when Charl Schwartzel won the Valspar Championship at the | Forum
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Feb 23 '18
MINNEAPOLIS -- Joe Mauer drove in two runs, including the go-ahead double in the eighth inning, to push the Minnesota Twins past the Chicago White Sox 4-2 Thursday night. Nicolas Meloche Jersey . After rain delayed the first pitch by 2 hours and 6 minutes, the Twins stopped their season-high, five-game losing streak. Mauer, in the middle of the worst year of his six-time All-Star career, also hit a tying single in the third. After 18 games without an RBI, Mauer has three in three days. With Jake Petricka (0-2) pitching with runners at the corners with no outs, Mauer hooked a drive down the left-field line. Kurt Suzuki tacked on a sacrifice fly. Glen Perkins tossed a scoreless ninth for his 18th save in 20 tries, after a bad back kept him from pitching Wednesday in Boston. Casey Fien (4-4), who subbed as the closer Wednesday and gave up two homers in the 10th inning in a 2-1 loss to the Red Sox, returned to the eighth-inning role and earned the victory that really belonged to Yohan Pino. Pino at age 30 became the oldest Twins player to make his major league debut, holding the White Sox to two runs in seven innings. Josh Willinghams home run in the second, the first time in 10 starts that Jose Quintana surrendered a long ball, gave Pino a brief lead. But after a walk by Gordon Beckham loaded the bases in the third, Connor Gillaspie smacked a two-run single into centre field. Over the last nine games, Twins starters have a 2.41 ERA. Pino struck out seven and allowed five hits and one walk. He signed with the Twins more than 10 years ago, but after reaching Double-A in July 2007 he bounced up and down between the top two levels of the minors over the following six seasons. He pitched for four teams each in Double-A and Triple-A. Traded to Cleveland in August 2009 for Carl Pavano, Pino played for three organizations until rejoining the Twins this year. When the Twins sent Sam Deduno to the bullpen, Pino was the pick after posting a 9-1 record and 1.92 ERA with 61 strikeouts in 61 innings for Triple-A Rochester. Two of his seven starts were shutouts. Having gained valuable experience in the Venezuelan Winter League, Pino has become good enough at changing speeds and throwing breaking balls for strikes to make up for an average-at-best fastball. Given the length of his journey and the positive impression he has made on the team, the Twins were extra excited to see him take the mound. Pino struck out Jose Abreu the first two times he faced the rookie slugger. Abreu became the third-fastest to reach 20 home runs when he went deep Wednesday against San Francisco in his 58th career game. Quintana has had another solid season for the White Sox, his third, but a lack of assistance has persisted. His average run support, 4.11 per nine innings, is the second-lowest in the American League since his debut in 2012. Winless in four starts this month, Quintana struck out six in seven innings while allowing six hits and a walk. Home plate umpire Mike Muchlinski took a hard foul tip off the bottom of his mask in the fourth. He finished the inning after being checked on by Twins trainer Dave Pruemer but was replaced for the fifth inning by crew chief Mark Wegner. A three-man group was used for the rest of the game. NOTES: Willingham has six homers in 24 games since returning from his rehab assignment for a broken wrist, but he entered the night in a 1-for-19 slide. ... The Twins will send Ricky Nolasco (4-5, 5.66 ERA) to the mound on Friday, and Hector Noesi (2-5, 5.37 ERA) will pitch for the White Sox. ... The White Sox announced their June 10 rainout against Detroit will be made up as part of a day-night doubleheader on Aug. 30. Teemu Selanne Jersey .The result meant Juventus will spend the winter break three points clear of Roma after the league leader beat Cagliari 3-1 on Thursday.Milan remained seventh ahead of the rest of the weekends fixtures, but was provisionally two points behind third-place Napoli in their duel for the final Champions League spot. Semyon Varlamov Jersey . The Islanders own the fifth pick in the 2014 draft but had until June 1 to decide whether to keep it or defer to 2015. The selection was packaged in the teams deal for Thomas Vanek on October 27, 2013.Paul McGinley is expecting next months Masters to be one of the most closely contested in recent history with so many players having a realistic chance at the first major of the year. Adam Scott has been in the best form of the worlds top 10 over the last month, following up his second-placed finish at Riviera with back-to-back victories in the Honda Classic and the WGC-Cadillac Championship in Florida.But two-time Masters champion Bubba Watson, who pipped Scott at the Northern Trust Open, has also enjoyed an excellent start to the year while defending champion Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy are expected to be in contention on Sunday afternoon at Augusta. Adam Scott has finished second, first and first in his last three starts Ideally, all the players want to be where Adam Scott is right now, McGinley told Sky Sports News HQ. Hes gone second-win-win in his last three starts, and thats where you want to be. But thats not always applicable and not everybody can have that kind of form.I think Jordan Spieth is there or thereabouts, but you could raise an argument for six or seven guys who are going into the Masters with a lot of form and a lot of history around there, and theres no reason why they cant win. Its going to be a very exciting Masters, and its very difficult to pick a winner.Spieth is widely regarded as the best putter in the world, while McIlroys change to a cross-handed grip for the first World Golf Championship event of the year at Doral resulted in an improved performance on the greens which will stand him in good stead for the Masters. Jordan Spieth emerged as one of the best putters in the world when he stormed to Masters glory last year McGinley added: Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and Spieths strength is definitely his putting. He started off like a train at Augusta last year, and Rory McIlroy was 11 or 12 shots behind before he had even started his second round.Jordan put such a huge distance between himself and the rest of the field and went on to win his first Masters. But the putting is the strongest part of his game. Hes not blessed with the kind of power that Bubba Watson or Rory McIlroy has, but wed all like to be able to putt as well as Jordan Spieth.The interesting thing about Rorys putting is hes always felt he is left-hand dominant with the putter. So he changed to a left-below-right putting grip at Doral and still felt his left hand would control the stroke. The way he putted in the second and third rounds at Doral were as good as hes ever putted. Rory McIlroy new putting technique served him well at Doral I think that will give him a lot of confidence and inspiration going into the Masters. Tyson Barrie Jersey. We know how good his long game is, and when he gets hot with the putter, hes pretty formidable.McIlroy is currently the favourite with Sky Bet as he bids to complete a career grand slam of majors, but McGinley added: Its so difficult to pick a winner, particularly when the difference between the top 10 players in the world is so small. Anybody can turn up, show a bit of form and win.We saw that when Charl Schwartzel won the Valspar Championship at the weekend. Hes won at Augusta in the past, so you cant discount the likes of him and Louis Oosthuizen, who won in Australia a couple of weeks ago. Louis lost out to Bubba in a play-off in 2012, and Bubba has won twice around there now. Bubba Watsons early-season form and stats bode well for another big week at Augusta Theres a lot of good form and trends in terms of Bubbas stats this year, so youve got to look closely at him. This is whats going to make the Masters to exciting, you can build a case for so many different players.The feature of Scotts remarkable recent form has been his outstanding putting after he was forced to revert to a traditional-length putter following the ban on anchored putting that was enforced at the start of the year. Scott is putting better than ever since reverting to a short putter Adam used the long putter for years because he basically had the yips with the short stick, McGinley said. He won the Masters using the long putter and then had a couple of average years, and then he was forced to go back to a traditional putter because of the ban on the anchored technique which came in on January 1.And over the last month, hes actually putted better than he ever has, but can he hold onto that form for another month? Thats the big question, because we know how hard it is to sustain that kind of form for any length of time. But certainly he has the form and the confidence at the moment, and obviously hes a past winner at Augusta. Also See: Schwartzel wins Valspar World-class Willett Opinion Rory must be patient Cheap NFL Jerseys Cheap NFL Jerseys China Cheap Jerseys From China Cheap NFL Jerseys Authentic Wholesale Jerseys China Cheap NFL Jerseys China NFL Cheap Jerseys ' ' '
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