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Sports

Mariners author a new type of win, defeat Rockies 6-4

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If there’s a Mariners-style win this year, non-chaos division, it’s probably this: strong starting pitching holds the opposing team down enough for the offense to slowly stack a few runs on the board, either by scraping some runs off a starter or pouncing on the soft underbelly of another team’s bullpen, and then the bullpen comes in and closes the door. The majority of the heavy offensive lifting is done by the first three batters, who drag the rest of the lineup along behind them, with the bottom of the lineup occasionally punishing a mistake pitch for a solo homer. Tonight the Mariners flipped the script a little, spreading out the offense across the lineup and weathering a late-inning bullpen hiccup to guarantee at least a series split with the Rockies, meaning the Mariners haven’t lost a series since the Yankees came to town in early July.

The last time the Mariners faced Germán Márquez he had a perfect game going into the sixth inning, when Taylor Trammell put an end to that with a solo home run. With no Trammell in the lineup tonight it looked like Márquez might not perfecto the Mariners—Cal Raleigh worked his first ever big-league walk in the second inning to put an end to that idea early on—but a no-hitter felt very much on the table, as the Mariners’ approach of limiting Márquez from getting to a two-strike count and being able to deploy his curveball by swinging at the first pitch only resulted in quick innings for Márquez until the fourth inning, when Kyle Seager mercifully ended no-hit-watch by dunking a single into center field. Cal Raleigh followed that up with his first-ever MLB hit, but Jarred Kelenic and Dylan Moore struck out to end any threat.

Cal Raleigh had quite a night tonight on both sides of the dish—we’ll get to his offensive impact a little more later—as he helped Marco out of a little early trouble after Garrett Hampson singled three pitches into the game. Marco struck out Connor Joe, in for an injured Chris Owings, but during that at-bat Raleigh notched another first: his first MLB caught stealing.

Marco walked Trevor Story but got Charlie Blackmon to ground out to end the inning for a clean first inning. Overall his stuff looked much better tonight; his misses were mostly borderline pitches instead of big misses like they’ve been, and the changeup was an especially good weapon for him tonight, generating both whiffs and weak contact.

The one speedbump Marco hit tonight was in the fifth inning; he walked the eight-hole hitter, Joshua Fuentes, on five pitches, and then made a poor pitch to Connor Joe—88 middle-middle—which Joe redirected 440 feet for a no-doubter, non-Coors-aided two-run shot. That would be Marco’s last inning of the night, and two runs over five innings isn’t going to vastly improve his ERA, but having recapped Marco’s past few starts (and been sad while doing so), I can attest it was a much better-looking outing than his previous few.

Now trailing 2-0, it looked like the game was headed down a particularly stupid path as Mitch Haniger led off the next inning with a solid base hit, but was thrown trying to stretch what was maybe a generously-sized single into a hustle double but without the necessary hustle. Seager then hit a double that would have probably scored Haniger if he hadn’t had a sudden attack of the bad decisions, and then France hit a single that DEFINITELY would have scored Mitch if he hadn’t been overtaken by the farticus brainicus. That left the scoring opportunity in the hands of tenderfooted young rookie Cal Raleigh. I believe I actually said out loud, “no pressure, Cal.”

Make that no-pressure Cal:

Jarred Kelenic grounded out for the second out of the inning, which put any chance of scoring the go-ahead run into the slender yet strong hands of one Dylan Moore. DMo has been scuffling this year, especially on hittable pitches in the zone, which is maybe why Márquez felt like he could get away with grooving a slider middle-middle to him. And true to form, DMo fouled off that very hittable pitch. But then Márquez went back to that well a second time, and this time, this time Dylan did not miss:

Middle-of-the-order production? Extra-base hits and homers? It’s not the typical formula, but we are not mad about it, no we are not. Of course because this is a Mariners win there did have to be some top-of-the-order production, which came thanks to Mr. Ty France, who saw the Mariners attempting to squander a two-on no-out opportunity and said NON.

Those two extra runs would turn out to be important because again, boldly stepping outside of the genre conventions of a 2021 Mariners win, the bullpen actually wobbled a little tonight, making the game a little more heart-stopping than it could have been.

J.T. Chargois took over for Marco in the fifth, and managed to post a clean inning but needed an assist from Shed Long, who gunned down Ryan McMahon trying to go from first to third on an Elias Díaz single. No, like, literally, as once again the infielder-as-outfielder trope gets turned on its head:

Drew Steckenrider also worked a scoreless inning, this time getting help from Cal Raleigh behind the dish:

Again, having endured some…questionable receiving from Torrens earlier this season, it’s fresh and fun to have a receiver as good as Cal back there. He did have a couple hiccups here and there, as is to be expected when a young catcher goes from seeing the same familiar pitches in the minors to a whole new pitching staff (including some who weren’t even with the big-league club during spring training), but overall Cal was as impressive behind the dish as he was at it.

The biggest bullpen wobble came from the man who’s been the most reliable arm out there over the past few weeks. Charlie Blackmon led off the 8th by tripling against Paul Sewald, and then C.J. Cron, who stands at the plate like a salami hanging in a butcher-shop window, ambushed a first-pitch slider that slid into the upper middle of the zone, redirecting it 465 feet into the Colorado sunset. Sewald rebounded to get McMahon to fly out on a fastball, and Díaz to pop out softly on the slider before striking out pinch-hitter Brendan Rodgers again on the slider. Sliders aren’t easy to throw in Coors Field and it did seem like Sewald had found his handle on the pitch by the end, but there was still an inning to go with the Mariners’ lead trimmed to a decidedly not Coors-proof two runs.

After Carlos Estévez, casually throwing 98-99, dismissed the top of the Mariners order in the top of the 8th (Haniger did work a walk, but Seager and France struck out to end any thoughts of insurance runs), the upset-tummy feelings became a little more pronounced when Kendall Graveman led off by walking pinch-hitter Raimel Tapia. Why stray from the genre that produced so many first-half hits, I couldn’t help but wonder. Play the old stuff! Freebird! Etc. Thankfully, Graveman—himself throwing a cool 97-98—rebounded to get Hampson chasing after his slider, followed by an easy groundout off the bat of Connor Joe, and then dismissed Trevor Story, who should be freed from the prison of the Rockies ASAP, on three pitches, ending on another nasty slider Story chased out of the zone. Maybe the occasional genre switch isn’t so bad. After all, if Ian Fleming had never given up spy novels we wouldn’t have Disneyland’s second-best ride. Here’s to having some diverse fun in the second half of the season.



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World

After Sudden Defeat, Captured Ethiopian Soldiers Are Marched to Prison

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MEKELLE, Ethiopia — Thousands of Ethiopian prisoners of war were paraded through the regional capital of Tigray on Friday as jubilant crowds lined the streets to jeer the captives and cheer the Tigrayan forces who only days earlier had routed one of Africa’s most powerful armies.

Many of the soldiers bowed their heads and cast their eyes downward. Some had to be carried on stretchers, and others wore bandages freshly stained with blood.

The swift defeat of the Ethiopian forces was a stunning reversal in a civil war that has led to the displacement of nearly two million people in the Tigray region, widespread hunger and reports that civilians were subjected to atrocities and sexual violence.

The parade of prisoners served as a pointed rebuke to Ethiopia’s prime minister, Abiy Ahmed, who had proclaimed in a speech on Tuesday in the national capital, Addis Ababa, that reports of his troops’ defeat were “a lie.” He had declared a unilateral cease-fire, he insisted, for humanitarian reasons.

Mr. Abiy had actually declared victory last year, only about a month after he initiated the military operation in Tigray in November — but the fighting had continued for seven more months.

Flanked by Tigrayan fighters, the columns of defeated Ethiopian soldiers had been marching for four days from the quickly established battlefield camps where they had been held since the fighting ended this week. They flooded the streets of the Tigrayan capital, Mekelle, and were taken to a large prison on the northern edge of the city.

A 14-year-old dashed out into the street to run alongside the column, shouting her admiration for the leader of the Tigrayan forces, calling him a “lion.”

“All these soldiers tried to kill us,” the young woman, Mearge Gebroemedhin, said a few moments later, referring to the Ethiopian government forces. “But the Tigrayan soldiers showed their mercy. I am proud of our soldiers.”

While some in the crowd jeered the soldiers, the onlookers focused much of their anger on the Ethiopian prime minister, Mr. Abiy.

Nearly eight months before, Mr. Abiy had sent his forces to Mekelle to wrest power from the region’s leaders, declaring the move was necessary because the Tigrayans had held local elections without permission from the federal government, and had tried to capture an Ethiopian military base.

Now the victorious Tigrayan leaders are back in Mekelle, reoccupying their former offices.

In a lengthy, exclusive interview soon after he arrived from his holdout in the mountains, Debretsion Gebremichael, the leader of the ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, said that his fighters had captured more than 6,000 Ethiopian soldiers.

He said that Tigrayan officials have been in touch with the International Committee of the Red Cross, and would soon release the low-ranking soldiers, but would keep officers in custody.

Under the Geneva Conventions, prisoners of war must be given food and clothing, and protected from violence, intimidation and “public curiosity.” There was no immediate indication that the Ethiopian soldiers had been mistreated, or whether marching them through the streets of Mekelle amounted to a violation of the Conventions.

Ever since Ethiopia announced a unilateral cease-fire on Monday and pulled its troops out of Mekelle, Tigray has experienced electricity, telecommunications and internet blackouts. The consequences will exacerbate an already dire humanitarian situation, according to the United Nations.

International aid agencies warned of a looming humanitarian catastrophe and said it was unclear if the rebel victory would allow international assistance to start reaching those most in need in the Tigray region, which is bordered by Eritrea to the north and Sudan to the west.

The U.N. said that at least 350,000 people in the conflict-ravaged region had entered a state of famine. The U.S. Agency for International Development put its estimate for those facing famine conditions at 900,000.

On Thursday, a bridge was destroyed that provided vital access over the Tekeze River to the town of Shire in central Tigray, where the U.N. estimates there are between 400,000 and 600,000 internally displaced people living in dire conditions.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said that the bridge had been destroyed by troops belonging to the Amhara Special Forces and the army of Eritrea, the country to the north of Tigray, which had fought as allies with the Ethiopian troops.

“The bridge’s destruction will have an impact,” said Claire Nevill, a spokeswoman for the World Food Program.

One aid agency employee who was traveling through Tigray on Thursday said that there was “little to nothing” entering the region at the moment and that food trucks had been prevented from getting there by troops along the border with the Amhara region.

In the interview, Mr. Debretsion said that Tigrayan leaders were working to bring in international aid as swiftly as possible.

Analysts say that Mr. Abiy, who has served as Ethiopia’s prime minister since 2018 and who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2019 for making peace with Eritrea and instituting domestic democratic reforms, now faces tremendous political challenges.

The alliance Ethiopia forged with Eritrea and fighters in the Amhara region could fracture as Ethiopian troops continue to pull back from direct engagement, and Tigray fighters go on the offensive.

“The Amhara support for him will eventually dwindle,” said Mehari Taddele Maru, a professor of governance and geopolitics at the European University Institute. “The one thing that was holding things together in the Amhara region was the anti-Tigray sentiment. Once the Tigray matter is out of the game, the glue that held his support together is no longer there.”

Getachew Reda, a senior Tigrayan leader, said in a telephone interview on Tuesday that Tigray’s forces would not hesitate to enter Eritrea, and even might try to advance toward its capital, if that is what it would take to keep Eritrean troops from attacking again. And he claimed that in recent days, Tigrayan forces had killed many Ethiopian troops and militia fighters.

Since June 30, fighting has continued between Tigrayan and Eritrean forces in northwestern Tigray, close to the contested towns of Badme and Shiraro, U.N. security documents show.

“We want to degrade as many enemy capabilities as possible,” Mr. Getachew said. “We are still in hot pursuit so that enemy forces will not pose a threat to our Tigray in any way.”

As Friday wore on, many of the marching Ethiopian soldiers who arrived at the jail appeared hungry and exhausted. They were put in cells, men separated from women.

They had passed through a gauntlet of Tigrayans celebrating their capture. Adanay Hagos, 23, who had walked alongside the soldiers yelling at them, later explained that he was so angry because some of his friends had been killed by Eritrean troops allied with the Ethiopian army.

“This is just one step,” he said. “They invaded our land from the west and the south. Until they leave, the war is not over.”

Simon Marks contributed reporting from Brussels.

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Sports

Fred racially abused online after Manchester United’s defeat by Leicester | Manchester United

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The Manchester United midfielder Fred was the subject of racist abuse after his side’s 3-1 FA Cup quarter-final defeat to Leicester on Sunday.

Fred was at fault for Leicester’s opening goal when he gifted the ball to Kelechi Iheanacho in front of goal, and the Leicester striker rounded the goalkeeper Dean Henderson to slot home.

After the match, the 28-year-old’s Instagram account became the target of abuse online, with several of the comments racial in nature.

The Brazil international is one of several United players to be subjected to abuse in recent weeks. Marcus Rashford posted a statement about comments directed at him in late January, while Anthony Martial and Axel Tuanzebe were also targeted, as well Lauren James of the women’s team.

Manchester United have previously condemned abuse directed at their players by “mindless idiots”.

“Manchester United has zero tolerance of any form of racism or discrimination and a longstanding commitment to campaigning against it through our All Red All Equal initiative,” a statement read.

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Health

US coronavirus: The US can defeat Covid-19 variants with the right tools, White House adviser says

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“Nothing about this news says we can’t defeat this thing,” the White House Senior Advisor for Covid Response Andy Slavitt told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer. “It just means we need more tools, and we need to be more united in doing it.”

“We’re going to have to stay one step ahead of these mutations,” said Slavitt. “We’re going to need processes to keep developing tests, therapies and vaccines to make sure that as and if the virus mutates a little bit, like the flu does, we’re able to stay ahead of it.”

Experts say they believe current vaccines will still be effective against the variants, but officials are still working to close the gap between the available doses and the number administered to Americans.

“We’re changing the laws to allow more people to vaccinate. We’re sending shipments directly to pharmacies,” Slavitt said. “We are invoking the Defense Production Act and have done so to get more syringes and more other gear available to people. We’re working with states hand in glove every day to find more vaccines.

“There’s not an idea that we won’t consider,” he added.

States work to get over the distribution hurdle

On the state level, leaders have taken different tracks in approaching lags in vaccine distribution and administration.

For example, officials in Connecticut have administered 364,255 total doses — meaning 35% of people 75 and older have been inoculated in the state.

“Connecticut continues to be a leader in getting people vaccinated,” Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said during his Covid-19 press briefing on Thursday, adding that the promise from the Biden administration to increase state allotment by 16% means more people will be vaccinated faster.

Next week, Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington will become Kentucky’s first regional vaccination site, Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday. The site will vaccinate 3,000 residents the first week, prioritizing those 70 and older.

But in Ohio, officials will have to change plans because the state wants students back to school in March.

While vaccine supply in the state is limited, Ohio has pulled vaccines from its allocation to set aside around 55,000 for the state’s K-12 school staff every week, Gov. Mike DeWine said.

Meanwhile Idaho is calling for more transparency in how its current distribution plan is going, Gov. Brad Little said.

“Quite frankly, we need a clearer picture to shine more light on vaccine administration,” Little said during a Thursday press conference in Boise.

His new order requires both private healthcare companies and public health districts to tell the state on a weekly basis how many doses it has received, how many doses have been used, and how many doses are still in inventory. The numbers will be posted to the state’s public online Covid-19 dashboard.

Part of the goal is to make sure providers are meeting the state’s goal of having each available dose used within seven days of delivery.

Symptoms can last months, experts say

As the pandemic nears one year in the US, health experts say they are learning more about “long Covid,” a condition in which some patients experience symptoms months after contracting the virus.

“Persons with long Covid often present reporting persistent, severe fatigue, headaches and brain fog, which is defined as mild subjective cognitive and cognitive impairment, approximately four weeks after acute illness,” Dr. Alfonso Hernandez-Romieu, a member of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Covid-19 response team, said during a CDC briefing Thursday.

Doctors have reported that the severity of Covid-19 illness may have little impact on whether patients experience long Covid symptoms, Hernandez-Romieu said. He noted that the CDC is working to better understand long Covid.

Dr. Allison Navis, an assistant professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, said brain fog is one of the most common symptoms. She said doctors have observed these symptoms in younger patients — including children and adolescents — who had mild coronavirus and were previously healthy.

She said patients can benefit from “symptomatic and supportive” treatment, including specific medications, cognitive rehab, increased hydration and limited exercise. She stressed that patients should get enough sleep and look after their mental health.

“While we don’t know what’s causing these symptoms, they’re very real for patients, and we are seeing patients get better,” said Navis.

CNN’s Lauren Mascarenhas, Maggie Fox, Sahar Akbarzai, Rebekah Riess, Andy Rose contributed to this report.

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Sports

Floyd Mayweather slams Conor McGregor after TKO defeat

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Floyd Mayweather has taken aim at Conor McGregor, and fight fans in general, following the Irishman’s TKO defeat at UFC 257.

McGregor (22-5 MMA, 10-3 UFC) was finished in the second round by Dustin Poirier in the main event on “UFC Fight Island,” as the Irishman’s latest octagon appearance ended in his third defeat in his last six UFC appearances.

After the fight, Mayweather, who stopped McGregor in the 10th round in their much-hyped boxing match in 2017, jumped on his Instagram page to slam his former opponent and criticize fans for backing the Dubliner while also hating on him.

Mayweather shared a post that asked “Why is @floydmayweather hated for the way he carries himself but @thenotoriousmma is loved for the same way he carries himself?” and responded with a long rant about the Dubliner, who he dubbed “Con Artist McLoser,” as he called out fans for racism because he doesn’t feel as beloved by fight fans as the former two-division UFC champion.

“I seen this post and my take on it is that the world knows Con Artist McLoser can steal everything from me and be loved but I’m hated,” he complained. “That just lets you all know that racism still exists. Just know, that bum will never be me or be on my level. I’m just built different, my mindset is on another planet, my skills are second to none, I’m a natural-born winner and yes I talk a lot of trash, but every time I back it up! This is what they hate.

“It’s sad that you can be a poor black kid from the ghetto that has dealt with racism your whole life and work extremely hard to put yourself and your family in a better position, and most of the hate comes from my own people.”

Mayweather then turned his attention back to McGregor as he mocked the suggestion that the Irishman could potentially face his former rival Manny Pacquiao inside the boxing ring later this year.

“Connor (sic) cannot even win in his own sport,” he said. “But talking about coming back to boxing to fight Pacquiao. Nobody wants to see that, it’s like my leftovers eating leftovers.”

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