Russia, host of the sports next major tournament, von corse178s Blog

TORONTO -- The Detroit Tigers had decent starts from Justin Verlander and Mike Pelfrey in the first two games against the Toronto Blue Jays and lost both of them. Nyheim Hines Womens Jersey .Now they go with Plan B for the final two games of the series that leads into the All-Star break.The Tigers recalled left-hander Matt Boyd from Triple-A Toledo to start Saturday and right-hander Anibal Sanchez will make his 14th start and 22nd outing of the season on Sunday.With injuries to Jordan Zimmermann and Daniel Norris, the Tigers left the spots for the final two starts open until after the 6-0 loss to the Blue Jays on Friday.Truthfully, Tigers manager Brad Ausmus said, there werent a lot of options.Boyd, who was traded to the Tigers last July in the deal that made David Price a Blue Jay for the final two months of the season, will be making his second start of the season against his former team.The game Saturday will be a rematch of the June 7 game at Comerica Park when he faced right-hander Aaron Sanchez, who will again be his mound opponent.Matt Boyd has pitched well up here before, and Sanchie has been a big-league pitcher at the big-league level for decades. Ausmus said. We need them to pitch well and hope our offense kicks back into gear tomorrow.Boyd is 0-2 with a 6.44 ERA in six games, including five starts with the Tigers this season. He is 2-5 with a 2.25 ERA with Toledo.He pitched well against Toronto at Comerica Park and so did Sanchez, although neither factored in the decision in the game won 3-2 by the Tigers in 10 innings.The big thing for (Boyd) is hes attacking the strike zone, Tigers catcher James McCann said. When hes going good, hes getting early contact and hes getting weak contact. Hes utilizing all of his off-speed stuff -- slider, curveball and changeup. Not falling in love with one of them. And moving his fastball, really north and south. I think thats the kind of guy he needs to be.Sanchez, in his only career starts against the Tigers, struck out 12 in eight-plus innings in allowing three hits and two runs.Boyd allowed three hits, five walks and one run in 5 1/3 innings in that game. He struck out five.The Blue Jays are using an 11-game homestand to go into the All-Star break on a high note. They have won seven games in a row.The Tigers are 5-4 on their 11-game road trip leading to the break. They opened the trip with a four-game sweep of the Tampa Bay Rays.Blue Jays infielder Darwin Barney, who has a seven-game hit streak, says the recent surge is because of the pitching. The starters have been strong for most of the season but now the bullpen is showing improvement.Its all attributable to our starting pitching and our bullpen coming into form, Barney said. You cant win a lot of ballgames without good pitching and weve had that the past week or two. Were giving ourselves opportunities, we left some runners in scoring position early in the game (Friday), but like Tulo (shortstop Troy Tulowitzki) said, we dont really worry about that, were eventually going to come through if we keep getting those chances in the game. Zaire Franklin Womens Jersey . Reigning world champion Eve Muirhead of Scotland opened with a 12-2 rout of Winnipegs Jennifer Jones in a battle of teams bound for the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Womens Colts Jerseys . The team said Saturday that Lopez was hurt during its 121-120 overtime loss at Philadelphia on Friday. The Nets said they would issue another update next week after consultation with their doctors. http://www.cheapcoltsjerseys.net/quenton-nelson-womens-jersey/ . In the lead up - which seemed to begin the moment Mike Geiger blew the whistle in Houston last Thursday night - the Impact rumour mill went into overdrive. The speculation went into meltdown mode, of the golden nugget variety. SAINT-DENIS, France -- Football is a cruel game. Sometimes even for its winners.Cruel because Cristiano Ronaldo had to watch the victory of his life -- at least one of them -- from the sidelines.Portugals name, for the first time, is now engraved on a major trophy. But one of the enduring memories of the European Championship final will be that Ronaldo played too small a part in the 1-0 win against France for him to deserve being anointed as world player of the year for a fourth time. Truth is, Portugal played better without him.And cruel because France lost in the very stadium that suicide bombers attacked last November. After that horror there was a solid argument to be made that the French would have been more endearing winners, that a pick-me-up trophy could have helped speed their recovery from the trauma.And also cruel because in six games before they lost their scoring touch in the all-important seventh match, the French on balance played better football at Euro 2016 than Portugal.Wales, in the semifinals, was the only team the Portuguese beat inside of 90 minutes. Against France, it took them 109 minutes for Eder to burst through Les Bleus defenses, with a stunning strike.Lets also not forget that, in Portugal, Europe has a champion that didnt win any of its group-stage games and only squeezed into the knockout stages, with just three points, thanks to the more forgiving format adopted for this expanded first tournament with 24 teams. Critics who feel that the new systems addition of eight teams has come at the expense of footballing quality will doubtless argue that Portugals victory proves them right.But, as the French themselves say, cest la vie -- or, as English speakers would say, thats football. Because footballs stubborn refusal to follow the script is what makes it so compelling, this final again offering strong evidence of that.Who, after all, would have penned only a cameo role for Ronaldo, now the proud owner of one type of winners medal that Lionel Messi doesnt have, in Portugals Hollywood moment?As at Euro 2004, we again saw Ronaldo cry -- this time after his left knee buckled in a scrap for the ball in the 9th minute with Dimitri Payet. Normally, the French winger tends not to bother himself with the grunt work of tackling and defending. But Payet and his teammates were combative, even borderline aggressive, in the opening half where they quickly swarmed over Portugals defenses. France, a team that used to be bullied, most infamously in losing a 1982 World Cup semifinal to Germany, was the more physical side.To be fair to Payet, the injury to Ronaldo wasnt malicious, but rather just one of those things that can happen when one man clatters into another at an awkward angle. Portugals captain tried soldiering on. When he sat down oon the field, distraught, in need of treatment, a moth settled on his right eye, as if coming to dry his tears. Cheap Colts Jerseys. With the knee strapped up, a sprint up field that finished in a hobble made it clear that Ronaldo couldnt continue. Referee Mark Clattenburg called on the stretcher bearers and that was it. Ronaldos final was over, after just 25 minutes.Liberated of their attention-grabbing superstar, no longer at the beck and call of his demands to give him the ball, his teammates played better, sharing the workload, getting into Frances box in numbers and giving French goalkeeper Hugo Lloris more to think about.For the French, this will be remembered as another final they should have won, like the 2006 World Cup final unhinged when Zinedine Zidane head-butted Marco Materazzi. Euro 2016 top scorer Antoine Griezmann twice came close to winning it. And Andre-Pierre Gignac saw what would have been a certain match-winner rebound off the post in injury time before the game went to extra time.But, with time, the if and buts will perhaps matter less than the fact that reaching this final was proof that France is now out of the long trough that followed its 2006 World Cup loss to Italy, with the nadir being a strike by French players at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.Going forward, France again has a team it can be proud of. All but one of its starting 11 against Portugal either play abroad or, in the case of Barcelona-bound Samuel Umtiti, are on their way overseas. The French domestic leagues bleeding of players to foreign shores proved to be Les Bleus gain at Euro 2016. Their street-wise football and their handling of the heavy weight of host-nation expectations owed no small debt to the experience and expanded world view players have picked up on their travels. Eder, Portugals match-winner, also plays overseas, for Lille in France.From France, football will now look, with some trepidation, eastward to Russia, host of the sports next major tournament, the 2018 World Cup. Then will come Euro 2020, which will be spread confetti-like across 12 host countries, followed by the 2022 World Cup in Qatar.All present logistical challenges for traveling fans. Although the quality of the football at Euro 2016 wasnt always much to shout about, it will be fondly remembered for easy French pleasures and for Frances security measures that helped keep the 31-day tournament safe from the threat of more terror attacks without souring the mood.For that, we can all be grateful.---John Leicester is an international sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at jleicester(at)ap.org or follow him at http://twitter.com/johnleicester Cheap NFL Jerseys China China NFL Hoodies Wholesale Jerseys 2020 White NFL Jerseys Cheap Cheap Jerseys 2019Cheap Stitched Jerseys Wholesale Stitched Jerseys ' ' '

Pinnwand

Keine Kommentare
Du musst dich anmelden, um Kommentare zu schreiben