Quick Hitters
Nationals edge Padres
SAN DIEGO — Ryan Zimmerman homered with two outs in the eighth inning to lift the NL East-leading Washington Nationals to a 2-1 victory over the San Diego Padres on Thursday night.
Zimmerman homered to right field on 1-1 pitch from Kirby Yates (2-4), who struck out the first two batters of the inning. It was Zimmerman’s 29th. Yates then struck out Adam Lind to end the inning.
The homer was one of just four hits for Washington and made a winner of Edwin Jackson (4-2), who pitched for the Padres for part of last season. He allowed one run and eight hits in seven innings, struck out four and walked one. Jackson had been 0-6 lifetime against the Padres.
Sean Doolittle pitched the ninth for his 10th save.
The Padres were coming off a three-game sweep of the Philadelphia Phillies, the NL East cellar dwellers who have the worst record in the majors.
San Diego starter Jhoulys Chacin loaded the bases twice in the third inning on just one hit but the Nationals scored only once, on Lind’s sacrifice fly. Chacin hit Anthony Rendon with a pitch to re-load the bases and then got Matt Wieters to ground out to end the inning. He hit two batters in the inning.
De La Rosa to undergo 2nd Tommy John surgery
HOUSTON — Arizona Diamondbacks reliever Rubby De La Rosa will undergo a second Tommy John surgery.
Manager Torey Lovullo made the announcement Thursday before the Diamondbacks play the Astros.
He said De La Rosa was experiencing discomfort over the last 10 days, and it was determined he would need the surgery to repair the ulnar collateral ligament in his right elbow.
De La Rosa first underwent the surgery in 2011 near the end of his rookie season with the Dodgers and missed most of the 2012 and 2013 seasons.
The 28-year-old De La Rosa appeared in nine games for Arizona this season, going 0-1 in 7 2/3 innings with a 4.70 ERA. He last appeared on Aug. 1, allowing a home run and striking out two in one inning in a 16-4 loss to the Cubs.
Judge orders arbitration in D-Backs lawsuit
PHOENIX — A judge has refused to dismiss the Arizona Diamondbacks’ lawsuit against Maricopa County over Chase Field but ordered the two sides to participate in proceedings intended to resolve the dispute without going to trial.
Superior Court Judge Karen Mullins’ ruling released Thursday says the Diamondbacks’ agreement for use of the county-owned stadium requires that the sides use arbitration to settle their differences.
The Diamondbacks sued the county Stadium District in January to remove a clause from their stadium lease so the team could look to move elsewhere.
The county then asked that the suit be dismissed and the case be referred to arbitration over the team’s demands for stadium maintenance and improvements.
Chase Field is 19 years old and the Diamondbacks’ lease requires the team to play there until 2028.
A year ago today, the first quote in the season preview for Kofa football was: “We try not to dwell on it. We try our best to not even bring it up. The past is the past, but we also have to realize that that was our season last year.”
It was Kings coach Ben Franz who said that — and what he and his players were not bringing up was the 0-10 record for the team in 2015, only the third winless campaign in school history.
There was a renewed confidence within the Kofa football culture last preseason, and the early returns backed up the talk. The Kings went 5-1 to start the season, including wins against Gila Ridge and Yuma High in consecutive weeks, before fizzling out to finish the year 5-5 — the program’s best mark since 2008.
Entering 2017, with a lot of the defensive starters back and virtually every skill-position player on offense, the goals on Kofa’s bulletin board have surpassed those of many previous iterations of Kings football.
“We want to win the city championship,” Franz said after Tuesday’s practice, “we want to go to the playoffs, we want to score more than 21 points a game, we want to hold our opponents to less than 21 points a game, we want to make sure that our kids are, grade-wise, eligible. We want every kid to be eligible for every game.”
Only once in the past half-century, 2008, have the Kings made the postseason. To do that again, Kofa will have to beat Cibola, its lone counterpart in the Yuma subregion of the 6A Southern region. The last time the Kings topped the Raiders was also 2008.
A closer look at the 2017 Kings, who open their season tonight in Phoenix against Trevor G. Browne:
KEY LOSSES
The only individual who may be sorely missed is