Shiffrin lost rhythm and balance going into a straight combination with six gates left
http://www.tennesseetitansteamonline.com/amani-hooker-jersey , handing victory to Petra Vlhova of Slovakia in the last slalom before the Pyeongchang Olympics.
Originally listed as a ”Did Not Finish” by race organizers, Shiffrin hiked back up the hill, paused and passed through the gate before skiing slowly down.
The American star was given 27th place, almost 14 seconds behind Vlhova, in her final World Cup race before going to South Korea for the Olympics. After Shiffrin started 2018 with five straight wins in World Cup events, her winless streak is now six.
Vlhova looked shocked in the finish area to have her first victory since November, when Shiffrin was runner-up at Levi, Finland, for her only other loss this season.
Vlhova finished 0.10 seconds ahead of Frida Hansdotter of Sweden, and 0.52 clear of third-placed Wendy Holdener of Switzerland.
”I am really sorry for Mikaela,” said Vlhova, who missed the podium in the four previous World Cup slaloms. ”I won and I’m really happy because I needed this. I was in crisis a little bit.”
Still, Shiffrin retained her big leads in the World Cup overall and slalom standings. Holdener is second overall and Vlhova second in the slalom standings.
It was the final World Cup slalom before the Feb. 14 medal race at the Pyeongchang Olympics where Shiffrin will defend her title. She is also the reigning world champion and World Cup season-long champion in the discipline she dominates.
Shiffrin already planned to skip a World Cup parallel slalom event in Stockholm on Tuesday and two downhills next weekend at Garmisch-Partenkirchen
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It completed a difficult weekend for Shiffrin at Lenzerheide where she enjoyed one of her greatest career days in 2013. Then, at the World Cup finals, a remarkable and fast second run ensured she edged Tina Maze for her first season-long slalom title at age 18.
On Saturday, Shiffrin placed just seventh in a giant slalom that included an especially steep and twisting start to each run.
Shiffrin said Sunday the previous day’s race left her ”pretty heartbroken” to confront the limits of her technical skills in giant slalom.
“That’s a hard thing to stare at straight in the face,” Shiffrin said, speaking after she took a clear lead in the first slalom run. After another cautious start Sunday morning, she raced down the bottom half to be 0.65 faster than second-placed Holdener.
Another slalom win – a 34th in World Cups for the Olympic and three-time world champion – seemed assured until a rare mistake took Shiffrin off the podium for the first time in more than a year.
Rookie right-hander Freddy Peralta seems to make history every time he steps on the mound for the Milwaukee Brewers barely weeks into his major league career.
Fittingly enough, too, since he’s about to face a Cincinnati Reds pitching staff — mainly, reliever Michael Lorenzen — that is doing some pretty historic things themselves. Only with their bats and not their arms.
The 22-year-old Peralta is 3-0 with a 1.59 ERA in his first four major league starts, including two in which he has struck out 10 or more and allowed only one hit. He’s the first pitcher in baseball’s live-ball ERA to do that, and the first Brewers pitcher to have two such games in a career.
How good has Peralta been? He has permitted more than two hits in only one of the four starts. In 22 2/3 innings, he has allowed only seven hits and struck out 35.
Peralta is the first major league pitcher since at least 1908 to give up three hits or fewer and strike out at least five in each of his first four career games.
“His stuff looks electric from center field
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Peralta is doing it without an overpowering fastball, like so many other young pitchers are today. He’s throwing his four-seam fastball at an average velocity of 91.2 mph, or about what an average starter threw 15 years or so ago.
“He’s got a high spin rate and the ball just kind of jumps at you, even though it’s 92 mph,” Royals manager Ned Yost said.
If the last-place Reds can get to Peralta on Sunday at Great American Ball Park — and no team has yet — they would split a four-game series in which they lost the first two games.
Cincinnati bounced back from a 3-2 deficit Saturday with an eight-run seventh inning powered by a pinch-grand slam from Lorenzen off a Jacobs Barnes fastball and went on to win 12-3 for its 10th victory in 13 games.
“Michael Lorenzen was pretty special,” Reds interim manager Jim Riggleman said.
Pinch-hit grand slams are rare enough. But by a pitcher?
What’s even more remarkable is Lorenzen also homered Friday night during an 8-2 Brewers victory, and he homered in his previous at-bat before that while pinch hitting against the Chicago Cubs on June 24.
“I love playing baseball,” Lorenzen said. “Every day, I look forward to contributing in some form.”
That’s three homers in the last three at-bats for Lorenzen, who’s quickly becoming the National League’s bullpen equivalent of the Angels’ multi-dimensional Shohei Ohtani.
Lorenzen is 1-0 with a 1.93 ERA in 15 games, and he’s 4-for-6 at the plate. He’s the first pitcher with multiple pinch homers in a season since Brooks Kieschnick in 2003 — and he has done it in only a week.
“The guy’s swinging the bat really well
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Then there’s this: No Reds pitcher had hit a grand slam in 59 years, or since Bob Purkey in 1959, until starter Anthony DeScalfani did it June 23 against the Cubs. Now, Reds pitchers have hit grand slams twice in eight days.
Lorenzen’s homer was more than enough for the Reds to overcome Eric Thames‘ 14th home run against them in the two seasons and his fourth this season — the first three of which were game-winners.
Only two of the Reds’ 15 hits Saturday were for extra bases — Lorenzen’s homer and a Scooter Gennett double — but they were 8-for-16 with runners in scoring position.
Peralta will go up against veteran right-hander Matt Harvey (3-5), who has recently given the Reds a glimpse of his former dominating self with the New York Mets. He has won each of his last two starts, giving up three runs in 12 2/3 innings, after going 0-3 in his previous four starts.