Max

From Jack Harris: Upstaging Shohei Ohtani, especially on a day he pitches, is no easy feat.

But at Dodger Stadium on Sunday afternoon, teammate Max Muncy did it twice — hitting two home runs and matching a career high with seven RBIs to lift the Dodgers to a 13-7 defeat of the Washington Nationals, and make Ohtani more of the sideshow in his second pitching start of the season.

Despite two strikeouts over a scoreless first inning from Ohtani to begin the day, Dodger Stadium had sat in relative silence for the next five innings.

Ben Casparius, who replaced the still workload-restricted Ohtani on the mound in the second, gave up a three-run home run in the third, when a flyball deflected off Hyeseong Kim’s glove at the wall before hitting a fan reaching over the barrier.

Michael Soroka, the former All-Star turned inconsistent journeyman, held the Dodgers hitless into the fifth, racking up a career-high 10 strikeouts while protecting the 3-0 lead.

In the bottom of the sixth, however, an opportunity for the Dodgers finally arose.

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Dodgers box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

ANGELS

Mauricio Dubón homered twice and Josh Hader stayed perfect in 19 save chances this season by getting Mike Trout to line out to center field with a runner on second as the Houston Astros held off the Angels 8-7 in the rubber game of their series Sunday.

Dubón’s second career multihomer game began with a leadoff shot against starter Kyle Hendricks in the fifth inning for the Astros’ first run. Dubón added a two-run drive off Hunter Strickland for a 6-5 lead in the sixth.

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Angels box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

UCLA BASKETBALL

From Ben Bolch: Ben Howland planned it like this. Of course he did.

This was a coach so engrossed in details that he would grumble about the room temperature at news conferences and call a timeout when his team was in the middle of a big run just so that he could set up his defense.

So it should come as no surprise that before his 10-year run as UCLA’s basketball coach ended in 2013, Howland had schemed for his dream retirement.

In 2011, he bought a four-bedroom, ranch-style house in his native Santa Barbara close to so many old friends and family, knowing the full remodel job would take years. The Howlands moved in three years ago, after the coach’s final season at Mississippi State.

The home is now his departure point for frequent trips to see another old friend — the program he guided to back-to-back-to-back Final Fours from 2006-08. Howland likes to leave many hours before tipoff, arranging his schedule so that he can visit friends or fit in a doctor’s appointment.

Perhaps nobody at the school can put a smile on his face like the current basketball coach. Mick Cronin and Howland have known one another since the former helped run Sonny Vaccaro’s ABCD Camp in the 1990s, going on to forge a friendship rooted in mutual respect.

There’s so many similarities between the coaches, from their demanding practices to their relentless defenses to their wry senses of humor to their lack of hair to their admiration for things that are difficult but worthwhile.

“Coaching’s changed and I can still appreciate Mick because he comes from the old school and what he’s doing is no different than what [Bob] Huggins and [Rick] Pitino did as he’s working for them and watching these guys, who are both Hall of Famers, two of the greatest coaches ever,” Howland said.

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RAMS

From Gary Klein: The Rams returned to Southern California nearly a decade ago intent on capturing the heart of NFL fans in Los Angeles.

Now, with two Super Bowl appearances, one championship and a still glistening-like SoFi Stadium, they have their eyes set on a larger territory: the world.

The Rams’ trip to Maui last week for a minicamp was their latest foray into building a global brand.

“In the journey to growing your brand globally, there’s never an ‘Aha, this is a perfect moment,’” Rams president Kevin Demoff said as he stood on the field at War Memorial Stadium after a workout attended by several thousand fans. “But I think this is a great step.”

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GOLF

Minjee Lee closed with a two-over 74 but never gave up the lead Sunday in the final round of the Women’s PGA Championship to win her third major title.

While Lee had three bogeys in a four-hole stretch on the front nine, she had started the day with a four-stroke lead over Jeeno Thitikul. And the world’s No. 2-ranked player, also in that final group, bogeyed both par fives that are among the first three holes on Fields Ranch East at PGA Frisco.

Lee, ranked 24th, finished at four-under 284, three strokes ahead of Auston Kim and Chanettee Wannasaen, the only other players under par.

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Women’s PGA championship leaderboard

NBA PLAYOFFS RESULTS

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander walked off the court for the final time this season, collapsed into the arms of coach Mark Daigneault and finally smiled.

It was over.

The climb is complete. The rebuild is done. The Oklahoma City Thunder are champions.

The best team all season was the best team at the end, bringing the NBA title to Oklahoma City for the first time. Gilgeous-Alexander finished off his MVP season with 29 points and 12 assists, and the Thunder beat the Indiana Pacers — who lost Tyrese Haliburton to a serious leg injury in the opening minutes — 103-91 in Game 7 of the NBA Finals on Sunday night.

“It doesn’t feel real,” said Gilgeous-Alexander, the Finals MVP. “So many hours. So many moments. So many emotions. So many nights of disbelief. So many nights of belief. It’s crazy to know that we’re all here, but this group worked for it. This group put in the hours and we deserve this.”

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Kevin Durant traded from the Suns to the Rockets in a blockbuster deal

NBA FINALS

Oklahoma City vs. Indiana
Indiana 111, at Oklahoma City 110 (box score, story)
at Oklahoma City 123, Indiana 107 (box score, story)
at Indiana 116, Oklahoma City 107 (box score, story)
Oklahoma City 111, at Indiana 104 (box score, story)
at Oklahoma City 120, Indiana 109 (box score, story)
at Indiana 108, Oklahoma City 91 (box score, story)
at Oklahoma City 103, Indiana 91 (box score, story)

THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY

1917 — Molla Bjurstedt win the women’s U.S. Lawn Tennis Association title for the third straight year with a 4-6, 6-0, 6-2 victory over Marion Vanderhoef.

1922 — Walter Hagen becomes the first native-born American to win the British Open. Hagen shoots a 300 to beat Jim Barness and George Duncan by one stroke at Royal St. George’s Golf Club.

1939 — Former football great Bronko Nagurski beats Lou Thesz to win the National Wrestling Association World Heavyweight title in at the Coliseum in Houston. Thesz was largely considered the greatest wrestler of all time. Houston Mayor Holcombe reportedly presents Bronko with a $10,000 diamond studded belt.

1963 — Julius Boros wins a three-way playoff to take the U.S. Open. Boros beats Jacky Cupit by three strokes and Arnold Palmer by six.

1969 — Joe Frazier TKOs Jerry Quarry in 8 for heavyweight boxing title.

1972 — President Nixon signs the Higher Education Act of 1972. Title IX of this congressional act bars sex bias in athletics and other activities at colleges receiving federal assistance.

1974 — Sandra Haynie wins the LPGA championship by two strokes over JoAnne Carner.

1980 — West Germany wins European soccer title (2-1 against Belgium).

1985 — Laffit Pincay Jr. rides Greinton to a 1 3/4-length victory over Precisionist in the Hollywood Gold Cup, to join Willie Shoemaker as the only jockeys in history to surpass $100 million in purse earnings.

1988 — Charlotte Hornets & Miami Heat begin their NBA expansion draft.

1991 — A Mazda becomes the first Japanese car to win the Le Mans 24 hours race, overtaking a Mercedes in the last three hours. Bertrand Gachot of Belgium, Johnny Herbert of Britain and Volker Weidler of Germany are the winning drivers of the rotary-powered Mazda.

1996 — Michael Johnson breaks the world record in the 200 meters, running 19.66 seconds at the U.S. track and field trials in Atlanta. The previous mark of 19.72 was set by Italy’s Pietro Mennea in 1979 in Mexico City.

1999 — The Hockey Hall of Fame waives the usual three-year waiting period and announces that Wayne Gretzky will be part of the Class of 1999.

2001 — Ilya Kovalchuk is the first player born in Russia to be taken with the No. 1 pick in the NHL draft when he’s selected by the Atlanta Thrashers.

2005 — Tim Duncan comes up huge in the second half and is chosen finals MVP and Manu Ginobili has another breakthrough performance to lead the San Antonio Spurs past the Detroit Pistons 81-74 in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.

2011 — NBA Draft: Duke point guard Kyrie Irving first pick Cleveland Cavaliers.

2013 — Courtney Force claims a Funny Car victory against her father at the Auto-Plus NHRA New England Nationals. In their first final-round matchup, Courtney Force earns her second victory of the year and third in her career. She improves to 4-2 against her father, John Force, a 15-time Funny Car world champion.

2015 — The NHL’s Board of Governors approve the proposed 3-on-3 overtime change.

2017 — NHL Draft: Halifax Mooseheads (QMJHL) center Nico Hischier first pick by New Jersey Devils.

THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY

1917 — In baseball’s greatest relief effort, Ernie Shore of the Boston Red Sox came in for Babe Ruth with nobody out and a man on first. The base runner was cut down stealing and Shore retired all 26 batters he faced to gain a 4-0 victory over Washington. Ruth walked Eddie Foster to open the game and was ejected after arguing with umpire Brick Owens.

1932 — Lou Gehrig plays his 1,103rd successive game in a New York uniform, equaling Joe Sewell’s record with one team (Cleveland).

1950 — Hoot Evers’ winning home run in the ninth inning gave the Detroit Tigers a 10-9 victory over the New York Yankees as the teams combined for 11 home runs, a major league record. The Yankees hit six and the Tigers five.

1963 — Jimmie Piersall, playing for the Mets in New York, hit his 100th career home run and celebrated by running around the bases backward.

1971 — Rick Wise of the Philadelphia Phillies pitched a no-hitter against the Cincinnati Reds and hit two homers. Wise became the first pitcher to hit two homers while throwing a no-hitter.

1973 — Pitcher Ken Brett of the Philadelphia Phillies hit a home run in the fourth consecutive game that he pitched in June. He beat Montreal 7-2.

1984 — Chicago’s Ryne Sandberg hit two late-inning home runs off St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Bruce Sutter to tie the game twice as the Cubs went on to win 12-11 in 11 innings. Sandberg led off the ninth inning with a solo home run to tie the game 9-9 then hit a two-run, two-out homer in the 10th to tie the game 11-11. Willie McGee hit for the cycle and drove in six runs for St. Louis.

1993 — Seattle OF Jay Buhner hits for the cycle in the Mariners’ 8 – 7, 14-inning win over the Athletics. He is the first Mariner player to ever hit for the cycle..

2003 — Stealing second base at Pacific Bell Park in the 11th inning, Barry Bonds becomes the first player to hit 500 home runs and steal 500 bases in his career.

2008 — Felix Hernandez hit the first grand slam by an American League pitcher in 37 years, then departed with a sprained ankle before he could qualify for a win in Seattle’s 5-2 victory over the New York Mets. The shot to right-center off Johan Santana was the first home run by a pitcher in Mariners history, and the first slam by an AL hurler since Cleveland’s Steve Dunning went deep against Oakland’s Diego Segui on May 11, 1971.

2013 — David Wright homered, tripled and matched a Mets record with four extra-base hits to back Matt Harvey’s splendid start in a lopsided 8-0 victory over Philadelphia. Wright went 4 for 5 with two of New York’s season-high seven doubles.

2020 — After the Players Association ratified proposed COVID-19 safety protocols, an abbreviated 60-game season will begin July 23 or 24.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

Upstaging Shohei Ohtani, especially on a day he pitches, is no easy feat.

But at Dodger Stadium on Sunday afternoon, teammate Max Muncy did it twice — hitting two home runs and matching a career high with seven RBIs to lift the Dodgers to a 13-7 defeat of the Washington Nationals, and make Ohtani more of the sideshow in his second pitching start of the season.

Despite two strikeouts over a scoreless first inning from Ohtani to begin the day, Dodger Stadium had sat in relative silence for the next five innings.

Ben Casparius, who replaced the still workload-restricted Ohtani on the mound in the second, gave up a three-run home run in the third, when a flyball deflected off Hyeseong Kim’s glove at the wall before hitting a fan reaching over the barrier.

Michael Soroka, the former All-Star turned inconsistent journeyman, held the Dodgers hitless into the fifth, racking up a career-high 10 strikeouts while protecting the 3-0 lead.

In the bottom of the sixth, however, an opportunity for the Dodgers finally arose.

Dalton Rushing led off with a slicing ground-rule double down the left-field line. Ohtani drew a walk with the help of two favorable ball-strike calls. Badly slumping Freddie Freeman was bailed out of an 0-and-2 count on a wild slurve from Soroka that hit his foot.

And suddenly, the Nationals had to go to the bullpen, summoning left-hander Jose A. Ferrer to face Muncy with the bases loaded.

After just three pitches to Muncy, Ferrer called out the grounds crew to rake the mound and smooth out his landing area on the downslope.

But at the plate, it gave Muncy time to think about his at-bat against Ferrer the night before, mentally lock in on what to expect, and catch his breath in the biggest moment of the game.

“When he’s ready, he’s ready,” Muncy said he told himself. “And let’s get a swing off.”

Muncy did on each of the next two pitches, fouling off one center-cut sinker before lining the next deep to left for a script-flipping, deficit-erasing, go-ahead grand slam.

“I saw the guy last night, so had a good idea of what he was throwing in there and how to approach it,” Muncy said. “I was trying to keep the ball off the ground, get something in the air, get at least one run in. Just trying to do a job. And I got a good swing off and got the ball in a good spot.”

Ohtani started the day as the main attraction.

Dodgers pitcher Shohei Ohtani delivers in the first inning against the Nationals on Sunday.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

The two-way star drew a crowd as he came onto the field for pregame warm-ups and got loose in the left-field bullpen — prompting fans even up in the upper reserve-level deck to lean over railings and get a look at his dual-role talents.

And once the game began, Ohtani climbed atop the mound and showed progress from his season debut as a pitcher six days before.

“I thought he was considerably better today,” manager Dave Roberts said. “The stuff, the life of the fastball, the command of his pitches — much better.”

Ohtani’s scoreless inning included strikeouts of Luis Garcia Jr. on a sweeper and Nathaniel Lowe on a cutter, representing his first strikeouts since returning from Tommy John surgery. He worked around a dropped infield pop-up from Mookie Betts in an otherwise efficient 18-pitch, 12-strike outing. He hit 99 mph with his fastball while mixing in a healthy dose of sweepers, cutters and splitters to complement it.

Dodgers star Shohei Ohtani hits a home run in the eighth inning Sunday against the Nationals.

(Luke Johnson / Los Angeles Times)

“Overall, I was able to relax much better compared to my last outing,” said Ohtani, who noted that the plan for Sunday’s start was to once again be limited to only one inning.

“I think that it’s just more of just trying to get the foundation, the building blocks as he’s taking at-bats,” Roberts added. “Getting an inning here, an inning there, and then just gradually progress.”

Ohtani also quieted recent questions about whether his return to pitching was affecting his bat.

After entering the day two-for-19 in five games since resuming two-way duties, Ohtani helped the Dodgers (48-31) pull away late. In the seventh, he laced a bases-loaded, three-run triple past the first base bag, turning a narrow one-run lead into a comfortable four-score cushion over the Nationals (32-46). In the eighth, he added more insurance, belting a two-run homer to left-center field for his National League-leading 26th long ball.

“When he’s going to the big part of the field, I think he’s really, really good,” Roberts said. “So today was good. And hopefully it quiets the noise a little bit with the days that he pitches.”

Not to be outdone, however, Muncy raised the ante himself in the latter innings, following Ohtani’s seventh-inning triple with a three-run home run to right three batters later.

“You look at the last 30 days, I think he’s been our best hitter,” Roberts said. “We never wavered in our confidence, and we’ve shown that, and he’s proven us all right.”

Indeed, Sunday continued a stunning mid-season turnaround for Muncy — giving him a .305 average with 10 home runs and 38 RBIs over his last 39 games; compared to a .177 average, one home run and seven RBIs in his first 35 contests.

It moved him into third place among National League third basemen this season with an .815 OPS — making a player who once seemed bound for trade rumors this summer unexpectedly on the fringes of the All-Star conversation.

And, it somehow managed to top the all-around production Ohtani displayed in his two-way encore, lifting the Dodgers to a weekend series win and 7-3 record overall on this 10-game homestand.

“It’s definitely a snowball effect,” Muncy said. “Confidence is high right now.”

Fly-half Finn Russell says he wanted to “give a kid from Bath the limelight” as he explained why he unselfishly passed to Max Ojomoh for the crucial second try in their 23-21 Gallagher Premiership title win over Leicester Tigers.

It helped seal Bath’s first league title since 1996 and their third trophy of the season, having won the Premiership Rugby Cup and Challenge Cup.

Scotland international Russell was influential in the victory, kicking 13 points and intercepting Handre Pollard’s pass to race towards the line before flinging the ball inside for Ojomoh to finish under the posts in the 50th minute at Allianz Stadium, Twickenham.

Asked why he gave that pass rather than scoring himself, Russell told BBC Radio 5 Live: “He’s a kid from Bath that grew up watching his dad [Steve] lifting this trophy. Giving him a little bit of limelight in the final was nice.”

Ojomoh, 24, joined Bath Rugby when he was six years old before moving to Chippenham RFC aged nine. He then joined the Bath Rugby Academy at 14, with his senior debut coming in 2019.

His father Steve, 58, won 10 trophies with Bath in the 1990s, including five league titles, before joining Gloucester in 1998.

He won 12 England caps and played four times at the 1995 World Cup.

It was Russell’s first league title since the Pro 12 success with Glasgow Warriors in 2015, with the 32-year-old joining Bath in 2023.

“It’s not sunk in yet,” Russell added.

“Winning the Challenge Cup was brilliant but at the start of the year the goal was to win the Premiership. It’s 10 years since I won it at Glasgow in my second season there, and now I’ve won it here in my second season.”

The track characteristics have the opposite effect on championship leaders McLaren, whose car is the best in the field at managing tyre temperatures.

As a consequence, McLaren have been struggling to make it operate at its best in Montreal.

Championship leader Oscar Piastri is third on the grid behind Russell and Verstappen but his team-mate and title rival Lando Norris could manage only seventh, admitting that he had made two mistakes in the final session of qualifying.

Norris said: “I think we can go forwards anyway, but not a lot. You know, it’s not like we’re easy one-two, like we have been on other tracks.

“It’s just very low grip, first of all is one of the bigger things. And therefore the car balance just never comes together as much as what it does in other tracks.

“Probably just low grip and some of the kerb-riding and bumps, which just hurts us, it seems, more than some others.”

Norris was using a revised front suspension layout that was designed to increase the feel from the front axle of the car, the lack of which the Briton believes is important in the flip in form between himself and Piastri between last year and this.

Norris said it was “tough to say” whether this had improved the feeling coming from the car.

“This track, everything just feels different,” he said. “So I think it’s something we’ll have to wait and see on the next few races through Austria and Silverstone and so forth to understand and maybe back-to-back tests between them both.

“It’s nothing that I’ve felt just yet. But it’s more that when you go to a new track, it’s hard to remember everything perfectly relative to other tracks. So we just need a bit more time to understand if it’s any better or not.”

Piastri stuck with the old layout, saying: “It’s not an upgrade. It’s a different part. It changes some things, some things are better, some things are worse. I have been happy with how the car has been this year.”

Team principal Andrea Stella said: “From Lando’s point of view, there were no downsides. If anything, despite the result that we had in Q3 with Lando, pretty much right away, Lando has actually been competitive, especially compared to Oscar throughout the weekend.

“So we think that the experimentation of the front suspension is a successful one, and it’s a preference, it’s a set-up option in a way, that might be even different across drivers depending on their requirements from a driving point of view.”

The grid gives the Australian a good chance to extend his championship lead over Norris, who had a tricky session.

He missed the final chicane on his first lap of the top 10 shootout and had to be reminded not to push too much in the braking zones.

His second attempt was slower than Alonso’s first and Norris failed to improve on his final run, and was bumped further down by Russell, Antonelli and Hamilton.

Norris said: “Just a couple of big mistakes. One, hitting the wall on the last lap in the exit of (Turn) Seven and first lap, I think, last corner. So, yeah, just two mistakes that cost me, I guess.

“We’ve clearly not been as quick as normal. I think that’s just because of the layout of the track. I think the cars have been performing relatively well and I was happy through all of qualifying. Maybe not the car to take pole today, but good enough to be up there and fighting for top three.”

Alonso’s sixth place was Aston Martin’s best grid position of the season and confirms the progress the team have made since introducing an upgrade at the Emilia-Romagna Grand Prix.

“We maximised for sure the potential of the car,” Alonso said. “I feel happier with the car since Imola, since the upgrade.

“At the beginning of the year, it was a challenge to understand what the car needed and what kind of direction in the set-up I needed to go, but since Imola I am more comfortable and I can be more precise on the feedback and make the changes that I know will make the car faster and sometimes you succeed on that.

“Last four races, four Q3 (places). It makes the whole team a little more relaxed.”

Rounding out the top 10 behind Leclerc were Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar and Williams’ Alex Albon.

But Hadjar faces an investigation for impeding Williams’ Carlos Sainz at the end of the first session, preventing the Spaniard from progressing.

Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda, who qualified 11th, will start at the back because of a 10-place grid penalty for overtaking Piastri’s damaged McLaren after a red flag during final practice.

Stewards rejected Tsunoda’s explanations for his actions, saying Piastri was not going slow enough to excuse the breaking of a safety rule.

“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Kerr said in 1849. Nearly 200 years later, that is sadly true of the greatest protest songs. In 2025, songs like Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War” and Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come” are as needed for their messages as they were when they were written more than 60 years ago.

So when Grammy-winning jazz drummer Terri Lyne Carrington set out this year to pay homage to one of her stick-wielding idols, the legendary Max Roach, by revisiting his seminal 1961 album, “We Insist!,” it turned out to be more than a musical tribute. In the process of recording the album “We Insist 2025!,” Carrington took time to reflect on how issues of inequality, racism and more that Roach fought against in 1961 are unfortunately just as prevalent today.

“Wow, I can’t believe that this stuff is still relevant,” Carrington says. “When we look at these examples of how things have shifted in some ways, but not in other ways, it can be very depressing, especially right now. When we started this record, the election hadn’t happened yet. I thought I knew what was going to happen during this election, and it was still relevant. But now it’s even more relevant.”

Now 59, Carrington, who also serves as Zildjian Chair in Performance at Berklee College of Music in Boston, is ready to pass along some of the fight for social justice to the younger generation.

“I do feel like it’s a youthful game. I had an uncle that I would talk to when I was in my 20s, who has since passed. He would say that this is your fight now, and I would be mad at him, feeling like he wasn’t doing more,” she recalls. “And he would say, ‘No, this is your fight now. I‘ve done it, I‘ve been there, I‘m tired.’ I get that sentiment too. I‘m going to do whatever I do, but I‘m relying on the younger generation and how pissed off I feel like they are and what that will do.”

Terri Lyne Carrington playing a drum kit.

(John Watson)

Among her many ventures to champion the jazz music she loves so much is A&R for iconic jazz label Candid Records, founded by the great jazz writer Nat Hentoff in 1960. So, she called on the younger generation to help share her vision of “We Insist 2025!”

“I thought of calling the people that had been signed or were being signed to Candid Records because I do A&R for Candid. So I thought this would be a great opportunity to also shine a light on a lot of these artists, young people and progressive artists that are being signed right now to Candid. It‘s kind of like a family gathering; we all came together to pay tribute to this great artist and this great project,” she says.

At the center of the next generation of jazz artists on the album is vocalist Christie Dashiell, with whom Carrington collaborates on the album.

“Somebody like Christie Dashiell was really important to the project, because I felt like the voice is so out front. It‘s what people relate to; the average ear relates to the voice the most,” Carrington says. “I just feel like she perfectly embodies all these different areas of Black music traditions. That was really important, so I started there. What is the voice that’s going to work with this idea?”

Having toured with Herbie Hancock and played with giants as Dizzy Gillespie and Stan Getz, Carrington has a strong sense of jazz history and rightly sees herself as a bridge between the history and future of jazz. She made sure that bridge was strong on “We Insist 2025!” by including trombonist Julian Priester on the record, who, at 89, is the last living musician who appeared on Roach’s 1961 work.

“Jazz has always been about these kinds of bridges between generations. It‘s been such an important part of jazz. Mentorship, apprenticeships — it‘s an apprenticeship art form,” she says. “So we did contemporary things with this music, but it wasn‘t so contemporary that there was no place for a Julian Priester. I think that the ability to be a bridge is important — pointing to past legacies, to the foundation of what we stand on, while trying to also point to the future or reflect the present is important.”

As much as the album‘s original political message weighs in this turbulent current climate, and as much as Carrington wanted to make the record a vehicle for younger artists, the impetus for “We Insist 2025!” was to pay tribute to Roach for the centennial anniversary of his birth. For Carrington, the heart of her interpretation was to honor the music and spirit Roach created on “We Insist!”

Jazz drummer Terri Lyne Carrington poses for a portrait.

(David Butow / For The Times)

“I had a history with reimagining projects in other people‘s work, and helping that legacy continue, but doing it in a way that also has my own identity involved in a way that really feels new, in a sense,” she says. “The music is not new, but so many elements around those things are new. So I feel like it‘s reshaping these things a little, even though we didn‘t change the lyric content. By changing the music around the lyrics, it gives the lyric a different slant.”

As one of the country‘s primary ambassadors of jazz music today, Carrington hopes the record will introduce new fans to Roach’s considerable legacy while helping to revive the soul of protest music. To that end, she has discussed bigger plans with his family.

“I‘ve talked to Max‘s son, Raul Roach, quite a bit about trying to collaborate by doing shows that would be expansive. Doing some of this music, maybe doing some other Max music, like some of the double quartet music,” she says. “So we‘ve talked about finding ways to continue this celebration of Max Roach and his artistry. There‘s a lot there as a foundation that can be expanded upon.”

Max Muncy’s 2025 season has been nothing if not enigmatic.

But lately, after a woeful opening month on both sides of the ball, the good (his bat) has been outweighing the bad (his glove).

In the Dodgers’ 6-5 win against the New York Mets on Tuesday, such a duality came into plain view.

In the first inning, Muncy punctuated a four-run ambush of Mets starter Tylor Megill with a two-run home run deep to right field. In the fifth, he committed a costly error at third base that fueled New York’s go-ahead two-run rally. Yet, in the ninth, the veteran slugger capitalized upon his chance for redemption, clobbering his second long ball of the night to tie the score — and set up Freddie Freeman for a walk-off double (with a lot of help from Brandon Nimmo’s poor outfield defense) in the bottom of the 10th.

After an ice-cold opening month with the bat, Muncy has caught fire over his last 22 games, batting .314 with eight home runs (including six in the last seven games), 28 RBIs, 14 walks and only 10 strikeouts.

His defense remains a glaring weak spot, exposed repeatedly in key situations during the Dodgers’ slog through May and the opening days of June.

But for now, his production at the plate is giving him a long leash to work through such issues.

Without his offense Tuesday, the Dodgers likely would’ve lost their third straight game.

When Muncy came up as the leadoff hitter in the bottom of the ninth, the Dodgers hadn’t scored since his first home run eight innings prior.

Megill had found his footing, retiring 16 of his final 17 batters over a six-inning start. The Dodgers had wasted a golden opportunity to come back in the eighth, coming up empty even after getting the go-ahead runs on second and third base with no outs.

Muncy, however, extended the game with one swing, connecting on an elevated fastball for a no-doubt missile that traveled 408 feet. He flipped his bat as he left the box. He rounded the bases with a steady, confident gait.

An inning later, after Tanner Scott broke out of his recent struggles by holding the Mets scoreless in the top of the 10th, Freeman walked it off on a fly ball that Nimmo let fall at the warning track in left, getting all turned around as the ball came barreling toward the earth to let automatic runner Tommy Edman score with ease.

Tears flowed from Freddie Freeman as he sat in a Dodger Stadium interview room Aug. 5 and described the arduous recovery his 3-year-old son Max was making from a rare neurological condition in which the body’s immune system attacks the nerves.

Max had returned home from a five-night stay at Children’s Hospital Orange County, and Freeman was back in the Dodgers lineup after missing eight games to be with his family during the ordeal.

Two months later, the Dodgers were playing host to the New York Mets in the National League Championship Series. A police officer approached Freeman’s wife, Chelsea, to ask how Max was doing.

A photograph of Officer Samuel Riveros provided by the Baldwin Police Department.

(Baldwin Police Department.)

The officer, Samuel Riveros of the Baldwin Park Police Dept., smiled and handed her a police patch to give to Max.

Riveros was killed Saturday in Baldwin Park when a gunman fatally shot him in the head while Riveros was rushing to the aid of a fellow officer who also had been shot, a law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation told The Times.

Chelsea Freeman related meeting Riveros on her Instagram Stories and offered her family’s condolences.

“Our hearts are heavy hearing of his passing this week,” she posted. “We met during the Dodgers/Mets playoffs. He came up to me, asked how my son Max was doing and handed me his police patch to give to him.

“A small gesture that meant so much.”

Freddie Freeman was a World Series hero for the Dodgers in 2024, hitting a walk-off grand slam to win Game 1 against the New York Yankees. He is off to a hot start in 2025, currently leading the NL with a .368 batting average.

Riveros had been a Baldwin Park officer since 2016, joined the agency’s SWAT team in 2019, and had recently become a field training officer, which in a statement the agency called a “testament to his leadership and mentorship.”

Riveros was known for his devotion to the Dodgers, even traveling to the stadiums of opposing teams to watch them play, according to Baldwin Park Police Chief Robert A. López.

“Officer Riveros gave his life in service to others, a profound testament to his unwavering dedication to duty and selfless courage,” the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Dept. wrote in a statement. “His loss is profoundly felt — not only by his family and colleagues, but by the entire Baldwin Park community and law enforcement family.”

Eduardo Roberto Medina-Berumen, 22, was arrested on suspicion of murder and is being held in lieu of $4 million bail, according to the Sheriff’s Department. He lives with his mother at the Baldwin Park address on Filhurst Avenue, where gunfire erupted Saturday night, a source said.

“This tragic shooting is a sobering reminder of the danger our first responders face when they answer the call,” Dist. Atty. Nathan Hochman said in a statement.

With the benefit of hindsight, this was one of two mistakes Red Bull made in the Spanish Grand Prix.

After the stewards launched an inquiry into the Verstappen-Russell incident in Turn One, Red Bull decided to order Verstappen to give the place back.

Team principal Christian Horner said the decision was based “on recent experience and looking at recent incidents”.

Verstappen had kept fourth position by taking to the escape road after the two had made light contact while Russell tried a passing move. He believed he was justified in keeping the place because he felt the Mercedes driver had barged him off the track.

Horner said Red Bull had contacted FIA race control and received nothing back and that, as it had gone to the stewards, “it looked for all intents and purposes that it was going to be a penalty”.

Horner added: “The argument is, was George under control at that point in time? Would he have made the corner? We’ve seen so many occasions this year where penalties have been given.

“You’re expecting to get a penalty, so that’s why it was, ‘OK, do you know what? We’re going to have to give this place up.'”

The stewards’ verdict was published some time after the race. It said that Russell had “momentarily lost control of the car and collided” with Verstappen, who “did not deliberately leave the track”. As a result, it said, they took no further action.

In other words, in their view, Verstappen could have justifiably kept the place.

There are two parts of the racing guidelines in play here. To be entitled to be given space – ie, to have been judged to have won the corner – the driver overtaking on the inside has to have his front axle “at least alongside the mirror of the other car prior to and at the apex”.

Russell seems to have complied with this.

But the car must also “be driven in a fully controlled manner particularly from entry to apex”.

This, the stewards decided, Russell had not. And that was also Verstappen’s opinion.

Horner said: “With hindsight, was it a mistake? Yeah, but I think that’s where it would be nice, as the referee, as a race director, to either say, ‘Play on,’ or ‘you need to give it back.’ It’s very hard for the team, subjectively, to try and make that call, because you’re going on historical precedents.”

The second decision Red Bull got wrong, Horner admitted, was the decision to pit Verstappen for fresh hard tyres under the safety car, one that Verstappen immediately questioned vociferously once he was back on track.

Horner acknowledged they should have left him out on his soft tyres. “He would have got passed by the two McLarens. Would he have got passed by (Charles) Leclerc? But you can only go with the information you have to hand.”

MAX VERSTAPPEN is on the verge of a Formula One race ban after race stewards made a decision over his collision with George Russell at the Spanish Grand Prix.

The Red Bull driver lost his head at the end of the race following a safety car restart which culminated in him “undoubtedly” crashing into Russell and initially earning a 10-second time penalty.

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That punishment dropped him from P5 when he crossed the line to P10, which opened a massive 49-point gap between himself and championship leader Oscar Piastri.

A further investigation from the FIA after the race saw the 27-year-old avoid disqualification, despite calls from Nico Rosberg on Sky Sports commentary.

However, F1‘s governing body decided that Verstappen‘s actions also warranted three points on his Super Licence, declaring the collision was “undoubtedly caused” by him.

And this has placed him on the verge of a ban for an F1 race later this season.

With the three points added from his exploits in Barcelona, Verstappen is now just one penalty point away from a race ban.

F1’s penalty points system works on a 12-month rolling basis, and Verstappen currently sits on 11 penalty points out of the maximum of 12 before a ban.

But the next time the four-time world champion will see any of his penalty points expire will be on June 30.

That means Verstappen will need to be on his best behaviour at both the Canada Grand Prix on June 15 and then Red Bull’s home race at the Austrian Grand Prix on June 29.

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Picking up another penalty point in Montreal would mean a ban for Verstappen at the Red Bull Ring, while a point in the second race would mean he is banned from the British Grand Prix on July 6.

Verstappen will become the first-ever reigning world champion to be hit by a ban if he picks up another point in either of those races.

However, if he stays clean across the next two race weekends then Verstappen will see two points expire from his licence and move down to nine.

After that he will need to avoid further incident going all the way to October 27th.

The chaos in Spain began after a safety car restart caused by Mercedes rookie Kimi Antonelli veering into the gravel. 

Verstappen nearly spun and Charles Leclerc overtook him before Russell, 27, nearly went into the back of him, with the Dutchman going off track onto the escape road.

He was then told by his team to give the place back to the Brit, believing he had gained an unfair advantage by leaving the track.

Fuming Verstappen swore down the radio at the decision before slowing up.

The Mercedes man thought he was letting him through at Turn 5 but his rival then appeared to intentionally ram into the side of him, which landed Verstappen in hot water.

Speaking after the race, Russell said: “I’m too close to give my opinion on behalf of the drivers. It’s like in Austin last year, some of the best moves ever then you go to Mexico and he lets himself down a bit.

“You go to Imola with one of the best moves of all-time, then this happens. It cost him and his team a lot of points. Charles and I actually dropped off like a stone on those last two laps.

“He probably could have come back to fight for the podium, so I won’t lose any sleep [over it]. We have our own problems and that’s making our car go faster.”

Verstappen himself said: “I don’t need to say anything about it because it doesn’t matter anyway.

“I had a big moment there in the last corner. Unfortunately the hard tyres had very low grip so that was quite painful. Basically, we just ran out of tyres.

“In hindsight, was it better to stay out? Maybe, I don’t know. It’s always easy to say afterwards. Because of those hard tyres, you get into those situations.

“I think [the strategy] was good, I think it worked for us. It was the best way forward. It was racy and I liked it. Unfortunately we didn’t get the benefits at the end.”

Before the madcap final laps, Verstappen had pressured the McLarens throughout with Red Bull’s strategy.

The Dutchman took second place from Norris into the first corner, after the Briton made a slow start but, after initially pressuring Piastri on the first lap, the McLaren began to pull away as Verstappen started to struggle with his tyres.

Soon, Norris was on Verstappen’s tail and passed him on lap 13, using the DRS overtaking aid down the main straight, and Verstappen made his first stop on the following lap.

McLaren stuck to their two-stop guns, leaving Norris and Piastri out for a further seven and eight laps.

When Verstappen stopped again on lap 29, McLaren knew he was on a three-stop strategy. He soon regained the third place he had lost to Leclerc and began closing on the McLarens in front of him.

Norris, about three to four seconds back from Piastri most of the time, held Verstappen four seconds behind.

And when the Red Bull pitted for the third time on lap 47, McLaren responded with first Norris and then Piastri on subsequent laps.

After the pit stops, the three were running nose to tail, but Piastri began to edge away from Norris, who likewise distanced himself from Verstappen before the safety car intervened.

Behind Russell, Nico Hulkenberg scored a great result for Sauber by passing Lewis Hamilton’s Ferrari for fifth place after the restart.

Racing Bulls’ Isack Hadjar took seventh from Alpine’s Pierre Gasly, and Fernando Alonso fought back from running off track into the gravel in the first stint – after locking up a front brake into Turn Five – to claim his first points of the season with ninth place, ahead of Verstappen.

From Jack Harris: For a few weeks now, the Dodgers have been in the “treading water” portion of their season, trying to work through injuries in their pitching staff and inconsistencies in the lineup to remain atop the National League West standings.

On Tuesday, in a 9-5 win over the Cleveland Guardians at Progressive Field, two of their coldest hitters finally gave them some comfortable space to breathe.

In a game that was close until the final few innings, Michael Conforto and Max Muncy both showed long-awaited signs of life at the plate, each reaching base three times and each hitting late home runs to help the Dodgers pull away on a cool night in Cleveland.

“It’s big,” manager Dave Roberts said. “It adds the length [to the lineup] that we expected coming into this season.”

For much of this year, that length had been missing, the Dodgers forced to navigate around subpar production from both veteran sluggers — both at the plate and in the field.

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Dodgers box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

NBA PLAYOFFS RESULTS

All Times Pacific

Conference finals

Western Conference

No. 1 Oklahoma City vs. No. 6 Minnesota
at Oklahoma City 114, Minnesota 88 (box score)
at Oklahoma City 118, Minnesota 103 (box score)
at Minnesota 143, Oklahoma City 101 (box score)
Oklahoma City 128, at Minnesota 126 (box score)
Wednesday at Oklahoma City, 5:30 p.m., ESPN
Friday at Minnesota, 5:30 p.m., ESPN*
Sunday at Oklahoma City, 5 p.m., ESPN*

Eastern Conference

No. 3 New York vs. No. 4 Indiana
Indiana 138, at New York 135 (OT) (box score)
Indiana 114, at New York 109 (box score)
New York 106, at Indiana 100 (box score)
at Indiana 130, New York 121 (box score)
Thursday at New York, 5 p.m., TNT
Saturday at Indiana, 5 p.m., TNT*
Monday at New York, 5 p.m., TNT*

*if necessary

ANGELS

From Bill Shaikin: The adjective hit me like a line drive.

Wayne Randazzo, the television voice of the Angels, was detailing just how poorly the team’s relievers had performed. He recited the Angels’ earned-run average in the late innings, inning by inning. Over 5.00. Over 6.00. In the ninth inning, at that time, over 7.00.

“The numbers,” Randazzo said, “are gargantuan.”

What a colorful, descriptive and absolutely apt adjective. Not the “struggling” or “scuffling” or “slumping” a broadcaster typically offers, bland adjectives presented with the assurance that better times are ahead. No team can win with that kind of bullpen performance, and no one can guarantee that better times are ahead for a relief corps where only the closer has a successful track record.

For all that has gone wrong on the field for the Angels in modern times, they have struck gold in the broadcast booth. In pairing Randazzo with longtime analyst Mark Gubicza, the Angels just might have their best broadcast team since Dick Enberg and Don Drysdale half a century ago.

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Carlos Rodón pitched seven scoreless innings of five-hit ball, and Devin Williams barely survived a perilous ninth inning to earn his first save since April 17 in the New York Yankees’ 3-2 victory over the Angels on Tuesday night.

Yoán Moncada homered in the ninth as the Angels ended a stretch of 16 scoreless innings in the series with two runs and three hits off Williams, the Yankees’ embattled new reliever. Williams lost the closer role last month after a shaky beginning to his New York tenure, and he hadn’t had a save opportunity since April 25.

After Moncada led off the ninth with a homer on his 30th birthday, Taylor Ward and Luis Rengifo singled to put runners on the corners with one out. Ward scored when Jo Adell grounded into a forceout, but Williams got pinch-hitter Logan O’Hoppe on a foul popup to secure his fifth save and the Yankees’ seventh straight series win.

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Angels box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

SPARKS

From Anthony De Leon: When the Sparks traded for Kelsey Plum, the buzz around her reunion with former championship teammate Dearica Hamby centered on one thing: their pedigree elevating the franchise.

On Tuesday night, fans got a glimpse of the potential that the duo could attain. The chemistry. The comfort. The way they fed off each other’s energy — stepping up when the Sparks needed it most, looking to build momentum off a previous hard-fought victory.

By the fourth quarter of an 88-82 loss to the Atlanta Dream (4-2) on Tuesday night at Crypto.com Arena, the Sparks (2-4) were on the verge of a comeback. A steal by Hamby near midcourt turned into an outlet on the fastbreak to Plum, who quickly dished it back for the finish, trimming the deficit to 66–63.

The second half belonged to them. Plum and Hamby combined for 39 points to rally the Sparks from a 40–31 halftime hole. Like clockwork, Plum buried a clutch three-pointer to cut the lead to 71–70 — the closest L.A. would get. Hamby’s late free throws pulled them to within two in the final minutes.

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Sparks box score

WNBA standings

LAFC

From Kevin Baxter: Carlos Vela, the first player signed by LAFC and still the club record-holder in goals, assists, games and minutes played, announced his retirement Tuesday. The team said in announcement that Vela will work with LAFC as its first Black and Gold Ambassador. He will also be honored on Carlos Vela Night at BMO Stadium on Sept. 21.

“Helping to build LAFC and winning trophies for the club is a highlight of my career,” Vela, 36, said in a statement issued by the team. “This club means so much to me and my family, and I am proud of everything we have accomplished together with the great fans of Los Angeles. I am excited to begin this next chapter in my journey here in L.A.”

Vela signed a designated-player contract with LAFC in August 2017, eight months before the team’s first game. He led LAFC to the playoffs in his first season, then set the MLS single-season goal-scoring record with 34 in 2019, when the team won the first of two Supporters’ Shields. Vela was named the league’s MVP that season

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GALAXY

From Kevin Baxter: The last time Bruce Arena and Dave Sarachan stood together on the sidelines at Dignity Health Sports Park, the Galaxy were beating the Colorado Rapids in the MLS Western Conference semifinals. That was 2016 and the win was the pair’s 18th playoff victory in eight seasons with the Galaxy.

It was also the last game they coached together in Carson.

They’ll be back on Wednesday, only this time Arena and Sarachan will be in the opposite technical area, standing in front of the San José Earthquakes’ bench. And in some ways it’s a bittersweet return. Because while both men have mostly fond memories of their time with the Galaxy, they return with the home team hungry and winless through 15 games, the longest drought in franchise history.

That makes the homecoming both welcome and challenging.

“I have nothing but good memories of my time in L.A. with the Galaxy. So it’s nice to go back,” Arena said.

“I like watching them and they’ve had tough times. But they’re better than their record indicates. We’re the next team up, which will be in some ways very, very challenging because you know they’re due to have success.”

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U.S. MEN’S SOCCER TEAM

From Kevin Baxter: With the World Cup, one the U.S. will play at home, just 380 days away, Captain America has decided to take a pass on the national team’s last major competition ahead of the tournament.

That’s Pulisic’s choice, of course. He’s played a grueling schedule with AC Milan this season, one that concludes Sunday, a week before the national team reports to camp in Chicago.

And he has permission.

“Christian and his team approached the Federation and the coaching staff about the possibility of stepping back this summer, given the amount of matches he has played,” said Matt Crocker, U.S. Soccer’s sporting director, noting that Pulisic has played more than 4,400 minutes for club and country the last 12 months.

Nor is Pulisic alone in his absence. Weston McKennie, Tim Weah, Gio Reyna, Antonee Robinson, Josh Sargent and Yunus Musah, Pulisic’s teammate in Milan, were also left off the 27-man roster summoned to training camp ahead next month’s Gold Cup, although some of those players will be participating in the Club World Cup.

Yet even if reason and rules are strongly on Pulisic’s side, the optics are bad.

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USC-NOTRE DAME POLL

Let’s hear from you. Could a smoother path to the College Football Playoff be worth losing the Notre Dame-USC rivalry? Vote here and let us know. Results announced next week.

NHL PLAYOFFS SCHEDULE, RESULTS

All times Pacific

Conference finals

Western Conference

Central 2 Dallas vs. Pacific 3 Edmonton
at Dallas 6, Edmonton 3 (summary)
Edmonton 3, at Dallas 0 (summary)
at Edmonton 6, Dallas 1 (summary)
at Edmonton 4, Dallas 1 (summary)
Thursday at Dallas, 5 p.m., ESPN
Saturday at Edmonton, 5 p.m., ABC*
Monday at Dallas, 5 p.m., ESPN*

Eastern Conference

Metro 2 Carolina vs. Atlantic 3 Florida
Florida 5, at Carolina 2 (summary)
Florida 5, at Carolina 0 (summary)
at Florida 6, Carolina 2 (summary)
Carolina 3, at Florida 0 (summary)
Wednesday at Carolina, 5 p.m., TNT
Friday at Florida, 5 p.m., TNT*
Sunday at Carolina, 5 p.m., TNT*

* If necessary

THIS DAY IN SPORTS HISTORY

1901 — Parader, ridden by Fred Landry, overcomes a bad start to win the Preakness Stakes by two lengths over Sadie S.

1904 — Bryn Mawr, ridden by Eugene Hildebrand, wins the Preakness Stakes by one length over Wotan.

1958 — European Cup Final, Brussels: Francisco Gento scores the winner in extra time as Real Madrid beats AC Milan, 3-2; 3rd consecutive title for Los Blancos.

1969 — European Cup Final, Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, Madrid: AC Milan striker Pierino Prati scores 3 in 4-1 win over Ajax; second title for I Rossoneri.

1975 — 19th European Cup: Bayern Munich beats Leeds United 2-0 at Paris.

1978 — Al Unser wins his third Indianapolis 500, the fifth driver to do so, edging Tom Sneva by 8.19 seconds.

1980 — 24th European Cup: Nottingham Forest beats Hamburg 1-0 at Madrid.

1985 — The San Diego Sockers beat the Baltimore Blast 5-3 to win the MISL title in five games.

1995 — Jacques Villeneuve overcomes one penalty and wins by another in the Indianapolis 500. Villeneuve drives to victory after fellow Canadian Scott Goodyear is penalized for passing the pace car on the final restart.

1997 — 5th UEFA Champions League Final: Borussia Dortmund beats Juventus 3-1 at Munich.

2000 — Dutch swimming star Inge de Bruijn sets her third world record in three days, adding the 100 freestyle mark to the 50 and 100 butterfly marks she set previously at the Sheffield Super Grand Prix. De Bruijn becomes the first swimmer to finish under 54.00 in the 100 freestyle at 53.80 seconds.

2003 — Patrick Roy officially announces his retirement from the NHL.

2003 — 11th UEFA Champions League Final: Milan beats Juventus (0-0, 3-2 on penalties) at Manchester.

2006 — Sam Hornish Jr. overcomes a disastrous mistake in the pits and a pair of Andrettis — Marco and father Michael — to win the second-closest Indianapolis 500 ever, by .0635 seconds.

2007 — Duke has an almost unfathomable comeback fall short in a 12-11 loss to Johns Hopkins in the NCAA lacrosse championship game. The Blue Devils never finished their 2006 season, and then make it all the way back to the title game.

2011 — Novak Djokovic extends his perfect start to the season at the French Open, beating Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 for his 40th straight victory this year. Djokovic’s 40-0 start to 2011 is the second-best opening streak in the Open era, which started in 1968.

2011 — UEFA Champions League Final, London: FC Barcelona beats Manchester United, 3-1; 4th title for Barça.

2020 — The Boston Marathon canceled for the first time in its 124-year history. The race had originally been scheduled for April 20 before being postponed for five months because of the coronavirus pandemic.

2022 — UEFA Champions League Final, Paris: Carlo Ancelotti becomes first manager to win CL x 4 as Real Madrid beats Liverpool, 1-0.

THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY

1918 — Boston’s Joe Bush pitched a 1-0 one-hitter against the Chicago White Sox and drove in the lone run. The only Chicago hit was by Happy Felsch. It occurred when he threw his bat at the ball on a hit and run.

1939 — Philadelphia pitcher Robert Joyce was victimized two straight days by New York’s George Selkirk. Joyce gave up two homers to Selkirk a day earlier. Joyce came on in relief on this day and gave up two more homers to Selkirk. Selkirk ended with four homers in four at-bats against the same pitcher over two successive games. The Yankees won 9-5.

1946 — The Washington Senators beat New York 2-1 in the first night game at Yankee Stadium. The first ball was thrown out by General Electric president Charles E. Wilson.

1951 — After going 0-for-12 in his first three major league games, Willie Mays of the New York Giants hit a home run off Warren Spahn in a 4-1 loss to the Boston Braves.

1956 — Dale Long of the Pittsburgh Pirates hit a home run in his eighth consecutive game, a major league record. Long connected off Brooklyn’s Carl Erskine at Forbes Field.

1968 — The American League announced the league will be split into two divisions. The East division will consist of Baltimore, Boston, Cleveland, Detroit, New York and Washington. California, Chicago, Kansas City, Minnesota, Oakland and Seattle will make up the West.

1979 — George Brett of the Kansas City Royals hit for the cycle and added another home run to beat the Baltimore Orioles 5-4 in 16 innings.

1986 — Joe Cowley of the Chicago White Sox set a major league record by striking out the first seven batters he faced. He lasted 4 2-3 innings in a 6-3 loss to the Texas Rangers.

1995 — The White Sox and Tigers set a major league record with 12 homers, and combined for an American League-record 21 extra-base hits in Chicago’s 14-12 victory in Detroit.

1998 — Arizona manager Buck Showalter intentionally walked Barry Bonds with the bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth, and the Diamondbacks held on to beat San Francisco 8-7.

2003 – Atlanta became the second team in major league history to start a game with three straight homers in its 15-3 win over the Reds. Rafael Furcal, Mark DeRosa and Gary Sheffield hit consecutive home runs off Jeff Austin in the bottom of the first. The Padres did it against the Giants on April 13, 1987.

2006 — Barry Bonds hit his 715th home run during the San Francisco Giants’ 6-3 loss to the Colorado Rockies to slip past Babe Ruth and pull in behind Hank Aaron and his long-standing record of 755.

2007 — Adrian Beltre tied a franchise record with four extra-base hits, including two homers, as Seattle pounded the Angels 12-5.

2010 — Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera hit three homers in a 5-4 loss to Oakland. Oakland’s Ben Sheets gave up three runs — on Cabrera’s first two homers — worked seven innings in his longest start of the season.

2012 — The Cubs end a twelve-game losing streak, their longest since 1997, with an 11-7 win over the Padres at Wrigley Field.

2013 — The Mets honor Yankees great Mariano Rivera, who has announced his retirement at the end of the year, by having him throw the ceremonial first pitch before the game between the two teams from the Big Apple at Citi Field, with retired Mets closer John Franco acting as his catcher for the occasion.

2016 — In the third inning of a game against the Dodgers, Mets P Noah Syndergaard is ejected for throwing at Chase Utley, in apparent retaliation for Utley’s aggressive slide which injured Mets SS Ruben Tejada in last year’s NLDS. Umpire Adam Hamari also tosses Mets manager Terry Collins for arguing his decision, then Utley gets his revenge when he opens the score with a solo homer off Logan Verrett in the 6th and adds a grand slam off Hansel Robles in the 7th. The Dodgers hit five homers in total as they win the game, 9-1.

2019 — Derek Dietrich continues his unlikely homer binge as he hits three, all two-run shots, in leading the Reds to an 11-6 win over the Pirates. With 17 homers this year, he has already topped his career high, and 12 of his last 17 hits have gone over the fence. For the Pirates, rookie Kevin Newman hits his first career homer, a grand slam off Lucas Sims.

2023 — Spencer Strider of the Braves becomes the fastest starting pitcher to record 100 strikeouts in a season, doing so in his 61st inning in an 11 – 4 win over the Phillies. Last year, Strider set the record for the fastest pitcher to reach 200 Ks in a season.

Compiled by the Associated Press

Until next time…

That concludes today’s newsletter. If you have any feedback, ideas for improvement or things you’d like to see, email me at [email protected]. To get this newsletter in your inbox, click here.

The DOJ is expected to have a written agreement with Boeing in place by the end of next week.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has struck a deal in principle with Boeing to allow it to avoid prosecution in a fraud case stemming from two fatal 737 MAX plane crashes that killed 346 people, a harsh blow to the families of the victims.

Boeing will pay more than $1.1bn, including the fine and compensation to families, and more than $455m to strengthen the company’s compliance, safety, and quality programmes, the DOJ said on Friday.

The aircraft maker also agreed to pay an additional $444.5m into a crash victims’ fund that would be divided evenly per crash victim on top of an additional $243.6m fine.

“Boeing must continue to improve the effectiveness of its anti-fraud compliance and ethics program and retain an independent compliance consultant,” the DOJ said on Friday. “We are confident that this resolution is the most just outcome with practical benefits.”

The agreement allows Boeing to avoid being branded a convicted felon and is a blow to families who lost relatives in the crashes and had pressed prosecutors to take the US planemaker to trial. A lawyer for family members and two US senators had urged the DOJ not to abandon its prosecution, but the government quickly rejected the requests.

The DOJ expects to file the written agreement with Boeing by the end of next week. Boeing will no longer face oversight by an independent monitor under the agreement.

Boeing did not immediately comment.

No more guilty plea

Boeing had reached a tentative non-prosecution agreement with the government on May 16, as first reported by the news agency Reuters.

The agreement would forestall a June 23 trial date the planemaker faces on a charge it misled US regulators about a crucial flight control system on the 737 MAX, its best-selling jet.

Boeing in July had agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge after the two fatal 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia spanning 2018 and 2019, pay a fine of up to $487.2m and face three years of independent oversight.

Boeing no longer will plead guilty, prosecutors told family members of crash victims during a meeting last week.

The company’s posture changed after a judge rejected a previous plea agreement in December, prosecutors told the family members.

Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas said in 2023 that “Boeing’s crime may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in US history.”

Boeing has faced enhanced scrutiny from the Federal Aviation Administration since January 2024, when a new MAX 9 missing four key bolts suffered a mid-air emergency losing a door plug. The FAA has capped production at 38 planes per month.

DOJ officials last year found Boeing had violated a 2021 agreement, reached during the first Trump administration’s final days, that had shielded the planemaker from prosecution for the crashes.

That conclusion followed the January 2024 in-flight emergency during an Alaska Airlines’ flight. As a result, DOJ officials decided to reopen the 2018-19 fatal crashes case and negotiate a plea agreement with Boeing.

If you want to understand what’s going on in the streaming business, go find Elmo and Cookie Monster.

Netflix’s recent deal to stream the upcoming season of “Sesame Street” is, on its own, a major step in the entertainment giant’s effort to become a go-to destination for preschooler programming. At the same time, it’s a useful way to understand one of the media industry’s other big stories of the last week — Warner Bros. Discovery’s re-rebranding of its streaming service back to HBO Max.

First, the deal itself.

Los Gatos, Calif.-based Netflix will begin streaming the beloved children’s show’s upcoming 56th season, along with 90 hours of older episodes, later this year. New “Sesame Street” episodes will continue to air in the U.S. on PBS’ stations and digital platforms, the nonprofit Sesame Workshop’s longtime TV partner (which could use a win amid Congress’ efforts to defund public broadcasting). Episodes will premiere the same day on PBS and Netflix.

The new season will be released in three batches, and will include some format changes and the return of popular segments such as “Elmo’s World” and “Cookie Monster’s Foodie Truck.” Episodes will now be built around one 11-minute story, reflecting the shorter attention spans of younger viewers. The partnership includes a new animated segment, “Tales from 123.” Additionally, Netflix will be able to develop “Sesame Street” video games.

Netflix is welcoming “Sesame Street” to its block after HBO parent company Warner Bros. Discovery opted not to re-up its deal for new episodes, citing a shift in corporate priorities during a period of harsh cost-cutting.

HBO — and by extension, the streaming service known until recently as Max — had been the home of “Sesame Street” for years. The company then called Time Warner inked its deal with Sesame Workshop a decade ago, before AT&T or David Zaslav and his Discovery empire entered the picture.

Having Big Bird appear on the exclusive and adult-skewing “Game of Thrones” network never made much sense, but the deal was a lifeline for Sesame Workshop and kept the show alive, though it raised concerns among parent groups.

After AT&T took over, WarnerMedia launched HBO Max, a much reviled rebranding that was meant to make room for more populist content, including “Friends” and “The Big Bang Theory.” It also allowed for more kids’ programming, such as shows from Cartoon Network and Hanna-Barbera, along with “Sesame Street.”

Then came Zaslav, who stripped HBO from the streamer’s name entirely, leaving it as just Max. Part of the justification of the change was that the name HBO, while well known and respected among fancy people in New York and L.A., was a turnoff for Middle America and those who might otherwise sign up to binge-watch “Dr. Pimple Popper” and Guy Fieri.

The executives were also convinced that the HBO brand, known for “The Sopranos” and “Sex and the City,” was a deterrent for parents.

This was the era when streaming services were trying to be everything to everyone, and were losing billions of dollars trying to catch up to Netflix. Few companies other than Walt Disney Co. and HBO had distinct brands that made sense to people outside corporate conference rooms.

The decision to excise the HBO moniker was widely derided at the time as flawed managerial thinking.

Larry Vincent, a professor at USC Marshall School of Business and former UTA chief branding officer, called it a “classic case of right question, wrong answer” that will go down alongside New Coke in the annals of marketing blunders.

The name HBO has historically stood for quality, to the point that when people try to describe Apple TV+’s boutique streaming strategy, they compare it to early HBO. Last week, in an effective mea culpa during the media business’ big upfront week of presentations for advertisers, the company said the service would be called HBO Max again.

“It just violated everything we know about how you build a premium brand,” Vincent said of the earlier rebrand. “HBO has been at this for 50 years. It connotes a certain level of quality…. What we see now is that this is a reset to going back to the default position, because they realized this was silly.”

The backpedaling move drew howls from social media, journalists and rivals. Even Max’s own X account joined in on the fun. Warner Bros. Discovery executives were bracing for whatever John Oliver would say Sunday night during his show, and the comedian — never shy about bashing his own bosses — did not disappoint.

The decision was an admission of a couple things: First, that trying to be an “everything store” for entertainment was foolhardy when Netflix and Amazon both serve that exact purpose; and second, that it was a mistake to shy away from the brand that makes the streaming offering special.

Casey Bloys, chairman of HBO and Max content, said in a statement that returning to the old name “clearly states our implicit promise to deliver content that is recognized as unique and, to steal a line we always said at HBO, worth paying for.”

As my colleague Stephen Battaglio recently pointed out, when media companies put out new streaming services these days, there’s a tendency to avoid the now-cliche plus sign and stick with the brand name consumers already understand.

For example, Disney’s new $30 a month ESPN flagship service is simply called ESPN (ESPN+ is already taken by a more limited service).

Under Bloys, HBO has continued its tradition of highly regarded original series, with recent examples including the latest seasons of “The White Lotus,” “The Last of Us” and “The Righteous Gemstones.”

The brand confusion is still real, though. I’ve spoken with agents and read publications that should know better that mistakenly think “Hacks” and “The Pitt” are HBO shows, when they’re actually Max originals. That may not be important to consumers, but within the industry and for artists, it matters.

As for preschool-focused programming such as “Sesame Street,” that’s no longer a priority for Warner Bros. Discovery’s streaming strategy. The company has said it now wants to focus on “stories for adults and families.”

People who want shows for their toddlers can find them almost anywhere, including for free on YouTube. Disney+, of course, has troves of kids content, including Australia’s acclaimed and much-watched “Bluey.”

And, increasingly, kids are tuning into Netflix, which is now the land of “Ms. Rachel,” “CoComelon” and “Blippi,” all of which rose to popularity on YouTube. Kids and family programming now accounts for 15% of the platform’s viewership, according to the company. Netflix also has “Peppa Pig” and “Hot Wheels Let’s Race.”

Suffice to say, if you want or need to turn your little ones into couch zombies for a while, Netflix has an increasingly crowded ZIP Code of shows for you.

Stuff we wrote

Numbers of the week

Cable’s consolidation continues with Friday’s announcement that Charter and Cox will merge in a $34.5-billion deal, uniting Southern California’s two major cable TV and internet providers.

The Charter-Cox combination would have 38 million customer homes in the nation, a larger footprint than longtime cable leader Comcast.

Of the many interesting aspects of the deal, this one is particularly relevant to Los Angeles residents — if approved by Charter shareholders and regulators, the merger would end one of the longest TV sports blackouts, my colleague Meg James reports.

Cox customers in Rancho Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills Estates and Orange County would finally have the Dodgers’ TV channel available in their lineups. For more than a decade, Cox has refused to carry SportsNet LA because of its high cost.

New Line Cinema’s horror franchise revival “Final Destination: Bloodlines” won the weekend box office with $51 million in the U.S. and Canada (more than $100 million globally), exceeding pre-release analyst estimates.

The horror genre’s power to draw moviegoers is undeniable. The marketing was clever (complete with morbid 3D billboards), and this series has built-in nostalgic value. The new grisly supernatural teen movie comes 14 years after the previous one, “Final Destination 5.” The audience response has been generally positive.

With a reported production budget of $50 million, this was a no-brainer, and another win for Warner Bros. chiefs Michael De Luca and Pam Abdy coming after “Minecraft” and “Sinners.” All eyes are now on James Gunn’s “Superman,” coming in July.

Finally …

Listen: “Chaise Longue” rock band Wet Leg has new music on the way. Here’s a preview.

When you have perhaps the best golfer in Southern California on your team, it certainly helps in team competitions. Oaks Christian always turns to junior Max Emberson to set the standard, and he helped deliver a Southern Section Division 2 team championship on Monday at Bear Valley Country Club in Victorville. The Lions finished with a score of 371.

Emberson, who won last year’s state individual championship, shot 65. Sophomore Broxton Brock shot 68. Apple Valley, Corona del Mar and Great Oak tied for second at 376.

La Serna pulled off the day’s biggest surprise, winning the Division 1 title by a single stroke over powerhouse Santa Margarita at El Dorado Park Golf Course in Long Beach. Hill Wang of La Serna led the way with a 69. Junlin Pan of Orange Lutheran, a sophomore, had the low score at 68.

In Division 7, St. Bonaventure won the team title with a 414. Los Altos finished second. Eoin O’Neil shot a 72 for St. Bonaventure.

In Division 3, Xavier Prep won at 384. Newport Harbor was second. Troy Song of Chaparral shot 67 for the low score on the day.

In Division 6, Alta Loma edged Damien 411 to 412. Troy Borges of Chino shot 68.

It was a fitting drive to mark Red Bull’s 400th grand prix.

The two caution periods led to a see-sawing battle between the McLaren drivers for second place.

Piastri had been on target to pass Norris when the Briton made his only pit stop and looked set to lead to a fight with Norris coming back at Piastri on fresher tyres.

Shortly after Norris’ stop, Esteban Ocon’s Haas stopped on the hill between the Tosa and Piratella corners, leading to a virtual safety car (VSC) period.

Norris was ahead after the VSC because Piastri stopped for fresh tyres to avoid being vulnerable to cars behind.

Then, officials decided to deploy a full safety car when Kimi Antonelli’s Mercedes stopped in exactly the same place as Ocon had.

This time, Verstappen and Norris stopped for fresh tyres and Piastri did not – because he had no appropriate ones still available – and that put Norris back behind Piastri, but on 16-lap fresher tyres.

Behind the safety car, Norris suggested that Piastri’s tyres “looked pretty dead” and they should not fight if they wanted to challenge Verstappen for the win.

But McLaren chose not to apply team orders and the two battled for three laps before Norris finally swept by into the first chicane with five laps to go, by which time Verstappen was out of reach.

The closing laps were compelling viewing, with the field alternating position between drivers on old tyres and those on fresh.

This allowed Hamilton to move up. He had started on hard tyres and ran long, which allowed him to make his first stop under the VSC, and again for fresh tyres under the safety car.

He passed Albon’s Williams and Leclerc and was just 1.4 seconds behind Piastri at the flag.

Leclerc fought hard to hold back Albon but was adjudged to have forced the Williams off track when they were side by side through Tamburello and Ferrari ordered him to hand the position back, giving Albon fifth place.

The Anglo-Thai’s team-mate Carlos Sainz finished eighth, ahead of the Racing Bull of Isack Hadjar and Red Bull’s Yuki Tsunoda, scoring the final point after his heavy crash in qualifying.

And the timing of the two safety cars also wrecked the hopes of Aston Martin and Fernando Alonso, after his excellent fifth place on the grid.

An early pit stop and a limited tyre allocation boxed Aston and Alonso in, and he bemoaned on the radio that he was “the unluckiest driver ever” as he slumped to an 11th-place finish.

McLaren team principal Andrea Stella said: “With the benefit of hindsight, let’s say that considering the situation in corner one-two, it could have been better for Lando to just lift and make sure that he could keep the second position because the car, again, with the benefit of hindsight, we see that he was very fast and he would certainly have passed Max, like Oscar, and then later Lando was in condition to do.

“So I think like every situation in racing, you have to approach with the mindset of reviewing where the opportunities lie. And I think in this case, Lando could have been a little bit more patient.”

Norris was further delayed in racing Verstappen because he passed him at Turn 11 by going off track and had to give the place back, before regaining it for good the following lap.

Stella said he saw no difference in his two drivers’ approaches to racing Verstappen.

“Both drivers were approaching the overtaking in a way that had Lando not gone off by a few centimetres in corner 11, he would have completed the overtaking in what was a similar time. So I don’t think we should over-read too much into situations. I think it’s, like I said before, it’s a matter sometimes of a fraction of a second or a fraction of a metre.

“The big time loss came because of having to give back the position. So I think in terms of overtaking manoeuvre and precision and determination, I don’t see that there’s any difference between both drivers.”

Once he passed Verstappen, Norris closed on Piastri in the second stint, but ran out of time to close the gap.

In McLaren’s view, Red Bull have not been painting the most accurate picture of the competitive picture between the two teams.

“Red Bull, they are very good at making fast cars,” Stella said. “They are very exceptionally good, I would say, at driving fast cars, and they are extremely good also in creating the narrative to their advantage.

“They exploit every possible opportunity to stay in the competition, and some of these opportunities sometimes is to create the narrative, like, ‘oh, we are making miracles here, the others should win every single practice session and qualifying and race.’

“This is the narrative created by some of our competitors, which we read occasionally and then we change the page and we focus on ourselves.”

The grid sets up an intriguing race. The title contenders are in reverse order, with an interloper between Norris and Piastri in the form of Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli.

And Norris scents an opportunity to nail his first victory since the opening race of the season in Australia back in March.

In qualifying, he made errors at the last corner on both his laps, each time costing about 0.2secs, so he knows the pace is in the car.

“Max has always been good in qualifying and as a team we have struggled a little more in qualifying, whether that’s set-up or what, I’m not too sure,” Norris said.

“We know the Red Bulls are running high downforce, which allows them especially with the DRS (in qualifying) to be a lot more competitive. But it’s a long race and we know we have good pace in both conditions.

“I don’t just expect competition from Max. Kimi’s been quick all weekend and Oscar has been as well. So yeah, I just expect a tough race from all accounts.”

ATLANTA — Max Muncy has a new look.

And, he hopes, slightly better sight.

On Friday night at Truist Park, Muncy took the field for the Dodgers’ series opener against the Atlanta Braves wearing clear prescription eyeglasses. He subtly did the same during the Dodgers’ last game of the most recent homestand on Wednesday afternoon, using sunglasses with prescription lenses when he hit his first home run of the season.

It’s not that Muncy has bad eyesight. His vision, he said, is actually an excellent 20/12.

However, Muncy did learn he has astigmatism in his right eye, making him slightly left-eye dominant. Given that he’s a left-handed hitter — positioning him with his right eye forward in the batter’s box — he thus decided the glasses were worth a try.

“If there’s anything that can help out a little bit,” Muncy said, “I’ll try it.”

Based on his results from Wednesday, the benefits might have already been felt.

After enduring a career-long 28-game home run drought to start the season, Muncy went deep in his first at-bat Wednesday, launching a low-and-away sinker to straightaway center field.

He struck out in his next trip to the plate, then flied out to left in the fifth inning. After that, however, he tripled and drew a walk, giving him his most productive performance of what had been a slow start to the season.

Granted, Muncy’s performance had started to tick up before he started using his new glasses.

Thanks to some recent swing adjustments, he entered Wednesday with three hits in his previous two games (he’d recorded just four in the 11 before that) and as many walks as strikeouts in his prior 13 contests overall (10 each).

Dodgers third baseman Max Muncy wore sunglasses with prescription lenses during Wednesday’s game against the Marlins, and hit his first home run of the season.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

“The swing feels like it’s getting closer and closer,” said Muncy, who entered Friday with a .194 batting average on the season. “I still have to clean some things up. Have to be better in certain situations. It’s a work in progress. But … it’s just getting the ball to go forward.”

Still, in recent days, Muncy decided it was time to break out the glasses, too.

The 34-year-old third baseman had been testing his glasses in pregame batting practice and infield drills since the start of last week’s homestand. He’d initially been hesitant to take them into game action, noting a “fish-bowl” effect he felt while wearing them, but said he has since adjusted by using them even when he’s away from the field.

Muncy isn’t the first Dodger player to begin utilizing glasses midseason.

Last year, Kiké Hernández did the same thing after discovering astigmatism (a condition caused by imperfections in the curvature of the eye that can impact vision) in his own right eye.

Like Muncy, Hernández described an adjustment period when his glasses arrived midseason.

“It took me like a week or two to really feel like my depth perception felt normal,” Hernández recalled.

Unlike Muncy, Hernández began wearing them in games as soon as they arrived.

“You can’t be afraid to fail,” he quipped.

Fail, Hernández did not. Before last year’s All-Star break, Hernández was batting .191 with just five home runs in 71 games, wearing glasses for only the final series of the opening half. After the break, once his eyesight adjusted to his new lenses, Hernández finished the year batting .274 with seven home runs in his final 55 games. He then proceeded to have a monster postseason (.294 average, two home runs, six RBIs) during the Dodgers’ run to a World Series title.

This year, the glasses have remained a fixture. And even though he batted just .188 in March and April, he did tally five home runs and 13 RBIs.

The biggest benefit Hernández noticed from his glasses: An ability to see the actual spin on the baseball, and more easily identify each pitch type.

“Before the glasses, I was trying to see the shape of each pitch,” Hernández said, which forced him to wait a split-second to see if the ball would dive or slide away from its starting location.

“Once I got the glasses,” he added, “I could actually see the spin.”

The celebration was simple. But the relief was immense.

In the bottom of the second inning Wednesday afternoon, on the last day of what had been a torturous opening month to the season,Max Muncy finally did the thing that had eluded him over an ice-cold start.

After 29 forgettable games and 90 infuriating at-bats, the 10th-year veteran finally hit his first home run.

With a lightning-quick swing on a down-and-away, 92-mph sinker from Miami Marlins right-hander Cal Quantrill, Muncy put a long-awaited end to his longest home run drought — and some much-needed life into his slumping start.

His 433-foot solo blast landed high up in the deepest part of the right field pavilion. It sent his Dodgers teammates in the dugout into a frenzy.

And though Muncy did little more than pound a closed fist into his open palm as he trotted around the bases for the first time, it allowed him to finally release the emotional tensions that had been building on the inside.

“Felt really good to have that happen,” Muncy told reporters from his clubhouse locker afterward, finally allowing himself to smile after a season-best game in which he also tripled and drew a walk.

“Just hope today is something to build on,” he added. “It’s been a rough month.”

For much of March and April, there was much amiss in Muncy’s play.

The slugger was batting just .180 entering Wednesday, a troubling mark even for a traditionally low-average hitter. He had struck out 34 times and walked only 14, a master of the free pass going at one point eight straight games without drawing one.

Muncy’s defense, quietly an area of improvement for the 34-year-old last season, also cratered. He has committed four errors at third base, all on errant throws. His advanced analytics have tanked, going from an above-league-average mark in Statcast’s “outs above average” metric last year to the third-lowest grade of any qualified third baseman.

Amid the mounting frustration he even became the subject of a viral social media video during the trip to Chicago last week, captured glaring at a fan who was shouting profanities about him and his family as he boarded the team’s bus outside Wrigley Field following a loss to the Cubs.

“Playing in L.A. is not easy,” Muncy said. “It’s a privilege, and it’s a privilege to play under this pressure. It’s something I’ve always thrived on. But it doesn’t mean it’s been easy, for me or my family.”

The Dodgers’ Max Muncy reacts as he runs the bases after hitting a home run Wednesday against the Marlins.

(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Times)

Nothing about Muncy’s performance raised more red flags than his lack of home runs.

Ever since his successful emergence as a minor-league reclamation project seven years ago, power had been his trademark. Even in stretches when his batting average hovered around the Mendoza Line, or his strikeout total climbed leaderboards, his ability to slug had been the great equalizer.

Entering the year, Muncy’s 190 long balls with the Dodgers ranked top-10 in franchise history. His four seasons with at least 35 were topped only by Duke Snider.

And yet he failed to hit one in his first 28 games. Entering Wednesday he was in danger of going an entire month without a home run, something that never had happened since he joined the Dodgers.

“Pretty puzzling,” manager Dave Roberts said last week of Muncy’s power outage, which also contributed to a slugging percentage in the low .200s. “I know he’s trying to find his way out.”

At the root of Muncy’s woes was a swing he has been tinkering with since the offseason.

Last year the two-time All-Star had one of his most productive seasons. His .232 batting average was his best since 2021. His 141 OPS+ (an all-encompassing advanced offensive metric) trailed only his breakout 2018 performance for the highest of his career. In the National League Championship Series he set a postseason record by reaching base 12 consecutive times.

Despite that Muncy still went into the winter feeling like there was more to unlock. One of the big changes he made was in the type of contact he was chasing. After hitting almost 75% of his balls in the air last season, he felt a lower angle of trajectory might improve the consistency of his production.

“I spent all offseason and spring trying to hit low liners and ground balls,” Muncy said earlier this year, “to try and be on top of the ball.”

The only problem: That mechanical adjustment came with unforeseen side effects.

During the season’s first couple of weeks, Muncy realized he was lurching forward on his swings in an effort to keep the ball down. It not only got him out of his prime hitting position, but also gave him a fraction-of-a-second less reaction time to read each pitch and make the right swing decision.

“The ball sped up on me the first few series of the season and I really wasn’t myself,” Muncy said. “I was chasing a lot of stuff and I was unable to recognize it. It was very uncharacteristic of me.”

So, more recently, Muncy has been recalibrating at the plate. He’s made an effort to stay back in his swing, closely dissecting video of his at-bats to make sure his mechanics remain in sync. He’s rediscovered his feel for the strike zone, recording almost as many walks (12) as strikeouts (13) since his eight-game stretch without a free pass. He reached base 10 times during the Dodgers’ five-game winning streak.

“It seems like he goes through stretches where he’s really scuffling, and he always finds a way to get out of it,” Roberts said.

“The swing feels like it’s getting closer and closer,” Muncy added. “I still have to clean some things up. Have to be better in certain situations. It’s a work in progress. But … it’s just getting the ball to go forward.”

On Wednesday it got the ball to go out of the yard too — helping Muncy finally flash some pop.

“We all know Max is going to be Max,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said. “For him to get that first one, hopefully the floodgates open for him.”

Freeman was one of several teammates who had an elated reaction to Muncy’s home run, pumping both fists above his head from the dugout. When Muncy finished rounding the bases, Mookie Betts wrapped him in a bear hug, while Teoscar Hernández showered him with a supersized serving of his sunflower seed celebration.

“He got me pretty good,” Muncy joked from his locker.

From a few stalls over, Hernández chimed in: “He deserved it!”

“When you feel the support from your teammates — that elation, that joy — it gets emotional,” Roberts added. “That just speaks to how much it’s been wearing on him. The struggles. And the lack of a homer.”

That latter concern, at least, has been alleviated. And though Muncy’s batting average is still a lowly .194 and his on-base-plus-slugging percentage is still an underwhelming .610, he noted he finally might have “something I can build on” entering May with renewed confidence at the plate.

“It was huge for me, almost a little emotional,” Muncy said. “But this clubhouse is very tight, very close. Everyone cares about each other in here. We all just want to win, and for us to win, everyone needs to be clicking. That’s something this whole clubhouse buys into. So just to get that kind of greeting felt amazing.”