DENVER (AP) — The Los Angeles Dodgers on Tuesday placed scuffling closer Edwin Diaz on the injured list with inflammation in the right side of his neck while four-time MVP Shohei Ohtani progresses toward a return to the mound.
Diaz, who is 2-2 with an 11.85 ERA and seven saves in 11 opportunities in 16 games in his first season with the Dodgers, returned to Los Angeles on Tuesday and will have imaging on his neck.
“It’s kind of something that he felt (Monday) night,” manager Dave Roberts said. “We don’t know if it’s something that has been there, call it a week or whatever, but it kind of showed its head last night. So we’re going to kind of address it.”
Diaz was on the IL from April 20-July 29 with an elbow injury that required a procedure to remove loose bodies.
He has struggled since his return, going 1-2 with a 15.88 ERA and three blown saves in seven games. Diaz entered Monday night’s win at Colorado with an 11-2 lead in the ninth and allowed three runs on four hits.
“(We) know that there could be a reason why the stuff is not playing like it has in the past,” Roberts said.
Ohtani threw another bullpen session before Tuesday night’s game as he works his way back from left knee inflammation and right biceps discomfort. Roberts said he Ohtani was “around 35 pitches, and threw his entire pitch mix.”
“I asked him about his bullpen; he gave me a thumbs-up, so that was it,” said Roberts, who said Ohtani’s next step would be throwing live batting practice.
The two-way superstar last pitched July 3 against San Diego, when he gave up three runs on seven hits and struck out nine over six innings. He is 8-2 with a 1.79 ERA in 14 starts this season.
Ohtani leads Los Angeles with 29 homers.
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Los Angeles Dodgers relief pitcher Edwin DÌaz works against the Colorado Rockies in the ninth inning of a baseball game Monday, Aug. 17, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
Los Angeles Dodgers' Shohei Ohtani takes part in a bullpen session before a baseball game against the Colorado Rockies Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
STARKE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man convicted of fatally shooting his estranged wife and wounding his mother-in-law was executed Tuesday, continuing the state’s aggressive use of the death penalty in Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis ′ final term.
William Frances Silvia, 61, was pronounced dead at 6:11 p.m. after receiving a three-drug injection at Florida State Prison near Starke.
Silvia was already strapped to a gurney with an IV in his arm when the curtain to the death chamber went up at 6 p.m. He remained relatively motionless with his eyes and mouth open throughout most of the execution, and a priest sat at his feet and prayed.
Asked if he had any final words, Silvia said, "I’m sorry all this happened. It was an accident. I never meant to hurt her."
A warden shook him and shouted his name several minutes after the lethal drugs began flowing but got no response. A medic declared him dead a short time later.
Silvia is the 13th prisoner put to death this year in Florida, which has two more executions scheduled in September. The state has carried out more than half of the nation’s 23 executions so far in 2026.
Silvia was sentenced to death after being convicted of first-degree murder and attempted first-degree murder for the deadly 2006 attack on Patricia Silvia, along with her mother, Betty Woodard.
According to court records, William Frances Silvia purchased a shotgun that year and then went to Woodard’s Orlando-area home, where his wife had been living since their separation two months earlier. The family was in the middle of a cookout when Silvia arrived, and after an unsuccessful attempt to reconcile, authorities said Silvia retrieved the shotgun from his truck and shot the two women.
Pamela Wyatt, Patricia Silvia’s sister, said William Frances Silvia’s actions not only took her sister's life but changed the lives of everyone who loved her.
“Nothing that happens today can give us those stolen years. No execution can return Patricia to her children and give her the grandchildren she dreamed of knowing,” Wyatt said after the execution. “But today can be an opportunity to remember that Patricia’s life was bigger than the terrible act that ended it.”
Silvia was first sentenced to death following his 2008 trial. He was briefly granted a new penalty phase, but the Florida Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 2018 because Silvia had previously waived his post-conviction appeals.
A Florida state agency, the Capital Collateral Regional Counsel, provides legal representation to death row inmates. Silvia’s attorneys have argued that the agency couldn’t provide adequate legal assistance because it was already helping another death row inmate. The Florida Supreme Court rejected the appeal.
A total of 47 people were executed in the U.S. in 2025. Florida led the way with 19, a record in the state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.
In July, Florida executed two prisoners in one day, the first state in nearly a decade to do so.
Two more executions are planned in Florida next month. Harold Gene Lucas, 74, is scheduled to die on Sept. 1, followed by Daniel Owen Conahan Jr., 72, on Sept. 10.
Lucas was convicted of fatally shooting a 16-year-old girl who rejected his romantic advances and wounding two of her friends.
Conahan was convicted of kidnapping and strangling a man that he had paid to pose for nude photos, and authorities suspect him of similar homicides committed in the 1990s in southwest Florida.
All Florida executions are carried out via lethal injection of a sedative, a paralytic and a drug that stops the heart, according to the Department of Corrections.
FILE - Law enforcement vehicles sit parked outside the Florida state prison in Starke, Fla., on Tuesday, July 28, 2026. (AP Photo/David Fischer, file)
