The Sports Report: Trevor Bauer accuser’s bid for restraining order is denied

Howdy, I’m your host, Houston Mitchell. Let’s get right to the news.

Steve Henson and Ethan Sears on Trevor Bauer: After four days of emotional testimony, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied a request for a restraining order against Dodgers pitcher Trevor Bauer by a woman who accused him of sexual assault.

Judge Dianna Gould-Saltman said there was a distinction between what the accuser thought was permissible in their two intimate encounters and what she communicated to Bauer.

“When she set boundaries, [Bauer] respected them,” the judge told the courtroom following closing arguments.

While ruling that Bauer and his accuser did have a “dating relationship” under the law — a condition for issuing a restraining order — the judge said she did not consider Bauer a threat to the woman.

With Bauer standing silently by her side, attorney Shawn Holley made a brief statement to the media outside the courthouse after the ruling, which also lifted an existing temporary restraining order. Neither Holley nor Bauer took questions.

“We are grateful to the Los Angeles Superior Court for denying the request for a permanent restraining order and dissolving the temporary restraining order against Mr. Bauer today,” Holley said. “While we have expected this outcome since the petition was filed in June, we appreciate the court reviewing all relevant information and testimony to make this informed decision.”

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Denial of Trevor Bauer restraining order won’t affect MLB’s investigation for now

Red-hot Dodgers defeat the Mets, 4-1

Presenting ‘Los Dodgers,’ dressed in blue from head to toe

ANGELS

Luca Evans on the Angels: It didn’t take long for Angels outfielder Brandon Marsh to experience something extraordinary in his brief time in the major leagues.

“I don’t think I’ve ever, in any game of baseball, came back from, was it eight?” said Marsh, who played in his 32nd career game Thursday. “A moment to remember, forever.”

With the help of Marsh’s three-for-five day, which included two triples, the Angels were able to overcome an eight-run deficit after five innings and beat the Detroit Tigers 13-10 at Comerica Park in Detroit. The Angels (62-61) scored the final 11 runs of the game to sweep the three-game series.

Through the first few innings, the Angels looked to be asleep in a 10:10 a.m. PDT start.

After Patrick Sandoval was scratched and placed on the 10-day disabled list, left-hander Jose Quintana was tabbed to open the game and struggled. He completed just 1 1/3 innings, giving up seven hits and five earned runs to push his ERA to 6.84 for the season. His successor, Aaron Slegers, didn’t fare much better, surrendering seven hits and four runs across 3 1/3 innings.

After an RBI double by Tigers first baseman Jonathan Schoop in the fifth inning off Slegers, the Angels found themselves down 10-2 in the top of the sixth.

LITTLE LEAGUE WORLD SERIES

Jack Harris on the Little League World Series: A little over a year ago, Krista Cornett held her son, Levi, in her arms.

Two weeks into a coronavirus pandemic that had kept him from his school, his friends and, most of all, his Torrance Little League baseball team, Levi couldn’t help but break down and cry.

“For these boys,” Krista said, “baseball is their normalcy.”

And for the better part of last summer, at a formative juncture of their childhoods, kids like him had to learn to live without it.

That nightmare, however, is now over. For the Torrance Little League squad, this summer has instead turned into a dream come true.

On Thursday, Torrance became the first Los Angeles County team since 1994 to participate in the Little League Baseball World Series, securing a 10-2 win against Hooksett, N.H., in its opening game to advance to the winners bracket of the 16-team double-elimination event.

“We were itching to get out and start playing,” Torrance coach Javier Chavez said. “The kids responded really well to everything that was thrown at them. This is a good start for us moving forward.”

SPARKS

Steve Galluzzo on the Sparks: This time around, the Sparks wanted to leave nothing to chance. Yet once again, they did.

Two nights after overcoming a 10-point deficit to eke out a win in overtime against a struggling Atlanta team, Los Angeles escaped with a 66-64 victory over the Dream for its third straight victory and extended its winning streak at Staples Center to 18 games.

The Sparks (9-13 overall, 7-7 at home) moved to within a half game of Dallas (10-13) for the eighth and final playoff spot.

The last month of the regular season will test their mettle. Eight of their remaining 10 games are on the road, including back-to-back contests at Eastern Conference-leading Connecticut, which has knocked the Sparks out of the playoffs two years in a row.

USC FOOTBALL

Ryan Kartje on the Trojans: In his nearly two years as USC’s athletic director, Mike Bohn has seen the Coliseum filled with fans just one time. It was late November 2019. He’d been on the job two weeks then, watching intently as USC beat UCLA. A few months later, the tenor of that job would change dramatically.

Bohn’s tenure has since been marked by empty stadiums and cardboard fans, pandemic protocols and PCR tests, county health administrators and constant, crippling uncertainty, all amid a backdrop of landscape-altering changes to the very model of college sports.

But amid the unanswerable inquiries and unsolvable quandaries associated with the pandemic and the approaching football season, the question of Clay Helton’s status as USC’s head coach has remained a constant since the last time fans flooded the concourse of the Coliseum.

Nearly everything around Helton has changed in the meantime. His coaching staff was rebuilt. The recruiting operation was retooled. The infrastructure of the football program was modernized, from the beefed-up support staff to the new in-house creative studio.

That progress is unimpeachable, and as Bohn and his chief of staff Brandon Sosna met with reporters Thursday ahead of the season, both were happy to point to it as proof their process is working. But as so much has changed around their embattled head football coach, the pertinent question now is what it will take, in their eyes, for Helton to hold up his end of the bargain?

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‘He’s an athletic freak’: USC freshman Michael Trigg drops jaws at fall practice

CLIPPERS

Andrew Greif on the Clippers: After spending nearly two weeks in Las Vegas, Jeremy Castleberry couldn’t wait to leave Monday night after the Clippers’ fifth and final game of NBA Summer League.

But before departing, the assistant coach on Tyronn Lue’s staff who served as the lead coach of the summer roster imparted a message to the young players hoping to use this summer as a launching pad for the regular season.

“As a rookie, your leash is a lot shorter than other people,” Castleberry said. “Just letting them know that, and understand that, and the leash was a lot longer with me. Up there, it’s going to be a lot shorter.

“One mistake gets you pulled out and one mistake might not just get you pulled out for a game, you might miss the whole week until someone trusts you again.”

With little more than five weeks before training camp opens, five takeaways from Las Vegas Summer League.

THIS DATE IN SPORTS

1921 — Molla Bjurstedt Mallory beats Mary Browne, 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 to win the U.S. women’s national tennis title at the Germantown Cricket Club in Philadelphia.

1931 — Helen Wills Moody beats Eileen Bennett Whitingstall 6-4, 6-1 to capture the women’s title in the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association championship.

1944 — Robert Hamilton upsets Byron Nelson in the final round 1 up to win the PGA Championship.

1960 — Holland’s Hairos II, driven by Willem Geersen, wins the second International Trot at Roosevelt Raceway before a record crowd of 54,861.

1995 — Monica Seles completes a remarkable first week back in tournament tennis, routing Amanda Coetzer 6-0, 6-1 to capture the Canadian Open. Her 74 games sets a tournament record for the fewest played by a champion.

2000 — Tiger Woods wins the PGA Championship in a playoff over Bob May, becoming the first player since Ben Hogan in 1953 to win three majors in one year. He’s the first player to repeat as PGA champion since Denny Shute in 1937.

2003 — The U.S. wins the women’s overall team gold medal at the gymnastics world championships. It is the first gold for the Americans — men or women — at the biggest international event outside the Olympics.

2004 — Michael Phelps matches Mark Spitz’s record of four individual gold medals in Olympic swimming by winning the 100-meter butterfly. He edges teammate Ian Crocker to win his fifth gold medal. Shortly after winning his seventh medal of these Olympics, Phelps gives up his spot in the medley relay to Crocker.

2006 — Tiger Woods wins the PGA Championship for a five-shot victory over Shaun Micheel and his 12th career major. He becomes the first player to win the PGA twice on the same course, having done so at Medinah in 1999.

2008 — Usain Bolt of Jamaica breaks the 200-meter world record, winning in 19.30 seconds at the Beijing Games. He is the first man since Carl Lewis in 1984 to sweep the 100 and 200 at an Olympics.

2012 — Augusta National invites former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and South Carolina financier Darla Moore to become the first female members since the club was founded in 1932.

2016 — Allyson Felix and LaShawn Merritt anchor the 4x400 relay teams, and the U.S. exits the final night of action at Olympic Stadium with 31 medals — its most in a non-boycotted Olympics since 1956. The U.S. women’s basketball team beats Spain 101-72 for a sixth straight title.

2018 — Alabama becomes the second team to be ranked No. 1 in the preseason Associated Press Top 25 poll for three straight seasons. The preseason AP poll started in 1950 and since then only Oklahoma from 1985-87 had started No. 1 in three straight years.

And finally

Highlights of Thursday’s Dodgers-Mets game. Watch them here.