Sports
Dodgers look to add to early success in matchup vs. Tigers
Mar 18, 2025; Bunkyo, Tokyo, JPN; Los Angeles Dodgers starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto (18) throws a pitch against the Chicago Cubs during the first inning during the Tokyo Series at Tokyo Dome. Mandatory Credit: Darren Yamashita-Imagn Images Already with three victories this season, the Los Angeles Dodgers will be out for more success Friday night against the visiting Detroit Tigers as they start their way toward National League history.
The Dodgers are aiming for their 15th consecutive winning season in 2025 in an accomplishment that would tie the National League record set by the Pittsburgh Pirates (1913), St. Louis Cardinals (1953, 2022) and Atlanta Braves (2005).
Los Angeles right-hander Yoshinobu Yamamoto (1-0, 1.80 ERA) will make his second start of the season after he was solid in his season debut last week at Japan against the Chicago Cubs.
In the 2025 MLB opener during the Tokyo Series, Yamamoto gave up one run on three hits over five innings with four strikeouts and a walk. Back in L.A., he is trying to improve on his debut MLB season in 2024, when he went 7-2 with a 3.00 ERA in 18 starts.
Yamamoto will face the Tigers for the first time.
Yamamoto struggled in his Dodgers debut last year but still had a strong season, even while working through a shoulder injury. His solid start in Japan shows he is ahead of the curve in 2025.
“What I learned about Yoshinobu was he’s very resilient,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said. “I think coming back after that (opening) start (last season) and pitching the way he did, pitching through the postseason the way he did, I just think these Japanese superstars, they’re built differently.”
The NL leaders in home runs last season, Los Angeles had three on Thursday — from Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman. All three players joined the club last season.
The Dodgers will face a familiar pitcher on Friday when right-hander Jack Flaherty (13-7, 3.17 ERA last season) takes the mound for the Tigers. Detroit sent Flaherty to Los Angeles at the trade deadline last year, and he was a key contributor on the way to the Dodgers’ World Series title.
Flaherty went 6-2 with a 3.58 ERA down the stretch for Los Angeles, then started in three of the team’s five playoff victories. He was not offered a contract to return to the Dodgers before the Tigers brought him back.
“It will be a different situation from the last time I was there,” Flaherty said in anticipation of his first start of the season. “It will be fun to compete against these guys. It’s the biggest thing when you compete against guys who are really good.
“It’s weird to end it there and start (2025) there. Everything is going to go on opening weekend.”
Flaherty, a Los Angeles-area native, has seven career starts against the Dodgers, going 1-2 with a 2.75 ERA, including 57 strikeouts in 39 1/3 innings.
The Tigers’ Spencer Torkelson had a strong season opener Thursday with a home run, four walks and two runs. Detroit had two runners aboard with one out in the ninth inning but couldn’t score the tying or go-ahead run.
After he signed with Detroit on Monday, Manuel Margot batted fifth in the season opener and had two hits while driving in a run with a sacrifice fly. Outfield options Parker Meadows, Matt Vierling, Wenceel Perez are out with injuries.
Dodgers utility man Enrique Hernandez missed Thursday’s game — and a likely start against a left-hander — because of an illness.
–Field Level Media
Sports
Record 216 WNBA games to be broadcast nationally this season
Aug 31, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; A Wilson EVO Nxt WNBA basketball on the court at the Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images A record 216 WNBA games and tentpole events for the upcoming 2026 season will be broadcast on national television.
The league announced its full slate of nationally televised games for the first year of its new media rights deal on Wednesday. It includes games being broadcast by returning partners in the Walt Disney Company (ABC/ESPN), Amazon Prime Video, CBS/Paramount+ and Scripps (ION).
New television/streaming partners for the 2026 season are NBCUniversal (NBC/Peacock/NBCSN) and USA Network.
With two new expansion teams starting play in the upcoming season, the league will put on a record 330 regular-season games, with all 15 teams playing 44 games.
Disney will distribute 30 games this year for the league’s milestone 30th season. ABC will broadcast 13 of those — tied for its most ever — including a season-opening doubleheader May 9 which will see the Indiana Fever face the Dallas Wings and the defending champion Las Vegas Aces face the Phoenix Mercury in a rematch of last year’s WNBA Finals.
Amazon Prime will also broadcast 30 regular-season games for 30 years of the league’s existence, along with the championship game of the Commissioner’s Cup tournament.
NBC, which broadcast the first WNBA game in 1997, is back as a media partner this season and will broadcast seven Sunday games throughout the season. Peacock, in addition to streaming regular-season games, will stream every WNBA Finals game, which will also be broadcast on either NBC or USA.
USA will broadcast 48 regular-season games, trailing only ION, which will broadcast 50 games through its “State Farm WNBA Friday Night Spotlight” series.
After broadcasting the first primetime broadcast television WNBA game last season, CBS will air eight primetime games this season.
NBA TV, which is in its 24th year distributing WNBA games, has a 15-game slate it will be broadcasting.
WNBA League Pass will deliver select live games throughout the season (local blackouts may apply), along with next-day access to every matchup through the WNBA app or at WNBA.com.
–Field Level Media
Sports
LPGA stars get another shot at major title at Chevron
Nov 13, 2025; Belleair, Florida, USA; Nelly Korda hits a shot on the ninth hole during the first round of The ANNIKA golf tournament at Pelican Golf Club. Mandatory Credit: Nathan Ray Seebeck-Imagn Images The top five players in the women’s golf world rankings have something in common. All five have won at least one tournament since the 2026 season began, whether on the LPGA Tour or elsewhere.
Actually, that quintet of Jeeno Thitikul, Nelly Korda, Hyo-joo Kim, Charley Hull and Hannah Green shares another attribute: They’ve collected zero of the sport’s last nine major championships.
As major season kicks off at the Chevron Championship on Thursday in Houston, the world of women’s golf waits to see if one of its star players can reassert her dominance under the brightest lights the sport has to offer.
Four of the five major winners in 2025 were first-time champions, including Mao Saigo of Japan, who birdied the first hole of an unprecedented five-way playoff (featuring Kim, among others) to win the Chevron.
That was the event’s final year at the widely-panned Club at Carlton Woods in the Houston suburbs. Formerly played in the Coachella Valley and known as the Dinah Shore, Kraft Nabisco Championship and other titles, the Chevron will make a new home at Memorial Park Golf Course.
The municipal course near downtown Houston is the current home of the PGA Tour’s Houston Open, renovated less than 10 years ago with consulting from Brooks Koepka. It will play as a par-72, 6,811-yard course for the ladies this week.
“It’s definitely a second-shot golf course,” Korda said. “Greens are pretty tricked out. Just depends on how it’s going to play with all the rain that they got. It can play really long where (drives are) not going to go run out or play really soft.”
Korda is the most recent major winner of the world’s top five, having taken the Chevron crown in 2024. But in nine major starts since, she has mixed two T2s with two missed cuts and an array of also-ran finishes.
She began 2026 with a win at the season-opening Tournament of Champions, weather-shortened from 72 to 54 holes. World No. 1Thitikul won the next event in her native Thailand.
Though only 23, Thitikul has been gunning for her first major for close to five years, collecting nine top-10s without a victory.
“I think it’s a good thing,” Thitikul said. “If you in contention, if you without a win as well but you in contention for like maybe four, five week in a row, which mean your game is there. …
“If you were in contention every week, you saw your name on the top in every week, which mean your game is there and then just matter of time.”
England’s Hull has yet to capture a major, while Kim, a South Korean veteran who won back-to-back tournaments in March, hasn’t added to her major mantle since the 2014 Evian.
Green will be a popular pick this week as the Australian rides white-hot form into Houston. She’s won four tournaments since March 1, including a two-week sweep of the Women’s Australian Open and Australian WPGA Championship. On Sunday outside Los Angeles, Green putted her way into a playoff and then won her third LA Championship.
She said Tuesday that she plans to “ride this wave for as long as possible.”
“My putter has been very kind to me, so it’s nice to feel like all aspects of my game have actually been able to turn on at the same time, as to where last year I felt like one thing would go well and something would be really off,” Green said.
“That’s probably been the biggest difference, but obviously the inner belief has definitely been different, too.”
Green’s lone major title came when she won the 2019 Women’s PGA Championship.
–Field Level Media
Sports
Nick Martinez helps Rays dispatch Reds, his former team
Apr 22, 2026; St. Petersburg, Florida, USA; Tampa Bay Rays third baseman Junior Caminero (13) celebrates with Tampa Bay Rays third base coach Brady Williams (4) after hitting a home run during the third inning against the Cincinnati Reds at Tropicana Field. Mandatory Credit: Mike Watters-Imagn Images Nick Martinez allowed a run on five hits over eight innings and Junior Caminero homered to lead the Tampa Bay Rays to a 6-1 win over the Cincinnati Reds on Wednesday afternoon at St. Petersburg, Fla.
Martinez (1-1) walked one and struck out five against his former team. He threw 71 strikes in 95 pitches.
The Rays averted a sweep in the three-game series and won for only the second time in six games. Caminero drove in two runs, Yandy Diaz was 3-for-4 with a run and an RBI while Ryan Vilade was 2-for-2, scored a run, drove in a run and walked.
The Reds had their five-game winning streak snapped.
Both teams are off Thursday.
Cincinnati starter Brandon Williamson (2-2) gave up five runs on seven hits in 4 1/3 innings with three walks and three strikeouts.
The Rays capitalized on Williamson’s walks to the first two batters in the second by scoring three runs and sending eight batters to the plate. Ben Williamson singled in a run, Chandler Crawford brought in the second tally with a sacrifice fly and Diaz produced an RBI single.
Tampa Bay centerfielder Jonny Deluca ended the top of the third by leaping against the fence to haul in T.J. Friedl’s drive.
Caminero’s home run leading off the bottom of the third made it 4-0. He drove a 1-1 pitch to the opposite field, into the right-center-field stands an estimated 404 feet for Caminero’s sixth homer.
The Reds only managed a run in the fifth after loading the bases with none out. P.J. Higgins’ sacrifice fly made it 4-1. Friedl then bounced into a fielder’s choice as Spencer Steer was tagged out at home. Martinez then got Matt McLain on a flyout to end the half inning.
Vilade’s run-scoring in the fifth made it 5-1.
Friedl, playing center field, made a diving catch on Nick Fortes’ drive to right-center to end the sixth inning.
Caminero’s bases-loaded fielder’s choice in the seventh produced the final margin.
–Field Level Media
Record 216 WNBA games to be broadcast nationally this season
LPGA stars get another shot at major title at Chevron
