andere Teams » . Ward-Kovalev was a good st

NEW YORK -- Mets manager Terry Collins thought about Jim Leyland when New York was trailing by 10 runs Saturday night.Collins recalled the veteran manager telling him that, in a blowout, he should remove his starters in favor of bench players. After all, the backups are the ones with something to play for.Collins heeded the advice, and it almost paid historic dividends.After taking out Yoenis Cespedes, Curtis Granderson, Asdrubal Cabrera and Jose Reyes in the top of the fifth inning, the Mets finished just short of what would have been the largest comeback victory in team history, losing 10-8 to the Philadelphia Phillies.The failed rally left New York tied with San Francisco for the two NL wild cards. St. Louis is a half-game back.Gavin Cecchini got his first two major league hits and drove in two as a replacement for the Mets, who brought the tying run to the plate in the eighth and the winning run in the ninth, but could not overcome the early onslaught. T.J. Rivera also had two RBI.I absolutely tip my hat to the job those young kids did tonight, Collins said. They had energy.I think I almost tripped going around first base, Cecchini said of his first major league. Its something you always dream of as a kid.Philadelphias Maikel Franco and Darin Ruf each hit a long home run for the second consecutive night as Philadelphia built a 10-0 lead by the fourth.Pressed into a spot start because Noah Syndergaard was battling strep throat, Sean Gilmartin (0-1) made more work for New Yorks exhausted bullpen. Philadelphia sent 11 to the plate in the first, and the Mets had to use six relievers after calling on 16 pitchers during the first two games of the series.After the game, Collins said Syndergaard would start Tuesday in Miami.Gilmartin fell behind 3-0 after 12 pitches on Francos 25th homer, a 422-foot blast, and left having allowed five runs in two-thirds of an inning.Jay Bruce hit his first career pinch-hit home run with one out in the ninth to pull the Mets to within two. Eric Campbell and Michael Conforto then drew walks before Michael Mariot got his second save by retiring Lucas Duda on a popup and Travis dArnaud on a comebacker.The Mets got their biggest comeback victory when they overcame an eight-run deficit to win 11-8 at Houston on Sept. 2, 1972.That Mets team is relentless, Phillies manager Pete Mackanin said. They just keep coming at you.The Mets coaching staff thought New York was going to win with a game-ending home run for the second time in three nights.Dickie Scott said Lucas Dudas going to hit a home run to win the game when we started the ninth inning, Collins said. Didnt, but he was certainly in the situation to do that.The Mets started the comeback with four unearned runs in the fifth off Phillies starter Alec Asher (1-1) and added two more in the sixth. In the eighth, Hector Neris allowed Cecchinis RBI double, but then got Rivera to fly out to center and Brandon Nimmo to pop up to end the threat.TRAINERS ROOMMets: INF Wilmer Flores (wrist) is still unable to hit. Collins said Flores wasnt close to hitting.Phillies: With the left-handed Gilmartin on the mound, Ryan Howard was held out of the lineup.PINCH-HITTING AND PRODUCINGBruces blast was New Yorks 13th pinch-hit home run this year, the most in team history, breaking a tie with the 1983 Mets.UP NEXTMets: RHP Robert Gsellman (2-2, 3.13 ERA) makes his sixth major league start in the final home game for the Mets. The lanky rookie struggled against the Phillies in his first start, allowing four earned runs in six innings, but has only allowed seven earned runs over his next 22 innings (2.86 ERA).Phillies: RHP Jake Thompson (3-5, 5.62 ERA) pitches Philadelphias final road game of the season. Although it was expected that he would be shut down along with Vince Velasquez, Thompson is instead looking for his third straight win. Robinson Zapata Colombia Jersey . The nimble-footed quarterback got his wish, dashing through the snow and a weary defence all the way into the NCAA record book. Marlos Moreno Jersey . The injury bothered Bledsoe in the Suns victory over the Clippers on Monday and he sat out the teams home loss to Memphis on Thursday night. http://www.nationalcolombiafootball.com/felipe-aguilar-colombia-jersey/ .Y. - Nelson Mandela will be honoured by the New York Yankees with a plaque in Monument Park. Radamel Falcao Colombia Jersey . The phone hearing is scheduled for 4:30pm et/1:30pm pt. Winchester, who was not penalized for the hit, appeared to make contact with Kellys head early in the first period of Thursdays game in Boston. Daniel Torres Colombia Jersey .com) - Richie Incognito has reportedly been admitted to a psychiatric care unit in Arizona. Forget the extravagant claims of greatness and fight-of-the-year talk. Last Saturdays Andre Ward-Sergey Kovalev bout was boxings version of a beggars banquet -- nothing epic, just a decent meal after a steady diet of stale sandwiches and flat beer at pay-per-view prices.Wards unanimous decision victory (114-113 on all three official cards) didnt really settle much, and had it been a fight between lesser lights, its unlikely we would still be talking about it.But boxings core audience was emotionally invested in the match. It was the showdown it craved and lobbied for, a fight between a pair of undefeated light heavyweights who seemed made for each other. A relentless power puncher against a master craftsman, but with a double twist: The puncher could box, and the craftsman had a mean streak.Expectations were high, a little too high as it turned out. But thats the burden all major matches must bear during boxings seemingly never-ending winter of discontent.Ward-Kovalev had no shortage of tension and suspense, but with the possible exception of Kovalev knocking down Ward in the second round, there were few memorable highlights. Clinches were more numerous than meaningful exchanges, and neither man ever mounted an all-out attack, even though they must have known it was close.We should have learned by now that the best-fighting-the-best formula does not necessarily guarantee a great fight. Thats up to the fighters. But the odds in favor of something exceptional happening are obviously enhanced when the combatants are among the elite.During the prefight hype, Ward-Kovalev was likened to the first bout between Shane Mosley and Oscar De La Hoya, in 2000, a superb example of a brilliant fight between exceptional fighters at the peak of their careers. Shane and Oscar held nothing back and tore into each other virtually nonstop from first bell to last. It was magnificent stuff fought at the highest level.We werent that lucky Saturday. Neither Ward nor Kovalev seemed as eager as Mosley and De La Hoya to risk all in the quest for glory, which is, of course, a prerequisite for true greatness.But these are trying times. Boxing has been sinking in a sea of mediocrity since the crushing disappointment of the Floyd Mayweather-Manny Pacquiao fiasco and the ensuing backlash.Ward-Kovalev didnt quite live up to expectations but provided enough of a boost to keep boxings bent nose above water. That has to count for something.Its easy to understand why a sizable number of viewers believed Kovalev deserved to have his hand raised and were ticked off when he didnt.I, too, had the Krusher ahead, 115-113. But theres a difference between a robbery and a controversial decision, and Ward-Kovalev fell into the latter category. It was that kind of fight. Neither ever gained total control.At first it looked as if Kovalev were about to dispatch Ward with the sudden violence of a man who laughs at his victim as he falls. He staggered Ward in the first round with a jab and knocked him down in the second with a right to the head. Nothing to it, right?Ward seem seconds away from oblivion, but in the face of the greatest crisiss of his career, he found the resiliency to keep going.dddddddddddd. He hung in there through the first half of the fight, taking his lumps, getting in his own share of the blows, but generally falling further behind.As things progressed, however, Wards subtle but highly effective work to the body began to sap Kovalevs strength. You could see the change in the Russians face, and Andre had the better of it most of the way down the stretch. Not by much, but apparently enough to win by a single point on each card.The promoters ambitiously named Ward-Kovalev Pound for Pound, alluding to the notion that the winner would ascend to the top of the mythical rankings. It didnt seem that big a leap of faith at the time. Going in, Kovalev and Ward were No. 3 and No. 5, respectively, in ESPN.coms P4P hierarchy. Now, not so much.Pound-for-pound is such an arbitrary and subjective concept, an argument can be made for the inclusion of any number of boxers, depending on ones criteria. For me, P4P is an arena of the mind, where all the boxers are the same size and compete against one another.Playing by those rules, nothing that took place at T-Mobile Arena last Saturday convinced me that either Ward or Kovalev should advance above Roman Chocolatito Gonzalez and Gennady Golovkin, currently No. 1 and No. 2, respectively. Others, Im sure, have different ideas.Putting too much emphasis on P4P rankings can backfire. Right now boxing is like an unfaithful spouse trying to patch things up with its partner. Its going to take a long time and a lot more than one or two good fights. Ward-Kovalev was a good start, but only a start. A rematch could be another.An occasional good fight is nowhere near enough. Continuity is vital to even a minor boxing renaissance. The hardcore audience isnt going anywhere. Theyre hooked on boxing and are in it for the duration. The sport has to round up the strays and seduce the casuals to thrive. And thats not going to be easy.The answer is the same as in any business: consistent quality at a reasonable price -- not exactly boxings governing business model. But every now and then we get lucky. The next few months might, just might, be one of those times.The upcoming schedule is PPV free and features Vasyl Lomachenko-Nicholas Walters on Nov. 26 and Terence Crawford-John Molina on Dec. 10. Molina is unlikely to last long with Crawford, but Lomachenko-Walters is intriguing.Badou Jack-James DeGale (Jan. 14), Carl Frampton-Leo Santa Cruz II and Keith Thurman-Danny Garcia (Mar. 4) await us in the new year. All have promise, and with a bit of luck, could keep things going.Its boxing were talking about, so undue confidence is foolish. Fights fall apart for countless reasons. It comes with the territory. But the upcoming schedule is promising, and if things fall into place, we could look back on Ward-Kovalev as the start of a roll.It was, at the very least, a time when arguably the two best fighters in their division chose to fight each other. Thats never a bad thing. ' ' '