The Kings claim they want to be an elite NHL team. You could have fooled me after watching their 3-0 loss to the upstart Edmonton Oilers. “In the second period they pretty much dominated every aspect of the game,” captain Dustin Brown said dejectedly in front of his locker. more ›

It really is a shame. The Rose Bowl is a gorgeous place to catch a football game. Set in amongst the hills in Pasadena, knowing the history of the stadium, it is breathtaking. more ›

San Diego Padres defeat LA Dodgers 3-0. Even Petco Park couldn’t contain Ted Lilly who gave up his third career homer at Petco Park, the place where offense goes to die. It looked like Lilly would record only his second game in his last eight where he didn’t give up a home run. Then the sixth inning came around and blew that to hell. more ›

To offset the embarrassment going on concurrently in Delaware, the Dodgers and Giants sent their best to the mound for a matinee performance. With a Clayton Kershaw and Tim Lincecum pitched affair, it really came as no surprise the game would be a 1-0 hemorrhoid-inducing tight walk. more ›

With the Dodgers, appearances can be deceiving. Despite being sixth in the National League in batting average, they couldn’t string together enough hits as they fell to the New York Mets 5-2. Exhibit A: The two runs they scored against New York Mets’ starter Chris Capuano (W, 8-7), one each in the second and fourth innings on James Loney RBI singles, looked to be enough for a Dodger win. Dodgers’ starter Rubby De La Rosa (L, 3-4) was pitching a no-hitter through five innings confounding the Mets’ hitters. more ›

Hiroki Kuroda got only the two runs of support in the top of the sixth inning thanks to a Juan Uribe double play and a Jerry Sands RBI double to right field. Kuroda (W, 4-3) in turn gave the Dodgers seven innings of a three-hit shutout walking only three batters and striking out eight. Paul Maholm (L, 1-5) unfortunately couldn’t keep up with Kuroda in that sixth inning. Matt Guerrier pitched a perfect eighth while Vicente Padilla got his third save of the season. Reliever Hong-Chih Kuo was put on the 15-day disabled list with anxiety disorder. Scott Elbert will meet the team in Pittsburgh to replace Kuo. more ›

Normally a Laker loss in the playoffs isn’t cause for concern, but losing Game 1 to a seven-seed? Maybe a little alarming. The last time the Lakers lost Game 1 at home was on May 4, 2009 when the Houston Rockets beat the Lakers 100-92 in the Western Conference Semifinals. It was a tough series filled with a lot of Aaron Brooks and Luis Scola, but the Lakers eventually prevailed in Game 7 en route to the first of the repeat championships. more ›

Things are starting to get dark at Dodger Stadium. There is a 9.2% decrease in overall ticket sales after their seventh home game (324,989 in 2010; 294,723 in 2011.) The Dodgers have lost five of their last six games. So what better remedy for one night than a healthy dose of Clayton Kershaw who seemed ready for the challenge? more ›

USC Trojans defeat California Golden Bears 48-14. After consecutive conference losses against Washington and Stanford, the Trojans decided to take their frustrations out on the Bears. The first half belonged to the Trojans as they racked up 42 points and 372 of their total 589 yards while shutting down Cal in every phase of the game. more ›

LA Galaxy defeat Philadelphia Union 1-0. A corner kick by David Beckham in the 27th minute connected with Edson Buddle who headed the ball into the net for his 16th goal of the season. The win gives the Galaxy 56 points and clearly in the driver’s seat for the club’s third Supporters’ Shield - the league’s best regular season record. more ›

LA Angels (80-82) defeat Texas Rangers (90-72) 6-2. Hideki Matsui hit a two-run homer in the fourth inning to give the Angels the lead. Back-to-back RBI singles by Bengie Molina and Julio Borbon tied the game in the fifth inning. Peter Bourjos gave the Angels the lead with a solo homer to lead off the sixth inning, the sixth home run of the season. The Angels finished off the Rangers in the ninth with three runs. more ›

LA Dodgers defeat Arizona Diamondbacks 3-1. Not one person can accuse Clayton Kershaw as being the reason the Dodgers are not in the playoffs. He flirted with another complete game shutout this month, but a single by Chris Johnson and a double by Tony Abreu that scored Johnson ended that. With nothing playoff related determined by the outcome of this game, the Dodgers played a lot of young guns and Trent Oeltjen rewarded them with an RBI triple in the third inning for the game’s first score. Jay Gibbons hit a sacrifice fly in the fourth inning after Andre Ethier led off the inning with his first triple of the season. more ›

USC Trojans defeat Virginia Cavaliers 17-14. USC got real lucky in this game. Virginia shot themselves in the foot the whole game, but particularly in the first half when a missed field goal and an endzone interception could have given them a 10-0 lead. But the Trojans hung on to their two touchdowns in the final four minutes of the first half while adding a field goal in the fourth quarter to get their second win of the game. more ›

Texas Rangers defeat LA Angels 3-2. Angels’ starter Jered Weaver (L, 9-6) who came into the game with a 1-3 record at Rangers Ballpark at Arlington with a 4.59 ERA gave up a solo homer to Michael Young in the first inning. The Angels came back in the fifth inning when Maicer Izturis hit a double off of Cliff Lee (W, 9-4) that bounced off the end of left fielder Josh Hamilton’s glove to center fielder Julio Borbon that scored Hideki Matsui. The Rangers pulled back ahead in the sixth inning with an RBI double by Hamilton and a sacrifice fly by Bengie Molina. Mike Napoli got the Angels to within a run with a solo shot off of Lee in the seventh, however that would be the closest they would get. Lee ended up pitching into the ninth inning with closer Neftali Feliz getting the final two outs and his 26th save of the season. more ›

Ghana defeats US 2-1 (ET). Read my recap of the game. Perhaps the most disheartening development is that the US played four matches in the World Cup without putting together a great game. more ›

Boston Red Sox defeat LA Angels 3-1. Red Sox starter and former Angel John Lackey pitched a jewel of a game against his former team allowing only a home run by Brandon Wood in the fifth inning in his seven innings of work. Angels’ starter Joel Pineiro had a trickier time of things despite giving up only two runs in his six innings... more ›

Detroit Tigers defeat LA Angels 3-2. Scott Kazmir started out shaky getting the bases loaded with one out in the first inning. However he held it together allowing only one run to score. The Angels tied things up in a strange fourth inning. Howie Kendrick hit a one-out single off of Jeremy Bonderman and advanced to second on a missed catch error by first baseman Miguel Cabrera on a pickoff attempt during Bobby Abreu’s at-bat. Abreu then hit a fly ball that while tailing away from right fielder Ryan Raburn slightly went in and out of his glove allowing Kendrick to advance only to third base. Raburn threw the ball to Cabrera who once again could not catch the ball allowing it to dribble back to the pitching mound. Kendrick went through third base coach Dino Ebel’s stop sign and scored to tie the game. The three errors in the one at-bat vaulted the Tigers past the Dodgers, Braves and Marlins to the top of the blooper-prone list in the Majors. The game was tied 2-2 in the bottom of ninth when with one out and Scot Shields pitching for the Angels, Johnny Damon took a fastball to right field walking off with the game. more ›

LA Kings defeat Vancouver Canucks 8-3. Kings captain Dustin Brown scores a hat trick and an assist to lead the Kings to their first victory over Vancouver in six games. More on this game in my complete recap later. more ›

LA Lakers defeat Houston Rockets 109-101. The Lakers looked just as stale as they did Friday night against Oklahoma City allowing the Rockets to score 34 points in the first quarter for a seven point deficit. However unlike the Thunder game, the Lakers found their defense and completely shut down the Rockets going on a 24-2 run in the second quarter and holding them to 11 points for a 17 point advantage going into the half. more ›

Real Salt Lake defeats LA Galaxy 1-1, 5-4 PK. 120 minutes couldn’t decide who would win the MLS Cup, so they went to penalty kicks. In penalties Galaxy captain Landon Donovan waited to kick in the fourth round. He inexplicably missed the shot way over the crossbar. While Josh Saunders was able to save Andy Williams’ kick in the fifth round, if Donovan had made his kick the Galaxy would have been crowned. The Galaxy owned Salt Lake in the first half culminating in Mike Magee’s goal in the 41st minute assisted by Donovan and David Beckham. Salt Lake took over in the second half with a score in the 64th minute by former Galaxy player Robbie Findley. The game was noted for injuries with Salt Lake’s Javier Morales leaving the game after a hit by Beckham and Will Johnson leaving after one half from food poisoning. Galaxy keeper Donovan Ricketts left in the 66th minute after a collision becoming the first keeper to leave the MLS Cup final. more ›

Denver Nuggets defeat LA Lakers 105-79. After keeping the game close in the first half, the Lakers were outscored by the Nuggets 29-8 in the third quarter to seal their fate. While Carmelo Anthony was seemingly contained thanks to foul problems in the first half, he exploded in the third quarter scoring 12 points while making the game a laugher. Both Andrew Bynum and Kobe Bryant scored 19 points while Bynum grabbed 15 rebounds. more ›

Here's where I'll lay down the stories that were missed throughout the week. It's not to say these stories are insignificant. I just missed them. Another LA sports feud - We've witnessed the Shaq-Kobe-Phil feud and the subsequent implosion. Now we have the Becks-Landon feud. In SI writer Grant Wahl's new book The Beckham Experiment, Landon Donovan aired his grievances to Wahl about David Beckham. more ›

Galaxy forward Edson Buddle scored his first goal of the season late in the game to salvage a 1 - 1 tie for the blue-and-gold last night against the Kansas City Wizards. The tie helps extend the Galaxy's undefeated streak to nine games, but it did not come easy. The blue-and-gold demonstrated some of its best offensive work on the season during portions of the first half, generating several quality chances. Galaxy forward Alan Gordon nearly opened the scoring at the 22nd minute on a one-on-one with Wizards 'keeper Kevin Hartman, but Hartman was up to the challenge. more ›

LA Lakers defeat Toronto Raptors 115-107. It took three quarters but the Lakers defense finally thawed out and showed up to get the stops against the Raptors. Kobe Bryant scored 36 points far less than the 61 he scored Monday night in Madison Square Garden. Pau Gasol showed his consistency playing center with a 31 point, 15 rebound effort after his 31-14 game Monday night. A little alarming is the fact that Gasol played all but 3:30 of the game while Kobe played for 37:33. With the game tonight against the Boston Celtics, hopefully they don't have a lethargic performance. more ›

We are barely 10 days into the new year and the Home Depot Center is already teeming with action. more ›

San Diego Padres defeat LA Dodgers 7-5. Yeah the Dodgers lost, but as Vin Scully so eloquently put it, "Who cares?" The Dodgers found out at 2:32 pm that they were NL West Champs. They went through warm ups, batting practice and the game, then the celebration began. Now this is the first celebration I have seen where the players took to the fans. Russell Martin and Manny Ramirez were among the players spraying fans with champagne and beer. Next for the Dodgers is the final series of the season at San Francsico. As for the postseason, the Dodgers could face either the New York Mets, Philadelphia Phillies or Chicago Cubs in the first round. more ›

It's finally official. Bruce Arenas was named head coach and general manager of the LA Galaxy. It seemed inevitable when Tim Leiweke gave a five-minute gush fest about Arenas in the press box Thursday night in their game against Chivas USA. more ›

LA Dodgers defeat Philadelphia Phillies 3-1. Dodgers pitching pretty much shut down the Phillies since the third inning of Wednesday's game. In this game the Phillies managed two hits off Hiroki Kuroda. Meanwhile the Dodgers got just enough timely hits to beat the Phils and get their first four-game sweep of the Phils since 1962. The Dodgers are now three games over .500 for the first time since May 25 and stay tied for first place of the Loser's Division with the Arizona Diamondbacks. more ›

LA Angels defeat Baltimore Orioles 6-5. The Angels led the game 5-1 with two outs in the top of the ninth. What happens? Oh Francisco Rodriguez just blew the save (with help from a Mark Teix-error) to tie the game up 5-5. But the Angels came back in the bottom of the ninth with the bases loaded. Oriole's closer George Sherrill walked Chone Figgins with the walk off walk. Sometimes it's better to be lucky than good. The Angels are the first team in the majors to 70 wins. more ›

Chivas USA ties LA Galaxy 1-1. The Galaxy came out strong at the beginning of the first half, but soon gave way to Chivas' aggressiveness. Ante Razov would score for Chivas in the 15th minute with the assist from Sacha Klejstan. The Galaxy didn't look sharp at all especially Landon Donovan. However Edson Buddle saved the Galaxy in the 72nd minute with a game tying goal with the assist to Peter Vagenas and David Beckham. Both teams remain in first place atop the Western Conference . more ›