Paxton Aaronson scores twice to propel Rapids to 4-1 victory over Spo…

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Paxton Aaronson scored a goal in each half, Wayne Frederick's first career goal was the go-ahead score and the Colorado Rapids rolled to a 4-1 victory over Sporting Kansas City on Saturday night.

Aaronson gave Colorado (3-2-0) the lead in the 12th minute, but Shapi Suleymanov scored for the first time this season — in the 44th — to pull Sporting KC (1-3-1) even.

The tie lasted until the second minute of stoppage time when Frederick scored unassisted for a 2-1 lead at halftime. It was the 15th career appearance for the 21-year-old midfielder.

Rafael Navarro added an insurance goal in the 71st minute before picking up an assist when Aaronson capped the scoring four minutes later.

Aaronson, 22, has seven goals in 49 matches with 18 career starts. Navarro has three goals and three assists this season and 31 and 13, respectively, in 80 career matches.

Zack Steffen finished with two saves for the Rapids.

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John Pulskamp saved four shots for Sporting KC.

Colorado is won of seven clubs in the Western Conference to post three victories through the first five matches.

Up next

Colorado: Visits Toronto FC on April 4.

Kansas City: Visits Real Salt Lake on April 4.

___

AP soccer: https://apnews.com/soccer

After a second straight late-inning Friday meltdown in SEC play, the No. 2 Texas Longhorns needed to find a way to close out an important road victory against the No. 5 Auburn Tigers at Plainsman Park on Saturday.

It wasn’t easy in the 7-6 win, as a pitching staff considered historically elite by a credible observer like Baylor head coach Mitch Thompson, a longtime assistant for the Bears and Central Texas junior college head coach, once again showed significant cracks to heighten the long-term concerns about the upside of head coach Jim Schlossnagle’s team.

Taking a 7-2 lead into the seventh inning, the Horns stuck with senior right-hander Max Grubbs after the Texas bullpen stalwart took over for redshirt senior left-hander Luke Harrison to record the final out in the sixth inning.

Grubbs was close to cruising through the seventh after retiring the first two batters on eight pitches before hanging an 0-1 breaking ball that turned into a 420-foot home run.

A nine-pitch at bat resulted in a full-count walk and a 2-1 single put runners on first and second as Schlossnagle turned to freshman right-hander Brett Crossland, who got ahead of the next two batters, but gave up consecutive 1-2 singles through the right side to score two more runs.

In the eighth inning, freshman right-hander Sam Cozart receive a high-leverage opportunity, hitting the leadoff batter on his second pitch before bouncing back to record two outs. Like Grubbs, Cozart couldn’t finish the inning, allowing a first-pitch single that ended his outing with runners on first and third.

The ostensible closer for Texas, junior right-hander Thomas Burns, entered the game and gave up a 1-1 RBI single and threw a wild pitch before stranding two runners with a six-pitch strikeout.

Drama in the ninth inning followed the previous pattern — Burns struck out the first two batters before losing his command, issuing a four-pitch walk, a five-pitch walk, and a seven-pitch walk to load the bases because the Auburn hitters weren’t convinced that Burns could dominate the strike zone, and for good reason.

With Friday’s hero at the plate, center fielder Bristol Carter, Burns was able to make the crucial pitch, inducing a fielder’s choice to redshirt senior third baseman Temo Becerra to secure the hard-fought victory.

Texas was in a position to win the game because Harrison turned in a typically-strong performance in allowing two runs over 5.2 innings, striking out six and working around four hits and three walks.

Aside from the questionable bullpen support, the game-changing efforts for the Longhorns came at the plate, where freshman designated hitter Maddox Monsour opened the scoring in the second inning with a a two-out, two-run single to right center to take advantage of an error by the Auburn shortstop, slashing a 1-2 breaking ball on the outside corner into the opposite field.

The game-changing inning for the Longhorns came in the fourth when junior center fielder Aiden Robbins led off with his third home run of the series, a 417-foot tank to deep center at 109 miles per hour off the bat by crushing a first-pitch fastball at 89 miles per hour up and out over the plate.

After redshirt senior third baseman Temo Becerra was thrown out trying to stretch a double into a triple, Texas mounted a two-out rally when two walks led to the first career home run by senior right fielder Jayden Duplantier on a full-count pitch, turning on a breaking ball and sending it 381 feet over the 37-foot well in left field at Plainsman Park, unquestionably the best swing of Duplantier’s baseball career.

In the sixth inning, a double by junior catcher Carson Tinney scored Monsour after a leadoff single for the final run scored by the Longhorns.

Texas goes for the series victory on Sunday at 2 p.m. Central on SEC Network+ with sophomore left-hander Dylan Volantis taking the mount.

Bailey finished with 25 points, 7 rebounds, 4 assists and a career‑high five blocks in the 126‑116 loss. His 19 three‑point attempts against the Bucks earlier in the month had drawn praise from coaches.

Jazz coach Will Hardy said Bailey’s defensive growth is key, while Sixers coach Nick Nurse noted his willingness to shoot high‑volume threes. Bailey aims to keep his defensive role to stay on the court next season.

For a year-and-a-half starting in 2024, the White Sox ran out one of the worst offenses in modern history. Due to a combination of dumb luck and an influx of young bats, the club climbed out of its hitting tomb and started haunting MLB pitching in the second half last year.

Unfortunately, this coming summer could begin the era of morbid arms, or creepy control, or hiccuping velocity. Based on Saturday night’s split-squad of sorts, starting in 101° weather despite a move of both games from afternoon to night, any one of those ugly options are in play. And given that one of the split squads tonight was the Spring Breakout, featuring the best of the best arms in the system, help might not be on the way.

It was just two games, true, so let’s not lose our heads over the combined 24 walks in the two games. OK, maybe lose your head over 17 walks from the best arms in the White Sox system in the Spring Breakout game.

Before tonight, have you ever heard of five straight bases-loaded walks (and six in a row total) as the endcap of a seven-run second inning against the defending world champions?

For a time, like, maybe 90 minutes into the never-ending Breakout Game, this was the headline I was running with:

Lucas wepf; five straight sacks-packed passes fuels White Sox Breakout rout

If you glance above, you’ll see that hed did not hold up.

For a hot minute, it seemed the White Sox prospects were going to run away with this one, simply by taking what was given by L.A. Perhaps it was a famous case of “Spring Breakout” jitters, but Dodgers reliever Lucas Wepf allowed four of those bases-loaded walks, all consecutive; the Double-A reliever managed just two strikes in his 17 pitches on Saturday, surely the very worst performance of his career under the very brightest lights.

BEFORE the walk parade, it was William Bergolla Jr. who gave the White Sox back a lead with a bases-loaded ground-rule double:

The seven runs scored in the second inning, which flipped the game from 2-1, Dodgers, to 8-2, White Sox, all came with two outs.

With such a massive lead early, it would take an awful lot of offense from the Dodgers to get back in the game, right?

Right?

Er, well, the young White Sox arms decided to give the game right back to Los Angeles, issuing walk after walk — no, not five straight with the bases full, but still — and turning the game completely around. The White Sox lead was shaved down to 8-6 by the end of the second, the game was tied 8-8 after three, and the lead lost 11-8 through just four innings. The White Sox staff walk total at that point? TWELVE (and 20 total in the game).

The Chisox youngsters rallied a bit, adding single runs on a Billy Carlson GIDP in the seventh and a solo blast from George Wolkow in the eighth:

In the ninth, Samuel Zavala led off with an infield single back to the pitcher and advanced to second on a throwing error. One out later, it was Kyle Lodise ripping a single so hard to center that Zavala could only hop to third. But with runners on the corners and one out, José Mendoza tapped into a 6-4-3 double play to end it, mercifully, after three hours and 45 minutes.

Over in Goodyear, it was another case of an early White Sox lead, lost.

The “Opening Day” lineup for the White Sox put up some big numbers early, leading 5-1 at the game’s halfway point. But the pitching staff walked it all away, and in particular swingman Sean Newcomb was atrocious. Coming on to finish the third and pitching into the fifth, Newcomb allowed five earned runs on four hits, adding an error into the mix. But the staff as a whole ginned up seven walks against just eight Ks, keeping traffic on the paths and inviting a Reds comeback.

Cincinnati had rallied for a 7-5 lead by the fifth, and two innings later a two-run single from Everson Pereira (who’d already clocked a two-run homer earlier in the game) knotted the game back up, 7-7.

The score remained the same until the bottom of the ninth, when Cincy turned a single, walk and HBP into a two-out, bases-loaded situation for reliever Frankeli Arias. Arias battled with P.J. Higgins to a full count, and the deciding pitch was going to end the game, swing or no:

Yes, it appears that Higgins could have taken a sayonara base on balls, but instead he swung at a juicy fastball at his eyes and drove it out to right for an oppo slam. Case closed, Reds win, 11-7.