Arizona
D-backs beat A’s with 2 runs in 9th, Nelson’s season-best outing
The Arizona Diamondbacks as currently constructed will go as far as their youngsters take them, and a lot of that is on the back-end of the starting rotation.
A positive development in Wednesday’s 5-3 win in Oakland against the Athletics (10-35) was 25-year-old right-hander Ryne Nelson putting forth his best performance of the season.
Nelson gave up just one hit and zero runs in 5.1 innings, walking four with six strikeouts.
It took some extra festivities after that for Arizona to get a win, though.
Arizona had a 3-0 lead in the top of the seventh when reliever Luis Frias gave up a three-run homer to Oakland’s Ramon Laureano to tie it, taking away Nelson’s potential win. Two innings later, however, a Lourdes Gurriel Jr. double led to him scoring on a Jose Herrera sac fly, as did Dominic Fletcher on a Ketel Marte RBI single. Miguel Castro closed out the ninth for his third save in four opportunities this season.
Nelson was rolling just about all day. He walked Jace Peterson with one out in the bottom of the second, and after that, he sat down 10 straight A’s. But at the top of the sixth in a 3-0 ball game, Nelson’s pitch count exploded from 57 to 82, as he walked three of the four next batters.
That loaded the bases with one out, and at that point, D-backs (25-19) manager Torey Lovullo turned to Frias. Frias bailed Nelson out with back-to-back outs before his own woes an inning later. That included Athletics designated hitter Brent Rooker, who has been one of the best hitters in baseball six weeks into the year.
Long balls for the D-backs made up for a fairly unproductive afternoon at the plate. Christian Walker’s solo shot in the second and Corbin Carroll’s two-run homer in the sixth made up for half of Arizona’s four hits through eight innings.
Nelson’s bounce-back was needed. His 2023 has been rough to start the year. He came into Wednesday with a 6.20 ERA and 1.55 WHIP. And recently, Nelson has allowed seven or more hits in his last four outings and a total of 34 in them, with 16 earned runs.
Nelson and Drey Jameson both debuted in the tail-end of 2022, seeing tremendous success in a small sample size. Nelson’s first two starts of his MLB career combined for 13 innings, four hits, two walks and zero runs. The righty gave up four runs (three earned) in his final appearance but did enough then and in spring training to win Arizona’s fifth training spot in a competition featuring Jameson, Tommy Henry and Brandon Pfaadt. An injury for Zach Davies and the release of Madison Bumgarner opened up positions in the rotation for Henry and Pfaadt.
Carroll has done a great job in the last week-plus racking up some base on balls to make up for what is really the first hitting skid of his extremely promising full rookie campaign. The 22-year-old entered the day 5-for-33 in the last nine games, but that includes seven walks, including six in the previous four contests.
Walker has seriously started to lock in this month. After a below-average April, this is the third time in May Walker has had back-to-back games with a home run. Tuesday was his sixth multi-hit game for May and the solo shot was Walker’s 12th RBI in 14 outings this month.
Walker’s OPS sat at .714 through April but is now all the way up to .867 in the third week of May.
Speaking of scintillating May’s, Gurriel extended his hit streak to 11 games.
Arizona started a three-series road trip by taking two in Oakland and now travels across the country for a trio of games with the Pittsburgh Pirates, beginning on Friday at 3:35 p.m. You can hear that on ESPN 620 AM.
Arizona
Newest Arizona members of Congress sworn in during opening day in DC
Gary Farmer is an actor, musician, and activist whose made a career in indigenous media. His performances in television and film have received rave reviews. The1989 film “Powwow Highway”, in which he stars, was just inducted into the Library of Congress National Film Registry.
Arizona
Yassamin Ansari, Abe Hamadeh set to become Arizona’s newest members of Congress
Arizona District 3 Congresswoman elect Yassamin Ansari talks victory
Congresswoman elect Yassamin Ansari gives victory speech on Nov. 5, 2024, after being elected to represent Arizona’s 3rd district in Congress.
Arizona’s two newest U.S. House members are set to get sworn into their posts as the 119th Congress gets underway.
Republican Abe Hamadeh, a lawyer, and Democrat Yassamin Ansari, a former Phoenix vice mayor, are expected to take their oaths of office on Friday, shortly after the House resumes session.
Hamadeh will replace Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., who is retiring from Congress to serve on the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors.
He will represent Arizona’s 8th Congressional District, an overwhelmingly Republican area that covers parts of Maricopa and Yavapai counties, including Glendale, Peoria, Sun City West and New River.
Propelled by an endorsement from President-elect Donald Trump, Hamadeh defeated a crowded field of other Republicans in Arizona’s July 30 primary election and sailed to an easy victory in the Nov. 5 general election.
Hamadeh, a self-described “America First warrior,” largely echoed Trump’s positions on the campaign trail. He will serve on the House Veterans Affairs Committee and the Armed Services Committee.
Ansari will represent Arizona’s 3rd Congressional District, a stretch of Maricopa County that includes parts of Phoenix and Glendale. She is replacing Democrat Ruben Gallego, who has swapped his House seat for a U.S. Senate seat. Her House committee assignments have not been announced.
During the primary election, Ansari hewed closer to the political center than her opponent, former state Sen. Raquel Terán of Phoenix. Ansari ran on a progressive platform but staked out more centrist turf on issues like policing and U.S. foreign policy toward Israel.
She beat out Terán by just 39 votes, and, like Hamadeh, won her November election in a landslide.
Ansari plans to join the House’s Progressive Caucus, the Democrats’ most left-leaning faction on Capitol Hill.
Arizona
3 arrested in connection with good Samaritan's killing in Arizona
Three people were arrested this week in connection with the death of a good Samaritan in Arizona last month, officials said.
The Pima County Sheriff’s Department identified two of the three people arrested Monday as Jack Upchurch, 40, and Elmer Smith, 19. The third person is 16 years old. NBC News does not typically identify minors accused of crimes.
The trio were arrested in connection with the death of Paul Clifford, 53, whose body was found near a smoldering car northeast of Tucson last month.
Sabrina Vining, a woman who identified herself as Clifford’s daughter in an online fundraiser, said her father disappeared after he left his house at 11:30 p.m. Dec. 23 to help a “stranger with a stranded vehicle.”
NBC affiliate KVOA of Tucson reported that Clifford’s family reported him missing after, they said, a strange man knocked on Clifford’s door and asked for help with his car.
He was later found dead, the sheriff’s department said. It did not provide a cause or manner of death.
Officials said they received information Monday about a possible location for the three suspects.
Detectives searched the area and obtained a search warrant for a property, which the Pima Regional SWAT team carried out.
The suspects barricaded themselves inside a home and eventually called 911 to negotiate a surrender, the sheriff’s department said. They left the residence and were taken into custody.
The sheriff’s department did not release any information about a motive or how it connected the suspects to Clifford’s killing.
The three suspects were booked into the Pima County Adult Detention Center on felony arrest warrants, officials said.
It was not immediately clear whether they have legal representation. Jail records do not list attorneys for any of the three.
Upchurch was being held on a $1 million bond, Smith on $1.025 million bail and the minor on a half-million-dollar bond, according to jail records.
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