Category: Sports News

Out since spring training due to tendinitis in both elbows, Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton made his season debut Monday night, going 2-for-4 with a double in the team's 1-0 loss to the Los Angeles Angels.

The five-time All-Star told reporters after the loss that he felt good at the plate and will need to continue working on his swing timing.

"Great to be back,” Stanton said. "Obviously wanted to win. But yeah, it’s good to be back out there. Thought I saw the ball pretty well besides one at-bat. So we just working on that, making sure my timing’s geared up. Get rolling."

Stanton came up to bat for the first time with two outs and two runners on base, but hit a hard groundout to third base (101.5 mph exit velocity). He singled in the bottom of the fourth, ripping a grounder 111.1 mph past the shortstop into left field. Stanton later struck out his third time at bat on three straight knuckle curves from Jose Soriano.

He bounced back leading off the bottom of the ninth, doubling to left field on a sharply hit grounder off veteran reliever Kenley Jansen. Jasson Domínguez

“Thought he was great,” manager Aaron Boone said of Stanton. “First at-bat too, first and second there, again off Soriano, who’s tough to get the ball in the air, especially for righties. He smokes that ball to third. You watch [Luis] Rengifo play it, that thing’s gaining on him in a hurry.

"Then two more, gets the base it and smokes the double to get us going there in the ninth. Yeah, I thought he looked really good.”

Overall, Boone was pleased with what he saw from the former MVP.

“I thought he moved well on his double," Boone said. "Where I’ve seen, it seems like as he’s been getting his live ABs and then the rehab stint, I feel like his timing with the fastball has been good. Now it’s just about continuing to do it over and over and seeing how he bounces back every day. I thought he looked sharp.”

Stanton agreed that the four games with Double-A Somerset, including three straight, were "important" for his comeback and checked off some boxes. As for how he'll prepare for more games, it'll be an emphasis on seeing the ball.

“Make sure I’m ready, make sure I’m ready for 100 mph," Stanton said. "With not as many at-bats under my belt, that’s gonna be the most important, see the ball early. Normal things you would say mid-season, but emphasize it a little more now.”

Now with Stanton back, Boone will have to figure out the playing time rotation with him, Ben Rice, and Paul Goldschmidt. Stanton will DH, with the other two DH-ing and splitting time at first base. Rice has 12 homers, 11 doubles, and 26 RBI over 63 games, while Goldschmidt is hitting .309 with 31 RBI over 71 games. Stanton was asked about his role and made it clear he's willing to help the team however he can, especially while the Yankees have scored just five runs in the last 49 innings and dropped four straight games.

“Whatever’s best for us to win, that’s the most important," Stanton said. "And the guys that aren’t going to be starting are gonna be coming in in huge pinch-hit spots. In that opportunity, it’s usually a spot a chance to win the game anyway. Yeah, we’ll work with it.”

All eyes are on Shohei Ohtani, as he made his long-awaited return to the pitching mound and delivered his first pitches as a member of the Dodgers on Monday night in a 6-3 win over the San Diego Padres at Dodger Stadium. Ohtani last pitched on Aug. 23, 2023, while with the Angels. He underwent his second Tommy John surgery the following month.

Ohtani is 38-19 with 3.01 earned-run average over 86 starts in his MLB career entering Monday's game and finished fourth in the AL Cy Young Award voting in 2022, when he went 15-9 with a 2.33 ERA. He is expected to help bolster a depleted Dodgers starting rotation that has been missing Blake Snell and Tyler Glasnow, among others, for extended stretches this season.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Roughly four hours before first pitch Monday night, Shohei Ohtani sat at his locker in the Dodger Stadium clubhouse and prepared for his biggest game of the season.

First, the reigning MVP unwrapped the black compression sleeve he wears when pitching, and pulled it over his prized right arm. Then, he grabbed his bat and a pair of hitting gloves and headed toward the cages.

On this day, each piece of equipment was needed.

For the first time in almost two years, the two-way star would be playing both ways again.

In the Dodgers’ 6-3 win against the San Diego Padres on Monday, Ohtani made his long-awaited return as a pitcher from a September 2023 Tommy John operation, taking the mound in a Dodgers uniform for the first time as the club’s starter while also continuing to serve as their leadoff hitter in the lineup.

Ohtani’s pitching outing was brief, lasting just one inning and 28 pitches. He yielded one run on two hits (a pair of flare singles from Fernando Tatis Jr. and Luis Arraez) and a sacrifice fly from Manny Machado. And while he touched 100 mph with his fastball, his form was far from flawless.

Ohtani’s command looked rusty, the right-hander missing the zone 12 times including one wild pitch. While he got three swing-and-misses, he failed to finish any of his five two-strike counts with a strikeout (though Machado nearly went around on a two-strike sweeper, needing a generous check-swing call from an umpire before lifting his sac fly).

When Ohtani finally retired the side, it felt more like a sigh of relief, with his climbing pitch count already leading to action in the bullpen.

Yet, the occasion was momentous nonetheless; marking the first time since August 2023 that Ohtani had pitched in a major-league game, and showing that even after a second career Tommy John surgery there’s still plenty of life left in his arm.

“To take this on — the physical [toll], talent-wise, the psychology of it — this is a big undertaking,” manager Dave Roberts said. “As people say, he’s a unicorn.”

Read more:Hernández: Cowardly Dodgers remain silent as ICE raids terrorize their fans

Initially, it appeared the Dodgers would have to wait at least another month before seeing Ohtani pitch in a game. Despite some optimism before spring training that Ohtani could resume pitching in April or May, the team had been slow-playing his pitching program ever since the start of the regular season, long ago targeting some time after the All-Star break to add him into their rotation.

“This is such a unique scenario,” general manager Brandon Gomes said. “[We were] making sure we're not doing anything to put the offensive side in jeopardy.”

In the last couple weeks, however, that calculus started to change.

First, Ohtani impressed coaches and executives in three different live batting practice sessions, working his way up to three innings and 44 pitches in his most recent one in San Diego last week.

Then, in meetings with team officials, Ohtani expressed some concern with continuing to build up in more simulated pregame sessions, relaying the toll it took on his body to pitch several innings in an afternoon before ramping up to DH later the same night.

“The getting hot, throwing a live at 1:30, 2:00, cooling down, coming back, getting ready to lead off the game — I can't even imagine how taxing that is,” said Gomes, a former big league reliever. “There is no playbook for this. So it had to be an ongoing conversation, and making sure that Shohei is the one driving this conversation."

In recent days, Ohtani began to direct such conversations in a different direction; especially after the Dodgers indicated that, thanks to his status as a two-way player who wouldn’t take up a pitching roster spot, they were open to bringing him back as a pitcher even if he would initially only throw one or two innings.

“It [was] more of like, ‘Well, I don’t think there’s anything else to do. I’m ready to go. What else do I need to do to get back on a major-league mound?’” Roberts recalled of Ohtani’s message to the team. “You try to treat him like a normal pitcher and a normal ramp-up or buildup. But if [he only needs to be built up for] an inning or two, it’s, ‘Well, I’ve already done that.’”

Thus came the pivotal question.

“‘Can I pitch now?’” Roberts recalled Ohtani asking.

The answer, the Dodgers decided over the last two days, was yes, slotting Ohtani in as an opener in front of bulkman Ben Casparius for Monday’s visit from the Padres.

“It got to the point where [it was], ‘Hey, feels like we should take that next step,’” Gomes said, “and almost look to finish the rehab at the major league level, because of the taxing nature of what he was doing.”

Ohtani’s return to pitching caused a stir around Chavez Ravine. Fans flocked down the left-field line when he emerged around 6:30 p.m. to begin warming up in the outfield. As he threw his pregame bullpen session, more spectators leaned over the railing to watch him. Behind the mound, teammates Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tony Gonsolin gazed on, as well.

In pregame introductions, Ohtani was announced twice: Both as the starting pitcher and designated hitter (MLB’s rules for two-way players, which were adopted a few years ago in the wake of Ohtani’s rise to stardom, allow for such a distinction in order to let Ohtani keep hitting once he leaves the mound).

And after Ohtani completed the top of the first, he never even stepped foot in the dugout, instead receiving his batting equipment from a ball boy at the top step before going to the plate to lead off the bottom half of the frame.

As a hitter, Ohtani struck out in his first at-bat, but then tied the score with an RBI double in the third before contributing to a five-run rally against Padres starter Dylan Cease in the fourth with an RBI single.

Moving forward, Ohtani will likely continue to serve as an opener roughly once per week; building up to two innings, then three, and so on until he’s able to handle a normal starter’s workload.

The exact plan will depend on how he responds to his return to two-way duties, with the Dodgers remaining wary of pushing him too hard on the mound before the stretch run of the season.

“As we said before, this is a unique situation, and making sure that he's in a good place and we're just taking it small bites along the way as far as what comes next is incredibly important,” Gomes said. “At each step, we'll have those discussions and make sure that that is the guiding light, to make sure that he's feeling as good as possible come October."

Still, for one night, one inning of watching Ohtani pitch was more than enough.

“We saw it from the other side, from afar, when he was with the Angels,” Roberts said. “So now, I think I got the best seat in the house to watch this guy start and then take an at-bat. This is bananas. So I’m thrilled.”

Read more:Hernández: How Japan media track down Ohtani's home-run balls

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

The Yankees’ offensive funk continues as they are shut out for the second-straight game, wasting a brilliant start from Clarke Schmidt, falling to the Los Angeles Angels 1-0 in 11 innings on Monday night in The Bronx.

The numbers are brutal for Yankee batters: 1-for-18 with runners in scoring position (the lone knock an infield hit), left 12 men on base, and have now been kept scoreless for the last 20 innings. Over a five-game stretch, New York has scored just five runs over their last 49 innings.

With a fourth straight defeat amid a brutal stretch at the plate, the Yanks are now 42-29 and 21-13 at home. The Angels improved to 34-37 on the year.

Here are the takeaways...

- Schmidt allowed a pair of singles right up the middle, the second by Mike Trout, to give the visitors a scoring chance with one out in the first. After a 3-2 pop-out to first, Zach Neto caught the Yanks napping and swiped third with Schmidt standing on the rubber. But the righty blew a 96 mph fastball on the outside corner past Jorge Soler to end the threat.

Schmidt took advantage of the weak Angels batters and had a streak of 16-straight retired (starting with those two down in the first) before Nolan Schanuel blooped a two-out single to left in the sixth. Trout put a charge into one, but Trent Grisham ranged to the right-center gap to make the grab just before the warning track.

The righty got his fifth 1-2-3 inning to close the seventh on just 87 pitches, and he got the ball in the eighth. He needed nine offerings for the first two outs, but Aaron Judge came up empty with a dive on a sinking line drive for a two-out triple by the Angels’ Christian Moore, a Brooklyn native in his fourth big league game.

Moore’s first career hit ended Schmidt’s night after 7.2 innings, the first time he went more than six innings since he had eight scoreless frames in April 2024. Fernando Cruz hung a splitter, but Neto swung through it to end the inning.

- After Cruz out of the bullpen, Devin Williams got the top half of the ninth in a scoreless game, allowed a one-out infield single to Trout and a two-out single to Soler to make the Yankee Stadium faithful sweat before retiring Logan O'Hoppe with a nice play by Volpe up the middle.

In the 10th, Jonathan Loaisiga needed just 12 pitches for a 1-2-3 inning with two strikeouts, leaving the ghost runners stranded. Loaisiga needed one pitch to get Neto out on a bad bunt, but Schanuel hooked a soft liner down the third base line for an RBI double. Aaron Boone walked Trout intentionally, and Taylor Ward worked a walk on a full count. But Loaisiga knuckled down to get two soft liners to leave 'em loaded.

- Down 1-0 in the bottom of the 11th with the ghost runner at second, LA manager Ron Washington walked Judge intentionally for the second time of the game to put the winning run on first. Cody Bellinger’s flyout to the warning track in right got the tying run to third, but against the drawn-in infield, Jasson Dominguez's broken bat looper to second saw Paul Goldschmidt cut down at the plate. Down to their final out, Jazz Chisholm Jr. reached on an infield single to second to load the bases.

The Angels brought in Hunter Strickland to face Anthony Volpe, but on the first pitch, he bounced out to third, rolling over on a slider away, to end the game.

- The Yanks had a chance in the first when Ben Rice lofted a single off the end of the bat into center with one down and Judge, coming off a horrendous series in Boston, followed with a rocketed single (109.7 mph) to left. But Bellinger tapped out to second and Giancarlo Stanton, in his first at-bat of the season, hit it hard (101.5 mph), but for an easy 5-3 putout. The three first-inning groundouts were expected, as Angels starter Jose Soriano entered the night with a 67.4 ground ball rate (99th percentile in MLB). 

In seven innings against Soriano, the Yanks hit nine balls with exit velocities of 100 mph or higher, but couldn’t break through as they went 0-for-8 with runners in scoring position and left six on base. He finished with six hits and a walk allowed and six strikeouts.

- The big coring chances after the first: Chisholm roped a line drive (110.4 mph) on the ground that got into the right-center gap for a leadoff double in the second, but advanced no further. He also bounced into a 4-6-3 double play to end the fourth after Stanton notched his first hit of the year, smoking a 3-2 pitch 111.1 mph through the left side of the infield.

Chisholm cracked a single to start the seventh, going with a Soriano pitch on the outside corner. He moved to second on a Volpe sacrifice bunt, but Austin Wells went down swinging on a high 99 mph fastball and DJ LeMahieu grounded out to second.

With two down in the fifth, LeMahieu worked a walk and Grisham singled up the middle, but Rice waved at a knuckle-curve to end the inning. Making the start at first base, Rice was 1-for-3 with two strikeouts.

- Stanton led off the home half of the ninth and rocketed a double (102.9 mph) off Kenley Jansen into the left field corner on a ball that was smashed past the third baseman. With one out and pinch-runner Jasson Dominguez running on the pitch, Volpe's grounder to third saw Luis Rengifo get the ball and tag out Dominguez in one motion. Volpe would steal second on the first pitch to Wells, but he went down swinging on an eye-level 96 mph sinker to send the game to extra innings.

- The Yanks had tough luck in the 10th, after LeMahieu struck out, Grisham drove one to center (101.7 mph) for an out and Goldschmidt (in his second at-bat after pinch-hitting for Rice) just missed ending the game with a 396-foot drive (104.3 mph). It would have been gone in four parks.

-  Judge walloped the first pitch he saw his second time up (110.7 mph, 401 feet), but LA center fielder Jo Adell ranged back and caught the ball on the warning track. The 24-degree launch angle meant the slugger had just a loud, laser beam out despite the .990 xBA. He finished the day 1-for-3 with two intentional walks.

The reigning MVP is now 3-for-20 in his last six games with two solo home runs. His average has gone from .396 to .377. His base hit did give him 100 on the season, the first player to the century mark.

- Bellinger went hitless in five at-bats, and he is now mired in a 4-for-29 funk over his last seven games.

Game MVP: Clarke Schmidt

Schmidt did enough to be a winner, delivering 7.2 scoreless innings, allowing just four hits and no walks with three strikeouts on 97 pitches (64 strikes). He has now pitched 18.1 straight innings of scoreless baseball, lowering his ERA to 3.16.

Highlights

Aaron Judge is the first player in MLB to reach 100 hits this season pic.twitter.com/XoJlDgROak

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) June 16, 2025

Giancarlo Stanton with his first hit of the season pic.twitter.com/juABbdQuZD

— Yankees Videos (@snyyankees) June 17, 2025

What's next

The Yanks and Angels are right back in action on Tuesday night with a 7:05 p.m. first pitch.

Right-hander Will Warren (4.84 ERA, 1.365 WHIP in 63 innings) will make his 15th start of the season. He will look to carry over from his last outing against Kansas City, no runs on four hits over 5.2 innings.

The visitors hand the ball to veteran right-hander Kyle Hendricks (5.20 ERA, 1.324 WHIP in 71 innings) for his 14th start of the season.