The Sports Report: Tyler Glasnow looks to stay healthy this season

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

From Jack Harris: In his first year with the team last season, the Dodgers got the full Tyler Glasnow experience.

In the first half of the campaign, the $136.5 million offseason addition was one of the best pitchers in baseball.

He had a sub-3.00 ERA into late June, recording 135 strikeouts over his first 100 innings. He earned his first-ever All-Star selection, and was fulfilling his potential as the ace of the Dodgers’ starting rotation.

Alas, in a season that began with so much promise, old (and frustrating) problems resurfaced again.

When he returned to action, the 6-foot-8 right-hander didn’t look as dominant, either. He struggled to rediscover a comfort level in his long-limbed delivery. From June 29 (shortly before he got hurt) to Aug. 11, he stumbled to a 5.29 ERA over six starts.

That’s when, right as the Dodgers’ shorthanded rotation needed him most, Glasnow went on the shelf for good.

Thus, after being relegated to spectator during the team’s World Series run last October, Glasnow arrived in camp this spring with a familiar objective.

“The No. 1 goal this year is just to stay healthy,” Glasnow said at the team’s DodgerFest fan event earlier this month. “That’s by far the No. 1 goal.”

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LAKERS

From Dan Woike: Lakers players looked around the meeting room Saturday morning, double-checking with one another to make sure that what they thought they just heard was what JJ Redick actually said.

Did he, the Lakers coach, clearly amped up for their game with Denver later that night, tell his players to go to war and to be “willing to die on the court?”

He sure did.

“We said, ‘We’re going to war’ that night,” forward Rui Hachimura said.

After the Lakers beat Denver 123-100 in one of their best wins of the season, the admittedly “amped” Redick was still preaching intensity.

“If we play that hard for the rest of the regular season, we’re going to be just fine,” Redick told his team postgame. “That should build your belief. It built my belief in what we can accomplish.”

The challenge, of course, is that the NBA schedule doesn’t always provide big games like this one, the Lakers facing a team that knocked them out of the playoffs the last two seasons.

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CLIPPERS

Cade Cunningham had 32 points and nine rebounds, Jalen Duren added 12 points and 19 rebounds, and the Detroit Pistons won their seventh straight game with a 106-97 victory over the Clippers on Monday night.

Tobias Harris added 20 points for the Pistons, who broke a 10-game losing streak to the Clippers.

Detroit (32-26) hadn’t won seven straight since Dec. 26, 2014, to Jan. 7, 2015. The Pistons have their best 58-game record since they were 42-16 in 2007-08 — the last year they won a playoff game.

James Harden had 18 points and 12 rebounds for the Clippers, who were again without Kawhi Leonard and Norman Powell. Ivica Zubac had 13 points and 16 boards.

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Clippers box score

NBA scores

NBA standings

RAMS

From Gary Klein: After a season-ending loss in the snow, it did not take long for the Rams’ offseason to heat up.

Questions about quarterback Matthew Stafford’s future arose immediately. A few weeks later, receiver Cooper Kupp’s fate was apparently sealed.

Will both stars be gone? Will one or both be back?

General manager Les Snead and coach Sean McVay must address other issues. But until Stafford’s and Kupp’s situations are resolved, real plans for free agency and the draft cannot move forward.

The NFL scouting combine begins Thursday in Indianapolis, free agency opens March 12 (preceded by the two-day negotiating period) and the draft will be held April 24-26 in Green Bay, Wis.

Last week, the NFL announced that the salary cap would be between $277.5 million to $281 million per team, an increase of more than $22 million. The Rams currently have about $44.3 million in cap space, according to Overthecap.com.

Here are five questions facing the Rams as they prepare for free agency and the draft.

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CHARGERS

From Thuc Nhi Nguyen: From drafting fifth overall to set up a quick one-year turnaround, the Chargers hold the 22nd overall pick in April’s draft after an unexpected 11-6 record and wild-card round appearance. Between next month’s draft and one of the most flexible salary-cap scenarios in the league, the Chargers can address their most pressing concerns at offensive line, receiver and on the defensive front to gear up for what coach Jim Harbaugh called “Version 2.0.”

While the Chargers are seemingly ahead of schedule in their rebuild, each hole is still glaring for a franchise searching for its first playoff win since 2018.

“It’s a thousand little things that add up to make all the difference,” Harbaugh said last month. “We were close. Now we want to put it over the top.”

Here are five questions facing the Chargers as they shuffle their roster this spring.

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Sam Farmer’s NFL mock draft 1.0: Titans won’t pass on QB with their top pick

KINGS

Trevor Moore had two goals, Quinton Byfield had a career-high four assists and Warren Foegele scored the go-ahead goal as the Kings rallied to a 5-2 win over the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday night.

The Kings trailed 2-1 after two periods, but Moore tied it 42 seconds into the third with a wrist shot from the left faceoff circle that went off the crossbar for the first of four straight L.A. goals in the final 20 minutes.

It was Moore’s second game this season with two goals. Four of the forward’s 10 goals have come in the last four games.

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Kings summary

NHL scores

NHL standings

DUCKS

Ducks forward Trevor Zegras has been suspended three games without pay for a hit to the head of Detroit’s Michael Rasmussen.

The NHL’s Department of Player Safety announced the suspension for interference Monday after holding a disciplinary hearing with Zegras, saying it was a “late, high hit.” No penalty was called on the play late in the second period of the teams’ game Sunday.

“Players who are not in possession of the puck are never eligible to be checked,” the league said in a video explaining the suspension. “Contact is made outside the window where a check may be legally finished. In addition to the lateness, what causes this hit to rise to the level of supplemental discipline is the significant head contact on this play, combined with the force.”

Also Monday, the Red Wings freed up $3.6 million in salary-cap space by trading goalie Ville Husso to the Ducks.

The Red Wings received future considerations in dealing the 30-year-old player who has spent a majority of this season in the minors. Husso had a 1-5-2 record with Detroit and went 8-4 with two shutouts with AHL Grand Rapids this season.

Husso is completing the final year of a three-year contract, and was assigned by Anaheim to the Ducks’ AHL affiliate in San Diego.

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THIS DATE IN SPORTS

1940 — The first telecast of an American hockey game is transmitted over station W2XBS in New York. The viewing audience watches the New York Rangers battle the Montreal Canadiens at Madison Square Garden.

1957 — The United States Supreme Court rules that pro football, unlike professional baseball, is subject to the anti-trust laws of the United States. The court decides 6-3 that baseball is only anti-trust exempt pro sport.

1961 — Niagara ends St. Bonaventure’s 99-game winning streak at home with an 87-77 victory over the Bonnies.

1962 — Wilt Chamberlain of the Philadelphia Warriors scores 67 points, but New York’s Richie Guerin scores 50 to lead the Knicks to a 149-135 victory.

1964 — Cassius Clay wins the world heavyweight title when Sonny Liston is unable to answer the bell for the seventh round at Convention Hall in Miami Beach, Fla.

1977 — Pete Maravich of the New Orleans Jazz scores 68 points, the most by an NBA guard, in a 124-107 victory over the New York Knicks. Only Wilt Chamberlain and Elgin Baylor had scored more points in an NBA game.

1987 — The Southern Methodist football team is suspended for the 1987 season after investigations reveal that players received $61,000 from a booster slush fund.

1994 — Oksana Baiul of Ukraine wins the figure skating gold medal at the Winter Olympics in Lillehammer, Norway, and Nancy Kerrigan, who was whacked on the knee 2½ months earlier, wins the silver. Tonya Harding, later convicted of hindering prosecution in the Kerrigan attack, finishes eighth.

2001 — In the largest playoff in PGA Tour history, Robert Allenby wins the Nissan Open on the first extra hole against five other players. It’s Allenby’s third PGA Tour victory, all of them won in playoffs.

2010 — In Vancouver, the Canadian women defeat the United States 2-0 for their third straight Olympic hockey title. Americans Billy Demong and Johnny Spillane finish 1-2 in a Nordic combined race. They are the first American medalists in a sport that’s been part of the Winter Olympics since 1924.

2017 — Marit Bjoergen wins a record 15th world championship gold medal in cross-country skiing with victory in a 15-kilometer skiathlon. The 36-year-old Bjoergen has more gold medals than any other cross-country skier — male or female — in world championship history, having previously shared the record of 14 gold medals with retired Russian Yelena Valbe.

2017 — Kelsey Plum surpasses Jackie Stiles to become the NCAA’s all-time scoring leader with a career-best 57 points in the final regular season game of her career, leading No. 11 Washington past Utah 84-77. Plum passes Stiles’ mark of 3,393 points midway through the fourth quarter.

2018 — Kirill Kaprizov scores a power-play goal in overtime to lift the Russians to the gold medal in men’s hockey with a 4-3 win over Germany at the Pyeongchang Olympics.

2018 — Norway’s Marit Bjoergen closes out a remarkable Olympic career, winning the gold medal in the women’s 30-kilometer mass start at the Pyeongchang Games. The 37-year-old Bjoergen is the only Olympian to win five medals at these Games and finishes her career with 15 medals. She leaves as the most decorated athlete in Winter Olympic history.

Compiled by the Associated Press