The Latest Breaking News from Dave Roberts

PHOENIX — They couldn’t stop the running game. They didn’t play clean defense. And they failed to string together enough big hits.

PHOENIX — Every time the Los Angeles Dodgers offense inched a small step forward Saturday night, their pitching staff quickly took a disastrous step back.

LOS ANGELES — On the surface, his personality is about as colorful as his name.

LOS ANGELES — It took four spring training starts for Noah Syndergaard to come to grips with the fact that, despite his December proclamation that there is “no excuse as to why I can’t get back to 100 mph,” his once-vaunted fastball is not going to approach triple digits like…

LOS ANGELES — Ahead of the first matchup between Clayton Kershaw and Madison Bumgarner in almost five years, Los Angeles Dodgers manager Dave Roberts predicted the showdown would “bring out the best” in the two decorated left-handers.

LOS ANGELES — After ending the fifth inning with a swing-and-miss cutter, Dustin May skipped down the back of the mound and hung a confident left back toward the dugout.

LOS ANGELES — It was wet, cold and beautiful.

They lost their cornerstone, their shaggy leader, Justin Turner heading off to hated Boston.

PHOENIX — Freddie Freeman chose club over country Tuesday, the Dodgers first baseman pulling himself from Team Canada's World Baseball Classic game against Colombia because of a mild right hamstring injury rather than playing through the pain, a decision that wasn't as easy as it might have seemed.

There is the way Dustin May feels when he's on the mound, and there is the way the fiery Dodgers right-hander outwardly expresses it.

SURPRISE, Ariz. — As he’s done virtually every year since being drafted by the Royals in 2007, Danny Duffy last month checked into the very spring training complex from which he’s launched nearly every season for half his life now.