Don and wife Mattingly welcome a kid.
ANGELES — Don Mattingly, the manager of the Dodgers, has added a fourth son to his roster.
As stated by a club representative on Tuesday, Louis Riley Mattingly was born on Saturday. He was 20 inches tall and weighed 7½ pounds. Vin Scully, the Dodgers Hall of Fame announcer, and the infant have the same birthday.
In their winter residence of Evansville, Indiana, Mattingly’s hometown, he got married to Lori four years ago.
The 53-year-old manager is the father of two stepchildren from his second wife and three adult sons from his first marriage.
Preston, one of his boys, posted a picture of the newborn along with the caption, “Introducing my new baby brother, Louis Riley Mattingly.” Wonderful name, but I’ll still refer to kid as Don Jr.”
Mattingly stated in October, “I’m thrilled. Having a child has come at a different period in my life. It looks like it will be fantastic.
TAMPA, Florida —Carlos Rodon’s second Grapefruit League appearance of 2024 was characterized as “a mixed bag” with his constant experimenting, a slow fastball, and bookending home runs.
Wednesday against the Tampa Bay Rays, the left-hander for the New York Yankees allowed three runs on five hits in three plus innings of work. He hurled sixty pitches.
Andy Diaz hit a fastball over the right-center field wall with his first pitch. After 60 pitches, Richie Palacios hit a fastball for a two-run home run. These came on top of the four home runs he let up in a mock game last week and the one he gave up in his first spring training game.
“Didn’t really have the fastball velo I wanted, but … it’s one of those days,” Rodon stated. “It’s one of those days you got to be able to pitch without a fastball and kind of use some other things.”
After agreeing to a six-year, $162 million contract in December 2022, Rodon, 31, is hoping to bounce back from an awful first season in New York. With a 6.85 ERA in 14 starts, the left-hander—whose forearm issue delayed his Yankees debut until July—kept the team from making the playoffs.
He showed up for spring training this year a trimmer and sans the mustache he wore the previous season. His array of pitches has also changed in appearance.
Throughout his career, Rodon has primarily relied on his fastball-slider combo; in 2022, his greatest season as a major leaguer, he threw one of those two pitches 92% of the time. He has no intention of drastically changing his usage. However, this spring, he has been concentrating on honing his curveball, changeup, and new cutter so that he will have them ready for action when called upon.
“On a day like today, where the fastball wasn’t exactly where I wanted it to be, that cutter could come in really handy for early outs,” Rodon stated.
Rodon’s fastball velocity, which averaged 93.2 mph on Wednesday compared to 95.3 mph the previous season, was attributed by manager Aaron Boone to the weariness that is to be expected at this stage of the season.
“He didn’t have great life on his fastball today,” Boone stated. “However, I thought he pitched pretty effectively between the first and last pitches. I think it was fantastic to see him pitch.”
Rodon admitted that he also wanted to boost his confidence this spring. He remarked that one of his characteristics on the mound is swagger. The previous season damaged it. He claimed that all he needed to do to recover and turn into the pitcher the Yankees had envisioned when they signed him was good health.
Rodon stated, “I just have to stay on the mound.” “That concludes it. I can play this game fairly well.”
A source familiar with the agreement told The Associated Press on Wednesday that outfielder Eddie Rosario and the Washington Nationals have reached an agreement on a minor league contract that includes an invitation to spring training for non-rosters.
The agreement is contingent upon passing a physical examination.
Left-handed hitter Rosario, 32, spent nine seasons in the major leagues with the Minnesota Twins, Cleveland Indians, and Atlanta Braves. With 159 home runs and 548 RBI, he has a lifetime batting average of.268 and an OPS of.755.
The previous season, he batted.255 and launched 21 home runs with 74 RBIs while starting the majority of Atlanta’s games in left field. However, the Braves, who finished first in the MLB in 2023 with 104 wins, turned down a $9 million option for him this year.
Rosario was a key player in Atlanta’s 2021 World Series victory. He was named MVP of the NL Championship Series after hitting.560 (14-of-35) with three home runs and nine RBIs against the Los Angeles Dodgers that season.
Rosario might give Washington’s light-hitting lineup some much-needed strength. This offseason, the Nationals also set out to find left-handed hitters.
With 151 home runs last season, Washington was second in the majors in terms of total home runs scored and accounted for less than half of the leading 307 that NL East opponent Atlanta hit.
Since winning the World Series in 2019, the team’s first championship, the Nationals have finished last in the division the last four seasons.
ANGELES — The late Dianne Feinstein held the U.S. Senate seat for thirty years. Former Major League Baseball MVP Steve Garvey is on track to challenge her in November, giving the Republicans a unique chance to participate in a major statewide battle in a Democratic stronghold.
Ten-time All-Star Garvey, a player for the San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Dodgers, will take on Democratic Representative Adam Schiff.
“Let’s celebrate,” Garvey said to his fans on Tuesday evening. “Welcome to the California comeback.”
“Tonight, you are all experiencing what it feels like to hit a walk-off home run. It’s similar to San Diego in 1984.”
Legend has it that Garvey saved the Padres from elimination in the 1984 National League Championship Series against the Chicago Cubs with a walk-off home run off Lee Smith in Game 4. Following Game 5’s victory by San Diego, Garvey was voted series MVP.
This is the first open U.S. Senate race in California since 2016. Many of the state’s aspirational Democrats were anxiously awaiting their chance to win the prized seat, even before Feinstein declared at the beginning of 2023 that she would not run for reelection.
Garvey’s campaign introduced an unexpected twist to the contest, helped along by his name recognition among elderly voters in particular. The last weeks of the campaign saw a strained relationship between Schiff and U.S. Representative Katie Porter as they fought for a berth in the general election.
As an outsider running against well-established Washington elites, Garvey secured his seat on the fall ballot by blaming them for soaring gas and grocery prices, exorbitant housing costs, and an uncontrolled urban homelessness epidemic.
He owes a debt of gratitude to Schiff and super political action groups that supported him, since they ran millions of dollars of advertisements highlighting Garvey’s conservative background and thereby increased his exposure to Republican and right-leaning voters.
He remains a long shot to win the seat going into the fall campaign, but on Tuesday night he highlighted his chances of winning in November by using another baseball analogy.
He told his fans, “Remember, this is the first game of a doubleheader, so keep the evening of November 5 open.” “Because we will celebrate again.”
In strongly Democratic California, where Republicans haven’t prevailed in a U.S. Senate contest since 1988 and registered Democrats outnumber Republican voters by an astounding 2-to-1 ratio, the state Republican Party has been in a decades-long tailspin. In 2016 and 2018, Republicans ran no candidates at all for the Senate in the general election.
Garvey hopes to follow in the footsteps of other well-known athletes who turned into politicians, such as former California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former bodybuilder and actor who was the last Republican to hold the state’s top job, former NFL player Rep. Burgess Owens from Utah, and legendary professional basketball player Bill Bradley from New Jersey who went on to become a long-serving U.S. senator.
He describes himself as a “conservative moderate” and contends that he shouldn’t be forced to fit under preconceived notions about what constitutes a “Make America Great Again” movement, as advocated by former President Donald Trump.
Garvey voted twice for Trump, who is still well-liked by Republicans despite losing California in landslides. Garvey has stated that he is still undecided about the presidential race this year. Although he personally opposes abortion rights, he does not support a national ban on the practice and pledges to “always uphold the voice of the people,” referring to the state’s long-standing pro-choice stance.
His polished public image from his Dodger days has been undermined by certain obscene elements of his personal life that have just come to light.
