loss

MIAMI — Most of Tuesday’s game went according to plan for the Dodgers.

Tony Gonsolin produced a solid five-inning start in his second start back from Tommy John surgery, giving up just two runs.

Shohei Ohtani posted another monster stat line at LoanDepot Park, hitting a tying home run in the sixth and a tying double in the seventh in what he calls “one of my favorite stadiums” to play in.

Late in a 5-4 loss to the Miami Marlins, however, one of the Dodgers’ few early-season concerns turned into a glaringly costly problem — the game ending with journeyman reliever JP Feyereisen on the mound, giving up a walk-off single to Jesús Sanchez in the bottom of the 10th inning.

The Dodgers’ bullpen, quite simply, has been overworked through the first month-plus of the year. And in a game that came down to the final few innings, the toll of that strain became evident.

Entering the bottom of the sixth, the Dodgers were leading 3-2, having turned an early one-run deficit into a one-run lead after Ohtani and Freddie Freeman hit home runs in the top half of the inning. With Gonsolin done after 82 pitches manager Dave Roberts turned to his bullpen.

But it was not a high-leverage arm that came trotting in.

With all of his most trusted relievers having already pitched twice this trip — including appearances from top right-handers Evan Phillips and Kirby Yates the night before — Roberts instead summoned minor league offseason signing Luis García, seemingly hoping to steal an inning with the lower-leverage right-hander.

Granted, García had been decent this year, entering the game with a 3.78 ERA in his 13th MLB season. But he had already made 17 appearances in their first 35 contests. And on Tuesday, the Marlins wasted little time jumping all over him.

Designated hitter Agustin Ramírez led off with a double. Two batters later, Connor Norby did the same, hitting a line drive to left field that just evaded a leaping effort from Michael Conforto. That tied the score. Matt Mervis’ single in the next at-bat gave Miami a 4-3 lead.

The Dodgers (24-12) didn’t trail for long, Ohtani tying the score with a double that scored speedy Hyeseong Kim from first.

But after Alex Vesia, Anthony Banda and Tanner Scott posted zeroes to get the game to extras, Roberts was forced into another less-than-appealing pitching decision in the bottom of the 10th.

Claimed off waivers last week from the Arizona Diamondbacks, Feyereisen (a player the Dodgers once traded for before later releasing) came into the game — Roberts once again bypassing a better option, such as $13-million offseason signing Yates, out of obvious workload concerns.

Moments later, their defeat had been sealed, with Sánchez blasting his game-winning, bases-loaded single through a five-man Dodgers infield.

The Justice Department unit that ensures compliance with voting rights laws will switch its focus to investigating voter fraud and ensuring elections are not marred by “suspicion,” according to an internal memo obtained by the Associated Press.

The new mission statement for the voting section makes a passing reference to the historic Voting Rights Act, but no mention of typical enforcement of the provision through protecting people’s right to cast ballots or ensuring that lines for legislative maps do not divide voters by race. Instead, it redefines the unit’s mission around conspiracy theories pushed by Republican President Trump to explain away his loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election.

Trump’s attorney general at the time, William Barr, said there was no evidence of widespread fraud in that election. Repeated recounts and audits in the battleground states where Trump contested his loss, including some led by Republicans, affirmed Biden’s win and found the election was run properly. Trump and his supporters also lost dozens of court cases trying to overturn the election results.

But in Trump’s second term, the attorney general is Pam Bondi, who backed his effort to reverse his 2020 loss. The president picked Harmeet Dhillon, a Republican Party lawyer and longtime ally who has echoed some of Trump’s false claims about voting, to run the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, where the voting section is housed.

“The Civil Rights Division has always worked to make sure Americans have access to the polls and that their votes matter,” said Stacey Young, an 18-year Department of Justice veteran who left that division days after Trump’s inauguration in January and founded Justice Connection, an organization supporting the agency’s employees. “The division’s job is not to promote the politically expedient fiction that voting fraud is widespread.”

The department did not respond to a request for comment.

Trump has already demonstrated his interest in using the Justice Department to pursue those who stood up for the 2020 election by directing the department to investigate one of his former appointees who publicly vouched for the safety and accuracy of the 2020 vote count.

“The mission of the Voting Rights Section of the DOJ Civil Rights Division is to ensure free, fair, and honest elections unmarred by fraud, errors, or suspicion,” the new mission statement declares.

It adds that the unit will “vigorously enforce” Trump’s executive order seeking to reshape how elections are run. Parts of that order have been put on hold by a judge.

The executive order signed late last month calls for people to provide documented proof of U.S. citizenship each time they register to vote; would require all mail ballots to be received by election day, which is counter to the law in 18 states; and directs an independent federal agency, the Election Assistance Commission, to amend its guidelines for voting machines.

Several legal analysts say much of the order is unconstitutional because only states and, for federal contests, Congress, can set election procedures. The Constitution provides no provision for the president to set the rules for elections.

The new mission statement for the Civil Rights Division also says the voting unit will focus on ensuring that “only American citizens vote in U.S. federal elections.” It’s already illegal for noncitizens to vote. People have to attest they are U.S. citizens when they register and attempts to vote by noncitizens can lead to felony charges and deportation.

Repeated investigations have turned up just a tiny number of noncitizens casting ballots, often doing so accidentally, out of the hundreds of millions of votes over recent contests. A proof-of-citizenship requirement in Kansas a little over a decade ago blocked 31,000 eligible U.S. citizens from registering to vote before it was overturned by the courts.

But Republicans, including Trump, have continued to insist there must be far more noncitizens casting votes and are pushing to tighten election laws to screen them out.

Notably, the roughly 200-word statement on the voting rights section mentions fighting “fraud” twice, as well as investigating “other forms of malfeasance.” The Department of Justice already investigates and prosecutes voting fraud, but in a separate division on the criminal side. The voting section is a civil unit that does not investigate potential crimes.

Now, however, it will “protect the right of American citizens to have their votes properly counted and tabulated,” according to the statement. It was unclear what that refers to. There have been no widespread cases of votes being improperly tabulated.

Justin Levitt, who served as President Biden’s senior policy advisor for democracy and voting rights, noted that because the voting rights section does not pursue prosecutions, its power is sharply limited by the specifics of civil rights laws and what judges will approve.

“For the civil section of the Civil Rights Division, courts need to be buying what they’re selling,” he said.

Riccardi writes for the Associated Press.

ATLANTA — The Dodgers had the right runner on base, but the wrong matchups at the plate.

And, in a sign of what’s perhaps been their biggest roster vulnerability early on this season, manager Dave Roberts had no way to alter the situation.

After trailing by four runs to the Atlanta Braves early on Sunday night, the Dodgers positioned themselves for a potential comeback in the top of the ninth.

With the deficit down to one, Andy Pages stayed alive in a two-strike count for a leadoff infield single. Rookie speedster Hyeseong Kim then entered the game as a pinch-runner and wreaked instant havoc on the bases, stealing second off Braves closer Raisel Iglesias before daringly dashing to third when a dropped third strike was being thrown to first.

“That was great,” Roberts said of Kim’s speed on the bases. “That was exciting.”

In a 4-3 loss to the Braves, however, the Dodgers left him stranded 90 feet away.

Infielder Miguel Rojas came up and fanned on three straight changeups. In the next at-bat, backup catcher Austin Barnes chased a two-strike slider that was down and off the plate, ending the game with a strikeout as Shohei Ohtani loomed on deck.

It was a reminder that, for all the strengths the Dodgers have built with their $400-million payroll this year, the depth of their offense has thus far been a weakness.

Which is why, in the two most important at-bats of Sunday night’s game, Roberts had no other choice than to let Rojas and Barnes — in right-on-right matchups that were always unlikely to be successful — step up to the plate.

“We put ourselves in a great position,” Rojas said. “Kim did an amazing job coming off the bench, stealing that bag. And I couldn’t deliver.”

On the whole this season, the Dodgers’ lineup balance hasn’t been much of a problem. The superstars at the top of their order have gradually heated up after relatively slow starts. An offense that slumped through much of April now ranks third in the majors in scoring.

Still, the bottom half of the team’s batting order hasn’t been productive. Entering Monday, the team still had four hitters batting .200 or worse. Six were stuck with an OPS below .700. Even with recent improvements from the likes of Pages and Max Muncy, the club’s .211 batting average and .647 OPS from the Nos. 6-9 spots in the order ranked in the bottom third of the majors. And though they are seven-for-16 in pinch-hit situations, none of those knocks have come from a lefty.

The Los Angeles Dodgers actually have one of the best records in baseball, but no one seems to be too thrilled by it. Injuries, question marks and hitters not hitting are issues.

In the big picture, it’s a problem the Dodgers will have to monitor this year.

Down the stretch of Sunday, they saw just how costly it could be.

Roberts first had to dip into his bench in the seventh inning, pinch-hitting Rojas for Michael Conforto as the Braves brought left-handed reliever Dylan Lee into the game.

Hitting for Conforto, the $17-million offseason signing the Dodgers were anticipating a bounceback season from, is something Roberts acknowledged he didn’t expect to do much this year. But after opening the season with a six-game hitting streak, the veteran slugger has been frozen in the deepest of slumps.

Since April 4, Conforto is batting a stunning .088, with as many hits (six, all singles) as double-play grounders. His two strikeouts earlier Sunday — both looking, a strangely common occurrence for him early this year — left him 0 for his last 29.

“He’s grinding,” Roberts said. “I just felt that Miggy had a better chance in that moment.”

That move worked, with Rojas capitalizing on the right-left advantage for his first home run of the season; and second pinch-hit homer from any Dodger this year.

But when Rojas’ spot came back up in a far less advantageous matchup against Iglesias in the ninth, Roberts had no more cards to play.

Entering the ninth, Roberts had one primary goal: Get starting catcher Will Smith, who was getting a scheduled day out of the starting lineup Sunday, to the plate with a chance to have an impact on the game.

After Pages’ leadoff single, Roberts pulled the trigger. Rather than wait for Barnes’ turn to come up later in the inning, he pinch-hit Smith for Kiké Hernández with one out.

Smith ultimately struck out, but not before Kim — who was called up for his MLB debut the previous day after signing out of South Korea this offseason — had scooted to the other corner of the diamond with his steal of second base and aggressive break for third.

“That’s an instinctual play,” Roberts said, praising Kim for reading catcher Drake Baldwin’s soft throw to first on a dropped third-strike that nearly changed the game.

“For him to get the jump that he did and then to get over there to third base … that just shows that he’s got really good instincts.”

Unfortunately for the Dodgers, they couldn’t advance him all the way home.

As Rojas and Barnes came up, the only player left on the team’s bench was Chris Taylor, another right-handed hitter who has taken a grand total of 20 at-bats all season.

Roberts considered calling for a squeeze bunt from Rojas, but was wary of the Braves infield playing in.

“I just thought that Miguel could put the ball in play and give us a chance to tie the game up,” Roberts said.

He couldn’t. Neither could Barnes. And as the game ended, the Dodgers’ offensive depth concerns became all the more clear.

Most nights, of course, this is all unlikely to matter. But on any given night, it could.

That’s why, as the Dodgers take stock of the first part of this season, lineup depth remains a primary concern. On Sunday, it cost them an opportunity to steal a win from the Braves.

Galaxy defender Maya Yoshida had the only score on Sunday night. Unfortunately, it was an own goal that led to a 1-0 victory for Sporting Kansas City — continuing the worst start by a defending champion in league history.

The Galaxy (0-8-3) are still looking for their first victory 11 matches into the season and even a 3-0-2 record in five previous matchups with Sporting KC (3-7-1) didn’t help.

Yoshida’s own goal came in the 13th minute.

John Pulskamp had to make one save, and it came in the first half on the way to his second clean sheet in his 11th start of the season for Sporting KC. His save came just before halftime on a right-footed shot from the center of the box by John Nelson.

John McCarthy did not have a save for the Galaxy.

It was sweet revenge for Dejan Joveljic, who came to Sporting KC in the first cash-for-player trade in league history after helping the Galaxy win their sixth MLS Cup last season. He leads the team with five goals — all at home.

The Galaxy have missed Riqui Puig, who hasn’t played since a knee injury in the playoffs. And Joseph Paintsil and Gabriel Pec, who combined for 50 goals contributions in the championship run, have just four this season.

Sporting KC interim coach Kerry Zavagnin and the Galaxy’s Greg Vanney were teammates on the U.S. men’s national team. The two coaches represented their current teams when the two clubs squared off in the conference final of the 2000 MLS Cup — won by the then-Kansas City Wizards, who went on to beat the Chicago Fire 1-0 in the championship match.

The Galaxy travel to play the New York Red Bulls on Saturday. Sporting KC travels to play the Portland Timbers on Saturday.

ATLANTA — Dustin May knew how key his sweeper would be this season.

“It’s going to be huge,” the Dodgers right-hander said earlier this spring. “Being able to land that is probably going to be my biggest thing for the whole year.”

Lately, however, he’s learning there’s a flip side to that coin, as well.

For as good as May’s Frisbee-esque breaking ball looked, when he returned from a nearly two-year absence by giving up just two earned runs in his first three starts, the pitch has been more inconsistent in the three outings since, dragging May’s overall performance down with it.

In a 4-3 loss to the Atlanta Braves on Sunday at Truist Park, it was two bad sweepers — both to Braves slugger Austin Riley — that sank May on a night the Dodgers saw their seven-game winning streak stopped.

In the first inning, May had two strikes against Riley before throwing a sweeper up and over the plate. Riley launched it to left for a two-run homer.

In the third, May tried his sweeper again against Riley, throwing it over the outer edge of the plate in a 1-and-1 count. But Riley was on it once more, belting another two-run blast that gave the Braves an early 4-0 lead.

Outside of those pitches, May was mostly effective. He got through 5 ⅔ innings. He struck out six batters. He didn’t give up any other runs.

But for this new version of May — who, in search of better health after two major elbow surgeries, has dialed back on his fastball velocity and drastically dropped the arm angle of his already somewhat side-arm delivery — even a couple of misplaced mistakes can spell trouble.

The Dodgers (23-11) didn’t give May much support.

With Braves starter Bryce Elder painting the corners of the strike zone, their recently streaking offense went cold. Max Muncy supplied their lone early RBIs, plating one run on a fourth-inning double and another on a sixth-inning groundout.

Miguel Rojas came off the bench in the sixth inning as a pinch-hitter for ice-cold outfielder Michael Conforto — who struck out twice and is six for 73 going back to early April — and hit a home run off left-handed reliever Dylan Lee to cut the deficit to 4-3.

Teoscar Hernández hits a single in the third inning for the Dodgers against the Braves on Sunday.

(Mike Stewart / Associated Press)

But that was as close as the Dodgers would come against the Atlanta bullpen. In the eighth, they were twice robbed of hits by diving plays from the Braves’ defense. In the ninth, they stranded Hyeseong Kim at third after he stole second as a pinch-runner for Andy Pages and advanced to third on a dropped third strike.

Still, for a banged-up Dodgers rotation looking for someone else to step up alongside staff ace Yoshinobu Yamamoto, May’s recent regression has been the bigger disappointment.

In his last three outings, the 27-year-old has yielded 14 runs in 16 innings.

And each time, an inability to consistently land his sweeper has served as a source of frustration.

Two weeks ago, when an overall lack of command led to May getting knocked around at Wrigley Field by the Chicago Cubs, he was asked how difficult it is to be successful when that pitch isn’t working.

“I think you can see how important it is,” he said that night.

May remained dissatisfied after giving up three runs to the Miami Marlins last Monday.

“I still wasn’t executing very well at all,” he said then. “I just got away with some stuff.”

On Sunday against the Braves, it was a similar story, May looking frustrated with himself as Riley took his two trots around the bases, bemoaning poorly executed sweepers again.

Trey Sweeney and Kerry Carpenter each homered and had four hits, and they combined to drive in 11 runs as the Detroit Tigers pounded the Angels 13-1 on Sunday to win three of four in the series.

After Sweeney singled in the first run off Jack Kochanowicz (1-5) in the second inning, Carpenter made it 3-0 with a two-run double to the right-field wall that Jo Adell kept inside the park but couldn’t catch.

Carpenter’s eighth homer was a three-run shot off reliever Michael Darrell-Hicks for an 8-0 lead in the sixth. Sweeney homered off Jose Fermin with two on in the seventh and added a two-run single in the eighth off Touki Toussaint. Sweeney finished with six RBIs and Carpenter drove in five — both career highs.

Colt Keith hit a two-run homer, his third, for a 5-0 lead in the third.

Reese Olson (4-2) tossed 5 2/3 shutout innings, allowing three hits and three walks while striking out eight. Brenan Hanifee allowed a run in 1 1/3 innings. Beau Brieske and Will Vest closed it out.

Zach Neto had two hits and drove in the lone run for the Angels. Kochanowicz was tagged for five runs in five innings.

The Angels, last in the AL West, are 1-3 to begin a 10-game homestand.

Key moment: Carpenter’s fifth double this season ignited the AL Central-leading Tigers in the middle of a 10-game trip that saw them lose two of three to the Astros on the first stop.

Key stat: The Angels have scored five runs just twice in their last 21 games.

Up next for Angels: Host Toronto for three games beginning Tuesday night.

May 2 (UPI) — The U.S. Navy on Friday removed Cmdr. Joseph Dearing from his duties as commander of the Navy Reserve Center in Manchester, N.H.

The Navy said Dearing was relieved of command “due to a loss of confidence in his ability to command.”

The Navy said in statement, “Cmdr. Joseph Dearing was relieved of his duties as NRC Manchester’s commanding officer by Capt. Christian Parilla, commander of Navy Reserve Region Readiness and Mobilization Command Norfolk … The Navy maintains the highest standards for leaders and holds them accountable when those standards are not met.”

The brief announcement did not detail any alleged wrongdoing by Cmdr. Dearing.

Replacing him is Cmdr. Christopher Worthy, who has been temporarily assigned command of the reserve center.

Dearing, the Navy said, “has been temporarily reassigned to REDCOM Norfolk.”

The Navy did not detail why it lost confidence in Dearing’s ability to command.

Cmdr. Dearing became commanding officer of NRC Manchester in September 2024.

The This Morning star has admitted that she kept her pregnancy a secret from ITV bosses.

Sian Welby has opened up about concealing her pregnancy from her This Morning bosses due to job security concerns.

The TV presenter and radio DJ, who is set to marry Heart Breakfast’s creative producer Jake Beckett, welcomed their baby girl Ruby in June 2024. Sian has been keeping her followers on social media in the loop about her new journey into motherhood.

At 38, Sian kept her pregnancy under wraps until she was just four months away from welcoming little Ruby. Her pregnancy news broke only a month after she started co-hosting This Morning with Dermot O’Leary.

While chatting on Giovanna Fletcher’s Happy mum Happy Baby podcast, Sian shed light on her reasons for maintaining privacy around her pregnancy, reports the Manchester Evening News.

She explained: “When you first start a job, you think ‘nobody knows what I’m actually like, that I’m trustworthy’ and you have to prove yourself.

“I felt like I had proven myself [on This Morning], that I can do this and that – when I got that first cover with Dermot, I knew I was pregnant but I didn’t tell anyone,” Sian confessed.

She further expressed her concerns, saying: “In the back of my mind I was thinking, ‘If I tell them I’m pregnant, will this put them off getting me in again? And will they think I’m gonna be off for ages?'”

Sian acknowledged that her fears are likely shared by many women, particularly when embarking on a new role.

The This Morning host added: “It’s the fear that you’re going to be immediately judged or dropped or they’ll ask why you didn’t tell them.”

The TV favourite revealed a close call with her secret when she was 20 weeks pregnant, as a pair of trousers she had ordered turned out to be unexpectedly snug.

Alison Hammond remains Dermot O’Leary’s regular co-host for the Friday slot on This Morning, but Sian steps in as a stand-in presenter when her fellow presenters are away.

When Sian announced the arrival of her baby last year, she posted an adorable snapshot of baby Ruby, showing the newborn snuggled up facing away from the camera, wearing a personalised brown cardigan with her name knitted across it.

Beyond her role on This Morning, Sian is also known for lighting up the airwaves on Capital Breakfast, where she joins forces with co-hosts Jordan North and Chris Stark.

This Morning airs weekdays on ITV1, from 10am.

After a year lay-off, an overly cautious Haney, who was dropped three times by Garcia last year, never really got going in a below-par showing.

He circled around the ring, landing the occasional lead left hook, but neglected his jab as single shots did enough to edge the rounds.

Defensively, it was a sound performance by Haney, largely because gun-shy Ramirez did so little.

The judges scored it 119-109, 119-109 and 118-110.

The bout was best summed up by Scotland’s former undisputed light-welterweight world champion Josh Taylor, who said on social media that Haney looked “terrified” and “frantic”.

Haney-Ramirez sapped the ‘Big Apple’ of its energy and vibe but the early drama in the headline bout lifted the mood.

Romero landed a stinging double left hook to floor Garcia. It was a flush and hurtful punch which he later followed with a clubbing right before Garcia regained his senses.

With both fighters unwilling to over-commit, Romero edged the rounds with better use of the jab, coupled with Garcia’s tentativeness.

“Get busy,” trainer Derrick James pleaded with Garcia before the championship rounds.

The pep talk had no impact as Romero landed a combination to head and body in the 11th. Haney, now ringside, was left shaking his head at the final bell.