The Sports Report: Dodgers sweep the Pirates

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

From Jack Harris: The Dodgers bypassed the easy route to victory on Sunday afternoon.

Instead, they took a more dramatic path to a 6-5 extra-innings win against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

After leading by four runs early, then squandering the lead behind poor situational hitting and an eighth-inning blunder from the bullpen, the Dodgers regrouped, erased a one-run deficit in the 10th inning on Kiké Hernández leadoff double, then finally prevailed on Teoscar Hernández’s walk-off single — securing a weekend series sweep over the Pirates to grow their narrow National League West lead back to 3 ½ games.

“The rest of the division is playing great baseball,” Kiké said, well aware of recent hot streaks from the San Diego Padres (wins in 16 of 19 games) and Arizona Diamondbacks (wins in 15 of 18), who are tied for second in the division.

“If we keep losing games, they’re going to keep creeping up on us.”

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Dodgers promising rookie pitcher River Ryan will miss the rest of the season

New eyeglasses give Kiké Hernández a new outlook on hitting

Dodgers box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

ANGELS

Jack Kochanowicz pitched 7⅔ innings to earn his first major league win, Kevin Pillar hit a three-run double and the Angels beat the Washington Nationals 6-4 on Sunday.

The Angels avoided a three-game sweep in their first visit to Washington since 2017 and went 3-3 on a trip that began in New York against the Yankees.

The Nationals issued 13 walks, matching their most since the franchise moved to Washington in 2005. The Angels turned four of those into runs to help deny the Nationals their fourth series sweep of the season.

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Angels box score

MLB scores

MLB standings

UCLA FOOTBALL

From Ben Bolch: It didn’t matter that this was just a practice in the early stages of preseason training camp, or that it was UCLA’s third-string offense going against the third-string defense.

Before the final snap Saturday morning, with the score tied in a competition between the opposing sides, the defensive players watching from the sideline hopped and hooted in anticipation.

Buoyed by his teammates, freshman linebacker Ty Lee surged into the backfield and blew up the play, causing the rest of the defense to converge around him in celebration.

Final score: Defense 52, Offense 51.

A few minutes later, tight end Moliki Matavao revealed the team’s ultimate motivation.

“Our thing is, we’re going to the Big Ten championship,” Matavao said. “That’s our goal.”

That would be quite the story for a program that has not won a conference championship since coach DeShaun Foster’s freshman season in 1998. Can the Bruins get there? Here are five takeaways from Saturday’s practice that was open to fans and the media:

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RAMS

From Gary Klein: The Rams played the Dallas Cowboys in a preseason opener on Sunday at SoFi Stadium.

Observations from a game the Rams won, 13-12, in dramatic fashion:

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THIS DATE IN SPORTS

1990 — Wayne Grady of Australia sheds his runner-up image with a 3-stroke victory over Fred Couples in the PGA Championship.

1994 — Major league baseball players strike in the sport’s eighth work stoppage since 1972.

1995 — Ernie Els sets a PGA record with the lowest three-day score in a major. Els, with a 197, holds a three-stroke lead in the PGA Championship.

2000 — Evander Holyfield scores a 12-round unanimous decision over John Ruiz in Las Vegas to win the vacant WBA heavyweight title.

2007 — Tiger Woods captures the PGA Championship to win at least one major for the third straight season and run his career total to 13. Woods closes with a 1-under 69 for a two-shot victory over Woody Austin.

2008 — American super-swimmer Michael Phelps wins his 3rd of 8 gold medals at the Beijing Olympics when he takes the 200m freestyle in world record 1:42.96.

2011 — Tiger Woods misses the cut at the PGA Championship at Atlanta Athletic Club. With one final bogey for a 3-over 73, Woods finishes out of the top 100 for the first time ever in a major. He is 15 shots behind Jason Dufner and Keegan Bradley.

2012 — The U.S. men’s basketball team defend its title by fighting off another huge challenge from Spain, pulling away in the final minutes for a 107-100 victory and its second straight Olympic championship. The victory by the men’s basketball team gives the United States its 46th gold medal in London, the most ever by Americans in a “road” Olympics.

2012 — Rory McIlroy breaks the PGA Championship record for margin of victory that Jack Nicklaus set in 1980. McIlroy sinks one last birdie from 25 feet on the 18th hole to give him a 6-under 66 for an eight-shot victory. McIlroy closes out a remarkable week by playing bogey-free over the final 23 holes of a demanding Ocean Course at Kiawah Island, S.C.

2016 — Katie Ledecky caps off one of the greatest performances in Olympic history with her fourth gold medal and second world record, shattering her own mark in the 800-meter freestyle. Ledecky is the first woman since Debbie Meyer swept the three longer freestyle events at the same Olympics. Meyer took the 200, 400 and 800 at the 1968 Mexico Games.

2017 — Usain Bolt ends his stellar career in excruciating pain. The Jamaican great crumples to the track with a left-leg injury while chasing a final gold medal for the Jamaican 4x100-meter relay team at the world championships in London. Having to make up lots of ground on the anchor leg, Bolt suddenly screams and stumbles as he comes down with the first injury he has experienced at a major competition.

2018 — Brooks Koepka wins his first PGA Championship, playing poised and mistake-free golf down the stretch amid ear-splitting roars for Tiger Woods and a late charge from revitalized Adam Scott. Koepka becomes the fifth player to win the U.S. Open and the PGA in the same year.

Compiled by the Associated Press