Month: August 2017

Max Scherzer hits home run, leaves game with apparent injury

admin

Max Scherzer smacked his first-career home run Tuesday in the top of the second inning against the Marlins. But his night quickly took a turn for the worse.

Game Womens Troy Polamalu Jersey After working through a clean first inning, and jacking a home run, Scherzer came out to pitch in the bottom of the second inning but did not feel as though he could continue pitching.

Reed is just 28 but has served as a closer for the White Sox, Diamondbacks and Mets. He has pitched in the postseason for New York the last two years.

While the Red Sox know they can count on Craig Kimbrel in the ninth inning, adding Reed should make it easier to get Kimbrel the ball with the lead. Matt Barnes surrendered four runs (three earned) in the eighth in a 5-3 loss to the Royals on Sunday, highlighting the need for a bullpen move before the deadline.

Reed has a 2.57 ERA and 19 saves in in 49 innings this season, with 48 strikeouts and just six walks. He has been almost equally effective against lefties and righties in his career, holding left-handed hitters to a lower OPS (.645 to .685) in a similar number of plate appearances.

Leadoff hitters have been the spark plugs for baseball teams since the game began, but these days there isn’t a solitary mold for hitters who sit atop the batting order.
Game Womens Bryce Callahan Jersey
Some of today’s table-setters ignite their club’s offense in a different way, hitting for more power and running less than ever before. In speaking with a few of the more prolific leadoff hitters in terms of slugging from the No. 1 hole this season, Sporting News found there is little difference in how they approach the role.

Likely much more than what they’re getting paid now.

admin

The value of a franchise quarterback is mostly determined by whoever got paid last. Because Carr got $25 million per year, the next gigantic deal for a quarterback will have to be a little more. And then it’ll be topped by the next contract after that.

Franchise quarterbacks never hit free agency, so there’s really no way for the market to get set any other way.

But if there was no baseline to build around and contract terms were built from scratch, what would a quarterback worth committing to for the long haul actually be worth?

Limited Mens Hugh Thornton Jersey Likely much more than what they’re getting paid now.

The difference between having a Tom Brady at quarterback vs. a Blake Bortles can be the difference between a team that wins a Super Bowl and one that can’t win more than a third of its games.

So far in Winston’s NFL career, he’s relied heavily on large possession receivers. His leading receiver has been 6’5, 231-pound receive Mike Evans and on the other side was the oft-injured Vincent Jackson, who stands at 6’5, 241 pounds.

With so few other receiving options, Winston has targeted tight ends often in his first two NFL seasons. That fueled a breakout season for Cameron Brate in 2016, and it could mean Winston looks to first-round pick O.J. Howard often in 2017.

Elite Womens Pat LaFontaine Jersey But for the first time, Winston also has a legitimate deep threat in DeSean Jackson. There’s reason to question if Jackson’s best days are behind him now that he’s on the wrong side of 30, but he still led the NFL in 2016 in yards per reception and posted his fifth 1,000-yard season.

If Jackson still has gas in the tank, he and rookie Chris Godwin could give Winston the yards after catch he has so desperately lacked over the last two years.

Rob Gronkowski is going to eat like Tom Brady

admin

Rob Gronkowski isn’t exactly a poster boy for healthy living. That would be his teammate Tom Brady, whose aggressively healthy diet puts the rest of us to shame. But Gronk is giving Brady’s lifestyle a shot to try to extend his NFL career.

This year, McAdoo isn’t waiting until the season to get his players’ heads right. His source of inspiration is a tad different, though:

Ben McAdoo also told players the story of Frasier the Lion — a lion that was rescued from a circus and became a sex machine at an LA zoo.

That’s a true story, too, as anyone who watched the final season of The Leftovers knows. I’m guessing that’s where McAdoo, a bona fide TV lover, first heard of Frasier.

The LA Times has the whole story: In 1970, an animal preserve in LA bought an elderly lion thought to be on his last legs from a Mexican circus. A lioness who rebuffed all the other lions was soon pregnant by him. Many others followed. Within a year and a half, he had fathered as many as 40 cubs and became known as Frasier the Sensuous Lion. There was even a movie. And a song.

But there are reasons to believe that the owners’ fear of a negative fan response is irrational, starting with Kaepernick’s merchandise sales.

There’s also the J.D. Power 2017 Fan Experience Survey, which comes out later this month. Of 9,200 people who participated in the survey, only 3 percent said national anthem protests were a reason they watched fewer NFL games last season. Other reasons included (ahem, John Mara) the league’s poor handling of domestic violence issues, game delays, and election coverage.

patriots_011-180x180

Bryan Bickell, NHL career cut short by multiple sclerosis, talks life after hockey

admin

In Bryan Bickell’s new life, he has a permanent home for the first time in years, a beer created in his likeness, and more time than ever to spend with his wife and two young daughters. He watched as much of the playoffs as he could, including the Penguins and former teammate Ron Hainsey hoisting the Stanley Cup (even if he was rooting for the Predators).

It no longer includes playing hockey, and he’s OK with that.

So, is Arvidsson a player who figured it out and is a cornerstone piece of the Predators both at present and in the future? Or does he need to prove that last year was not a fluke? Therein lies the murky area the arbitrator must navigate before rendering a decision on Monday.

Authentic Kids Knile Davis Jersey This summer 30 NHL players filed for salary arbitration. So far, half 鈥?exactly 15 after the Coyotes and Jordan Martinook agreed to terms on a new deal Saturday morning 鈥?have settled and avoided arbitration. Among those players who have yet to agree to terms and face arbitration hearings in the coming weeks are the Rangers’ Mike Zibanejad, Wild forwards’ Mikael Granlund and Nino Niederreiter, Robin Lehner of the Sabres, Islanders’ defenseman Calvin de Haan, Jets’ goalie Connor Hellebuyck, and both Conor Sheary and Brian Dumoulin of the Penguins.
Authentic Kids Devontae Booker Jersey
Nashville still has center Austin Watson’s arbitration hearing ahead of them on Monday.

Maybe the biggest surprise early in the first round is that Gabe Villardi dropped to the Kings at No. 11 overall. He has really good size and skill, plays center, just won the Memorial Cup with Windsor and was projected to probably go with in the top six or eight picks. When he started to tumble down the board, you can expect it was not a good feeling for him. Of course, eleventh overall is still impressive; and he just might have the motivation to show up those who passed on him, while injecting some needed youth and skill into the Kings lineup within the next year or so.

Ex-NHL player Kevin Stevens gets probation in oxycodone case

admin

Former NHL player Kevin Stevens, a two-time Stanley Cup champion with the Penguins, was sentenced Thursday in Boston to probation for conspiring to sell oxycodone, the Boston Globe reported.

Limited Youth Bryan Trottier Jersey U.S. District Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. said rather than sentencing Stevens, 52, to serve prison time, as prosecutors had sought, he wanted to support Stevens’ rehab efforts stemming from opioid addiction.

Limited Youth Ali Marpet Jersey If there’s anything Nashville loves more than Predators hockey, it’s country music. And that sets up a perfect storm of chaos Sunday. As Bridgestone Arena hosts Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final (8 p.m. ET), 100,000 more people are expected downtown for the annual CMA Music Festival. Shortly after the game ends, country music giants Brad Paisley and Keith Urban will play a show at Nissan Stadium, just 1 1/2 miles away.

The Tennessean’s Brad Schmitt, in a column entitled Sunday in Nashville will be a beautiful disaster, notes, It’s annoying to some, exciting for others — and an awesome chance, for better or for worse, that Nashville will become the center of the universe this weekend.

Now, those crowd estimates might be a bit high — a Venn diagram of Predators fans and country music fans would find quite a bit of overlap — but Schmitt notes that local authorities are bracing for the massive influx of humanity. It doesn’t help matters that the Bonnaroo rock festival — one of the largest music festivals in the U.S. — is being held about an hour south of Music City.

Imagine the situation Sunday night if the Preds win Game 6. It’s a moment few people could have imagined when the NHL awarded Nashville the franchise in 1997.

Knicks’ Kyle O’Quinn fined for flagrant foul on Anthony Davis

admin

The Knicks have had a tough run in recent weeks, and things didn’t get any easier for forward Kyle O’Quinn on Wednesday.

After losing Derrick Rose under mysterious circumstances and watching key players get ejected from Monday night’s loss against the Pelicans, Knicks fans have become fed up with the team’s excuses.

O’Quinn was one of the players ejected from that game, thanks to a flagrant 2 foul for shoving Anthony Davis, and the NBA announced Wednesday he has been fined $25,000 for his actions.

The Knicks, on the other hand, are in need of a drastic makeover and attitude change before taking on the 76ers Wednesday night.

Elite Christopher Tanev Jersey Still, there was a lot to like at the time. In his lone year at UNLV, Bennett proved himself to be a diverse offensive weapon who was as adept at rising up for a thunderous, powerful dunk as he was at stepping away from the hoop and hitting 3s. He scored 16.1 points and grabbed 8.1 rebounds per game while putting up a near 61 percent true-shooting percentage and a 26.2 PER. It may not seem like it now, but there was a lot to like about his offensive game. He hit 37.5 percent of his 3s and finished in the 94th percentile in finishing around the basket on non-post-ups in the halfcourt, according to Synergy. He also showed off a post game that got him nearly one point per possession, good for the 72nd percentile.

Elite Mens Joe Berger Jersey As you can see above, Bennett had power, length, strength, smoothness and polish at the college level. He showed explosiveness that could be further exploited as a pro. There was a lot to like, even if there were obvious downsides. Defensively, Bennett was a sieve, but most scouts wrote that off — as they do with nearly every toolsy freshman — as a youth issue that could work itself out as he got into better shape and started playing more meaningful games.