Shields pinches Yanks as Rays pull even with Boston
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CBSSports.com wire reports
Sep. 26, 2011
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. -- All-Star James Shields came within one out of his 12th complete game and Kelly Shoppach homered to help the Tampa Bay Rays keep the pressure on Boston in the AL wild-card race with a 5-2 victory over the New York Yankees on Monday night.
The Rays began the night trailing the reeling Red Sox by one game with three left in the regular season. Boston was at Baltimore.
B.J. Upton drove in two runs with a third-inning double off Hector Noesi. Kelly Shoppach homered for the second straight day for the Rays, who've won three straight and are 15-8 since Sept. 2, when they trailed Boston by nine games. Johnny Damon's third-inning RBI single moved him into a tie with Lou Gehrig for 57th on the career hits list with 2,721.
Robinson Cano homered in the first and hit an RBI single in the third, giving the Yankees a 2-0 lead against Shields, who allowed just five baserunners over the last six innings. The All-Star right-hander walked three and struck out four to win for the first time in three starts.
Shields (16-12) left after walking Eric Chavez. Farnsworth got Jesus Montero to ground out with a crowd of 18,772 on its feet.
The Yankees clinched the AL East title for the 12th time in 16 seasons last week during a 6-2 homestand in which they also helped the Rays by winning two of three against Boston. They flew Florida following Sunday night's 14-inning loss to the Red Sox, arriving at their Tampa hotel around 5 a.m.
Even though New York also has clinched home-field advantage throughout the AL playoffs, manager Joe Girardi said he would play each game of this series to win while also trying to set his team up for the start of the playoffs on Friday.
"We have to be smart," Girardi said.
That's exactly the way Rays manager Joe Maddon anticipates the Yankees approaching the week.
"I know they'll have to do some things with their playoff situation, but they're going to play it straight up I'm pretty sure. Even when they bring the reserves in, they're pretty good also," Maddon said. "At the end of the day, the Rays have got to play. We have to win our own games and not worry about anybody else."
The Yankees rested starters Mark Teixeira and Nick Swisher, with Jorge Posada starting at first base and Eduardo Nunez in right field. Phil Hughes, who's been bothered by a sore back, was one of six pitchers Girardi used, pitching for the first time in two weeks and allowing no runs and one hit in 1 2/3 innings.
Noesi, a reliever making his second start in five days against the Rays, allowed three runs and five hits in two-plus innings. Damon drove in the final run charged to the Yankees starter with his RBI single off Raul Valdes, then the Rays ran themselves out of what could have been an even bigger inning.
With runners at first and third and one out, Damon and Evan Longoria were both caught stealing after Damon took off for second and stopped. Posada tagged Damon out from behind in a rundown, then threw to the plate to catch Longoria trying to score from third.
Posada also threw Upton out at the plate in the first, fielding a sharp grounder from Ben Zobrist before stepping on first and throwing to catcher Russell Martin, who put the tag on Upton to finish an inning-ending double play that protected a 1-0 lead.
Martin was ejected in the fifth inning after exchanging words with plate umpire Paul Schrieber.
Notes
Shields gave up a one-out single to Nunez in the seventh inning, them picked him off first base. His 13 pickoffs lead the majors. ... The Yankees plan to use Hughes twice out of the bullpen twice during this series. If he's on the postseason roster, Hughes would be a reliever. ... Girardi said backup C Francisco Cervelli, who has been on the DL since Sept. 13, experienced concussion-like symptoms while doing baseball activities before the game.
Boston Mayor condemned "Get High" Nike T-shirts
PORTLAND, Oregon-Nike Inc. is blown up the signature is for replacing "just do it" slogan on some T-shirts with the phrase "Dope", "Get High" and "ride pipe."
The shoe and sports apparel company said that the terms are part of the lingo of skaters, snowboarders and participants in other extreme sports, which is used with the merchandise target. But critics say that the slogans support drug use.
Boston's mayor has asked, Nike, an indication to remove the shirts. And an antidrug group of Oregon condemned it in a letter to 1,500 human-to let including pushing some in the White House Office of national drug control policy - they know that they disapprove of the slogans Nike.
"It had past been snappy,", said Tom Parker, spokesman for the Oregon partnership. "It is the language of the skateboarder and surfer safe, but it is also the language of the addict."
Boston's Mayor Thomas M. Menino letter this week one at the general manager of a Niketown store in a popular shopping district in Boston after he saw save the shirts in the window. He asked that they are taken, said the company failed drug abuse seriously.
Menino "Their Windows Pun are displaying T-shirts with drugs and profanity out of keeping with the character of Boston's back Bay, our city and our search our young people... not to mention common sense," said in the letter.
Campaign was on 1 June in connection with the introduction of an action sport the Nike shirts available. The "Dope" shirt shows the picture of a pill bottle with surfboards upended and skateboards pouring out of. Not all shirts have controversial terms. Other shirts are the phrases "F Gravity" and "Get Wet".
Nike, based in Beaverton, Oregon/United States, .recently has increased the marketing environment extreme sports and said the new sport shirts-promote not illegal drug use.
"Sport is an antidote to drugs," said Nike spokeswoman Erin Dobson in a statement. "There is no better adrenaline rush as catch a wave or a trick landing." "The language is the same one that skaters, BMX' he and surfers all over the world use every day."
Skateboarder say there are references to pot smokers extreme sports together. "It is a part of the culture," said Mike Hirsch, 45, a skateboarder since the 1970's years and owner of the vessel SoCal skate in California.
Hirsh not sell Nike products at his shop, but said he does not, believe the shirts because of the terms should be considered. "I am not a fan of, but it is part of the road culture and always have been," he said.
New York Paul ROURA, 25, a skateboarding trick called the "cheesy" shirts for 15 years. "It's not the best image to out there for skateboarders are set," he said.
Travis Tygart, CEO of the US anti-doping agency is true. "Apparently, Nike not advise a former sponsored athletes like Marion Jones, first-hand the destruction see comes from the selection by using of dangerous drugs in sport, cheating," Tygart said on the track star had removed their Olympic medals after they admitted to using steroids.
"Athletes had ruined her life through the use of performance enhancing drugs, and it is completely irresponsible that Nike is now actively promote it for profit," he said.
Nike has long pushed the envelope with its products and marketing efforts. The company had an "air staff" line shoes, which in London in 2008 after a spate of knife deaths around this time was considered. The company had a number of display for the Hyperdunk shoes, which contain images and slogans that some critics considered anti-gay. Nike supports the campaign at first, but later moved that display.
David Carter Professor of sports business executive Director of the University of southern Californias sports business Institute, said that cross the shirts in the current campaign.
"I understand their nervousness and where they have been attempt, the attention in a dramatic way, all these years," David Carter said Professor for sports business executive Director of the University of southern Californias sports business Institute. But "It is in poor taste given, what the company really is when it comes to pure sport."
However, Carter and other marketing experts said laugh Nike at the Bank could be. The controversy could generate more attention and spur sales of the shirts, they say.
"I don't think that it is necessarily a bad thing," said Paul Swanguard, Managing Director of the University of Oregon Warsaw sports marketing Center. "It is not an overt attempt to offend, but it is a blatant attempt to connect, which is what Nike has always done."
