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Sports Headlines: 7/10/20

Sports

July 10th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

UNDATED (AP) — Full-scale practices inside the NBA bubble at the Disney complex have started. The Orlando Magic became the first team to formally return to the floor. By the close of business, all 22 teams participating in the restart were to be checked into their hotel and beginning their isolation from the rest of the world for what will be several weeks at least. And by Saturday, all teams should have practiced at least once.

MILWAUKEE (AP) Baseball has its answer to World Cup soccer’s penalty kicks, NFL overtimes or NHL shootouts. And it figures to stir just as much debate as all those other forms of tiebreakers. Major League Baseball will start each extra inning this season by putting a runner on second base. The minor leagues have used this extra-inning format since 2018. MLB is experimenting with the rule this year in part to prevent marathon games from causing long-term damage to pitching staffs in a pandemic-shortened season.

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Cody Bellinger is ready for whatever baseball’s shortened 60-game season brings. The All-Star slugger is looking to pick up where he left off after a stellar performance for the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2019. The reigning NL MVP batted .305 with 47 homers and 115 RBIs for the NL West champions last year. He says the season figures to be “a once-in-a-lifetime thing” because of the changes brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.

ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) — Anthony Rendon mostly spent the first few months of his seven-year contract with the Los Angeles Angels changing his daughters’ diapers and throwing a tennis ball at a wall. The $245 million third baseman is more than ready to get to work earning his riches, and the World Series winner doesn’t think it will take long to get back into championship form. Rendon is getting to know his teammates again after his first spring with the Angels was cut short by the coronavirus pandemic before he even got a chance to play in Anaheim. The most coveted hitter on the free agent market even got his World Series ring this week.

SPARTA, Ky. (AP) — Austin Cindric won the first of two NASCAR Xfinity Series races at Kentucky Speedway, charging past Chase Briscoe on an overtime restart Thursday night for his first victory of the season and first on an oval. Cindric spent most of the first two stages chasing Noah Gragson, the pole-sitter who seemed poised to dominate all three segments. Cindric then took charge on a series of restarts in Team Penske’s No. 22 Ford Mustang. On the last one, he went around Briscoe on the outside and pulled away before a last-lap wreck ended the race. The 21-year-old Cindric had eight top-10s on ovals before breaking through on the 1.5-mile Kentucky layout. His only other series victories came last year on road courses at Watkins Glen and Mid-Ohio.