MLB: After stumbling in the first two games, the Red Sox were able to salvage Game 3 against the Phillies and even managed to literally knock Philly starter Cole Hamels out of the game. After a scoreless duel with Jon Lester, Philly manager Charlie Manuel made the decision to pull Hamels after the starter took an Adrian Gonzalez line-drive off of his glove hand in the top of the 4th. Hamels reportedly had a large bruise to show for it, but Manuel wasn't going to take any chances with the starter.
The Red Sox managed to break the scoreless deadlock with a pair of RBI singles- one off the bat of Drew Sutton and the other from Jacoby Ellsbury- off of David Herndon in the top of the 5th. This was followed up by two solo homers from Jason Varitek and one from Dustin Pedroia.
Jon Lester came up pretty big against a potent Philly offense, allowing two hits and two walks and striking out five in 7 shutout innings of work. After Bobby Jenks scuffled in his second game back since returning from the DL, giving up a 2-run homer off the bat of Phillies 1B Ryan Howard, Papelbon came in for a 2-out save in the bottom of the 9th to secure the 5-2 win for Boston.
From there, the BoSox will travel to the Lone Star state for their second-ever sojourn to Houston. Tim Wakefield (4-3; 4.54 ERA) gets the start against Astros righty Bud Norris (4-6; 3.36 ERA) on Friday night.
NBA: The Celtics season has been over for awhile, and with a lockout underway the 2011-2012 season is in doubt as well. That's not to say the C's haven't been wheeling and dealing, however. In a draft day trade with the New Jersey Nets, the Celtics traded for Purdue's JaJuan Johnson in exchange for Providence's Marshon Brooks and a 2nd round pick in the 2014 draft.
NHL: The 2011 NHL draft last week officially closed the book on the 2009 Phil Kessel trade with the selection of OHL defenseman Dougie Hamilton. Hamilton was the 9th overall selection in the NHL draft- like last year's draft, the Toronto Maple Leafs had agreed to trade their 1st round draft pick to Boston in exchange for Kessel.
ELSEWHERE IN THE NHL: Paul Kariya, the Anaheim Ducks first-ever draft pick who started out in 1993, announced his retirement this week.
*It was made official at the draft when the former Atlanta Thrashers drafted OHL Center Mark Scheifele in the first round- the new NHL franchise in Winnipeg will resurrect the Jets name.
Just a bit of idle speculation on my part, but with Carolina, Florida, Washington and Tampa Bay having to travel to Manitoba several times a year to play a 'divisional opponent', realignment seems inevitable. What would probably make the most sense geographically is to have Nashville take the Thrasher's place and have them take Nashville's place in the Central but its possible for the league to move a team from the Northwestern division into Nashville's place in order to arrange the Jets playing the Oilers, Flames and Canucks on a more regular basis.
UPDATE: With not even the first full day of free agency in the NHL gone, the Philadelphia Flyers have announced a 1 year deal with Jaromir Jagr and a five year deal with former Penguins forward Maxime Talbot.
Seems as though I missed all the excitement vis a vis Terry Francona and Joe West as well as Rajon Rondo's gritty performance in Game 3- well....I caught some of it on the radio, but that doesn't always effectively convey the moment.
AP Photo
NBA: After a game 2 in the Garden on Saturday that saw Rajon Rondo playing for 38 minutes with a dislocated elbow and was capped off with a 97-81 win against the Miami Heat, the series continued on Monday night.
Alas, while the C's led for much of the game there was no rallying point like Rondo's return in Game 3. With the clock counting down the final seconds of regulation and the game tied 86-86, Paul Perce attempted a jumper that ended up rimming out and forcing a rather anticlimatic overtime in which the Heat would go on a 12-4 run and win by the final of 98-90, putting the Celtics in a 3-1 hole [not the first time a Boston team has been in a 3-1 hole in the postseason, mind you, but an uphill climb nonetheless- NANESB!].
Rajon Rondo- unquestionably the hero of Game 3, was on the floor for 38 minutes and had 10 points, 2 rebounds and 5 assists. Paul Pierce led in scoring with 27 points, followed by Ray Allen with 17. For the Heat, LeBron James had 35 points on the night followed by Dwayne Wade with 28 and Chris Bosh with 20.
Game 5- which is do or die for Boston- is set to take place Wednesday night at Miami starting at 7PM ET, 4PM Pacific and will be broadcast on TNT.
OTHER NBA NEWS: Elsewhere, the Los Angeles Lakers season ended abruptly after being swept in 4 games by the Dallas Mavericks. Even with the C's one game away from elimination, I still find myself smiling a little bit typing that above sentence. NHL: Speaking of 4-game sweeps, the Bruins ensured that there wouldn't be a repeat of last year's epic collapse by eliminating the Philadelphia Flyers to advance to the Eastern Conference finals for the first time since 1992.
Boston got on the board late in the first with a power play goal from Milan Lucic and Philly would come right back to tie it in the 2nd with an even strength goal from Kris Versteeg.
Boston would re-take the lead early in the 3rd on a Johnny Boychuck tally, but given what happened against the Flyers last year, one could be forgiven for not being convinced that a 1-goal lead late in the 3rd period was sufficient insurance. However, Lucic was able to provide some of that insurance when he managed to find the back of the net at the 15 minute mark. This was followed up by empty netters from Brad Marchand and Daniel Paille to seal the game by a 5-1 final for the Bruins, and ending the Flyers season.
Tim Thomas stopped 22 of 23 shots faced (it seemed like the overwhelming majority of them came midway through the 3rd period) while Philly's Sergei Bobrovski stopped 22 of 25 faced.
The win means that the Bruins will face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference finals. Tampa is coming off their own 4-game sweep of the underwhelming Washington Capitols. Game 1 won't get underway until Saturday evening, with both (presumably well-rested) teams facing off at the Garden starting at 8PM ET.
OTHER BRUINS NEWS: Patrice Bergeron left Game 4 with what was diagnosed a 'mild' concussion after a hit from Claude Grioux and is expected to miss at least two games. Bergeron, who has a history of concussions, will be replaced by 1st round draft pick Tyler Seguin in the meantime.
RED SOX: After splitting the home series against the Angels and dropping the 1st game to Minnesota on Friday night, the Red Sox finished up their homestand with a 3-game win streak Monday night.
Monday night's game was a little closer than I would've liked and not exactly problem free, given that Papelbon blew his a save opportunity for the 1st time this season and the Sox stranded 11 baserunners.
Adrian Gonzalez had an RBI single, driving in Varitek to make it a 1-0 game and the Sox would tenuously cling to the lead heading into the top of the 8th. With Alfredo Aceves struggling, Jonathan Papelbon came on for a 4-out save, but gave up an RBI single to Jason Kubel, driving in the speedy Denard Span to tie the game at 1-1.
Hideki Okajima gave up two hits in two shaky but scoreless innings of work for the Sox, but Jim Hoey would come on and give up an RBI single to Carl Crawford, driving in pinch-runner Jose Iglesias, giving the struggling outfielder his second walk-off hit in nearly a week.
Boston will next travel to Toronto for a brief 2-game series before travelling to the Bronx to take on the Yankees over the weekend.
MLB: After a fairly unimpressive continuation of their West Coast road trip where they dropped 2 out of 3 to the Orioles, the Red Sox made their way back to Fenway on Friday to start off an 11-game homestand. That didn't go too well, either- although struggling OF Carl Crawford got his 3rd RBI of the season at Fenway (7th overall) to break a 2-2 deadlock in the bottom of the 9th for a 3-2 Boston win.
AP Photo
On Monday, the Red Sox continued their homestand against one of the few teams they had early success against this season as they played host to the Angels.
However, despite the 4 game sweep on the Angels on the road the Red Sox had yet to face Jered Weaver, who was coming into Monday night's game undefeated in his 6 starts and with a 0.99 ERA.
The Angels took the 2-1 lead in the top of the 5th inning off of Clay Bluccholz but after a 1-out double from the Carl Crawford [should I use the adejctive 'struggling' anymore?- NANESB!] and walking Varitek, Jacoby Ellsbury hit into a fielder's choice ('Tek was out at second). With 2 away, Ellsbury managed to steal second while 2B Dustin Pedroia was fouling pitch after pitch from Weaver off in a tenacious 13-pitch at bat that culminated in a 2-RBI single to put the Red Sox up for good.
Adrian Gonzalez added some considerable insurance with the bases loaded in the bottom of the 7th with a bases-clearing double, followed by Youk bringing in Gonzalez with another RBI double and Big Papi cranking one into the Monster seats to make it 9-2 Boston. The Angels would get a couple of runs back in the top of the 8th and 9th, but Hideki Okajima would close things out and Boston wins by a final of 9-5.
Tonight's matchup will feature Jon Lester (3-1; 2.52 ERA) getting the start against Dan Haren (4-1; 1.23 ERA). First pitch will be at 7:10 ET on NESN. NHL: After winning game 1 of the Eastern Conference Semifinals by a 7-3 final, the Bruins would need overtime for the 4th time in this year's playoffs.
Philly took the early 2-0 lead on two goals from James Van Riemsdyk about nine minutes apart in the first before the Bruins would tie it up on goals from Chris Kelly and Brad Marchand to close out the first at 2-2.
And that was all the scoring there was in regulation, believe it or not. Philly netminder Brian Boucher would leave halfway through the second with some sort of injury and have Sergei Bobrovsky fill in for him between the pipes until returning in the 3rd period- Bobrovsky would stop all 6 shots faced.
Tim Thomas, on the other hand, stayed in net throughout the entire game stopping 52 out of 54 shots faced, including all 46 shots sent his way by the Flyers after allowing goal #2 in the first.
David Krejci would break the deadlock 6 minutes into the OT, getting one past Boucher even though the lineman signalled 'no goal' and play continued for another 18 seconds. The play was then reviewed by video and Kejci's shot was ruled a goal.
This puts Boston ahead 2 games to none with the series heading back to Boston on Wednesday ngiht. As glad as I am they're up, it's still pretty early to bust out the champagne and start drunkenly slurring 'Na na na na Hey hey hey.....good byyye!' in light of what happened in last year's eastern conference finals and- more recently- the fact that Montreal started off the last series with back to back wins on the road.
The series resumes on Wed, May 4 at the garden at 7PM ET. The game will be televised on the VS network.
Mike Ehrmann/Getty
NBA: With a whole week off before facing their next opponent, it probably wouldn't be too surprising that there would be some rust as the Celtics took on the Miami Heat.
Dwayne Wade had a 38 point night for Miami while Guard James Jones came off the bench for 25 points on Sunday afternoon's game.
Ray Allen led the Celtics scoring with 25 points in the 99-90 loss to Miami in Sunday's game- Paul Pierce had 19- everybody else was held to single digits.
Game 2 will get underway Tuesday Night in Miami at 7PM ET and will be televised on TNT.
NFL: Looks like the on-again off-again NFL lockout is back on again less than a week after a federal judge in Minnesota had it overturned. An appeals court in St. Louis had issued a temporary ruling in the NFL's favor. The 3-judge panel had ruled 2-1 in favor of the league pending a June 3 hearing.
NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS: The Patriots selcted Colorado University tackle Nate Solder with their first round pick of the 2011 draft. Virginia's Ras-I Dowling at cornerback and Cal RB Shane Vereen picked up in the 2nd round. Of course, there's the whole question of whether or not there's going to be a 2011 season for the Class of 2011, let alone how much playing time they'll get...
NFL: These guys must be on suicide watch after Sunday.
Coming into Sunday's game at Soldier Field, the Pats were favored by 3 points. Seems a little understated in hindsight.
In the driving snow, Tom Brady went 27-40 with 369 yards and two TDs- including connecting with Deion Branch for 59 yards to find the Bears end zone as time expired in the first half.
And that was just an exclamation point on a half in which the Bears were outscored 33-0. Brady connected with TE Ron Gronkowski for a 7 yard TD Pass on their second drive to open up the scoring, capping off a 6+ minute drive that started on their own 15 yard line. In the 2nd quarter, Danny Woodhead put the Pats up 14-0 on a 3 yard TD run and on the Bear's next possession, a lateral from Jay Cutler to WR Johnny Knox was fumbled and Pats LB Gary Guyton returned it for a TD. Shayne Graham added to the scoring with two chip-shot FGs in the 2nd period as well (although he missed the PAT after Branch's TD as time expired in the first half).
The Bears only socred once- a one yard TD run from Chester Taylor in the 3rd- while the Pats 2nd half scoring was limited to a 29 yard Graham FG.
New England wins this one by a final of 36-7, with the Patriots outscoring their last two opponents by a 81-10 margin and scoring more than 30 points for the 6th straight week. The win clinches a playoff berth for New England as well.
Next Sunday's game will be a nocturnal affair as the Pats host the Green Bay Packers on Sunday Night Football.
ELSEWHERE IN THE AFC EAST: Apparently the Patriots broke the Jets. This time, the Miami Dolphins were able to successfully keep the Jets out of the end zone in their 10-6 win over New York on Sunday afternoon (this would mean the Jets lost their last 2 games by a combined total of 55-9).
Even so, that wasn't the most noteworthy event to take place on Sunday in the Meadowlands. Jet's strength and conditioning coach Sal Alosi tripped Miami CB Nolan Carroll from the sidelines as the Dolphins rookie as he was running along the sideline to cover a punt. Alosi issued an apology a few hours after the game but will likely face some sort of fine or disciplinary action.
ELSEWHERE IN THE NFL: There was already talk of moving Sunday afternoon's Vikings/Giants game to Monday night in the wake of a massive blizzard that struck the upper Midwest this weekend.
With the collapse of the Metrodome roof, the NFL announced the game is being moved to Detroit for Monday night. The delay might've given the Viking's Brett Favre enough time to add to his NFL-record 297 consecutive regular season starts streak although the QB appeared doubtful.
The Lions will start giving away free general admission tickets on Monday morning at 9AM Central Time while repair work begins on the roof of the Metrodome. The inflatable roof is expected to be open in time for next week's Monday Night Football game between the Bears and Vikings.
NCAA FOOTBALL: The Army and Naval Academy football teams clashed in Philly on Saturday, with the Midshipmen coming out on top 31-17. This the 9th season in a row that Navy has topped Army. Navy leads the series all time at 55-49-7.
With that said, both teams will be playing one more game this year. The Midshipmen will be taking on the San Diego State Aztecs in the SD County Credit Union Poinsettia Bowl on Dec. 23rd while Army goes up against the Southern Methodist Mustangs in the Bell Helicopter Armed Forces Bowl on December 30th.
FCS: Not only was I wrong about the number of remaining teams in the FCS playoff, but there are now no more New England teams competing with the UNHWildcat's 16-3 loss to Delaware.
I completely overlooked two separate FCS playoff games this weekend- Eastern Washington's 38-31OT win against North Dakota State and Georgia Southern holding off Wofford by a final of 23-20.
That said, the Colonial Athletic Association is still going to be well represented in the semifinals, as Villanova handled Appalachian State 42-24 to take on Eastern Washington while Delaware's win over New Hampshire earns them a date with Georgia Southern. The winners of each game will play each other for the FCS Championship on Jan 7th at Frisco, TX.
HEISMAN: Perhaps not surprisingly, Auburn's Cam newton won the Heisman Trophy in a landslide on Saturday. It barely took 5 years for USC's Reggie Bush to be stripped of his Heisman.
SEC: Former Texas Longhorns defensive coordinator Will Muschamp was named as the new Gators head coach according to a UF statement released Saturday night.
NHL: So close to a shootout, but it just wasn't gonna happen on Saturday night. Philly jumped out to the 1-0 lead against Boston at the Garden early in the second period of Saturday night's game. Nathan Horton managed to tie the game with his goal about 10 minutes into the third. From then on, neither Tim Thomas or Philly's Brian Boucher let anything by them for the rest of regulation and overtime. Well....most of overtime.
The Flyer's Mike Richards managed to tally an unassisted goal against Thomas with all of 3 seconds remaining in sudden death OT, thus ending the game before the shootout was necessary. Although the way Boucher was turning away the puck on Saturday night, one had to wonder if a shootout would have more work to get to the same net result.
Boucher stopped 35 of 36 shots faced, while in the Bruins net Thomas stops 31 of 33 shots faced. The Bruins have to settle for the one point and Horton gets the only Boston goal of the night.
The Bruins next game won't be until Wednesday at HSBC Arena in Buffalo, NY. The Sabres are coming off of a 5-2 loss to the Penguins on Saturday night.
OTHER BRUINS NEWS: The Bruins sent Marco Sturm to the LA Kings before Saturday's game against Philly. Technically the Bruins would be getting 'future considerations' from LA, but GM Peter Chiarelli admitted in a statement that the future considerations 'meant nothing'. The Bruins GM admitted the trade was done to make more room under the current salary cap. Currently the Kings have close to a $6 million salary cap and could absorb the cost of Sturm's contract for the rest of the season.
NBA In what could be considered the least shocking outcome of the NBA this weekend, the Celtics continued their win streak at 10 with a 93-62 rout of the Charlotte Bobcats on Saturday.
Nothing like the Thursday Night cliffhanger against the 76ers, but it's not like these games are being decided by style points.
The C's will next take on the NY Knicks in a game that's scheduled to be televised on ESPN at 7PM ET on Wednesday night.
MLB: Perhaps lost in the news surrounding the signings of Carl Crawford and Adrian Gonzalez is the fact that the Red Sox have signed catcher and team captian Jason Varitek to a one year extension worth an estimated $2 million plus another $300,000 in incentives should he start 80 or more games as catcher.
NCAA HOCKEY A new NCAA Hockey attendance record was set this weekend when 113,411 fans came to Michigan's Big House to see the outdoor contest between the Michigan Wolverines and Michigan State Spartans.
