Brewers get Crawford from Dodgers to complete Knebel trade
MILWAUKEE — The Milwaukee Brewers have acquired minor league left-handed pitcher Leo Crawford to complete the trade that sent former All-Star reliever Corey Knebel to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
When the trade was announced Dec. 2, the Dodgers received Knebel for a player to be named or cash. The player heading to Milwaukee was identified as Crawford on Friday.
Crawford, who turns 24 on Feb. 2, went 7-4 with a 2.81 ERA and 134 strikeouts in 121.2 innings while splitting the 2019 season between the Dodgers’ Single-A affiliate in Rancho Cucamonga and Double-A team in Tulsa. He made 21 starts that year.
Milwaukee president of baseball operations David Stearns said Crawford has some similarities to current Brewers left-hander Brent Suter in that both rely on deception to overcome a relative lack of velocity.
“He’s left-handed, he throws in the high 80s, so you’re going to get some of that,” Stearns said. “He relies on deception and changing his offerings. There is some of that. I think they probably get to their deception a little bit differently. Obviously Brent works incredibly fast and has used that to his advantage over the years. Leo, when you watch him kind of with his actual pitching mechanics, with his pitching motion, he’ll vary timing in order to disrupt the hitters a little bit. But they are two lefthanded pitchers who’ve
had success despite not having overpowering fastballs.”
There was no minor league season in 2020. Stearns said he believes Crawford spent most of the 2020 season in Nicaragua and currently is pitching in winter ball there. Crawford was born in Nicaragua.
Knebel, 29, made the NL All-Star team in 2017 and was a key part of Milwaukee’s bullpen before missing the entire 2019 season with a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his pitching elbow. The right-hander posted a 6.08 ERA in 15 games last season.
Akers runs wild, Newton benched as Rams rout Patriots 24-3
INGLEWOOD — Cam Akers rushed for 171 yards in a breakout performance, Kenny Young returned an interception 79 yards for a touchdown and the Los Angeles Rams clinched their fourth straight winning season with a 24-3 victory over the New England Patriots on Thursday night.
Jared Goff rushed for a touchdown and threw a TD pass to Cooper Kupp as the Rams (9-4) rolled to a one-sided victory in a rematch of their 13-3 Super Bowl loss in February 2019.
Cam Newton passed for 119 yards before getting replaced by Jarrett Stidham in the fourth quarter of another dismal offensive game for New England (6-7). Five days after the Patriots scored 45 points at SoFi Stadium against the Chargers, New England endangered its push for a 12th straight playoff berth with only its second loss in six games.
The Rams got a superb game from Akers, the second-round draft pick out of Florida State who has seized a major role in their offense over the last three weeks. Akers’ yards mostly came in big chunks during the biggest rushing game by an NFL rookie this season and just the ninth 150-yard game against a Bill Belichick-coached defense since 2000.
Aaron Donald had 1½ sacks to move into the overall NFL lead with 12½ this season while leading another strong game from Los Angeles’ elite defense, which held New England to 62 yards in the second half, recorded six sacks and also scored a touchdown in its third consecutive game.
Tokyo Games sponsors pay $3.3 billion, but more still needed
TOKYO — Domestic sponsors already have contributed a record $3.3 billion to help pay for the Tokyo Olympics. That’s at least twice as much as any previous games.
But it’s still not enough. Now they’re being asked to pay millions more to cover some of the soaring costs of the one-year postponement.
This comes as Japanese businesses are battered by the COVID-19 pandemic, raising doubts about re-investing in an Olympics that may be short on fans but long on pandemic-related rules to discourage tourists, sightseeing and spending.
“We are in the process of asking for additional sponsorship (payments) from our partners,” organizing committee CEO Toshiro Muto said last week as he detailed why the postponement will cost organizers and Japanese taxpayers an extra $2.8 billion. “The sponsors have expressed the willingness to contribute to the games next year. But they have not specified an amount.”
None of the nearly 70 domestic sponsors is saying “no”— at least publicly — to an Olympics backed by Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga and driven by Japan’s powerful advertising conglomerate Dentsu Inc., the official marketing agency for the Tokyo Olympics.