Nevada baseball alum Trenton Brooks debuts with hometown MLB team

On weekday mornings, Nevada Sports Net will recap three big headlines of the day in its Morning Download. Read below for today’s topics.

1. Nevada alum Trenton Brooks debuts with hometown MLB team

Nevada baseball alum Trenton Brooks debuted Tuesday night with his hometown Major League Baseball team, the San Diego Padres. From Alpine, Calif., Brooks attended Granite Hills High, which is just 18 miles east of Petco Park. Brooks was called up to the Padres from Triple-A in place of an injured Jackson Merrill (concussion) and served as the Padres’ designated hitter in San Diego’s 6-3 loss to the Dodgers. Brooks hit seventh and struck out in both of his at-bats before being replaced by a pinch hitter later in the game. Brooks was hitting a scorching .311/.411/.590 in Triple-A El Paso. He made his big-league debut last season with the Giants before electing free agency this offseason and signing a minor-league deal with the Padres. Brooks, who played for Nevada from 2014-16, has played 13 games at the major-league level, hitting .111 in 31 plate appearances. He’s a career .271 hitter in 749 minor-league games.

2. Reno’s Payton Talbott lands on UFC 317 card

Reno’s Payton Talbott will return to the ring for UFC 317 on June 28 in Las Vegas. A bantamweight, Talbott started his MMA career 9-0 and was seen as a rising star in his division before a lopsided loss to Raoni Barcelos in January. Talbott looks to bounce back later this month when he faces Felipe Lima, who is 14-1 with a pair of wins since joining UFC. The 26-year-old Talbott scored highlight-reel wins over Cameron Saaiman and Yanis Ghemmouri in 2024, earning Performance of the Night honors in both fights before running into Barcelos, who took a unanimous decision over Talbott.

3. Local coaches battle at College World Series

Local coaches John Savage (UCLA) and Jay Johnson (LSU) are battling at the College World Series with LSU possessing a 5-3 lead when the game resumed this morning after being suspended last night due to rain in the fourth inning. Both teams won their College World Series openers with the winner moving into the championship game of the bottom part of the bracket where it will face either Arkansas or the loser of today’s UCLA-LSU game needing to win just one of two games to advance to the College World Series final.

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