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NEW YORK — Hurricanes defenseman Tony DeAngelo heard often vulgar chants from New York Rangers fans during Carolina’s 4-3 Game 1 loss on Sunday, especially when his first-period penalty led to a critical power-play goal.

“I don’t give two you-know-whats about it,” said DeAngelo, who played for the Rangers from 2016 to 2021.

The Rangers’ torrid power play needed just 23 seconds to score twice in the first period. Mika Zibanejad scored nine seconds after DeAngelo’s roughing penalty on Rangers forward Will Cuylle, and Vincent Trocheck scored 14 seconds after Evgeny Kuznetsov‘s cross-checking foul on Rangers defenseman Adam Fox. New York went 2-for-2 against Carolina’s top-ranked penalty kill after going 6-for-16 in the first round against the Washington Capitals.

DeAngelo was penalized on a strange sequence that saw Carolina forward Martin Necas initially called for tripping on Cuylle. With Necas in the box, the officials conferred on the ice, and it was determined the wrong player had been penalized: Rather than a trip from Necas, it was a leaping hit from DeAngelo that knocked Cuylle to the ice. After that was established, the officials then announced they were reviewing the DeAngelo hit for a major penalty on an illegal check to the head. It was determined the call was simply a roughing minor, instead.

When asked if the referees had offered an explanation, Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said “not one that made sense” to him.

“I’m not even going to get into it,” DeAngelo said about the call. “It’s tough. We had five power plays too, so they can go both ways. It’s a tough job for them guys, and then they make a call. So, it is what it is.”

Penalties at inopportune times plagued the Hurricanes in Game 1. That included an Andrei Svechnikov tripping penalty just six seconds after the Rangers’ Trocheck was whistled for knocking the puck over the glass with this hand at 19:19 of the third period, with Carolina trailing by one goal and its goalie pulled.

The Hurricanes were 22nd in the NHL in penalties taken during the regular season. Captain Jordan Staal felt the Game 1 atmosphere at Madison Square Garden led to some regrettable penalties early in the game for his team.

“We’ve talked about [it] before, all year long. Especially in an emotional building like this, it always seems to get everyone riled up, and we were at fault again to start,” he said. “I thought we were better as the game went on and settled down a little bit. Obviously, the crowd can get the refs going here tonight, and we get fired up. We obviously talked after the first period that we need to settle down a little bit, and we did.”

But Brind’Amour didn’t believe his team was undisciplined in Game 1.

“Svech, I don’t know what else you want to do there. He’s fighting for a puck. That’s certainly not an undisciplined penalty. Kuzy, he’d like to have that back, but the guy did it to him, and it’s one of those, ‘You always catch the second guy.’ He knows better,” Brind’Amour said.

“And then Tony’s was more — I don’t know, if the guy doesn’t fall, it’s probably not a call, so that’s not an undisciplined penalty for me was there. But like I said, we don’t want to take any penalties.”

Game 2 is scheduled for Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden, where Rangers fans will again be ready to create a raucous environment to support their team and fluster the opponents. DeAngelo pushed back on the idea that the atmosphere could cause Carolina to play undisciplined hockey.

“No, that’s the playoffs. Our rink is louder than all of them, so we could say the same thing about ours,” he said. “But you guys know how great New York is as a sports town. They do a good job cheering their team on. But we don’t care.”

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Giants sell 10% stake to private equity firm

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Giants sell 10% stake to private equity firm

The San Francisco Giants have sold a reported 10% stake in the team to private equity firm Sixth Street.

The team confirmed the deal Tuesday but not the amount of the investment, which was first reported Monday by the New York Times.

Sportico places the value of the franchise and its team-related holdings at $4.2 billion.

Sixth Street’s investment, reportedly approved by Major League Baseball on Monday, will go toward upgrades to Oracle Park and the Giants’ training facilities in Scottsdale, Arizona, as well as Mission Rock, the team’s real estate development project located across McCovey Cove from the ballpark.

Giants president and CEO Larry Baer called it the “first significant investment in three decades” and said the money would not be spent on players.

“This is not about a stockpile for the next Aaron Judge,” Baer told the New York Times. “This is about improvements to the ballpark, making big bets on San Francisco and the community around us, and having the firepower to take us into the next generation.”

Sixth Street is the primary owner of National Women’s Soccer League franchise Bay FC. It also has investments in the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs and Spanish soccer powers Real Madrid and FC Barcelona.

“We believe in the future of San Francisco, and our sports franchises like the Giants are critical ambassadors for our city of innovation, showcasing to the world what’s only made possible here,” Sixth Street co-founder and CEO Alan Waxman said in the news release. “We believe in Larry and the leadership team’s vision for this exciting new era, and we’re proud to be partnering with them as they execute the next chapter of San Francisco Giants success.”

Founded in 2009 and based in San Francisco, Sixth Street has assets totaling $75 billion, according to Front Office Sports.

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Ohtani ‘nervous’ in Tokyo but gets 2 hits, runs

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Ohtani 'nervous' in Tokyo but gets 2 hits, runs

TOKYO — Shohei Ohtani seems impervious to a variety of conditions that afflict most humans — nerves, anxiety, distraction — but it took playing a regular-season big-league game in his home country to change all of that.

After the Los Angeles Dodgers‘ Opening Day 4-1 win over the Chicago Cubs in the Tokyo Dome, Ohtani made a surprising admission. “It’s been a while since I felt this nervous playing a game,” he said. “It took me four or five innings.”

Ohtani had two hits and scored twice, and one of his outs was a hard liner that left his bat at more than 96 mph, so the nerves weren’t obvious from the outside. But clearly the moment, and its weeklong buildup, altered his usually stoic demeanor.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen Shohei nervous,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “But one thing I did notice was how emotional he got during the Japanese national anthem. I thought that was telling.”

As the Dodgers began the defense of last year’s World Series win, it became a night to showcase the five Japanese players on the two teams. For the first time in league history, two Japanese pitchers — the Dodgers’ Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the Cubs’ Shota Imanaga — faced each other on Opening Day. Both pitched well, with Imanaga throwing four hitless innings before being removed after 69 pitches.

“Seventy was kind of the number we had for Shota,” Cubs manager Craig Counsell said. “It was the right time to take him out.”

The Dodgers agreed, scoring three in the fifth inning off reliever Ben Brown. Imanaga kept the Dodgers off balance, but his career-high four walks created two stressful innings that ran up his pitch count.

Yamamoto rode the adrenaline of pitching in his home country, routinely hitting 98 with his fastball and vexing the Cubs with a diving splitter over the course of five three-hit innings. He threw with a kind of abandon, finding a freedom that often eluded him last year in his first year in America.

“I think last year to this year, the confidence and conviction he has throwing the fastball in the strike zone is night and day,” Roberts said. “If he can continue to do that, I see no reason he won’t be in the Cy Young conversation this season.”

Cubs right fielder Seiya Suzuki went hitless in four at bats — the Cubs had only three hits, none in the final four innings against four relievers out of the Dodgers’ loaded bullpen — and rookie Roki Sasaki will make his first start of his Dodger career in the second and final game of the series Wednesday.

“I don’t think there was a Japanese baseball player in this country who wasn’t watching tonight,” Roberts said.

The Dodgers were without Mookie Betts, who left Japan on Monday after it was decided his illness would not allow him to play in this series. And less than an hour before game time, first baseman Freddie Freeman was scratched with what the team termed “left rib discomfort,” a recurrence of an injury he first sustained during last year’s playoffs.

The night started with a pregame celebration that felt like an Olympic opening ceremony in a lesser key. There were Pikachus on the field and a vaguely threatening video depicting the Dodgers and Cubs as Monster vs. Monster. World home-run king Saduharu Oh was on the field before the game, and Roberts called meeting Oh “a dream come true.”

For the most part, the crowd was subdued, as if it couldn’t decide who or what to root for, other than Ohtani. It was admittedly confounding: throughout the first five innings, if fans rooted for the Dodgers they were rooting against Imanaga, but rooting for the Cubs meant rooting against Yamamoto. Ohtani, whose every movement is treated with a rare sense of wonder, presented no such conflict.

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Cardinals shortstop Winn out with wrist soreness

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Cardinals shortstop Winn out with wrist soreness

JUPITER, Fla. — St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Masyn Winn was scratched from the lineup for their exhibition game on Tuesday because of soreness in his right wrist.

Winn was replaced by Jose Barrero in the Grapefruit League matchup with the Miami Marlins, with the regular-season opener nine days away. Winn, who was a 2020 second-round draft pick by the Cardinals, emerged as a productive everyday player during his rookie year in 2024. He batted .267 with 15 home runs, 11 stolen bases and 57 RBIs in 150 games and was named as one of three finalists for the National League Gold Glove Award that went to Ezequiel Tovar of the Colorado Rockies.

Winn had minor surgery after the season to remove a cyst from his hand. In 14 spring training games, he’s batting .098 (4 for 41) with 12 strikeouts.

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