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Listless Dodgers lose to the Diamondbacks again

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Listless Dodgers lose to the Diamondbacks again

Leadoff man Corbin Carroll driving balls into the gap and racing around the bases. Slugger Christian Walker crushing home runs into the left-field seats. Second baseman Ketel Marte delivering big hits and starting rally-killing double plays. A no-name pitcher shutting down their high-powered offense.

If this had a familiar ring to the Dodgers and a crowd of 46,593 in Chavez Ravine on Wednesday night, it was because it was all too familiar, the Arizona Diamondbacks cruising to a 6-0 victory to win two of three games in a series that was reminiscent of their three-game sweep of the Dodgers in last year’s National League Division Series.

Carroll keyed a three-run fifth inning with a two-run triple that helped send Dodgers ace Tyler Glasnow to his second straight loss; Walker did his usual Dodger damage with a solo homer in the sixth and a double in the eighth, and Marte started a quirky and timely double play to help extricate the Diamondbacks from a two-on, no-out jam in the sixth.

And it was bulk reliever Ryne Nelson who reprised the role of Brandon Pfaadt from Game 3 of that division series, the 26-year-old right-hander entering the day with a 2-3 record and 7.06 ERA in seven starts but blanking the Dodgers on five hits over five innings, striking out five and walking three.

The Dodgers, at the end of a 13-day, 13-game stretch in which they went 7-6, went hitless in eight at-bats with runners in scoring position and lost their first regular-season home series to Arizona since April 13-15, 2018, a span of 13 series. It was Arizona’s first shutout in Chavez Ravine since a 13-0 win on Sept. 4, 2017.

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Teoscar Hernández gets caught in a rundown as Arizona catcher Gabriel Montero tags him out in the sixth inning

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

The Diamondbacks, with some key players hurt and others underachieving, were still two games under .500 (24-26) and eight games behind the Dodgers in the NL West after the win.

But as they showed during their surprising World Series run last October and again this week in Los Angeles, they could present problems for the Dodgers.

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“Oh, yeah. I think we know that,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, when asked if Arizona was better than its record might indicate. “It seems like everyone around the league is going through a lot of injuries–certainly those guys with their starting pitching.

“But their bullpen has been really good, they took good at-bats against us and they got big hits when they needed to. We know how good of a ball club they are. They certainly play us very well.”

Glasnow was dominant through four scoreless innings in which he gave up two singles, struck out six, walked none and induced 14 swinging strikes, but the Diamondbacks snapped the scoreless tie with three runs in the fifth.

Gabriel Moreno drew a one-out walk. No. 9 hitter Kevin Newman grounded a single to center field to advance Moreno to third, and Newman took second on the throw.

Carroll, the 2023 NL rookie of the year who is off to a brutal start in 2024 — he entered Wednesday with a .191 average, two homers and 14 RBIs — drove a hanging 1-and-2 curveball from Glasnow into the right-center field gap for a two-run triple for a 2-0 lead. He then scored on a wild pitch to make it 3-0.

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“I thought the stuff was really good early and through that fourth inning,” Roberts said of Glasnow, who gave up three runs and four hits in five innings, striking out six and walking one, to fall to 6-3 with a 3.09 ERA.

“He was getting the swing and miss. The command was good. The breaking ball was good. The slider was good. And then in that fifth inning, it seemed like he just couldn’t find his mechanics and lost his command. … He got Carroll into a leverage count and hung the breaking ball.”

The Dodgers had a similar threat in the top of the fourth when Teoscar Hernández walked and Gavin Lux laced a double to right to put runners on second and third with one out. But Nelson struck out Andy Pages on three pitches and got Jason Heyward to ground out to first.

The Dodgers failed to score again after putting two on with no outs in the fifth when Shohei Ohtani hit a mile-high fly ball to center field, Freddie Freeman struck out on a 96-mph fastball from Nelson and Will Smith flied to the wall in right.

“We had a couple of situational opportunities that we didn’t cash in on, even after we saw [Nelson] a couple of times,” Roberts said. “In those situations, he went after us with the fastball, and we couldn’t catch up to it. Just really uncharacteristic of us.”

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The Diamondbacks pushed the lead to 4-0 in the sixth when Walker crushed a 417-foot solo homer to left-center field off reliever Elieser Hernández, giving the Arizona first baseman 22 homers in 87 games against the Dodgers, 14 of them coming in Chavez Ravine.

“He’s one of my favorite players to watch,” Roberts said of Walker. “He plays the game the right way. He uses the whole field. He doesn’t give away pitches. He’s a Gold Glover on defense. He runs the bases. He’s one of the guys I really respect as a ballplayer. You just don’t like it when he’s in the batter’s box, for sure.”

The Dodgers had one final chance to make a game of it in the bottom of the sixth when Teoscar Hernández singled to right and Lux singled to left, putting two on with no outs.

Pages followed with a broken-bat bloop up the middle that Marte alertly let drop near the second-base bag. Marte fielded the ball, stepped on second for the force out and started a rundown that ended with Hernández being tagged out between second and third for a double play. Heyward flied out to the warning track in left to end the inning.

“There was really nothing our baserunners could have done,” Roberts said. “We had a chance to kind of build an inning, and then Andy gets sawed off, Ketel made a heady play and just killed the rally right there.”

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Arizona scored twice off reliever Ryan Yarbrough in the eighth when Marte led off with a homer off the left-field foul pole and Walker doubled and later scored on a passed ball.

Short hops

Left-hander James Paxton and right-hander Walker Buehler will start the first two games of a three-game series at Cincinnati beginning Friday night, and Yoshinobu Yamamoto will start Sunday’s series finale, marking the fourth time this season the right-hander will pitch on five days’ rest. … Closer Evan Phillips, out since May 5 because of a mild right-hamstring strain, will throw live-batting practice with Class A Rancho Cucamonga on Thursday and is scheduled to begin a rehabilitation assignment with the club on Sunday.

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WWE to hold premium live event in Saudi Arabia amid Iran ceasefire

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WWE to hold premium live event in Saudi Arabia amid Iran ceasefire

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Saudi Arabia was among the countries seeing missiles fly into their airspace as a conflict broke out in the Middle East between the U.S. and Iran.

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The prospect of Iran targeting its Middle Eastern neighbors like Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates put some sporting events on hold and questioned others. Formula 1 races in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain were canceled and rumors swirled around whether future WWE events could be held in the kingdom.

Roman Reigns celebrates his win during WWE’s Royal Rumble at Riyadh Season Stadium in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on Jan. 31, 2026. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE)

As the Trump administration brokered a ceasefire with Iran, WWE announced on Thursday that its Night of Champions premium live event will be held in Riyadh on June 27.

“We are proud to welcome Night of Champions back to Riyadh and look forward to delivering another unforgettable night of WWE action for fans in the Kingdom and around the world,” General Entertainment Authority chairman Turki Al-Sheikh said in a news release.

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Sami Zayn makes his entrance during Night of Champions at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on June 28, 2025. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE)

The release touted that WrestleMania 43 will still be held in Riyadh in 2027. It will be the first time that WrestleMania is held outside the U.S.

WWE president Nick Khan was adamant before WrestleMania 42 that the event will still take place in Saudi Arabia despite the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

“We’re doing WrestleMania next year in Saudi,” he said at a Sports Business Journal event, via The Sporting Tribune. “First time ever, WrestleMania will be outside the United States or Canada. And we’ve had a big, fruitful partnership with them.”

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John Cena wrestles CM Punk during Night of Champions at Kingdom Arena in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, on June 28, 2025. (Georgiana Dallas/WWE)

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He added that those complaining about WrestleMania being held in Saudi Arabia were a “vocal minority.”

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Are you still hoping to buy Olympic tickets? LA28 shares terms for second ticket drop

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Are you still hoping to buy Olympic tickets? LA28 shares terms for second ticket drop

Thousand-dollar tickets and hundreds of dollars in fees shocked some hopeful Olympic fans this month, but they did not keep LA28 from boasting strong sales in the committee’s first ticket drop.

LA28 announced Thursday that it sold more than 4 million Olympic tickets during the first ticket drop. The private organizing committee will have a second ticket drop in August with “refreshed inventory across all Olympic sports at a range of price points.”

But after the popularity of the first purchasing period, many of the lower-priced tickets have already been scooped up.

LA28 said roughly half of the total 1 million $28 tickets were sold during the locals presale, which was limited to people living near venue cities in Southern California and Oklahoma City.

The average price per Olympic ticket is less than $200, which includes a mandatory 24% service fee, and LA28 said about 75% of all tickets, including final events, will be under $400. The premier seats at high-demand events command more than $1,000 per ticket, but the highest priced categories make up about 5% of the total ticket inventory.

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Artistic gymnastics sold out the quickest in Drop 1. Four new Olympic sports — flag football, lacrosse, softball and squash — sold all their available inventory for the first drop. After five days of local presale, global ticket sales opened and drew fans from 85 countries and all 50 states and U.S. territories. The largest international sales came from the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico and Japan.

For the first female-majority Olympic Games, LA28 reported that women’s Olympic sessions outsold men’s 93% to 88% during the first drop.

“The response to our initial on-sale was nothing short of historic. Fans from near and far have spoken: the world wants to be part of the LA28 Games,” LA28 chief executive officer Reynold Hoover said in a statement. “The success of Drop 1 is about more than momentum — it reflects LA28’s commitment to delivering a fiscally responsible Games that create a lasting legacy for Los Angeles and its communities.”

Drop 2, which will begin in August, will have additional tickets across all Olympic sports, including those that may have sold out during the first purchasing windows. The registration period for Drop 2 opened Thursday and will continue until July 22. Fans who registered for the first drop of tickets but did not receive a time slot and fans who did not buy their maximum 12 general ticket allotment will automatically be entered into the random lottery Drop 2. The new registration period is only required for anybody who did not sign up for the initial drop.

Fans are still limited to 12 Olympic tickets and up to 12 soccer tickets that don’t count toward the general maximum. There is a four ticket per ceremony limit for the opening and closing ceremony that count toward the 12-ticket maximum, which is cumulative across all LA28 presales and ticket drops.

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LA28 will have multiple ticket drops with assigned purchasing time slots before ticket sales move to a first-come, first-served format closer to the Games, which open on July 14, 2028. LA28 began its ticketing process earlier than most other Olympic Games with tickets going on sale more than two years in advance of the opening ceremony. The early timeline has created excitement for the first Summer Olympics in the United States since Atlanta 1996, but also prompted concerns about scheduling. Fans clamored for tickets with little information about which teams or athletes would be competing in most sessions.

Tickets are not refundable, but fans can opt for verified resale when LA28 launches its official resale system in 2027. AXS and Eventim is the official secondary ticket marketplace of the LA28 Games and Ticketmaster and Sports Illustrated Tickets have also signed on as additional verified resale platforms.

LA28 will have 14 million tickets available for the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which would eclipse the record of 12 million tickets sold for the Paris Games. Paris 2024 sold an about 9.5 million tickets for the Olympics, but used a different ticket system than LA28. For Paris, 3.5 million tickets were sold during the first phase, during which fans were required to buy tickets to at least three different sports instead of the option for single-event tickets available during LA28’s Drop 1 process.

Tickets for the 2028 Paralympics, which will be the first in L.A.’s history, will go on sale in 2027. Ticket sales and hospitality are expected to cover about $2.5 billion of LA28’s expected $7.1 billion budget for the first Games in L.A. in more than 40 years.

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Trump envoy asks FIFA to replace Iran with Italy in 2026 World Cup: report

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Trump envoy asks FIFA to replace Iran with Italy in 2026 World Cup: report

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An envoy for President Donald Trump has reportedly asked FIFA to replace Iran with Italy in the 2026 World Cup this summer.

The Financial Times reported the plan is an effort to repair the relationship between Trump and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, which soured after the former’s comments against Pope Leo XIV regarding the war with Iran.

United States special envoy Paolo Zampolli suggested the idea to FIFA President Gianni Infantino.

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President Donald Trump receives the FIFA Peace Prize from FIFA President Gianni Infantino during the FIFA World Cup 2026 Official Draw at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on Dec. 5, 2025. (Emilee Chinn/FIFA)

“I confirm I have suggested to Trump and Infantino that Italy replace Iran at the World Cup. I’m an Italian native, and it would be a dream to see the Azzurri at a U.S.-hosted tournament,” Zampolli told the outlet. “With four titles, they have the pedigree to justify inclusion.”

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment by Fox News Digital.

Italy had a chance to be in the World Cup already, but it lost in a penalty shootout to Bosnia and Herzegovina in a qualifying playoff final.

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Italy became the first World Cup-winning team to miss three consecutive tournaments after the 4-1 penalty shootout loss earlier this month.

“We still don’t believe it that we’re out and that it happened in this manner,” Italy’s Leonardo Spinazzola told reporters at the time, according to the New York Post. 

“It’s upsetting for everyone. For us, for our families and for all the kids who have never seen Italy at a World Cup.”

While Zampolli told Infantino about his proposed plan, FIFA’s president said Iran “for sure” will play in the World Cup despite the conflict involving the U.S.

Mehdi Taremi of Iran celebrates after scoring a goal during a 2026 FIFA World Cup Asian Qualifiers Group A game against Uzbekistan at Azadi Stadium in Tehran March 25, 2025. (Fatemeh Bahrami/Anadolu)

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“The Iranian team is coming, for sure,” Infantino said during the CNBC Invest in America Forum earlier this month in Washington, D.C.

“We hope that, by then, of course, the situation will be a peaceful situation. That would definitely help. But Iran has to come, of course. They represent their people. They have qualified. The players want to play.”

Infantino visited the Iranian national team in Turkey, which is where it has its training camp.

All three of Iran’s group stage games are scheduled to be played in the U.S. That remains the case after Iranian government officials suggested to FIFA that their games be moved to Mexico because they could not travel to the U.S.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum revealed FIFA’s rejection of Iran’s request, and it is insisting Iran play where it’s scheduled — SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California, and Lumen Field in Seattle. Iran said earlier this month it would only decide on its team’s participation once it heard from FIFA regarding its relocation request.

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Iran is scheduled to play at SoFi Stadium against New Zealand June 16 to begin its tournament. It will also play Belgium at the stadium before finishing group play against Mo Salah and Egypt in Seattle June 26.

FIFA President Gianni Infantino attends an international friendly between Mexico and Portugal at Banorte Stadium in Mexico City March 28, 2026. (Antonio Torres/FIFA/Getty Images)

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Trump wrote in a Truth Social post last month that Iran would be welcome to compete in the World Cup as scheduled, though it might not be “appropriate” considering the conflict.

“The Iran National Soccer Team is welcome to The World Cup, but I really don’t believe it is appropriate that they be there, for their own life and safety,” he wrote.

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Trump also told Politico, “I really don’t care,” when asked about Iran’s participation in the tournament. Infantino, who has a strong relationship with Trump, said Trump has “reiterated” to him that the U.S. welcomes Iran’s team to compete.

Fox News’ Paulina Dedaj and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Follow Fox News Digital’s sports coverage on X and subscribe to the Fox News Sports Huddle newsletter.

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