The Cleveland Cavaliers better get cooking at home against the Golden State Warriors, because if they don't, their goose is cooked. For the second straight game, the Warriors routed the Cavs in Oakland, making it look easy in a 110-77 romp last night.
And once again, it wasn't league MVP Steph Curry grabbing the spotlight, but the Warriors bench that proved too much for Lebron and company once again. Draymond Green poured in twenty-eight points to go with seven rebounds and five assists, and even though Curry was again held well under his average of thirty points a game, scoring eighteen last night, the depth of Golden State's bench proved too much for the Cavs to overcome, and heading back to Cleveland the Cavs trail the defending champs two games to none. Game three is Wednesday night.
If you glanced at just the final score of the Red Sox 5-4 loss to the Toronto Blue Jays yesterday, you'd never know that Blue Jays starter Marco Estrada was a mere five outs away from throwing a no-hitter.
Estrada baffled the Red Sox hitters all day long with a superb change up that had them flailing and missing or hitting harmless fly ball outs, until Chris Young figured things out and broke up the no-hit bid loudly with a home run into the monster seats in the bottom of the eighth. Then in the ninth the Sox made things very interesting indeed, putting together a string of hits against Toronto closer Roberto Osuna, scoring three times and getting the tying run to second base before rookie Marco Hernandez came up as a pinch hitter and struck out to end the game.
Rough outing for Eduardo Rodriguez, who gave up five runs, four of those via the long ball, and lasted just five and two thirds in his first start at Fenway this season since coming off the disabled list. The Sox get a day off today as they head out to the west coast to open a series against the San Francisco Giants tomorrow night. The Sox also sent a couple of players to the 15-day disabled list. Blake Swihart injured his ankle running into the side wall in left field Friday night, and catcher Ryan Hanigan is dealing with neck stiffness. Sandy Leon was called up from Triple A to be the back up for Christian Vazquez, and Rusney Castillo may get another look in the outfield in Swihart's absence, although Chris Young will likely get most of the starts in left.
The NY Yankees took a 1-0 lead into the eighth inning against the Baltimore Orioles at Camden Yards yesterday, then had to wait out Mother Nature's hour and a half rain delay. That pause didn't help the Yankees, and even their 100 mph closer Aroldis Chapman couldn't nail down the save. Matt Wieters came up as a pinch hitter with the bases loaded when play resumed and hit a two-run single off Chapman that propelled the O's to a 3-1 win, and moves them back into a tie for fist oplace with the Red Sox in the AL East.
The good news for the NY Mets is that for the second straight start Matt Harvey looked like his old ace self, giving up just one run to the Miami Marlins in south Florida yesterday. The bad news is he was out-dueled by Miami's own ace Jose Fernandez, who didn't yield a single run and allowed just four hits overall in the Marlins' 1-0 shut out win.
There isn't much Novak Djokovic hadn't done in his tennis career, but winning the French Open was one of them. Now he can cross that off the list after beating second seed Andy Murray at Roland Garros yesterday, losing the first set but sweeping the next three to become the first player in almost fifty years to win four consecutive major championships, and this really puts him forever up in the pantheon of the greatest mens' singles players in history.
The upset came on the womens' side, when Serena Williams fell short again in her bid to tie Steffi Graf for the most womens' grand slam titles ever. Williams is still stuck on twenty-one after falling to Gabrine Muguruza of Venuezuela in straight sets 7-5, 6-4 on Saturday.
Tonight at the Shark Tank the San Jose Sharks will try to even up the Stanley Cup finals when they take on the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Sharks got their first win of the series over the weekend with an overtime victory, but still trail two games to one.
Just a quick note on Muhammad Ali since the announcement of his death at the age of 74. Much has been said Ali already, and more eloquently than I can, but I will briefly mention that when people ask me why I care about sports so much, because isn't it really just a distraction at best? the counter-argument I make always include at least three athletes who transcended sports. They are Jackie Robinson, Billie Jean King, and the greatest of all times, Muhammad Ali.
