Sports
Dodgers have a long night as they are routed by Diamondbacks
It was tough to tell what was more lethargic Wednesday night.
The mind-numbing pace of a 3-hour, 23-minute game at Dodger Stadium.
Or the head-scratching performance of the Dodgers’ offense after a four-run first-inning outburst.
After surging in front with a quick four-spot against debuting Arizona Diamondbacks starter Cristian Mena, the Dodgers’ bats came to a screeching halt in their 12-4 loss at Chavez Ravine, with the team’s muted play mirroring the slow, meandering rhythm of their second-longest nine-inning game of the season.
“We just drew dead tonight,” manager Dave Roberts said, “after that first inning.”
Indeed, the game couldn’t have started better for the Dodgers, who were still riding high from a walk-off Tuesday night win.
With originally scheduled Diamondbacks starter Jordan Montgomery out with a knee injury, Arizona turned to Mena, a rookie right-hander, for his MLB debut.
His big-league welcome: A first-inning blitz from the top of the Dodgers order.
Shohei Ohtani singled. Will Smith walked. Then, Freddie Freeman and Teoscar Hernández blasted back-to-back home runs, answering Arizona’s opening run in the top half of the inning to jump out to a sudden 4-1 lead.
“I’m sure he had a lot of nerves out there, a lot of excitement,” Freeman said. “He was falling behind hitters in that first inning and we were able to jump on him.”
And with breakout rookie pitcher Gavin Stone on the bump, and the Diamondbacks seemingly staring down a long night on the mound, all the pieces appeared to be in place for the Dodgers to cruise to a rout.
Instead, they squandered the early advantage without much of their typical fight.
After recording four hits, four runs and one walk in their first five at-bats, the Dodgers finished the night two-for-26 as a team, recording more double plays (three) than hits (two) over a scoreless closing eight innings — the final six of which were handled by four Arizona relievers.
“Their bullpen,” Freeman said, “we just didn’t have anything for it the rest of the game.”
In the bottom of the third, the Dodgers failed to capitalize on a two-on, one-out opportunity, when Freeman was doubled off trying to score on a fly out.
In the fifth, another double play — this time a routine grounder from Hernández — negated Freeman’s one-out walk.
The Dodgers finally put another runner in scoring position in the sixth inning, after Miguel Rojas doubled off the wall. But as suddenly as the opportunity arose, it was dashed nearly as fast. Pinch-hitter Kiké Hernández struck out. Chris Taylor grounded out to end the inning.
And, with Arizona ahead 8-4, the Dodgers never threatened to come back again.
Stone didn’t help the cause much on the pitching side.
After giving up just one run from a bases-loaded jam in the first inning, he struggled to find a rhythm in his first start since last week’s shutout against the Chicago White Sox.
He put two batters aboard in the second inning, laboring to retire that frame without any damage.
In the third, he finally came unglued, giving up one run on a Eugenio Suárez double before serving up a tying two-run home run to Gabriel Moreno.
“My arm felt good, just command wasn’t there,” said Stone, whose ERA rose from 2.73 entering the night to 3.03 by the end of his three-inning, four-run outing, dealing a potential blow to his All-Star candidacy.
“You just have to forget about it,” Stone added. “I just wasn’t executing.”
While Stone’s night ended after the third, the Dodgers’ pitching problems persisted throughout.
Christian Walker continued his career-long dominance of the club by whacking his 16th and 17th career home runs at Dodger Stadium. The first one was a solo drive off Ryan Yarbrough, breaking a 4-4 tie in the top of the fifth.
The latter served as superfluous insurance, a three-run shot in the ninth that made Walker — who also had a double and single in his four-for-five performance — the ballpark’s all-time slugging leader (minimum 100 career plate appearances) with a .741 mark.
“It’s like [he is] better than Shohei here at Dodger Stadium,” Roberts said of Walker, who also has a .333 batting average and 29 RBIs at the ballpark in just 41 career games. “It’s a division rival. I do think that we bring out the best in him. He actually plays really well at home against us as well, but at this ballpark it’s otherworldly. He doesn’t give anything away.”
On Wednesday night, neither did Walker’s Diamondbacks teammates.
In between his blasts, Arizona added another run in the fifth, then two more in the sixth on Lourdes Gurriel Jr.’s two-run homer.
Along the way, the Dodgers were also victims of several self-induced miscues.
Freeman was easily thrown out on the third-inning sac fly attempt, trying to score on a relatively shallow fly ball to right fielder Jake McCarthy.
An at-bat before Gurriel’s back-breaking sixth-inning homer, Teoscar Hernández seemed to mistakenly think Walker had hit another home run to left field, pulling up at the warning track on a double that clanked off the top of the wall and might have been catchable.
And the Dodgers’ five pitchers combined for 201 total pitches, slowing a 7:10 p.m. game that Roberts quipped “dragged from the get-go.”
“I looked up and it was 9:15 pm, and it was like the fifth inning,” Freeman said. “I was like, ‘Woah.’ [It felt] like pre-pitch clock. But yeah, just a longer game. Wish we would have won it.”
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The best Indianapolis 500 finish could be subjective, depending on which driver a fan was rooting for to win.
It certainly is in the eye of the beholder.
So take this list for what it’s worth. One view of the 10 best finishes in Indianapolis 500 history. Of course, it skews to more recent decades when the runs have come a little faster and the finishes have had a tendency to be a little closer.
We’ll add one each day to this list of fantastic finishes ahead of the 110th running of the Indy 500 on May 24 (12:30 p.m. ET on FOX).
10. Ericsson outduels O’Ward (2022)
After a red flag, Marcus Ericsson held off Pato O’Ward in a two-lap shootout. The shootout didn’t last two laps, though, as there was a crash on the final lap behind them. Ericsson had a comfortable lead when the red flag came out for a crash with four laps to go, a situation where in past Indianapolis 500 races, they likely would have ended the race under caution with Ericsson as the winner.
9. Foyt survives chaos (1967)
How does a driver who wins by two laps end up on this list? It’s because the win nearly didn’t happen on the last lap. A big crash with cars and debris littering the frontstretch just ahead of Foyt as he came to the checkered flag forced him to navigate through the wreckage for the win.
8. Sato can’t catch Franchitti (2012)
This was one of those finishes where the leader holds on for the win, but boy did the leader have to hold on. Takuma Sato tried to pass Dario Franchitti early on the final lap but to no avail and Franchitti sped off for the victory. This was one of those Indy 500s that made you hold your breath all the way to the checkered flag.
No. 8 UCLA stuck with right-hander Taylor Tinsley throughout the Los Angeles Regional and that faith in the senior paid off.
During the Bruins’ NCAA tournament opener at Easton Stadium, Tinsley gave up 10 runs before her teammates rallied for a walk-off win. She returned less than 24 hours to pitch against South Carolina, giving up two earned runs in a victory. Tinsley was back in the circle Sunday afternoon, yielding one run in UCLA’s 15-1 victory over the Gamecocks to advance to the super regionals.
“I am proud of Taylor’s resiliency, the ability to do whatever she can to help this team,” UCLA coach Kelly Inouye-Perez said. “She got stronger through the weekend. I am proud of that.”
Tinsley and her teammates will host Central Florida in a super regional that begins Friday.
“I feel good,” Tinsley said after pitching three key games in three days. “I could have gone more innings if needed.”
South Carolina right-hander Jori Heard gave up only one hit through two innings, keeping UCLA’s potent bats relatively quiet. The Gamecocks had runners on first and second with two outs in the second, but Tinsley escaped the inning with a pop-up to left field.
The Bruins got on the board first with a two-run home run from left fielder Rylee Slimp in the third inning. The Bruins followed it up by loading the bases with no outs in the fifth for right fielder Megan Grant.
Grant cooked up a grand slam to make it 6-0. She has 40 home runs, extending her hold on the NCAA single-season home run record. Oklahoma freshman Kendall Wells trails Grant with 37 homers.
“Its just incredible because I am blessed to be able to say the number 40,” Grant said.
South Carolina broke through on an RBI single from left fielder Quincee Lilio to cut UCLA’s lead to 6-1 in the fifth inning after being held to just one hit since the first inning. The Gamecocks couldn’t cash in the rest of the way.
The Bruins resumed scoring in the sixth inning, with the bases loaded and Grant at bat again. Fans at Easton Stadium anticipated another grand slam, holding up their cellphones hoping to catch some magic. Grant served up a two-run RBI single to expand the lead 8-1.
Jordan Woolery added to the scoring with a two-run RBI double down the left-field line, and Kaniya Bragg hit a home run to left-center field. Soo-jin Berry put a bow on the win with one more home run.
Sports
Pro wrestling star learns what ‘land of opportunity’ means in US as he details journey from Italy to America
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Cristiano Argento has been tearing up opponents in the ring for the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) as he worked his way up the ladder to get a few shots at some gold.
But the path to get to one of the most prestigious pro wrestling companies in the U.S. was long and a path that not many wrestlers have taken.
Argento was born and raised in Osimo, Italy – a town of about 35,000 people located on the east side of the country closer to the Adriatic Sea. He told Fox News Digital he started training in a ring at a boxing gym before he got started on the independent scene in Italy. He wrestled in Germany, Sweden, France and Denmark before he came to the realization that, to become a professional wrestler, he needed to make his way to the United States.
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Cristiano Argento performs in the National Wrestling Alliance (Instagram)
He first worked his way to Canada to get trained by pro wrestling legend Lance Storm. He moved to Canada, leaving most of his friends and family behind and without a firm grasp on the English language.
“At the time, my English was horrible. I didn’t speak any English at all,” he said. “But I was with my friend, Stefano, he came with me and he translated everything for me. I probably missed 50% of the knowledge that Lance Storm was giving to us because I was unable to understand. I was only given a recap and everything I was able to see. I’m sure if I was doing it now with a proper knowledge of English, it would have been a different scenario.
“Eventually, I moved back to Italy after the training and I said, OK, now, I want to go to the U.S. So, I studied English more properly, and eventually I got my first work visa that was in Texas. I was in Houston for a short period of time. I trained with Booker T at Reality of Wrestling. I got on his show, which was my debut in the U.S. That was awesome. I eventually got a new work visa in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I currently live since 2017. Since then, my wrestling career, thankfully, kept growing, growing, growing and growing until now wrestling for the NWA. One of the bigger promotions in the U.S.”
Argento said that his family thought he was “nuts” for chasing his pro wrestling dream.
He said they were more concerned about his well-being given that he was half-way around the world without anyone he knew by his side in case something went sideways.
“My family, friends, everybody was like why do you want to move to the opposite side of the world not knowing the language, not knowing anybody, by yourself, to try to become a professional wrestler? And I was like, well, we have one life, I love, and that’s what I’m gonna do,” he told Fox News Digital. “Eventually, my family was really supportive. But when I first said, ‘Hey, mom and dad, I want to do that.’ They looked at me like, ‘Are you nuts? Are you drunk or something? What are you talking about?’ And I said, no that’s what I want to do. And they knew I loved this sport because in Italy I was traveling around Europe, spending time in Canada training, so they started to understand slowly that’s what I want to do with my life. They were proud of me.
Cristiano Argento works out in the gym. (Instagram)
“They’re still proud of me. I think more like the fact that you’re gonna try that, that it’s hard than more like you’re gonna leave us. The fact like, oh, my son is gonna go on the opposite side of the world for a six-hour time difference and we’re gonna see him maybe, when, like, I don’t know. Not often. I think it was more that. And for me too, it was really hard. It was heartbreaking not being able to see my family every day or every month. Like once a year if I’m lucky. I think that was the biggest part for them because of concern or that I was here by myself and if I have any issue or any problem, I didn’t have nobody. So they were scared. Like, you get sick, if you have a problem, anything, and they’re not being able to be here next to me. But they were really supportive since day one.”
Argento is living out his dream in the U.S. He suggested that the moniker of the U.S. being the “land of opportunity” wasn’t far from what is preached in movies and literature – it was the real thing.
“I was inspired by people who came to the U.S. and made it big,” Argento told Fox News Digital. “The U.S. was always like the land of opportunity. That’s how they sell it to us and this is what it is. I feel like, in myself, that was true because anything I tried to do so far I was able to reach a lot more than if I wasn’t here. I’m not yet where I’d like to be but I see like there’s so many opportunities in this country. Not just in wrestling but like in any business to reach the goal. I’m really happy of the choices I did here.
National Wrestling Alliance star Cristiano Argento poses in Times Square in New York. (Instagram)
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“But my big inspirations were big-time actors who moved to the country, who didn’t know English, with no money, no support system. I had one dream, I have to go right there to make it happen and I’m gonna go and do it and I’m gonna make it happen. So those people were always the biggest inspiration even if it wasn’t in wrestling, just how they handled their passion, how they pursued their dream without being scared of anything, how far you are, how alone by yourself … You don’t know the language, you’re like, let’s go, let’s do it.”
Outside of the NWA, Argento has performed for the International Wrestling Cartel, Enjoy Wrestling and Exodus Pro Wrestling this year.
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