Quick Hitters
5-time All-Star Tulowitzki retires after leg injuries
BOSTON — Troy Tulowitzki, a five-time All-Star with the Colorado Rockies who has missed most of the past two seasons with leg injuries, announced his retirement on Thursday, more than three months after he played in his last game for the New York Yankees.
“For as long as I can remember, my dream was to compete at the highest level as a Major League Baseball player ... to wear a big league uniform and play hard for my teammates and the fans,” he said in a statement issued by the Yankees before a series against Boston. “I will forever be grateful for every day that I’ve had to live out my dream. It has been an absolute honor.”
Tulowitzki was NL Rookie of the Year runner-up in 2007, when he helped the Rockies reach the World Series for the only time in franchise history. He finished in the top 10 of the NL MVP voting three straight years from 2009-11; in all, he received MVP votes in six seasons.
He was traded to Toronto in the middle of 2015 and hit .254 with 24 homers and 79 RBIs the next year, his last full season in the majors. He spent most of 2017 on the disabled list with and ankle injuries, and then missed all of last season with following April 2018 surgery on both heels.
The Yankees signed him in the offseason, and he won the shortstop job in spring training while starter Didi Gregorius opened the season on the injured list following Tommy John surgery. But Tulowitzki lasted just five games before going on the IL himself, straining his left calf on April 3.
Twins slugger Cruz homers 3 times against White Sox
CHICAGO — Minnesota Twins slugger Nelson Cruz homered three times in the first five innings against the Chicago White Sox on Thursday night.
Cruz hit a solo drive in the first, a two-run shot in the third and another two-run homer in the fifth. It’s the first career three-homer game for the six-time All-Star, who has 385 home runs in his career.
Cruz batted again with a runner on first in the sixth and struck out swinging against Jimmy Cordero, ending the inning. He flied out to right leading off the ninth.
Max Kepler also went deep against All-Star Lucas Giolito, helping the Twins build a 10-3 lead.
Cruz’s outburst followed three-homer games by New York Mets second baseman Robinson Canó on Tuesday night and St. Louis Cardinals shortstop Paul DeJong on Wednesday. According to the Elias Sports Bureau, it’s the first time in major league history there’s been a three-homer game on three consecutive days.
The 39-year-old Cruz, who signed a $14.3 million, oneyear contract with Minnesota in January, has six homers in his last four games and 25 overall this season. According to STATS, he is the oldest player in major league history to hit six-plus homers in a four-game span, surpassing Barry Bonds, who hit seven in four games at age 36 in 2001.
Clippers unveil images, plans for lavish new Inglewood arena
LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Clippers unveiled the first renderings Thursday for the lavish arena complex they hope to build in Inglewood.
While significant hurdles remain, the Clippers are hoping to break ground by 2021 on an 18,500-seat arena and a surrounding 26-acre, billion-dollar development project. They hope to be finished by 2024, when their lease expires at Staples Center.
The team claims the complex will be funded entirely by owner Steve Ballmer and will require no public money or additional public infrastructure. The Microsoft billionaire is the wealthiest owner in U.S. team sports, and Ballmer said he wants his “Clippers to have the best home in all of sports.”
GLENDALE — The Arizona Cardinals have a rookie coach, a rookie quarterback and an offensive system not only new to them, but to the NFL.
As training camp story lines go, the team with the league’s worst record a year ago is generating plenty of buzz.
“We’re still working through who we’re going to be offensively,” coach Kliff Kingsbury said Thursday before Arizona’s first practice of training camp. “We’re blending a lot of things together, a lot of thoughts from different coaches who have been at a high level at different places and I’m excited to see what it ends up as.” The Cardinals had a dismal season under Steve Wilks in 2018, finishing in the NFL cellar at 3-13 — their worst record in 18 years — and among the league’s most futile teams on offense and defense.
Arizona’s brass saw enough from Wilks to know he wasn’t their man and fired him after one season, a franchise first since 1952.
The rebuilt, new-look Cardinals are being led by Kingsbury, an offensive guru in college making his first NFL head-coaching run. A former NFL quarterback, he’s bringing a version of the high-scoring, fast-paced “Air Raid” offense he ran at Texas Tech to the NFL.
Other NFL teams, notably the Chiefs and Rams, have implemented aspects of the up-tempo, wide-open offenses of the college game, but none have gone all-in as Kingsbury is doing.
Being at the forefront of change is certainly risky. Maybe there’s a reason no other team has fully embraced an offensive system that became widespread in