If there were such a thing as crying in baseball, you could hardly blame the Oakland A's for reaching for the Kleenex. The Boston Red Sox completed a sweep of the A's at Fenway Park last night, winning again in a laugher, 13-3.
In the course of the three-game dusting, the Red Sox scored forty runs against Oakland, padding Boston's already league-leading run scoring total. And I have this plea for Red Sox manager John Farrell, even though the team's hottest hitter right now is actually batting ninth in the order, please don't move him from that slot. Jackie Bradley Jr. ran his longest-in-the-majors hitting streak to seventeen games last night, and it's not like he's keeping it going with infield singles. Bradley has been blasting the ball all over the place during this streak, including two home runs with six runs batted in in last night's game. So I realize there will be a temptation to move Bradley out of the nine spot, but I'm a graduate of the Aint Broke Don't Fix It school of thought, where I majored in superstition, and hopefully baseball players and managers enamored of that same irrational philosophy will just keep things as they are, because whatever spell JBJ is under, no Red Sox fan wants it broken any time soon. Rick Porcello got the win, improving to 6-1 on the year and now has a streak of going at least six innings in fifteen consecutive starts, which is the longest active streak in the majors.
The NY Yankees were hoping build some momentum after taking game one of their series against the Kansas City Royals, but the Royals put the brakes on that effort with a 7-3 win in the Bronx last night. Salvador Perez set the tone with a three-run homer off Michael Pineda in the first inning to power the defending World Series champs to just their fourth win in their last fifteen games.
In Los Angeles, the pitcher Mets fans have dubbed Thor wielded his bat like the Norse God's hammer against the Dodgers last night, blasting two home runs to help his own cause in the Mets' 4-3 win over L.A. Noah Syndegaard, who even sounds like he's where Thor's from, which is Asgaard, was also dominant throwing the ball, going eight innings, scattering six hits and giving up just two runs for his third win of the year.
Another pitcher had it going on last night, and came within one batter of setting a new record for strikeouts in a game. Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals struck out twenty Detroit Tigers last night, tying him with Kerry Wood, Randy Johnson, and Roger Clemens as the only pitchers in major league history to record twenty strikeouts in a game. Clemens actually did it twice. Washington won the game 3-2.
To the NHL playoffs and I'm all in on the St. Louis Blues. Long a beleaguered franchise that's had strong regular season teams that have faltered come playoff time, the Blues came into the league when it expanded in 1967 but have never won a Stanley Cup. The Blues are now headed to the western conference finals after routing the Stars in Dallas 6-1 in game seven last night.
In the NBA playoffs, give some credit to the Portland Trail Blazers. They were never going to beat the Golden State Warriors, even without the return of the league's first ever unanimous MVP Steph Curry, but they didn't roll over in game five even as they were ousted by Golden State 125-121 last night in Oakland. Klay Thompson had thirty-three points and Curry came up with twenty-nine, nailing, what else?, a three-pointer with twenty-four seconds left in the game to seal the win and send the Blazers home.
Locally, the University of Vermont has hired a new womens' basketball coach. Chris Day has been an assistant coach for the women's team at the University of Pennsylvania, where he helped guide the Quakers to back to back Ivy League titles the past two years. Day is 41 years old and becomes the first African-American head coach for UVM womens' basketball. He'll be trying to turn around a program that's had six consecutive losing seasons. Day signed a four-year deal with an annual base salary of $140,000. He'll be formally introduced as head coach next week.
And in round one of the division three NCAA mens' lacrosse championship yesterday, the Middlebury Panthers went to three overtimes against Springfield before losing 11-10 when Dylan Sheehan scored for Springfield with a little under three minutes left in that third overtime frame. Jack Gould had four goals for the Panthers in the thrilling but heartbreaking triple overtime loss. Springfield moves on to face St. Lawrence this weekend in round two.
