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Phillies – Red Sox
Hamels, Papelbon Lead Phillies Over Boston
PHILADELPHIA (AP) It was no surprise that Philadelphia earned its season-best sixth straight victory with Cole Hamels on the mound.
Hamels pitched seven strong innings, and Hunter Pence and Freddy Galvis homered to lead the Phillies to a 6-4 win over the Boston Red Sox on Friday night.
Hamels (6-1) gave up three runs on six hits while striking out nine and walking one. It was the sixth straight win for Hamels, who improved to 4-0 in five career starts against Boston.
”I’m just doing everything I’ve done the past couple of years,” Hamels said. ”I can’t say there’s any secret. We’re able to battle and get runs and I’m able to hold it. It’s the same sort of way I’ve gone out and pitched. I try to put up as many zeroes as I possibly can.”
Philadelphia improved to 7-1 in Hamels’ eight starts this season.
”I’m focused on trying to get wins, no matter how they come,” Hamels said. ”If I can plug away and do my job, then good things will happen and they have been.”
Streaking Carlos Ruiz went 2 for 3 with a pair of RBIs for Philadelphia, which moved two games above .500 for the first time this season. Ruiz, who entered leading major league catchers in several offensive categories, is 11 for 17 in his last five games.
Jonathan Papelbon pitched a scoreless ninth for his 12th save in as many chances. Papelbon had 219 saves in six seasons with the Red Sox before signing a four-year, $50 million deal with Philadelphia in the off season.
The closer said there wasn’t any extra meaning in getting the save against his former team.
Categories: Phillies
PGA Golf – Players Championship
Matt Kuchar Holds Off Field For Players Title
PONTE VEDRA BEACH, Fla. (AP) The only complaint about Matt Kuchar was not winning enough. He picked up a big one Sunday at The Players Championship.
Kuchar avoided the big mistakes that slowed so many other contenders – starting with Kevin Na – and kept it out of the water on the TPC Sawgrass to eliminate the kind of drama he didn’t need. He closed with a 2-under 70 for a two-shot victory.
That famous smile, which he first showed the golf world as an amateur in 1998 competing on the biggest stages, was brighter than ever as Kuchar tapped in for par. He celebrated on the 18th green with his wife and two sons, and shared a hug and a high-five with his mother.
Along with the pressure of trying to win, Na had to put up with some heckling. Already considered a slow player, he struggles to take the club back without practice swings and waggles, and over the ball he could hear fans saying, ”Pull the trigger” or ”Hit it.”
”I backed off and they’re booing me,” Na said. ”I said, ‘Look, guys, I backed off because of you guys.’ … But it is what it is. I also felt that a lot of people were turning towards me and pulling for me, which I really appreciate.”
Kuchar won for only the fourth time in his career, and the first time since the 2010 Barclays when Martin Laird three-putted the last hole and lost in a playoff.
Laird made the strongest run on a cloudy, breezy afternoon, tying for the lead with his third straight birdie on No. 12. Laird nearly went in the water on the 18th, missed a 6-foot par putt for a 67 and wound up in a four-way tie for second.
Rickie Fowler, going for his second straight win, tried to make it interesting with a birdie on the island-green 17th to get within two shots. Kuchar watched from across the water on the 16th green, and then rolled in a 15-foot birdie putt to give him a three-shot lead going to the par-3 17th. Every shot matters standing on a tee and looking at an island. Kuchar found land, three-putted for bogey and made a regulation par at the end.
Fowler missed an 8-foot birdie putt on the 18th and shot 70. Ben Curtis made a 10-foot birdie on the 18th for a 68, while Zach Johnson shot 68 to join the tie for second.
Categories: Golf
NBA Playoffs * Sixers – Celtics
Sixers Comeback Stun Celtics, 92-83
PHILADELPHIA (AP) Andre Iguodala squared up for a 3-pointer from the wing like he had hundreds of times in his career.
This shot was different from all the others.
Iguodala continued a postseason where his final numbers don’t pop on the box score, but the buckets are as pivotal as they get. He snapped a tie game with five straight points in the final 90 seconds to help the Philadelphia 76ers storm back from 18 points down in the third quarter and stun the Boston Celtics 92-83 on Friday night in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference semifinals.
The young Sixers were a team reborn in the second half and played like a squad that refused to roll over for the championship-tested Celtics.
”I don’t even know where to start,” Philadelphia coach Doug Collins said. ”Our guys are pretty amazing. They really are.”
Iguodala certainly has been.
One of the more maligned athletes in recent Philadelphia history, he’s changing his reputation one fourth-quarter point at a time.
Iguodala put the Sixers ahead 85-83 with a step-back jumper over a flailing Ray Allen with 1:22 left. Then he took the feed from a driving Williams and buried a 3-pointer for a five-point lead.
Game over.
”That’s not the first time he found me in that same exact spot,” Iguodala said. ”Just not as big a platform as it was tonight. But it worked out for us.”
With the huge comeback, the Sixers tied the series at 2-2 and guaranteed a return home for one more game.
Game 5 is Monday in Boston.
Categories: Sixers
Euro Soccer
City Rallies To Snatch EPL Title From Man U
MANCHESTER, England (AP) In the closing moments of the Premier League’s most dramatic season, Manchester City had just enough time for one final, breathtaking twist.
With the club’s title hopes fading by the second, its anguished fans in disbelief in the stands, relegation-threatened Queens Park Rangers clung to a one-goal lead after 90 minutes. City then threw all its attacking might forward to produce one of English soccer’s greatest comebacks.
Edin Dzeko and Sergio Aguero scored during injury time in a 3-2 victory that gave City its first league title since 1968. City finished ahead of crosstown rival Manchester United on goal difference.
”It’s a crazy finish for a crazy season,” City manager Roberto Mancini said. ”I’ve never seen a final like this.”
No one had.
After a season in which the title race shifted back and forth between the Manchester clubs, City appeared to have thrown it all away on the final day. It let 10-man QPR rally from a goal down to take the lead in the second half while United completed a 1-0 victory at Sunderland.
But Dzeko headed in a tying goal in the second minute of stoppage time to give City fans hope. Aguero then clinched the title when he slalomed through the QPR defense and blasted the ball into the net. As Mancini raised his hands and ran along the sideline, Aguero – the son-in-law of Diego Maradona – tore his shirt off in jubilation before he was mobbed by teammates.
”He was crying on the floor,” City captain Vincent Kompany said. ”All the guys were pouring their eyes out. You don’t see strong personalities like that showing their emotion so often.”
Moments earlier, United completed its victory at Sunderland and was lingering on the field in northeast England, waiting for the final result of the City game and ready to start celebrating title No. 20.
Instead, a party 44 years in the making burst into life back in the blue half of Manchester as fans flooded the City field and exploded blue smoke canisters.
”Miracles do happen in Manchester,” Kompany said. ”This time it’s on this side of the road.”
Now United – on the other side of the road – will have to live with the fact that the club once dismissed by manager Alex Ferguson as a ”noisy neighbor” is now a serious threat to its supremacy.
”I’d like to say, on behalf of Manchester United, congratulations to our neighbors – a fantastic achievement to win the Premier League,” Ferguson said.
Categories: Soccer
Triple Crown Horse Racing
The 137th Preakness Stakes – May 19, 2012
Pimlico Race Course, Baltimore, Maryland
Bodemeister Takes Over Favorite Spot At 8-5
BALTIMORE (AP) Just like in the Kentucky Derby, Bodemeister is the favorite in the Preakness.
This time, Bob Baffert intends to justify the odds.
Despite finishing second in the Derby, Bodemeister was installed as the 8-5 favorite for Saturday’s second leg of the Triple Crown. The colt, trained by Baffert, set the pace at Churchill Downs before being overtaken in the stretch by I’ll Have Another, who won by 1 1/2 lengths.
I’ll Have Another is the second-favorite in the Preakness at 5-2.
Baffert, a five-time Preakness winner, was delighted to receive the No. 7 post in the 11-horse field.
”With (Bodemeister), anything in the middle would be fine,” the Hall of Fame trainer said. ”With the Preakness, you just don’t want to be stuck on the inside where you have to use your horse a little bit. The Derby winner drew really well, also.”
I’ll Have Another will start from the No. 9 post. The colt won the Derby out of the No. 19 post and will again be ridden by Mario Gutierrez.
”Anything with a nine in it, we feel very good about. We’re cool with it,” trainer Doug O’Neill said. ”We talked about the possibility of being inside Bodemeister and really forcing our hand to push him early. Now it’s in Mario’s hands to still kind of push Bode, but we’ll be on the outside of him.”
Funny Cide was last to win from No. 9 in 2003, and Baffert’s Lookin At Lucky was last to win from No. 7 in 2010.
Asked about having the second-favorite in the field despite winning the Derby, O’Neill said, ”Bob Baffert has won five of these. I’ve never run a horse here. I totally respect that. I just hope anyone who bets Bodemeister is regretting it Saturday night.”
A victory would give I’ll Have Another the chance to become the first Triple Crown winner since Affirmed in 1978.
Categories: Horse Racing
