Astros extend Baker
The Houston Astros have picked up the option for the 2021 season on manager Dusty Baker’s contract.
Baker was hired in January to replace AJ Hinch, who was fired by the team after he and general manager Jeff Luhnow were initially suspended for one year by Major League Baseball for their roles in Houston’s sign-stealing scandal. Luhnow also was fired.
Baker, 71, is in his 23rd year as a manager after starting in 1993 with the San Francisco Giants.
A three-time National League manager of the year, Baker came to the Astros after managing the Washington Nationals, who let him go after a 97-65 season in 2017.
More baseball
St. Louis Cardinals right-hander Miles Mikolas will have season-ending surgery to repair a tendon in his strained right forearm.
• Facing a sprint of a season rather than a marathon because of the coronavirus pandemic, the Atlanta Braves didn’t have time to let Mike Foltynewicz sort out his perplexing problems. So, after a dismal showing in his first outing, the Braves cut ties with a 28year-old pitcher who was an All-Star in 2018.
• The Kansas City Royals signed former All-Star Matt Harvey to a minor league contract.
Basketball
Aerial Powers scored a career-high 27 points and the Washington Mystics beat the Connecticut Sun, 94-89, in Bradenton, Fla., in a rematch of last year’s WNBA championship. Ariel Atkins and Myisha Hines-Allen each scored 16 points for the defending champion Mystics.
Soccer
Tyler Miller made a key save in the third round of the penalty shootout and Chase Gasper scored the winning shot in the fifth round as Minnesota United advanced past the Columbus Crew, 5-3 on penalty kicks, and into the quarterfinals in the MLS is Back tournament in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. Minnesota and Columbus played to a 1-1 draw in regulation.
Colleges
The Penn State athletic department confirmed it will reduce salaries of its employees for the current 2020 fiscal year, a result of anticipated lessened revenue created by the coronavirus pandemic. The cuts, reported by the Centre Daily Times, would range from 5% for employees making $150,000 or less annually, and 10% for those earning more than $150,000. Football coach James Franklin is the department’s highest-paid employee at $5.4 million this season, but it is unknown if he has agreed to a voluntary reduction.
• The NCAA is allowing all major college football teams to begin their seasons as early as Aug. 29. The association confirmed that the football oversight committee had requested a blanket waiver to permit any school to push up the start of its season to the so-called Week Zero.
Tennis
The Toray Pan Pacific Open, a women’s tournament in Tokyo, that already had been postponed from September because of the COVID-19 outbreak that has put the WTA and ATP tours on hold since March was canceled.