Giants’ Yastrzemski exits final exhibition after being hit by a pitch
The Giants’ top performer from the 2020 season and one of their most important players, Mike Yastrzemski, exited Monday’s final spring training game in the top of the third inning after being hit by a pitch.
Oakland A’s left-hander Sean Manaea hit Yastrzemski with a pitch on his left hand and the Giants announced later in the game the outfielder went for Xrays.
“The medical staff is optimistic, as is the field staff right now,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “It makes sense for us to get X-rays so we’re going to do that.”
Yastrzemski actually swung at the two-strike pitch from Manaea, meaning the pitch resulted in a dead ball and a strikeout. Giants broadcaster Dave Flemming said senior director of athletic training Dave Groeschner sprinted out of the dugout to check on Yastrzemski and accompanied him on his way off of the field at Hohokam Stadium.
NFL LEAGUE OWNERS TO MEET ABOUT UPCOMING SEASON >>
What’s ahead for the NFL in 2021? Not even the teams know.
They’ll begin finding out this week when the 32 team owners hold virtual meetings Tuesday and Wednesday.
Two items top the agenda: increasing the regular season to 17 games and decreasing preseason
games to three per team. Both are nearly certain to be approved after a pandemic-stressed season that severely cut into the league’s revenue stream.
Many players, however, aren’t thrilled with the idea.
“We really let this happen,” tweeted safety Adrian Amos of Green Bay.
Saints star running back Alvin Kamara called the increase to 17 games “dumb.”
NASCAR LOGANO TAKES THE CHECKERED FLAG IN A HAZE OF BRISTOL DIRT >>
Somewhere under the thick red haze floating over Bristol Motor Speedway, Joey Logano took the checkered flag for NASCAR’s first Cup Series race at a dirt track in 50 years.
He couldn’t see much — visibility was next to nothing during this Monday dust storm — but Logano clung to the familiar bottom lane around the bullring
to collect the checkered flag on this NASCAR experiment.
Logano got a jump on Denny Hamlin on the overtime restart to earn his third career victory at Bristol. But this was not the Bristol of old, the track had been covered with 2,300 truckloads of red Tennessee clay so that NASCAR could add a dirt track to the Cup schedule for the first time since 1970.
“How about Bristol on dirt, guys! This is incredible,” Logano said to the crowd, a reduced capacity sellout of about 30,000 fans.
Tennis BARTY GOES DISTANCE, TOPS AZARENKA TO REACH MIAMI QUARTERS >>
Ash Barty is tough to beat under any circumstances, especially when she’s on the ropes.
She proved that again. The world’s top-ranked player has reached the Miami
Open quarterfinals, getting there by holding off 14th-seeded Victoria Azarenka of Belarus 6-1, 1-6, 6-2. It was Barty’s 17th win in her last 20 three-set matches, two of those victories for the Australian coming so far in this tournament.
No. 2 women’s seed Naomi Osaka of Japan ran her winning streak to 23 matches and moved into the quarters by topping No. 16 seed Elise Mertens of Belgium, 6-3, 6-3. Osaka hadn’t played since Friday after getting a walkover in what was to be her thirdround match, and said the downtime was a bit of a challenge.
Olympics OVERSEAS TOKYO TICKET HOLDERS MAY GET ONLY PARTIAL REFUNDS >>
Many fans living outside Japan who bought tickets for the Tokyo Olympics from brokers — known as Authorized Ticket Resellers — will not get full refunds. And they may have a long wait to get any refunds at all.
The question of refunds came into play a week ago when local organizers and the Japanese government decided to bar most fans from abroad because of the pandemic.
There are dozens of Authorized Tickets Resellers. They are typically appointed by national Olympic committees and are allowed to charge a 20% handling fee on tickets. For $2,000 worth of tickets, for instance, the reseller can charge $2,400.