Sports briefs 7/21
Baseball
Colorado general manager Josh Byrnes helped orchestrate a trade with his former team Monday as the Rockies sent right-hander Seth Halvorsen to the Los Angeles Dodgers for two minor league players.
Halvorsen is eligible to come off the 15-day injured list after being placed on it earlier this month with inflammation in his right shoulder. He is 0-1 with a 4.74 ERA across 21 appearances this season.
As part of the deal, Colorado picked up right-handed pitcher Nick Frasso and outfielder Landyn Vidourek from the Dodgers.
Byrnes knows the Los Angeles farm system after spending more than a decade in the front office with the team. He left in December to join forces with Paul DePodesta, the Rockies’ president of baseball operations, in an effort to turn around a franchise that’s trying to break a string of three straight 100-loss seasons.
NBA
Unrestricted free agent forward Matisse Thybulle has signed a one-year deal with the Los Angeles Lakers, a person with knowledge of the agreement said Monday.
The deal is worth around $3.3 million, the person told the Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the signing had not been publicly announced.
Thybulle, 29, has spent the last three-plus seasons with the Portland Trail Blazers. He averaged 5.8 points and 2.0 rebounds in 30 games with the Blazers last season, when he was limited by thumb and knee injuries.
A first-round draft pick in 2019, Thybulle is a seven-year NBA veteran.
Auto racing
One day after his native Spain won the FIFA World Cup, Alex Palou’s path to another IndyCar championship – the Astor Challenge Cup – became considerably shorter after his victory Monday in the Borchetta Bourbon Music City Grand Prix at Nashville Superspeedway.
Palou took an 83-point lead over David Malukas in the series standings with his fifth victory of the season and 24th career victory in this race that was delayed a day by rain. There are just six races remaining this season as Palou attempts to earn a record-tying fourth consecutive championship and fifth overall.
Palou, who started fourth, led the last 95 laps of the 225-lap race to beat Josef Newgarden by .8731 of a second. Malukas drove from 25th on the starting grid to finish third.
Tennis
The Women’s Tennis Association is introducing one-off mandatory gene-testing for all players effective from Tuesday – a requirement to compete at the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The WTA updated its women’s eligibility policy to include gender screening “based on biological sex” this week “to preserve the integrity of women’s professional tennis and maintain fair competition conditions for all players.”
The new policy takes the organization in line with the eligibility policy introduced by the International Olympic Committee in March to align with U.S. President Donald Trump’s executive order on sports ahead of the 2028 Games.
The WTA is complying with what is effectively an order from the IOC that Olympic sports bodies are following, though it remained unclear how many, if any, transgender women are competing at Games level.
Players are to be tested for the SRY gene, a segment of DNA typically found on the Y chromosome that initiates male sex development in utero and indicates the presence of testes.
NFL
Green Bay Packers defensive lineman Devonte Wyatt has agreed to terms on a three-year, $57 million contract extension with a $20 million signing bonus, a person familiar with the situation told the Associated Press on Monday.
Wyatt had six tackles for loss and four sacks in 10 games last season. His season ended after he broke his fibula and tore ankle ligaments during a Thanksgiving Day victory at Detroit.