The Sports Report: Dodgers go with Yoshinobu Yamamoto for Game 5

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

From Jack Harris: Exactly 25 hours before the biggest game of his team’s season, Dodgers manager Dave Roberts was only sure of one thing about his pitching plans for Game 5 in the National League Division Series on Friday night.

“Obviously, I’m sure Yoshinobu will be a part of it,” Roberts said Thursday, referring to $325-million offseason signing, and Game 1 starter, Yoshinobu Yamamoto.

A while later on Thursday night, the team revealed exactly what that meant.

Yamamoto will start Friday’s winner-take-all showdown at Dodger Stadium, the team announced on social media, clearing up one part of a pitching plan that could determine the fate of the Dodgers’ 98-win season.

“Overall, kind of where Yoshinobu is at, I feel really comfortable,” Roberts said in his Thursday news conference, before the official announcement came down.

“I’m personally really looking forward to it, how he will pitch,” teammate Shohei Ohtani added in Japanese, dropping a hint that Yamamoto would square off against fellow Japanese right-hander Yu Darvish of the San Diego Padres.

“There will be pressure,” Ohtani added. “But personally, I’m looking forward to it.”

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MLB POSTSEASON SCHEDULE

Division Series
All times Pacific

National League
No. 1 Dodgers vs. No. 4 San Diego
at Dodgers 7, San Diego 5 (box score)
San Diego 10, at Dodgers 2 (box score)
at San Diego 6, Dodgers 5 (box score)
Dodgers 8, at San Diego 0 (box score)
Friday at Dodgers, 5 p.m., Fox

No. 2 Philadelphia vs. No. 6 NY Mets
New York 6, at Philadelphia 2
at Philadelphia 7, New York 6
at New York 7, Philadelphia 2
at New York 4, Philadelphia 1

American League

No. 2 Cleveland vs. No. 6 Detroit
at Cleveland 7, Detroit 0
Detroit 3, at Cleveland 0
at Detroit 3, Cleveland 0
Cleveland 5, at Detroit 4
Saturday at Cleveland, 1:30 p.m., TBS

No. 1 NY Yankees vs. No. 5 Kansas City
at New York 6, Kansas City 5
Kansas City 4, at New York 2
New York 3, at Kansas City 2
New York 3, at Kansas City 1

LAKERS

From Chuck Schilken: LeBron James wasn’t on the court for one of the most significant games for him last season.

It wasn’t a Lakers game or even an NBA game.

It was the Dec. 10 matchup between USC and Long Beach State, during which his oldest son, Bronny James, made his collegiate debut with the Trojans less than five months after suffering sudden cardiac arrest.

“Every minute he ran, every minute he jumped, took a bump to his chest — it’s just a lot of nerves for sure,” LeBron James said during an interview on the Netflix docuseries, “Starting 5.” “For me, the best play of the whole game is when the game ended and he walked off on his own, in his own power.”

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Lakers’ JJ Redick says he and Doc Rivers have no bad feelings for one another

CLIPPERS

From Broderick Turner: The Clippers finished practice Thursday at Intuit Dome and were preparing to leave for their preseason game against Portland in Seattle on Friday when Kawhi Leonard sauntered toward the media wearing his practice gear. He kept his head down, made a left turn and disappeared behind a wall with someone from the Clippers’ staff.

Leonard’s training camp with the Clippers has consisted of the All-Star forward strengthening his right knee.

Still, Clippers coach Tyronn Lue was asked for the latest update on Leonard’s knee inflammation.

“He’s getting treatment,” Lue said. “He’s going through the process, rehabbing his right knee.”

Will Leonard be ready for the opener, Lue was asked.

“I’m not sure,” Lue said.

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CHARGERS

From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: Chargers players dressed and equipment managers tidied up the locker room after the team’s loss to the Kansas City Chiefs at SoFi Stadium. J.K. Dobbins sat motionless in his locker. The running back covered his head with a towel.

“I haven’t been in a place where I lost a lot, so I’m not used to it, yet,” Dobbins said later. “And I won’t get used to it.”

The Chargers offense that emerged early as one of the most punishing running attacks in the NFL has faded into a two-game losing streak. Hampered by injuries and haunted by mistakes, the Chargers have scored just two touchdowns in their last 25 offensive drives entering Sunday’s game against the Denver Broncos.

“We gotta play cleaner football, that’s all, and we will,” offensive coordinator Greg Roman said. “You go through these little stretches sometime, and you just want to make them a little stretch, you don’t want to let that extend.”

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UCLA FOOTBALL

From Ben Bolch: In high school, Niki Prongos would hear the play call and wonder what it meant.

When he got to UCLA, the offensive lineman went over the playbook and heard teammates talking about inside zone, a popular run play used at every level of football.

“I was like, what the heck is inside zone?” Prongos recalled with a laugh.

More than two years after he entered college not knowing much about football, Prongos has mastered more than concepts. The redshirt sophomore who has participated in only nine games since he started playing the sport has become a maestro of might.

Having packed 60 pounds onto what is now a 6-foot-7, 305-pound frame, he’s smashed edge rushers, conquered doubters, obliterated expectations. Moving around early this season because of injuries to veteran teammates — not to mention their struggles to execute a new offense — he started one game at right tackle, two games at right guard and one game at left tackle. You never know where he might end up next.

“If they need me to play quarterback,” he cracked, “I’m there.”

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UCLA BASEBALL

From Eric Sondheimer: With Jackie Robinson Stadium, its home baseball field, locked up under order of a federal judge because of a legal dispute over land for veterans housing, UCLA coach John Savage has his team on a traveling caravan.

On Thursday and Friday, they will be practicing at Birmingham High School. On Sunday, it will be Harvard-Westlake’s O’Malley Field.

Next week, it could be L.A. Valley College or Sherman Oaks Notre Dame High School.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter, a UCLA grad, isn’t allowing access to the baseball stadium until the school produces a plan that meets his satisfaction to ensure that service to veterans is the predominant focus of the 10-acre facility leased from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

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KINGS

Anze Kopitar scored a natural hat trick in the third period to rally the Kings to a season-opening 3-1 win over the Buffalo Sabres on Thursday night.

Darcy Kuemper stopped 33 shots in an outing where the Kings overcame a 1-0 deficit. Kopitar tied the game at 1-1 by scoring 13 seconds into the third period. He scored the go-ahead goal on a power play with 1:38 left and then capped the scoring with an empty-netter.

Alex Tuch converted his own rebound on a shorthanded breakaway with 3:05 left in the second period, and Buffalo dropped to 0-3 after opening the season with two losses to New Jersey in Prague last weekend.

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Kings summary

NHL scores

NHL standings

TENNIS

Rafael Nadal is retiring from pro tennis at age 38, he announced in a video message Thursday, after winning 22 Grand Slam titles — 14 at the French Open — during an unprecedented era he shared with rivals Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic.

Nadal has competed infrequently the last two seasons because of injuries and said next month’s Davis Cup finals will mark his farewell to the sport. He had hip surgery in 2023 and entered just two of the last eight major tournaments.

“The reality is that it has been some difficult years, these last two, especially. I don’t think I have been able to play without limitations,” Nadal said. “It is obviously a difficult decision, one that has taken me some time to make. But in this life, everything has a beginning and an end.”

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WNBA FINALS

All times Pacific

No. 1 New York vs. No. 2 Minnesota
Minnesota 95, at New York 93 (OT)
Sunday at New York, noon, ABC
Wed. at Minnesota, 5 p.m., ESPN
*Friday, Oct. 18 at Minnesota, 5 p.m., ESPN
*Monday, Oct. 21 at New York, TBD

*-if necessary

THIS DATE IN SPORTS

1890 — The first 100-yard dash under 10 seconds is run by John Owens at 9.8 in an AAU track and field meet in Washington.

1902 — Laurie Auchterlonie beats Stewart Gardner with a 307-total to win the U.S. Open golf title.

1925 — The New York Giants lose their first NFL game, 14-0 to Providence at the Cycledrome. The Steam Roller score twice in the second quarter, a blocked punt recovery in the end zone and 92-yard kickoff return by Cy Wentworth.

1991 — Chip Beck shoots the second sub-60 round in PGA Tour history with a 59 in the Las Vegas Invitational. Beck cards a 29-30, 13 under, to match Al Geiberger’s second round of the 1977 Memphis Classic.

1992 — Deion Sanders, plays for Atlanta Falcons (NFL) and Braves (Baseball) on the same day.

2009 — Kurt Warner passes for 301 yards in Arizona’s 28-21 win over Houston. It’s the 50th 300-yard game for Warner in 113 games, making him the fastest to reach 50 in NFL history. Dan Marino, who took 176 games to reach the mark, was the fastest.

2010 — Minnesota’s Brett Favre becomes the first NFL player to throw 500 touchdown passes and for 70,000 yards. However, with Favre trying to rally his team, Dwight Lowery returns an interception 26 yards for a touchdown with 1:30 left as the New York Jets beat the Vikings 29-20.

2011 — The U.S. women roll to their third title at the world gymnastics championships held in Tokyo. The Americans finish with 179.411 points, a whopping four points ahead of Russia, last year’s champion.

2012 — Meghan Stasi wins her fourth U.S. Women’s Mid-Amateur title to match the tournament record, routing Liz Waynick 6 and 5. The 34-year-old Stasi, who also won in 2006, 2007 and 2010, ties the victory record set by Ellen Port in the event limited to players 25 and older.

2014 — Baylor’s Bryce Petty throws for 510 yards and six TDs, including a tying 25-yarder to Corey Coleman with 4:42 left in the No. 9 Bears’ 61-58 win over No. 9 TCU. Chris Callahan kicks a 28-yard field goal as time expires and Baylor scores 24 points in the final 11 minutes to beat the Horned Frogs in the highest-scoring game ever between two teams in the AP Top 10.

2015 — In Incheon, South Korea, the United States rallies to win the Presidents Cup for the sixth straight time, this one decided by the final match. The Americans get the winning point from Bill Haas, the son of U.S. captain Jay Haas, who wins 2-up over an emotionally distraught Bae Sang-moon. Bae needing to win the final hole for the International team to share the cup, stubs a chip. The Americans win 15 1/2-14 1/2, the closest competition in 10 years.

2020 — British Mercedes driver Lewis Hamilton wins the Eifel Grand Prix at Germany’s Nurburgring to equal Michael Schumacher’s record of 91 Formula 1 victories.

2020 — French Open Men’s Tennis: Rafael Nadal beats Novak Đoković 6-0, 6-2, 7-5; 20th Grand Slam singles title; record 13th French singles title.

2020 — NBA Finals: Lakers beat Miami Heat 106-93 in Game 6 to win record equalling 17th title; MVP: LeBron James; first to win the award with three different teams.

Compiled by the Associated Press