Sports
Angels have been finding relief with Jimmy Herget on mound, but they fall to Astros
Jimmy Herget has been one of the vital formidable arms out of the Angels’ bullpen since he returned from the injured record on the finish of July.
And in two of the Angels’ greatest house crowds in August — introduced sellouts with the New York Yankees on the town — he confirmed progress as he transformed each save conditions.
On Aug. 29, Herget took the mound with the Angels up one run towards the Yankees and needing two outs to finish the sport. He struck out the primary batter on two sliders and a curveball. Then he gave up a single, however he was capable of shut it when the third batter lined out.
Extra spectacular was his subsequent save two days later, approaching within the ninth inning with one other one-run lead. He began off slowly, strolling Aaron Decide and Giancarlo Stanton, however then struck out the following two and induced a groundout to finish the sport.
“It’s alternative,” Herget, speaking earlier than the Angels’ recreation towards the Houston Astros on Friday night time, mentioned of getting these save alternatives. “I saved plenty of video games within the minor leagues, nevertheless it doesn’t examine to the large league saves, particularly towards the group that we had the opposite night time.
“[Interim manager Phil Nevin] has by no means come as much as me and mentioned that I’m the nearer or something like that. I’m simply persevering with to go on the market and each time the telephone rings for my identify, I’m gonna pitch.”
By 11 video games and 17 innings of aid in August, Herget had a 0.53 earned-run common and a 2.24 FIP — fielding unbiased pitching, which measures how nicely a pitcher can strike out batters and never quit house runs, walks or hit batters.
These two statistics had been the perfect amongst Angels relievers all through the month.
Herget has pitched in each inning all through the season. He’s began and he’s closed. He has had solely six save alternatives, securing wins in 5 of these video games, 4 of which got here in August (and three of which got here within the closing video games of the month).
However his August was an enchancment as sluggish and regular as his method on the mound.
By the point he was sidelined June 22 with a proper shoulder impingement, he had amassed a 3.72 ERA and a 3.26 FIP having given up 15 earned runs, together with 4 house runs, and walked six batters over 25 video games (361/3 innings pitched).
Since returning July 31, he has a 2.70 ERA and a pair of.94 FIP.
“He’s a really cerebral man, and he has a very good thought of how one can assault hitters,” Angels pitching coach Matt Sensible mentioned of Herget. “He understands his stuff in addition to anyone on the workforce.
“And he’s a singular man. It’s completely different arm angles. It’s kinda funky. You form of know what you’re gonna get in Jimmy, and there’s plenty of belief in that.”
Angels begin slowly in loss to Astros
The Angels had been held scoreless by means of 5 innings earlier than they pushed throughout their first runs in a 4-2 loss to Houston.
With the Angels down 4-0 to the Astros, Taylor Ward led off the sixth inning with a single off Lance McCullers Jr. Mike Ford created extra site visitors on the bases, reaching on a stroll.
And Matt Duffy drove within the Angels’ first run on a double that seemed to go the gap and clear the center-field wall, however as a substitute hit the warning observe and bounced over.
Matt Thaiss’ sacrifice fly allowed Ford to attain.
The Astros scored twice within the third inning on hits by Chas McCormick, José Altuve and Jeremy Peña and a sacrifice fly by Alex Bregman. They put their subsequent two runs on within the fifth.
Angels starter Reid Detmers walked Altuve and Bregman, who ultimately had been walked in by reliever José Marté.
All 4 runs had been earned for Detmers, who was performed after 4 1/3 innings. He gave up seven hits and struck out six.
“I really feel effective. Simply didn’t make pitches I wanted to in massive conditions,” Detmers mentioned. “I had a few walks that I bought pissed off with, nevertheless it actually simply got here down to creating the pitches I wanted to make in massive conditions.”
Sports
Tennis players give opinions on wild 3 am finish for Novak Djokovic at French Open: 'It's not healthy'
Marathon tennis matches have been seen throughout history, but the latest finish by French Open defending champion Novak Djokovic has led many to question why a match is allowed to go until 3 a.m.
The exact finishing time for Djokovic was 3:07 a.m. after five sets against Lorenzo Musetti, and as you’d expect, he was absolutely drained. It was the latest finish in the Grand Slam’s history, but it’s a side of history U.S. Open champion Coco Gauff doesn’t think any tennis player should be on.
“I feel like a lot of times people think you’re done, but really at 3 a.m. [you’re] probably not going to bed until 5 a.m. at the earliest, maybe 6 a.m. or 7 a.m.,” Gauff said, via Yahoo Sports.
“I definitely think it’s not healthy,” Gauff continued.
“It’s not easy to play and it’s not like we’re going to fall asleep one hour after the match,” the top women’s player in the world, Iga Swiatek, added to the conversation.
NOVAK DJOKOVIC SAYS HE WAS NEVER ‘ANTI-VAX’: ‘I WAS ALWAYS PRO-FREEDOM TO CHOOSE’
“[Change] is not up to us. We need to accept anything that is going to come to us.”
Now, the ATP and WTA Tours instituted a new rule earlier this year that states no matches can start after 11 p.m. However, the four Grand Slams – French Open, Australian Open, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open – do not have that rule in their tournaments. Furthermore, men play five sets in Grand Slams, whereas the ATP Tour finishes in best-of-three sets.
So, the French Open saw the decision to put the match between Grigor Dimitrov and Zizou Bergs on the main court, Court Philippe Chatrier, go astray when Alexander Zverev’s and Tallon Griekspoor’s match needed five sets to finish.
Dimitrov and Bergs were rained out on Friday, where the former had a one-set advantage when they finally started playing again. In turn, Djokovic’s match, intended to start at 8:15 p.m. local time, didn’t do so until 10:37 p.m.
Then, with five sets to play, it just went way too long.
“I think some things could have been handled a different way,” Djokovic said after the match, prefacing his comment by saying he didn’t want to get into the scheduling discussion, “but there’s also a beauty in winning a match [so late].”
Djokovic, 37, said his limits were certainly tested in the match. But it’s hard to recover from such a feat.
But he’ll have to do so before facing Francisco Cerundolo, the No. 23 player in the world, in the fourth round on Monday in Paris to keep his chances at repeating alive.
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Sports
Dodgers injury updates: Bobby Miller, Clayton Kershaw progress but Max Muncy has setback
There was a mixed bag of news on the injury front regarding three key Dodgers over the weekend.
Young right-hander Bobby Miller raised some eyebrows with a velocity drop in his second minor league rehabilitation start, third baseman Max Muncy confirmed a setback in his recovery from a right rib-cage strain, and veteran left-hander Clayton Kershaw took the first significant step in his recovery from offseason shoulder injury.
Miller, out since April 13 because of shoulder inflammation, gave up four earned runs and five hits in 3 ⅓ innings with no strikeouts and one walk in his second rehab start for Class-A Rancho Cucamonga at Lake Elsinore on Saturday night.
Miller reached his workload target, throwing 65 pitches, 38 for strikes, but the velocity of his four-seam fastball, which averaged 98.3 mph in his first three starts for the Dodgers this season, fell to 95-97 mph, which is “a couple miles per hour lower than what is typical for Bobby,” manager Dave Roberts said.
Yet Miller, 25, said before Sunday’s game against the Colorado Rockies that he felt fine physically.
“I don’t know why there was a little bit of a velocity drop,” Miller said. “It could have just been an adrenaline thing. There was not much adrenaline at all. … I felt fine. I feel ready. I mean, leading up to [Saturday], everything felt really locked in and the velo was there. I don’t know why it wasn’t [Saturday]. It could have just been mechanics.”
Roberts had not talked to Miller before meeting with reporters Sunday morning, but he said he was told by athletic trainer Thomas Albert that Miller’s velocity dip “had nothing to do with health. So for me … I don’t think it was too concerning.”
Miller, who went 1-1 with a 5.40 ERA in three starts before going on the injured list, is scheduled to make at least one more rehab start, for triple-A Oklahoma City on Friday, with a target of 80 pitches and six innings.
“I just want execution on every one of my pitches,” Miller said. “The command of my off-speed pitches wasn’t very good [on Saturday]. I know my velocity will be there, so I’m not worried about that.”
Muncy, who was batting .223 with a .798 on-base-plus-slugging percentage, nine homers and 28 RBIs in 40 games when he went on the injured list May 17, sounded more discouraged about his immediate outlook.
The slugger needed only two weeks to recover from a similar oblique strain in 2021 and thought he’d return for a three-game series in New York against the Mets last week.
But Muncy said he felt a “twinge” in his rib cage while taking batting practice in Arizona during the Dodgers’ last trip and has been shut down indefinitely from most baseball activities.
“It felt great. It felt normal. I was taking ground balls and throwing across the infield and didn’t feel a thing, so we progressed to swinging,” Muncy said Sunday. “I had two good days of full batting practice, where I didn’t feel anything at all. And then the third day, it flared up. It’s one of those things where my body was telling me to slow things down.”
To say Muncy is frustrated with the setback would be an understatement.
“We’re just sitting here,” Muncy said. “I don’t think anybody has a timetable, because we can’t really put one on it. [An oblique strain] is probably the worst injury you can have as a position player because you can’t do anything.
“You can’t strengthen it. You can’t strengthen the area around it. You can’t do anything with the rest of your body because you have to involve your core to do that. You have to just sit and let it heal, and that’s where we’re at.”
The outlook for Kershaw seemed more encouraging after the 36-year-old’s fastball touched 88 mph during a 20-pitch simulated inning in which he faced three batters Saturday, a workout that Kershaw likened to “basically the first step of spring training.”
Kershaw will throw a two-inning simulated game with Rancho Cucamonga later this week while the Dodgers are on the road. If he follows a normal six-week spring training progression without setback, he could return in mid-July.
“Right now, we’re way ahead of schedule, which is really encouraging,” Roberts said. “He came out of it feeling good, feeling strong. There was no tentativeness. I didn’t see him guarding anything. He felt free and easy.”
Kershaw, a three-time National League Cy Young Award winner and the 2014 NL most valuable player, threw all three of his pitches — fastball, slider, curve — on Saturday, the first time he faced hitters in his rehab.
“The shoulder feels healthy, now it’s just a matter of building the pitches back up and getting ready to go,” Kershaw said. “From here, it’s like a spring training. Build up an inning every five or six days or so and see where we’re at.”
Sports
Fever 'need an enforcer' after Caitlin Clark hard foul, NBA star Draymond Green says
The incident between Chicago Sky guard Chennedy Carter and Indiana Fever rookie Caitlin Clark sparked a hot take from Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green on Saturday.
Carter drew criticism from social media for her hip-check of Clark. But Green was more concerned about the players around the former Iowa standout.
Green, who was suspended during the 2023-24 NBA season due to an in-game incident, wrote on Instagram that the Fever need an enforcer.
“Indiana better go invest in an enforcer… FAST!” he wrote in the comments section of an ESPNW post.
Others on social media agreed with Green’s take. Carter herself liked a post on X that suggested the Fever have no one to stick up for Clark in situations like those.
“Indiana Fever got no killers fr man. If this happened to Steph Curry I promise Draymond Green going federal lol. Somebody touch Luka like this and PJ, DJJ, anybody sliding. They don’t have an enforcer? Lol,” Complex’ Kameron Hay wrote on X.
FEVER GM IRATE OVER CAITLIN CLARK’S TREATMENT AFTER LATEST INCIDENT: ‘IT NEEDS TO STOP!’
Former NBA player Chandler Parsons also wondered where Clark’s teammates were.
But Carter, who didn’t answer any questions about the incident, wrote back to Parsons on Sunday that she was “cool” with Clark’s teammates.
“We grown asf & y’all talking about enforcer,” she added. “Man, gtfoh. Hoop up or shut up.”
Clark told reporters that she didn’t want to retaliate against any Sky players and possibly hurt her team’s chances of winning the game.
“I wasn’t expecting that, but it’s just, ‘Respond, calm down and let your play do the talking.’ It is what it is,” she said of the Carter incident, via the Indy Star.
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