Sports
Hernández: Dodgers are winning again, but who's convinced this team will win in October?
The Dodgers are winning again.
They followed their sweep of the New York Mets by taking the last two games of their three-game series against the Colorado Rockies during the weekend.
Mookie Betts homered in their series finale against the Rockies, a 4-0 victory on Sunday at Dodger Stadium. Freddie Freeman also homered. Second-year right-hander Gavin Stone further cemented his place in the rotation by pitching five scoreless innings.
The Dodgers are 38-23, the second-best record in the National League. They have a 6½-game division lead over the second-place San Diego Padres.
Yet, none of this was convincing.
None of this answered the longstanding questions about them.
None of this felt like persuasive evidence for why they wouldn’t crash and burn in the postseason as they have in each of the previous three years.
They have identified a postseason Game 1 starter in Tyler Glasnow, but who comes after that?
One of the three pitchers who faced the Rockies this weekend — Stone, Yoshinobu Yamamoto or Walker Buehler — will likely have to establish himself as the No. 2 starter before October.
Stone, 25, is the most consistent but the least experienced.
Yamamoto is 5-1 with a 2.72 earned-run average over his last seven starts but pitched only once a week in Japan and manager Dave Roberts sounded as if the Dodgers were determined to keep him on a similar schedule this season. Yamamoto has yet to make a start on less than five-days’ rest.
“Sitting here, I think our priority is to make sure Yoshi stays on his sort of extra rest, so I don’t see that changing, even through October,” Roberts said.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts talks with pitcher Walker Buehler during a loss to the Colorado Rockies on Friday night.
(Robert Gauthier / Los Angeles Times)
Buehler has made only five starts since returning from his second reconstructive elbow operation and the Dodgers remain uncertain on what they have in him. In his most recent start, Buehler struck out seven batters in six innings — but he also gave up four runs — three earned — during a loss to the Rockies.
With James Paxton pitching relatively well, and Clayton Kershaw and Bobby Miller expected to return from their respective injuries, the Dodgers have pitching depth that should help them pile up regular-season wins. But just because a pitcher can beat a talent-depleted team such as the Mets or Rockies in a midweek game doesn’t mean he can win a game in October. Remember, Lance Lynn was a perfectly serviceable pitcher during the regular season last year. Lynn was crushed in the postseason.
The questions about pitching extend even to Glasnow. How will the Dodgers prepare him to pitch on four-days’ rest in the playoffs?
Glasnow has kept a schedule similar to Yamamoto’s, as the Dodgers are mindful of how the injury-prone right-hander has never pitched more than 120 innings during a season. Roberts said he envisioned Glasnow making starts on a traditional five-day cycle in August.
“It’s not an exact science,” Roberts said. “Tyler’s still gonna throw more than he’s ever thrown in quite some time.”
Equally, if not more, troublesome is the bottom of the lineup, which has made the Dodgers overly reliant on the Big Four of Betts, Freeman, Shohei Ohtani and Will Smith.
The combined batting averages of the Dodgers’ No. 6, 7, 8 and 9 hitters was a combined .204 entering the series finale against the Rockies, which ranked fourth-worst in baseball.
Chris Taylor is batting .108, Kike Hernandez .198 and Gavin Lux .209.
Chris Taylor hits during an exhibition game against Team Korea in March.
(Lee Jin-man / Associated Press)
Max Muncy’s oblique injury has further magnified this problem, as Muncy’s move from the middle of the order to the injured list has shortened the lineup. It’s no coincidence that shortly after Muncy’s injury, the team went on a five-game losing streak.
The Dodgers will have to address this problem between now and the trade deadline.
If all of this comes across as overly critical of a first-place team, well, that’s because of the prism through which this team is viewed.
In what is a testament to their ownership group, the Dodgers have made the regular season unimportant. They have reached the playoffs in 11 consecutive seasons and won their division 10 times in that stretch, making October baseball feel as if it’s a given.
Maybe this isn’t fair to them.
Maybe observers shouldn’t let the specter of the playoffs diminish their appreciation of regular-season developments, such as Stone’s emergence as a legitimate major league starter or catcher Smith’s improvement throwing out potential base stealers.
But this is the Dodgers’ reality.
The Dodgers are held to a different standard than every other team in baseball, with the New York Yankees being the one possible exception. For the Dodgers, success is measured in championships, and everything they do — or don’t do — is judged by how it could affect them in the postseason.
And at this stage, questions remain.
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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