Ex-Angels staffer indicted

Hammer drops on Kay in Skaggs’ overdose death

A federal grand jury indicted a former Angels employee on drug charges for allegedly providing Angels pitcher Tyler Skaggs with the drugs that caused his overdose death.

Eric Prescott Kay was charged Thursday with drug distribution and drug conspiracy in Skaggs’ overdose death, according to the indictment in Fort Worth, Texas. The charges carry a maximum of a life sentence and 20 years in prison, respectively.

Kay remained free on his own recognizance. A message seeking comment from Kay’s attorney, Reagan Wynn, was not immediately returned.

Skaggs was found dead in his suburban Dallas hotel room on July 1, 2019, before the start of what was supposed to be a four-game series against the Rangers. The first game was postponed.

A coroner’s report said Skaggs had choked to death on his vomit with a toxic mix of alcohol and the drugs fentanyl and oxycodone in his system, which Kay was accused of providing.

Kay was the Angels’ director of communications, and he served as their public relations contact on many road trips. He was placed on leave shortly after Skaggs’ death, and he never returned to the team.

Team officials said they had not been aware that Skaggs, a 27-year-old lefthander, was an opioids user and didn’t know any employees were providing drugs to players.

Investigators found a counterfeit oxycodone pill laced with fentanyl in Skaggs’ room and “white residue” on the floor that tested positive for fentanyl.

“It was later determined that but for the fentanyl in (Skaggs’) system, (he) would not have died,” Drug Enforcement Administration special agent Geoffrey Lindenberg wrote in the affidavit.

Kay and Skaggs had a “history of narcotic transactions,” the affidavit alleged, and Kay provided opioids to “(Skaggs) and others in their place of employment and while they were working.”

Kershaw’s struggles: Clayton Kershaw made the slow trudge to that lonely spot in the dugout once again, this time just a few miles from his hometown.

The longtime Dodgers ace just couldn’t shake his playoff curse, not even on friendly turf in a neutral-site NL Championship Series.

Kershaw faltered at the start of the sixth inning against the Braves, allowing three straight hits before watching the rest of a six-run outburst in the Braves’ 10-2 win in Game 4 on Thursday night in Arlington, Texas.

Kershaw’s franchise-high 12th postseason loss put the Dodgers down 3-1 in the best-of-seven series at the home of the Rangers, on the brink of a second straight defeat in the NLCS after posting the best record in the majors during the pandemicshortened season.

Pitching two days after he was scratched from a Game 2 start because of back spasms, Kershaw allowed four runs in five-plus innings, boosting his career playoff ERA to 4.31.

While the three-time NL Cy Young Award winner is also the club’s career leader in postseason wins with his 11-12 record, his October resume simply doesn’t match his stellar regular-season numbers: 175-76 with a 2.43 ERA.

In the Dodgers’ seven trips to the NLCS over Kershaw’s 13 seasons, the Dallas native is 3-6 with a 4.84 ERA. And now the left-hander has been outpitched by a rookie making his postseason debut: the Braves’ 22-year-old Game 4 winner, Bryse Wilson.

Kershaw had never pitched near his Dallas home before doing so twice in a week and a half in this unusual postseason.

Yankees, Rays top ratings: The Rays and Yankees drew the five-most watched games of the Division Series, boosted by prime-time start times.

The Rays’ 2-1 victory in Game 5 on Oct. 9 was the most-watched game of the round, averaging 3,723,000 viewers on TBS, the network said Friday.

Among the other three series, the most-viewed game was the Dodgers’ 6-5 win over the Padres in Game 2, which averaged 1,655,000 viewers on FS1.