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OAKLAND, Calif. Nike Cortez Ultra Moire Rojas/Blanco . -- R.A. Dickey thought it was a safe pitch to a major league rookie. It turned out to be one of his few mistakes.Dickey gave up three home runs, though two of them were solo, and the Toronto Blue Jays lost 5-4 to the Oakland Athletics on Saturday.If you got the ball up in the air today it was going to go, Dickey said. Thats the first slow knuckleball Ive thrown in four years that got hit out for a home run. I thought it would be a safe pitch. I was trying to find the speed it was moving most and today it was the harder one.Dickey (7-10), who had won three of his previous four starts, said he felt good all day. The three-run shot by Ryon Healy, his first major league hit, stood out.If I can subtract that homer, we win the game, Dickey said. The ball was only out by 4 or 5 feet. Im not sure he got all of it and, in retrospect, theres not a lot of history on the guy. I stuck with the harder one after that and got better results.Dickey allowed five runs on five hits in his six innings. He walked three and struck out four.Its a home run park during the day and thats what got us today, Blue Jays manager John Gibbons said. There wasnt a lot of break early on but he found his groove. He was giving up fly balls and that can be your enemy.Josh Thole, who had two hits and drove in a pair of runs, ended a 77 at-bat streak without an extra base hit with a two-run double in the second. Four of his five RBI have come in his last two games.Im tweaking things and Im feeling comfortable, Thole said. Ill ride it as long as I can.Khris Davis hit two home runs and Sonny Gray snapped a 12-game winless drought for the As.Davis was 2 for 4 in his ninth career multi-homer game, three of which came this season. The As have homered six times in two games, three of them by Davis.The Blue Jays, whod won eight of nine games going into the All-Star break, lost to Oakland for a second straight day to start the second half.Gray (4-8) ended a career-worst seven game skid. He was 0-7 with a 6.16 ERA over his previous 12 starts. He allowed three runs on six hits and four walks in six innings.Edwin Encarnacion hit his 24th homer leading off the top of the third for Toronto. Justin Smoak hit a solo homer, his 10th, off Ryan Madson, who pitched the ninth for his 19th save.CHALLENGING TIMESA day after a replay ruling on a play at the plate figured prominently in an As 8-7 win, home plate was the center of two more challenges -- on the same play. After Gibbons challenge overturned an As scoring play in the bottom of the seventh inning, As manager Bob Melvin challenged the reversal, contending that catcher Thole blocked Marcus Semiens path to the plate. Replay officials rejected Melvins argument. On Friday, Josh Reddick scored the tiebreaking run on a play at the plate that was overturned on a challenge.UP NEXTBlue Jays: LHP J.A. Happ is 6-0 with a 2.73 ERA over his last six starts. The Blue Jays are averaging 10.1 runs over that stretch. Happ (12-3, 3.36 ERA) has already tied his career high for wins in a season and opens the second half on pace to win 20 games.Athletics: In his last seven starts, LHP Rich Hill is 6-0 with a 2.05 ERA with no home runs allowed. He is 1-0 with a 3.00 ERA in two starts since coming off the disabled list (left groin strain) on July 1. He is 1-1 with a 4.76 ERA in 10 career appearances against Toronto. Comprar Nike Air Vapormax . 8 Kansas to a 64-63 win over Texas Tech on Tuesday night. The freshman from Vaughan, Ont. Nike Pegasus 34 Precio . -- The goal posts lying flat on the field, Arizonas fans lingered on the field, congregating around the locker room entrance nearly 30 minutes after rushing out of the stands. http:///...tas-gris-blanco.html .J. -- Pitcher Carl Pavano is retiring after 14 major league seasons. CHASKA, Minn. -- The victory leap was a bit premature, but the hugs that came later on the 18th green were as timely as the putts Phil Mickelson kept rolling in on a beautiful Sunday at Hazeltine National Golf Club. Soon Mickelson would take the party upstairs, swigging champagne on an elevated walkway and spraying the cheering crowd below.If anyone deserved to celebrate a long-awaited American victory in the Ryder Cup, it was Lefty.He came through in front of 50,000 fans, and he came through behind closed doors in the team room. He even managed to rebound from an awkward moment in the days before play began when he criticized decisions made a dozen years ago by former captain Hal Sutton.Leaping in the air after sinking a birdie putt on the 18th hole -- much like he did when he won the 2004 Masters -- might have been the only thing Mickelson got wrong all week.Hard to blame him, though, when everyone around him felt like leaping around a bit themselves. Sergio Garcia would tie the match a few minutes later with a birdie of his own, but by then it was already clear the American rout in this Ryder Cup was on.The U.S. had started the day with a three-point lead and memories of collapses of the past still lurking. But this turned out to be a Sunday with little suspense.Patrick Reed took down Rory McIlroy in the opening match and the Europeans were never really allowed back in it. Mickelsons half point put the U.S. on the verge of the win, and Ryan Moore -- picked only the Sunday before under a new system championed by Mickelson to find hot players -- delivered the winning point in the next group.A Ryder Cup loser so often, Mickelson was a winner once again. That it came in a Ryder Cup that had his fingerprints all over it only made the celebration even sweeter.Im so proud to know these guys, to experience this together, to share these emotions, to celebrate tonight, Mickelson said. And Ive known that these guys have had this level of performance in them for some time. Its just amazing to watch.It was amazing to watch for the fans, jammed fairways and crowded around greens to cheer on the home team. A few misbehaved the day before, but there were no real incidents on a final daay when things got about as loud on the golf course as they did in football stadiums across the land. Shox Nz. yder Cup superfan Michael Jordan sat behind the first green watching groups go through, while actor Bill Murray seemed to be everywhere. Tiger Woods was in good form, too, as an assistant captain adding a little more star power to the event.The featured match was McIlroy and Reed. But all eyes were on Mickelson, too, maybe because he had the most to lose if this team somehow found yet another way to lose.Davis Love IIIs name will be listed as captain in the Ryder Cup record books. But this was always Mickelsons team, from the moment he demanded more say in its selection to the time he and his teammates hoisted the trophy for the first time since 2008.He helped put together the team and make the pairings. He made sure everyone felt like they were an important part of the team.And when he went out to play, Mickelson delivered when it mattered most. On Sunday he made 10 birdies in 18 holes that would have won most Ryder Cup matches, though because Garcia kept matching him birdie for birdie it was only worth a half point for the U.S. team.Sure, Mickelson acted like the smartest guy in the room when he talked about constructing a Ryder Cup team that could take down the Europeans. But after being on the wrong side in eight of 10 Ryder Cups he knew what the issues were and had plenty of ideas about how they could be fixed.This teams been questioned and beat up for a long time, Love said.It may not be questioned much longer if Mickelson has his way. Hes a future captain for sure, but he cautioned that unless the changes made in the last two years are permanent than this win wont mean nearly as much.Its truly a remarkable thing to watch and a fun thing to be part of, Mickelson said. I believe we made each other proud, but I hope we made every American proud.In this Ryder Cup it was mission accomplished.----Tim Dahlberg is a national sports columnist for The Associated Press. Write to him at tdahlberg(at)ap.org or http://twitter.com/timdahlberg ' ' '