on Aug. 18, 2012, and in a 10-9 win over the Toronto Blue Jays on July 25, 2009.
It tied the Orioles’ largest blown lead over the past 50 seasons. Baltimore last gave away an eight-run lead on April 28, 2017, against the New York Yankees. The Orioles led that game 9-1 entering the bottom of the sixth inning before losing 14-11 in 10 innings.
Baltimore had an eight-run second inning on Wednesday. Colton Cowser smacked a three-run home run, Cedric Mullins added a solo shot, Gunnar Henderson had an RBI single and Ramón Laureano hit a three-run homer.
Tampa Bay’s Christopher Morel hit an RBI double in the third, and Jake Mangum‘s two-run single cut it to 8-3. Curtis Mead hit a two-out triple in the fourth and scored on a Junior Caminero single. Brandon Lowe‘s two-run homer in the fifth made it 8-8. And Jonathan Aranda had a two-run single in the Rays’ four-run seventh.
Lowe has at least a hit and a run in seven consecutive games, the longest active streak of its kind in the majors. He is batting .464 (13-of-28) with two home runs, five RBIs and eight runs during that span.
Caminero had four hits and two RBIs for the Rays.
Entering Wednesday, teams were 0-134 when trailing by eight or more runs at any point this season.
“It’s a tough game,” Orioles manager Tony Mansolino said. “It really hurts. But tomorrow, we’ll have to bounce back and try to figure out how to win a game.”
Three teams came back from eight runs behind last season in the majors. Pittsburgh was the most recent team to rally from more than that, erasing a nine-run deficit in a 13-12 victory over the Cincinnati Reds on Nov. 23, 2023.
ESPN Research and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Jorge Castillo
NEW YORK — The good news for the Yankees on Wednesday was they scored a run after 30 consecutive scoreless innings. The bad news was they again didn’t score enough to win.
The Yankees fell to the Los Angeles Angels 3-2 to extend their season-high losing streak to six games. The Angels will look to complete a four-game sweep Thursday afternoon at Yankee Stadium. The Yankees, whose lead in the AL East has shrunk to 1½ games, will look to emerge from an offensive funk that has produced seven runs in seven games.
“That’s baseball,” Yankees right fielder Aaron Judge said. “We know what we signed up for. You’re going to play 162. You’re going to hit a little rut like this, but you can’t give up. You can’t mope about it. You just got to show up the next day and you got to be ready to play.”
Jazz Chisholm Jr. ended the Yankees’ scoreless innings streak in the second inning with a moonshot solo home run down the right-field line, giving New York its first run since the ninth inning Saturday against the Boston Red Sox. Two innings later, Cody Bellinger launched another solo shot to give the Yankees their first lead since last Thursday when they defeated the Kansas City Royals 1-0.
But the Yankees mustered only one other hit — a ground ball from Bellinger in the sixth inning that was ruled a single after it bounced off Trent Grisham as he ran to second base for the inning’s second out. Yankees manager Aaron Boone said he believed his team’s at-bats Wednesday were better than they were Tuesday — when he said he noticed his players pressing — and pointed to four walks as progress.
But the Yankees went 0-for-3 with runners in scoring position and are 5-for-48 (.104) with 12 strikeouts, four walks and three RBIs in such situations over their past seven games.
“We just got to break through now like we’re capable of offensively,” Boone said.
Judge, the two-time AL MVP who is a heavy favorite to win a third this season, has gone 1-for-19 with 11 strikeouts, two intentional walks and a home run over the past five games. He went 0-for-4 on Wednesday with two strikeouts, a 94.7 mph groundout and 107.9 mph flyout.
“Guys are pitching, they’re doing their job,” Judge said. “Sometimes we’re faltering on doing our job. But it’s tough to say. I think it just comes down to us not executing, us not doing our job. Maybe a little passive in certain situations. But all we can do is show up tomorrow ready to go.”
The Angels broke through to retake the lead in the eighth inning Wednesday without a hit when, after three walks, shortstop Anthony Volpe mishandled a ground ball on what should’ve been a routine, inning-ending double play. Volpe, a Gold Glove winner in 2023, was charged with his ninth error of the season, the second most among shortstops across the majors.
“Right off the bat, I got to be aggressive, go get the ball, make the play,” Volpe said. “As far as that, that’s all it is. It’s the first read off the bat.”
The lack of execution trickled to the offensive side in the bottom of the inning. The Yankees appeared ready to mount a rally when Jasson Dominguez walked and Oswald Peraza was hit by a pitch to begin the inning. But they were left stranded as Grisham, who was given the green light to swing away with one strike after failing to drop down a bunt, popped out, before Judge flied out and Bellinger popped out to extinguish the threat.
“When we’re not scoring a lot of runs, we got to execute on the highest level on the little things,” Boone said. “And we haven’t done that this week a handful of times when we had some opportunities.”
Latin singer Nezza said that she is “super proud” of performing the national anthem in Spanish at Dodger Stadium on Saturday night and that she has “no regrets.”
Her surprising 90-second rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” before the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ game against the Giants — and a behind-the-scenes video she shared on social media of team representatives discouraging it beforehand — quickly went viral. It has become a flashpoint for Dodgers fans frustrated by the team’s lack of vocal support for immigrant communities impacted by the deportation raids across the U.S., including numerous neighborhoods in and around Los Angeles.
“This is my moment to show everyone that I am with them, that we have a voice and with everything that’s happening it’s not OK,” Nezza, 30, told The Associated Press. “I’m super proud that I did it. No regrets.”
Nezza said she hadn’t yet decided whether to sing in English or Spanish until she walked out onto the field and saw the stands filled with Latino families in Dodger Blue. Before that, as shown in the singer’s TikTok video, a Dodgers employee had told Nezza, “We are going to do the song in English today, so I’m not sure if that wasn’t transferred or if that wasn’t relayed.”
The Spanish-language version Nezza sang, “El Pendón Estrellado,” is the official translation of the national anthem and was commissioned in 1945 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt from Peruvian American composer Clotilde Arias.
Nezza says her manager immediately received a call from an unidentified Dodgers employee saying their clients were not welcome at the stadium again, but the team denied that in a statement to the AP.
“There were no consequences or hard feelings from the Dodgers regarding her performance,” the Dodgers said in the statement. “She was not asked to leave. We would be happy to have her back.”
Despite the Dodgers’ statement, Nezza said she does not think she will return to the stadium but said she hopes her performance will inspire others to use their voice and speak out.
“It’s just shown me, like, how much power there is in the Latin community,” Nezza said. “We’ve got to be the voice right now.”
The Dodgers have not gone on the record regarding the arrests and raids made by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in the areas just a short drive from Dodger Stadium, but player Enrique Hernández posted about it on Instagram over the weekend.
“I am saddened and infuriated by what’s happening in our country and our city,” Hernández posted in English and Spanish. “I cannot stand to see our community being violated, profiled, abused and ripped apart. ALL people deserve to be treated with respect, dignity and human rights.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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