LOS ANGELES -- Andrew Friedman had high hopes for his Tampa Bay Rays bullpen in 2014, but it struggled. He worried about the group of Los Angeles Dodgers relievers he took into 2017, but they were a revelation.

In five years as the Dodgers' president of baseball operations, Friedman has experienced a fair share of both hits and misses acquiring relievers. Joe Blanton, Brandon Morrow and Tony Watson worked out, for the most part. Joel Peralta, Sergio Romo and Jim Johnson did not. For years, fans clamored for him to spend money on established middle relievers, and so he did, giving Joe Kelly at least $25 million over the course of three seasons. Now Kelly is statistically one of the worst pitchers in the sport.

In about a month -- if not sooner, if not already -- Friedman will shift his focus to other teams for outside help. Yes, the Dodgers will be -- are -- in the market for relief pitchers. So is practically every other team with aspirations of playing into October, because nobody has this department figured out.

Reliever volatility has transcended the information age.

"Every year, going into the year, the bullpen performance is what keeps me up at night," Friedman said. "And it's funny because the years that I've had the most confidence is probably the years where we've struggled the most, and the years where I've been the most afraid are the years where we've been the best."

This season, so far, it's the former.

The Dodgers, two-time defending champions of the National League, are a juggernaut everywhere except in their bullpen. Their lineup boasts the sport's third-highest OPS and includes the MVP favorite. Their rotation ranks second in ERA and includes the Cy Young favorite. In the field, they have accumulated 83 defensive runs saved -- 46 percent more than the runner-up.

And then there's the bullpen, with that suboptimal 4.25 ERA. The Dodgers have lost only 24 of their 72 games this season, and 17 of those losses are on the ledgers of their current relievers.

Before the trade deadline comes and goes at the end of July, the Dodgers will join a dizzying list of teams hoping to upgrade their bullpens. The Minnesota Twins, Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves will probably be aggressive here. The Rays, Philadelphia Phillies and Milwaukee Brewers could stand to add, as well. The New York Yankees and Houston Astros have outstanding bullpens, but they'll probably look for reinforcements, too. The Chicago Cubs would also be on this list, but they beat the crowd by signing Craig Kimbrel.

Most relievers are failed starters, their volatility largely a product of their simply not being as good. There's also that whole thing about small sample sizes and how they skew numbers, most notably for those who pitch only an inning at a time. And perhaps there's something to be said about executives falling in love with raw stuff and not putting enough emphasis on the ability to pitch from their relievers. Friedman pointed to another reason for the sheer unpredictability of bullpens.

"We as an industry have learned a lot about managing starters' workloads and appreciating various increases and what it means, and we have no idea on relievers," Friedman said. "And part of that is not just the total number of times that they throw in a year -- it's the frequency in which they throw in a week, or in two weeks, or the number of times they get up and get hot."

To "get hot" means to warm up at full intensity, or close to it. Relievers hate nothing more than to throw off a bullpen mound with the intention of getting into a game and be told to sit back down only to oftentimes stand up, stretch and start throwing again, ramping up the intensity in earnest. Many equate the act to an appearance, but it isn't accounted for in any meaningful way.

The Dodgers know how often their own pitchers warm up, but they're clueless about the rest of the league. The 29 other teams face the same predicament.

"The hardest part that people always forget about a bullpen is stuff versus rest," retired former closer Huston Street said. "There's a direct correlation."

These days, reliever volatility has reached a new high. League-wide, relief pitchers are allowing 4.75 runs per game, the highest mark in 12 years. The reason, many will say, is that they're exhausted. Starters aren't allowed to pitch deep enough into games, so bullpens are accounting for more innings. And even when relievers are not making official appearances, the tendency to let situations dictate usage -- as opposed to assigning specific roles -- is probably leading to their warming up more often than they used to.

"More is being asked out of bullpens," Cubs president of baseball operations Theo Epstein said. "You start accumulating seasons of the starter getting pulled the second time through and more burden placed on the pen, it's going to take a toll."

Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said he "feels good" about his bullpen within the grand scheme of a season. He pointed to the recent surge of Kenley Jansen -- 10⅓ scoreless innings, with 16 strikeouts and one walk from May 12 to June 14 -- and the steady reliability of Pedro Baez and Dylan Floro. He brought up the importance of getting lefty specialist Scott Alexander healthy, and then he brought up the obvious -- getting Kelly right again.

"We're going to need him," Roberts said. "That's just plain and simple."

When Kelly pitched low leverage against the San Francisco Giants on June 8 and struck out the side, Friedman claimed it might have been the most impressive combination of raw stuff and pitch execution he had seen in his half-decade with the Dodgers.

Three nights later, Kelly pitched against the Los Angeles Angels and couldn't do anything right. His inning included an errant pickoff and two pitches to the backstop. He absorbed his third loss and saw his ERA increase to 7.59, and Roberts agreed that part of his struggles might have been mental.

Kelly claimed he was "not that far off" and that it "probably looks worse than what it really is," and he would know.

Kelly encapsulated the volatility of relief pitching in one season last year. His month-to-month ERAs with the Red Sox went from 3.09 to 0.63 to 8.31, 8.38, 1.42 and 8.31. The 31-year-old right-hander just so happened to be right during the postseason, which culminated in six scoreless innings -- with 10 strikeouts and zero walks -- during the World Series. His current teammates lived it up close.

"He's just going through a rough time right now," Jansen said. "People can doubt him and say all the stuff they can say, but we believe in him. I believe him. I'm sure Doc and Andrew and everybody believes in him. He's a champion. A true champion. What he did last year against us -- he's a true champion. It's a long season, man. All we need him to do is figure it out at the right time. And that right time is closer to the end of the season."

Last year, the Colorado Rockies spent $106 million on their bullpen only to see their three new arms -- Wade Davis, Bryan Shaw, Jake McGee -- underperform. Edwin Diaz, Cody Allen, Kelvin Herrera, David Robertson, Andrew Miller, Joakim Soria and Trevor Rosenthal all switched teams over the offseason, and none has pitched particularly well.

The Dodgers will eventually get some help, whether it's Brad Hand or Will Smith or Greg Holland or someone else. Relievers are usually the most available commodity in the summer, but they're also the trickiest to trade for -- because their value is suspect, because so many other teams need them and because they're so darn unpredictable.

"We're comfortable being aggressive," Friedman said of his approach to acquiring bullpen help. "We're not comfortable being stupid."

WEST ALLIS, Wis. — Stock car racing returned to the historic Milwaukee Mile at Wisconsin State Fair Park Sunday afternoon, with Austin Nason capturing the ARCA Midwest Tour Father’s Day 100.

With auto racing dating back to 1903 at the Milwaukee area oval, the event marked the return of stock car competition to the one-mile paved speed plant after a five-year hiatus.

Nason, the 24-year-old speedster from Roscoe, Ill., wheeled his Montgomery Ward/Haase Builders/Kar Korner/JRS Shocks-sponsored Ford No. 14 to the win, taking the checkered flag with a 2.237-second advantage over four-time ARCA Midwest Tour champion and the event’s fastest qualifier Ty Majeski, who was among several leaders of the 100-lap chase.

Minnesota’s Dan Fredrickson, another leader during the race, finished third with Colorado standout Preston Peltier taking fourth. Casey Roderick, Casey Johnson, who started the afternoon on top of the Midwest Tour standings, Ryan Farrell, last chance race winner Josh Brock, Eddie MacDonald and Gabe Sommers rounded out the top 10.

“I hope this becomes a tradition,” said Nason after his victory.  “This is awesome just to come back to this place.  I think if we make this a tradition every year, you’ll keep getting more and more fans.”

Frederickson had changed tires during the first caution period with 40 laps complete with Nason, along with Majeski, putting on new tires when the second caution flag waved with 79 laps in the books. Nason lined up fifth on the restart and charged by Fredrickson for the top spot on lap 94, leading the rest of the way.

In other feature action during an overcast, rather cold – temperatures in the 50s, afternoon, Ron Weyer was the winner of the 20-lap Mid American Stock Car Series contest.  Inheriting the lead after front runners Aaron Shelton and Mark Pluer tangled while battling for the lead, the 49-year-old Weyer bested Rick Corso, Scott Ascher, Rick Tackman Jr., Steve Blair and Luke Baldwin.

Fifteen-year-old Levon Van Der Geest held off the challenges of Joe Valento to win the 20-lap Midwest Truck Tour feature. Ready to be a high school sophomore in a few months, Van Der Geest is the son of Wisconsin late model car owner, Jay Van Der Gest.  Veteran Wisconsin racer James Swan took third, followed by John Ovadal Jr. and Kevin Knuese.

The ageless Woody Pool, still competing at the age of 75, drove his 1970 Ford Torino to victory in Upper Midwest Vintage Series 15-lap feature race.

The finish:

Austin Nason, Ty Majeski, Dan Frederickson, Preston Peltier, Casey Roderick, Casey Johnson, Ryan Farrell, Josh Brock, Eddie MacDonald, Gabe Sommers, John DeAngelis Jr., Luke Fenhaus, Austin Kunert, Paul Shafer Jr., John Beale, Carson Kvapil, Jason Weinkauf, Jeff Van Oudenhoven, Rich Bickle Jr., Maxwell Schultz, Travis Braden, Chad Butz, Alex Stumpf, Dalton Zehr, Matthew Craig, Justin Mondeik, Derek Doerr, Albert Francis, Andrew Morrisey, Brent Kirchner, Dillion Hammond, Tim Lampman.

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PSG ready to offload Neymar

French champions Paris Saint-Germain appear ready to cash in on Neymar this summer, according to French paper L'Equipe.

Neymar has been linked with a move away from the French capital ever since he arrived in 2017 for a fee of £200 million, and his employers would appear to have had enough of his attitude and propensity for injury, despite that he scored 51 goals in 58 games.

The 27-year-old has been linked with both Real Madrid and Barcelona in recent weeks, this after a season in which the Brazilian was quoted admitting he wanted to leave the Parc des Princes.

Neymar is believed to have grown frustrated with PSG's lack of success in Europe, while the club are looking to move from what they call "celebrity behaviour." If he does move to Spain, it could open the door for a sensational move to Paris for Antoine Griezmann.

Atletico close in on Felix

One of the longest transfer sagas of the summer could see Portuguese wonderkid Joao Felix join Atletico Madrid, reports Marca.

The 19-year-old has attracted interest from all over Europe, including from Manchester City, but Marca suggest that Atletico led the chase as a result of the money they have at their disposal once Griezmann is sold.

Felix scored 20 goals and made 11 assists in 43 games for Benfica in an impressive breakout season, but his contract doesn't finish until 2023 -- meaning that Atleti would have to spend a lot of the Griezmann money to get their man.

Diego Simeone is also hoping to add Bruno Fernandes to his squad, and is prepared to sanction a bid of up to £45m to land the Sporting Lisbon star.

Lampard tops list for Chelsea hotseat

Chelsea are stepping up their search for a new manager following Maurizio Sarri's official appointment at Juventus on Sunday.

Sarri leaves the west London club after just one year and signs a three-year deal in Turin, and now legend Frank Lampard tops the list to replace him, reports the Daily Mail.

Lampard is joined on the wanted list by Ajax boss Erik ten Hag, Wolves boss Nuno Espirito Santo and RB Leipzig's Ralf Rangnick.

Lampard led Derby County to the Championship playoff final after a good first season in management. Yet while his links to Chelsea make him an obvious candidate, there are concerns by some that the job comes too soon in his development as a manager.

Chelsea would have to pay the Rams £4m in compensation to release Lampard from his contract.

Tap-ins

- Arsenal are ignoring advances from AC Milan for midfielder Lucas Torreira, according to the Sun. The 23-year-old moved to north London just 12 months ago from Sampdoria and has already been linked with a move back to Italy, with the Rossoneri -- now managed by Torreira's former boss Marco Giampaolo -- leading the chase. However, Arsenal have said he's not for sale.

- Roma are preparing to raid rivals Napoli for a sensational double swoop for Amadou Diawara and Dries Mertens, according to Corriere dello Sport. Napoli themselves are closing in on Kostas Manolas amidst competition from Juventus and AC Milan, which could see them freshen up their squad and let both Diawara and Mertens go.

Steven Smith has described Virat Kohli's efforts to stop the crowd from heckling him as "a lovely gesture", but insists the frequent booing and heckling throughout the World Cup has not affected him.

When Smith was fielding near the boundary during Australia's loss to India at The Oval, a section of the crowd started chanting "cheater, cheater", in reference to Smith's involvement in the Newlands ball-tampering scandal. Kohli, who was batting at the time, gestured to the crowd and clapped at Smith, indicating his support for the former Australian captain. After the match, Kohli expressed his support for Smith during a press conference.

"Yeah, it was a lovely gesture," Smith said. "It doesn't really bother me what the crowd do to be perfectly honest, I'm just sort of blocking it all out but it was a lovely gesture from Virat, that's for sure."

While Smith can't be completely unaware of the booing that has accompanied the start and finish of many of his innings in the tournament so far, he has been able to overcome it to the point where he has made three half-centuries in five matches, without going on to make a hundred though. Against Sri Lanka at The Oval on Saturday, he played his most sprightly innings so far, a 59-ball 73 in support of Aaron Finch's match-winning knock of 153 off 132 balls. Smith's other totals have been scored at a rate of under a run-a-ball and it augurs well for Australia's campaign that he has found an extra gear.

"When you've got off to a good start and you've got wickets in the shed, you've got to keep trying to take the game on," Smith said. "I think that's where you get your 350-pluses. I think if you've sat back and let the game get away from you and try and do too much at the back end, some days it can come off and you can go at 12-plus an over at the back end, but there are a lot of specialty bowlers who bowl at the back end and can be difficult to get away.

"If you just keep that run rate going and playing with a positive mindset and slightly aggressive, with wickets in the shed, that's where you get your 350-pluses. We probably didn't quite finish off as we should have [against Sri Lanka], lost a few quick wickets in clumps again. But I thought [Glenn Maxwell] Maxi came in and did his job. If we keep giving those guys up top [support] and the top four getting big hundreds, you go a long way to winning games."

Smith's innings against Sri Lanka equalled his highest score for the tournament so far but the 73 he made against West Indies at the start of the tournament was vastly different. With wickets falling around him on a challenging pitch, against aggressive fast bowling, Smith looked as though he was batting in Test mode, taking 103 balls to reach his total and shoring up Australia's chances in the process.

"We spoke after the first [warm-up] game against West Indies, and one-day cricket you've got to really adapt to the conditions and sometimes you may need to play like a Test match and sometimes you may need to play like a T20," Smith said. "And when your team gets off to a really good start and you've got 25 overs to go and you're only one down, it becomes a T20 mindset and that's where you get your big totals. I've played a lot of T20 cricket and know the game. I know the situation a lot of the time, it's about summing it up and playing according to what needs to be done out in the middle."

Smith maintains he has no current aspirations to captain Australia again - he is banned from doing so for another year - but, while he is now free to focus on his game rather than managing the additional leadership role, he says that hasn't changed his approach.

"I obviously don't have to worry about that, but I don't think that ever hindered me. I think I have always just loved batting and wanted to bat as much as I could in the nets. That probably played against me at times, batting too much in the nets and not freshening myself up. That's one thing I am learning as I am getting older, that balance of knowing to relax a bit. Especially if I am hitting the ball well, not just keep on hitting because it is fun. But having that balance so I am fresh out in the middle and ready to do the job that needs to be done."

Others in the Australian camp have commented on Smith's ubiquitous presence in the nets and his frequent shadow batting, with Justin Langer quipping that he even shadow bats in the shower.

"I don't know how he's spying on me in the shower," Smith laughed. "Good on him. Yeah I'm known to play a few shots here and there. I always have a bat in my room and Ricky [Ponting] was actually rooming about ten rooms up from me the other day and said, 'Were you batting at 7 o'clock this morning?' He could hear me tapping on the ground and I said, 'Yeah I was actually.'"

If Smith continues to play crucial innings in the middle throughout the World Cup, then his team-mates will undoubtedly tolerate more early morning interruptions in the hotels.

PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. -- His son had just won the U.S. Open on Father's Day, and Dan Woodland was standing near the 18th green talking about the day his heart stopped beating 10 years ago, when his boy Gary was a PGA Tour rookie trying to make the cut on this very course at Pebble Beach.

Dan Woodland had suffered a heart attack while playing golf, though he thought it was heartburn at the time.

"I had three bypasses," he said Sunday night, "and then I coded."

Coded?

"I passed," Dan Woodland said. "Passed."

Passed away?

"Yes," he said.

Dan doesn't remember much about that entire week in a Scottsdale, Arizona, hospital in 2009, other than the fact that he was gone and the doctors brought him back. "People ask me all the time, 'Did you see any lights?'" Woodland said. "No. I didn't even know it was happening."

His wife, Linda, knew exactly what was happening. Gary and his sister, C.J., had spent time with their father after the heart attack, and before Gary left for Pebble and the AT&T Pebble Beach Pro-Am. The triple-bypass surgery was thought to be a success. But two days later Dan suddenly lapsed into cardiac arrest.

"It happened right in front of me," Linda said. "I screamed for a nurse. ... They did a code blue in his room a couple of times over the intercom."

Linda was rushed into a conference room.

"They carted him right past me," she said. "There were all these doctors and nurses around him, you couldn't even see him. They rushed him back into surgery."

When the doctors reemerged, they told Linda that her husband had been gone three or four minutes before he was resuscitated for keeps.

"They ended up putting in a pacemaker defibrillator, and, ironically, last week the battery just went out," Linda said. "It's about a 10-year span, and now he's scheduled to have that replaced in a couple of weeks."

The mother of the U.S. Open champion laughed and motioned toward her husband, dressed in a Wilson cap and a dark sweatsuit as he beamed on the shores of the Pacific.

"Look," Linda said. "He's doing great now."

How could Dan Woodland be doing any better? He had just watched his 35-year-old son win his first major championship by holding off Brooks Koepka, a chaser with Arnold Palmer's arms and Jack Nicklaus' taste for the biggest moments. On Sunday, in the final round of the U.S. Open, Woodland hit a remarkable 3-wood on the par-5 14th, and an even better chip shot on the green at the par-3 17th, to beat Koepka, a four-time major winner in his previous eight starts. Woodland then made a long birdie putt on the iconic final hole that inspired him to lift his putter toward the darkening sky before the ball dropped. That left him with a final score of 13-under, one stroke better than Tiger Woods' 2000 score at Pebble in the most dominant performance the game has seen.

Having denied Koepka's bid for an historic U.S. Open three-peat, Woodland walked off the course and into arms of the man who had coached him in youth baseball and basketball, but not in golf.

"He was hard on me," Gary said. "He never let me win."

Gary finally beat Dan in golf at age 13, and in hoops a year or two after that. Sunday night, sitting next to the national championship trophy, Gary described his old man, a longtime electrical contractor, as his best friend.

"I wouldn't be where I am today without my dad, and the way he treated me, and the way he was hard on me," Gary said. "And that's something I look forward to doing with my son."

Woodland's son, Jaxson, turns two next week. Two years ago, Gary and his wife, Gabby, were expecting twins when they lost their daughter three months before Jaxson was born 10 weeks premature, weighing three pounds. Dan and Linda helped pull their son through that devastating event in the young couple's life.

"It was his first child," Linda said. "Just having a wife that's pregnant and then losing one of [the children], it's such a traumatic experience. He matured a lot through that. He was getting texts and emails from people all over the world ... and that helped."

After Woodland nailed down his third PGA Tour victory -- in a playoff at the 2018 Waste Management Phoenix Open -- he patted his heart, blew a kiss and pointed to the sky in honor of his lost girl. Gary had been there when Gabby delivered the daughter who never have a chance at life.

"That's real," he said after his Phoenix victory, "and I just wanted her to know I still love her."

Gary said his wife suffered two miscarriages last year, and happily reported she is pregnant and due to deliver identical twin girls in August. Gabby was home Sunday with their healthy son while Gary introduced himself to the world as one of the toughest golfers alive.

As a high school basketball star in Topeka, Gary once tried to draw a charge on an opponent fixing to dunk on him. He took a knee to the chest that left him with a collapsed trachea and a trip out of the gym on a stretcher.

"The doctors said, 'You're not playing basketball for several weeks,'" Linda said of her son, who was injured on a Tuesday. "We were out of town, so we went to a doctor in Topeka and Gary said, 'I'm playing Friday.' And he did."

A Division II basketball player at Washburn University, Woodland wouldn't let a broken finger suffered in practice stop him from playing against his dream school, Kansas, in a preseason game in Allen Fieldhouse.

"He played with his fingers taped together," Linda said. "He played through every injury ever. He never quits."

As a young boy, Gary never wanted to quit swinging away with the lighter ladies clubs his parents bought him when he was 3 years old. Dan and Linda would take their son to a sports center in Topeka that had a driving range and a par-3 course.

"We would buy buckets and buckets of balls," said Linda, who worked in banking for 46 years. "His little hands, they didn't have gloves that small. His hands would bleed, and he still wanted to keep hitting balls."

Before they could drag their child away, the sports center's pro gave a lesson to Dan and Linda Woodland.

"Don't let anybody touch him," he said.

Don't let anyone touch that swing.

Ultimately that swing proved natural enough to drive Gary away from his first love, basketball, and toward a spot on the golf team at Kansas, and then toward life as a pro. By any measure, Woodland was a PGA Tour success, a very good player struggling to find a bridge to greatness. He became best known as the golfer who guided Amy Bockerstette, a young golfer with Down syndrome, through an amazing practice-round par at TPC Scottsdale, a moment captured on a video that now has more than 5 million views. Gary and Amy were FaceTiming each other Sunday night, and for good reason.

Woodland entered the final round with an 0-for 7 record when holding at least a share of the lead after 54 holes. He knew this would be the most stressful round of his life, and yet his father noticed that his boy was as calm as he's ever been.

"I saw a different golfer this week," Dan said.

The old man started feeling butterflies Friday night, and didn't want to say much to Gary about what was unfolding at Pebble.

"It's like a pitcher throwing a no-hitter," Dan said.

Gary was doing just fine out there on his own. Dan noticed that his son was walking the course with his hands in his pockets; he'd never seen that before. The father figured Gary had come up with a new trick to slow himself down.

It worked. On the 72nd hole of the 119th U.S. Open, the fans chanted Gary's name and gave shoutouts to Washburn basketball and Kansas golf. The slugger had proven he had the short game to ace the sport's most demanding test. Woodland made that final putt to beat Tiger's 2000 number, lifted his arms in touchdown form, and then wrapped his father in a bear hug.

During the trophy presentation on the green, Dan Woodland was asked if he'd thought about the fact that 10 years earlier, he nearly died while his son was trying to get his career going on the same course that now made him a U.S. Open champ.

"I really didn't," he said, before his eyes started to fill with tears on Father's Day. Dan stopped for a few moments to gather himself.

"What I thought a lot about [on Sunday]," he said, his voice cracking, "was the one that was lost, Gary's daughter.

"I know she's up there saying, 'That's my father.'"