2011 September at LinesMaker

Stephen Strasburg Fans 10 in Dominant Season Finale

The Nation­als weren’t sure whether it was a good idea to give Stephen Stras­burg a fifth and final start on the last day of the sea­son, but they’re prob­a­bly glad they did after wit­ness­ing a stel­lar per­for­mance today. Stras­burg allowed just one hit over six innings and struck out 10 in a 79-pitch mas­ter­piece against the Mar­lins on Wednes­day.  He picked up the vic­tory — his first in five starts since return­ing from Tommy John surgery — in the 3–1 win. Stras­burg ends his Sep­tem­ber come­backs with a 1.50 ERA and a 24/2 K/BB ratio in 24 innings. ... 

Wednesday’s MLB Scores and Highlights

Can we breathe now? Look guys, you know what hap­pened in these games, so for­give me if I’m light on the details. We have full break­downs all over the place. I’m still in shock. Rays 8, Yan­kees 7: Evan Lon­go­ria. Dan John­son. Oh my gods. Did that really hap­pen? [checks] Yes. Yes, it did happen. Ori­oles 4, Red Sox 3: Con­grat­u­la­tions to Robert F***ing Andino on the cre­ation of his new mid­dle name. Car­di­nals 8, Astros 0: No doubt about it. Bril­liant per­for­mance by Chris Car­pen­ter. A two-hit shutout. 11Ks. Yes, the Braves col­lapsed, but don’t under­sell... 

C.J. Mosley ‘a Game-Time Decision’ for Tide

For those curi­ous as to whether Alabama will be at full strength on the defen­sive side of the ball for the Tide’s bat­tle of the unbeat­ens with Florida this week­end, you’ll have to wait a cou­ple more days to find out. Head coach Nick Saban said Wednes­day that the avail­abil­ity of line­backer C.J. Mosley for the road game with the Gators will not be known until shortly before kick­off.  The Birm­ing­ham News notes that Mosley did not par­tic­i­pate in drills that were open to the media yes­ter­day, which obvi­ously lends to the uncer­tainty sur­round­ing the... 

True Frosh Healthy Enough to Start at RB for Kentucky

An injury opened the door for Josh Clemons to start as a true fresh­man at run­ning back for Ken­tucky.  After two starts, an injury nearly cost Clemons the start­ing job he’d just had dropped into his lap. The key word there, how­ever, is nearly. Head coach Joker Phillips revealed Wednes­day Clemons is healthy and will start for Ken­tucky against No. 1 LSU this Sat­ur­day.  Clemons suf­fered a strained ham­string dur­ing the first quar­ter of last weekend’s 48–10 loss to Florida, but has returned to prac­tice and, bar­ring a set­back in the next cou­ple of days, appears... 

Bequette Still ‘Real Questionable’ for A&M Game

Espe­cially last Sat­ur­day against Alabama, Arkansas has felt the loss of start­ing defen­sive end Jake Bequette.  Unfor­tu­nately for the Razor­backs, it’s likely to be an old famil­iar feel­ing again for the Hogs this weekend. Head coach Bobby Petrino sounded decid­edly pes­simistic that Bequette will be avail­able for Saturday’s game against Texas A&M in Arling­ton.  Bequette pulled a ham­string dur­ing a Sept. 10 win over New Mex­ico and has been side­lined ever since. “I think it’s still real ques­tion­able right now whether he’ll be ready or not,”... 

After Days of Insanity, College Football Takes a Deep Breath–and Seeks ‘Stabilization’

So it seems the col­lege foot­ball powers-that-be peered into the abyss this week. And some of them, appar­ently, didn’t really like what they saw. Not even a week ago, it seemed that the col­lege foot­ball world was headed for change of an his­toric vin­tage. With sev­eral big-time domi­nos hav­ing already fallen (Texas A&M to the SEC, Pitt and Syra­cuse to the ACC), the col­lege foot­ball chat­ter early this week cen­tered mostly on what would hap­pen next–which teams were mov­ing next, which con­fer­ence would fall apart the next and, of course, which hyp­o­crit­i­cal... 

Boise State to Appeal NCAA Sanctions. And, Hey, Good Luck With That, Broncos.

Boise State isn’t going down with­out a fight. Two weeks after being handed down a (strangely) severe pun­ish­ment by the NCAA for past wrong­do­ing, offi­cials at Boise State said on Tues­day they would appeal the deci­sion in hopes that the most severe sanctions–including the loss of prac­tice time and scholarships–might be reduced. Though Boise’s self-imposed sanc­tions were pretty tough in their own right (the school took away three schol­ar­ships and three pre­sea­son prac­tices in both 2011 and 2012), the NCAA in their find­ing went even fur­ther, extend­ing the... 

Montgomerie Recalls Ryder Cup Anniversary With Good Round at Dunhill Links

A year ago this week, Colin Mont­gomerie was exe­cut­ing his plan to recap­ture the Ryder Cup at Celtic Manor. Armed with dozen Euro­pean play­ers to do it, Mont­gomerie pushed the right but­tons to win the bien­nial matches by the slimmest of margins. Look­ing back on it Thurs­day after an open­ing round of 4-under 68 at the Alfred Dun­hill Links Cham­pi­onship, Mont­gomerie was reminded on a splen­did Scot­tish day of the putrid Welsh weather which drove the Ryder Cup to an unprece­dented fourth day. “Bask­ing in 27 degrees (Cel­sius) right now and, in fact, we had the... 

It’s All Tied Up at the Solheim Cup

The 2011 Sol­heim Cup is tied after the first two days of play, the first time the com­pe­ti­tion enters the final day tied since … well, since the last time it was played. In 2009, Team USA and Team Europe were tied 8–8 enter­ing the Sun­day sin­gles, and that’s the sit­u­a­tion again. In 2009, the home team – USA – won sin­gles 8–4 to claim the over­all title, 16–12. The teams were also tied 8–8 after two days in 2005. That year, the USA won the sin­gles 7.5 to 4.5 and the over­all title 15.5 to 12.5. And finally, the teams were tied 5–5 after two days in 1994,... 

Stewart and Bowyer Change Roles in New Hampshire

Last year Clint Bowyer took advan­tage of Tony Stewart’s fuel mileage issue to claim the first Chase race of 2010. This sea­son Tony Stew­art was chas­ing Clint Bowyer for the win in the clos­ing laps when Bowyer ran short of fuel and handed the 2011 Syl­va­nia 300 vic­tory to Tony Stewart. Tony Stew­art is on a roll so far in the 2011 Chase for the Cup. Can he break Jim­mie Johnson’s stran­gle­hold on the Championship?