The Elevator: Big hitters

By Rob Miech

Saturday, Aug. 22, 2009 | 2 a.m.

GOING UP

Randy Ruiz

Toronto’s big swinger hit three home runs, all solo shots, in his first six games since being called up from Las Vegas. The first two were at Yankee Stadium, two subway stops north of his boyhood home in the Bronx. He was hitting .310 and slugging .621, with 11 strikeouts and a walk, through the middle of this week.

Danielle Diamant

The center from Bishop Gorman (and Jerry Tarkanian’s granddaughter) helped a U.S. junior national basketball team win the gold medal at the Maccabiah Games in Israel last month. It beat Israel in the championship game. Next month she starts school at Northwestern.

Las Vegas Wranglers

In a smart move, the minor-league hockey club recently switched parent affiliations from Calgary to the Phoenix Coyotes, whose AHL team is in San Antonio. The Coyotes, who moved from Winnipeg to Arizona in 1996, might attract some much-needed fans not far from home.

Women’s boxing

Former Las Vegas boxer Yvonne Caples and many others, no doubt, hailed the International Olympic Committee’s decision last week to include women’s boxing at the 2012 Olympics in London. It was a demonstration event at the St. Louis games in 1904.

GOING DOWN

Gina Carano

The Las Vegas-based mixed martial arts fighter lost the first women’s MMA championship bout last Saturday in San Jose. Christiane “Cyborg” Santos scored a mechanical TKO middleweight victory with a second left in the opening round. It was the first defeat in eight fights for Carano.

Bryce Harper

At an all-star baseball game Sunday in San Diego, the Sports Illustrated cover boy grounded out twice and struck out three times in five plate appearances. “He could not catch up to a decent fastball and was badly fooled by every curve,” Dave Perkins of Baseball America wrote. “Harper’s swing, sound previously, has gone backward.”