Quick Hitters
Padres agree to deals with Yates, Hedges, Erlin
SAN DIEGO — The Padres agreed to one-year contracts with their three remaining arbitrationeligible players: closer Kirby Yates, catcher Austin Hedges and lefthander Robbie Erlin.
Yates agreed Friday to a deal for $3,062,500, Hedges for $2.06 million and Erlin for $1.45 million.
Yates took over as closer after All-Star Brad Hand was traded to Cleveland. Yates finished with 12 saves and a 2.14 ERA while going 3-5.
Erlin was 4-7 with a 4.21 ERA in 39 appearances, including 12 starts. Hedges hit .231 with 14 homers and 37 RBIs.
San Diego outfielder Travis Jankowski agreed Thursday to a $1,165,000 salary for this year.
Bears hire Pagano as defensive coordinator
LAKE FOREST, Ill. — The NFC North-champion Chicago Bears have hired former Indianapolis Colts coach Chuck Pagano as their defensive coordinator to replace Vic Fangio.
Pagano inherits one of the NFL’s stingiest defenses after Fangio left to take the Denver Broncos’ head coaching job. He will get to work with one of the league’s best pass rushers in Khalil Mack as well as two other All-Pros — cornerback Kyle Fuller and safety Eddie Jackson.
Pagano led Indianapolis to a 53-43 record and two AFC South championships from 2012 to 2017.
The Bears went 12-4 in their first season under coach Matt Nagy after four straight last-place finishes and made the playoffs for the first time in eight years.
Miami hires Alabama’s Dan Enos as OC
CORAL GABLES, Fla. — Miami has hired Dan Enos as its new offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach, luring him away from national runner-up Alabama.
Hurricanes coach Manny Diaz said Friday that Enos was his “primary target” since he took over the Miami program last week. Enos was at Alabama for just one season, serving as quarterbacks coach and associate head coach under Nick Saban.
Enos was in line to become Alabama’s offensive coordinator for this coming season.
He was a quarterback at Michigan State. He was head coach at Central Michigan from 2010 through 2014, and has been an assistant at 10 other schools.
About nothing could go right for the San Pasqual boys basketball team Friday night at home.
The Warriors were routed by Mohave Accelerated (8-3 AIA, 2-0 region) in their first AIA game after the holiday break, 61-21.
The Patriots came out in a 3-2 zone that closed a lot of the tight gaps on the floor and seldom gave San Pasqual (5-4 AIA, 0-1 region) an open look. That zone controlled the action and kept the flat Warriors team from ever really finding a rhythm.
“We’ve been working on it and we’re trying to get the kids to understand where the gaps in the zone are,” San Pasqual coach Willis Hawkins said. “They’re starting to see it. We had a lot of work on it during the Christmas break, but for some reason we couldn’t hit a shot to save our lives.”
After a slow start San Pasqual battled to get back within striking distance at 22-11 late in the first half off of some creative offensive play from Deshane Taylor and Jara Amador, but those guards were unable to find many opportunities to get loose in transition and pull out the comeback.
Taylor led his team with nine points and Amador had seven. Without those two and the rest of the team breaking out in transition, the offense was stagnant against a lanky Mohave Accelerated team.
“We’re a smaller team and we need to take advantage of our speed,” Hawkins said. “We have to push the ball. That’s what I need to preach to them. Outlet and run, outlet and run. Our heads just weren’t into it today and that’s my fault.”
Instead, fatigue set in for the Warriors, who saw the Patriots rip off a 26-0 run spanning late in the first half to nearly the end of the third quarter. The 2211 game was now 48-11, and the game was over.
The scoring drought lasted 8:55 of game time.
“They just started hitting shots,” Hawkins said. “I think at one point we saw a bank three. Once you see one of those go in, we started playing out of sorts and out of character.”
Despite a night to forget, San Pasqual still sits in 16th in 1A and is in a position to make a playoff berth in only a few weeks. The Warriors have seven remaining games on the schedule and they hold a 5-0 record against those teams.
“They are very important,” Hawkins said. “We went 5-1 against our league the first time around and we should be expected to get back there again. Every game matters and now every game is a region game. We need to tighten up and get ready to play everybody this time around.”