Sports
Hernández: Mookie Betts and Yoshinobu Yamamoto injuries create a Dodgers trade deadline dilemma
They were both learning to do something they’d never done before, Mookie Betts playing shortstop full-time and Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitching in the major leagues.
Their respective educations were suddenly paused on Sunday.
Betts broke his left hand when he was struck by a 98-mph fastball during the Dodgers’ 3-0 victory over the Kansas City Royals. Yamamoto was placed on the injured list with a strained rotator cuff.
Manager Dave Roberts said he expected the two players to return this season, but what he neglected to mention was how unlikely they were to come back as the players the Dodgers were hoping they would be.
How can the Dodgers count on Betts to play shortstop at a championship level in October after missing the next several weeks?
How can they rely on Yamamoto to be their No. 2 starter in the playoffs after he broke down just two months into the season?
In both cases, they can’t.
This shouldn’t cost the Dodgers the National League West — they lead the division by eight games — but if they’re serious about contending for a World Series, they’ll have to strike a couple of deals between now and the July 30 trade deadline.
Here’s the problem: There might not be any deals for them to strike.
Willy Adames?
The Brewers are in first place and are unlikely to trade their shortstop, even though he will be a free agent this winter.
Bo Bichette?
The two-time All-Star is having the worst season of his career and the Toronto Blue Jays might only want to move him if they have a fire sale.
The pitching market is equally, if not more, uninspiring.
Corbin Burnes and Dylan Cease, the two best pitchers who were expected to be part of the market, were already traded. Burnes went from the Brewers to the Baltimore Orioles and Cease from the White Sox to the San Diego Padres.
Luis Severino of the New York Mets and Tyler Anderson of the Angels figure to be moved in the coming months, but neither of them is considered better than the pitchers the Dodgers already have.
The Dodgers shouldn’t be looking for quantity, of which they already have plenty. They should be looking for quality.
Dodgers starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto throws against the Royals on Saturday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Their lack of high-end pitching cost them in recent postseasons, and the $500-plus million they invested in Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow was an indirect acknowledgment of that. Yamamoto and Glasnow, however, came with major risks.
Glasnow has never made more than 21 starts in a season or pitched more than 120 innings. He made his 15th start of the season when he pitched seven scoreless innings on Sunday, the most starts he’d ever made consecutively without sustaining an injury.
There were also questions about the durability of Yamamoto, who is listed at 5-foot-10 and pitched only once a week in Japan. Yamamoto rarely threw his slider in his home country, as he believed it led to discomfort in his elbow. He didn’t throw a single slider in any of his first six starts with the Dodgers, but the higher level of competition forced him to adjust.
Yamamoto threw the pitch a season-high 13 times during a recent start against the New York Yankees in which he registered seven scoreless innings. He pushed back his next start by three days. When he finally returned to the mound on Saturday, his fastball velocity was down and he lasted only two innings.
Was the slider responsible for his injury?
“That’s a fair question,” Roberts said.
Does he need the pitch to be effective at this level?
Considering Yamamoto relies heavily on a four-seam fastball, splitter and curveball, Roberts said, “to have something that’s hard and turns to the left, it’s certainly another weapon.”
“But there’s a balance of, if that’s something that causes discomfort, then you gotta think long and hard about it,” Roberts said.
Yamamoto will refrain from throwing for the next couple of weeks, according to Roberts.
“We’ll kind of see where we go from there,” Roberts said.
The timeline for Betts’ return was also undefined, though Betts said he should have a better idea after a scheduled visit on Monday with hand specialist Steven Shin.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts pulls down his cap after Blake Treinen walks a Kansas City Royals batter in a Dodgers loss on Saturday.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)
Shohei Ohtani said in Japanese of watching Betts crumple to the floor after he was struck by a heater delivered by Royals right-hander Dan Altavilla: “I think it was a tough moment for the team as a whole. I think he’s an indispensable player.”
On offense, certainly.
However, on defense, Betts remains a below average shortstop. He last played the position regularly in high school and didn’t move there this year until shortly before opening day. Betts has tried to make up for his experience by taking grounders before almost every game.
Every game Betts misses will cost him a chance to make up the ground he lost while playing right field and second base during the previous 10 years of his major league career.
“While praying for his return,” Ohtani said, “I’d like for us to cover for him as a team.”
Ohtani didn’t say this, but the responsibility to do so isn’t exclusive to the players. Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman and the small army of assistants who make up the front office share the burden. They’ll have to find players in a down market.
The Cleveland Browns, rumored to be willing to trade down from their No. 6 overall selection in the 2026 NFL draft, did just that Thursday evening when the traded the pick to the Kansas City Chiefs.
Cleveland traded the sixth overall pick in the first round of the 2026 NFL Draft to the Chiefs, in exchange for the ninth overall pick, as well as pick No. 74 in the third round and No. 148 in the fifth round.
The Browns now hold the No. 9 and No. 24 picks in the first round of the draft. They have a total of 11 picks in the 2026 NFL Draft.
Quarterbacks Shedeur Sanders and Deshaun Watson of the Cleveland Browns watch from the sidelines during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals at Huntington Bank Field in Cleveland, Ohio, on Sept. 7, 2025. (Jason Miller/Getty Images)
So the Chiefs gave up three picks in making the first trade of the first round.
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And we know what the fan bases of both clubs were thinking prior to the selection:
Chiefs fans were thinking we know something they don’t. And then the Chiefs selected cornerback Mansoor Delane from LSU — a move no doubt forced by the club’s trade of Pro Bowl cornerback Trent McDuffie to the Los Angeles Rams earlier in the offseason.
So, the Chiefs fill a major need, assuming Delane is indeed the quality corner they believe.
LSU Tigers CB Mansoor Delane celebrates a defensive stop against the Clemson Tigers at Memorial Stadium in South Carolina. (Ken Ruinard/USA TODAY Network)
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ESPN’s Mel Kiper didn’t like the pick, by the way. He had Delane as the 14th best player in the draft.
“It was a necessity,” ESPN analyst Louis Riddick, a former NFL defensive back, responded.
Browns fans weren’t thinking that way.
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They were probably thinking something akin to “We screwed up.”
This is understandable because they’re Browns fans and this could have been the Browns Browning.
Well, the Browns, moving down three slots, gave up a shot to draft linebacker Sonny Styles of Ohio State to the Washington Commanders, receiver Jordyn Tyson to the New Orleans Saints and then the Browns got their chance with the newly acquired No. 9 pick:
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Offensive tackle Spencer Fano of Utah.
Cleveland Browns general manager Andrew Berry speaks at the NFL Scouting Combine at the Indiana Convention Center in Indianapolis, Ind., on Feb. 24, 2026. (Kirby Lee/Imagn Images)
Fano is good. And he makes the Browns offensive line instantly better because he’s going to likely start at left tackle for them.
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So what will Browns fans think of this pick?
They’ll probably wonder why the Browns didn’t pick Miami’s Francis Mauigoa, who went with the No. 10 pick to the New York Giants and promised “to die for” Jaxson Dart if necessary. They’ll wonder this because Browns fans expect the worst.
UCLA women’s basketball team has added some star power as its revamped roster begins to take shape.
Former Iowa State forward Addy Brown announced Thursday she is committing to UCLA, giving the Bruins one of the top players in the portal.
Brown averaged 11.9 points, 8.8 rebounds and 5.3 assists per game while shooting 43.1% from the floor and 33.8% from three-point distance with the Cyclones last season. She played just 21 games due to injury, but she is one of the better two-way players in the nation on the transfer market.
The 6-foot-2 forward co-starred with Audi Crooks for Iowa State the past few seasons and was a part of the mass exodus from the Cyclones’ program.
The Bruins reeled in former North Carolina junior guard Elina Aarnisalo and former Texas Christian senior guard Donovyn Hunter a few weeks ago, adding two more experienced players to the depleted starting lineup after a record six UCLA players were selected in the WNBA draft.
UCLA also signed Arkansas sophomore guard Bonnie Deas earlier this month. She is likely to start at point guard for the Bruins and is one of the best rebounding guards in the nation.
Along with returner Timea Gardiner, the Bruins are starting to form somewhat of a core to defend their national championship. Gardiner was a starter during UCLA’s 2024-25 Final Four run, but missed all of this past season with injury and has one season of eligibility left.
A lineup with Deas and Aarnisalo in the backcourt, Hunter at the three and Gardiner or Brown at the four and adding another big or Sienna Betts at the five would be a competitive lineup in the Big Ten.
Before going to TCU, Hunter played two seasons at Oregon State where she earned All-Pac-12 Defensive Team honorable mention and All-Pac-12 Freshman team honors. This past season with a Horned Frogs team that went to the Sweet 16, she was third in scoring with 10.2 points per game and averaged 3.2 rebounds per contest. She also shot 45.7% from the field and was 33.7% from beyond the arc.
Aarnisalo played her freshman year in Westwood after she originally committed to UCLA in 2025. Due to injuries from point guard Kiki Rice at the start of the 2024-25 season, she was forced into action early her freshman season and finished the year averaging 5.1 points per game.
The Helsinki, Finland, native averaged 10.2 points per game for the Tar Heels as a sophomore last season while shooting 47.3% from the field and 40.3% from the arc. The Bruins will desperately need to replace the three-point production lost with the departure of Rice, Gianna Kneepkens and Charlisse Leger-Walker.
UCLA coach Cori Close said she wanted to sign five players from the portal. She probably needs one more guard and a little more forward depth coming off the bench following the departures of Gabriela Jaquez and Angela Dugalic.
Lena Bilic and Amanda Muse are returners coming off the bench who got a little bit of playing time in the tournament and should have much larger roles, but they are still relatively unproven in late-game situations. They will get a chance to develop as backups with some more Power Four experienced starters now in the fold.
Trump says there’s ‘no time frame’ to secure Iran deal
Republican Minnesota Senate candidate Tom Weiler joins ‘Fox & Friends’ to discuss President Donald Trump’s blockade in the Strait of Hormuz as the U.S.-Iranian conflict continues and react to Gov. Tim Walz’s, D-Minn., criticism of the president.
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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.
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.”
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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