A wild card kind of day
UNDATED (AP) — The Braves and Cardinals will make history today. They’ll play the first game between two baseball wild cards (5:07 p.m. Eastern).
Atlanta sends Kris Medlen to the home mound to face Kyle Lohse. The Braves have won a major league record 23 straight games started by Medlen, who went 10-1 during the regular season. Lohse was 16-3.
Braves manager Fredi Gonzalez will sit struggling catcher Brian McCann in favor of David Ross. McCann has been plagued by injuries and had the worst year of his career, batting just .230 with 20 homers and 67 RBIs.
This will be the first game between the Cardinals and Braves since May.
An American Leaguer matchup of wild cards follows with Baltimore at Texas.
The Orioles are going with late-season acquisition Joe Saunders. The Rangers are going with rookie Yu Darvish.
Valentine fired
BOSTON (AP) — The Boston Red Sox fired manager Bobby Valentine after one season and a record of 69-93.
The Sox went 7-22 in September and October to put a punctuation mark on its worst season in almost 50 years.
In a statement released by the Red Sox, Valentine says he understands the decision and is as disappointed as anyone in the results. Says Bobby V: “I’m sure next year will be a turnaround year.
Phillies upgrade Sandberg…Coaching scapegoats…Red Sox, Dodgers finish blockbuster
UNDATESD (AP) — The Philadelphia Phillies have promoted Hall of Famer Ryne Sandberg to their coaching staff as third-base coach and infield instructor. Sandberg had spent the past two seasons managing Philadelphia’s Triple-A affiliate, the Lehigh Valley IronPigs. The Phillies also promoted Steve Henderson to hitting coach and Rod Nichols to bullpen coach. The Phillies finished 81-81 this season after winning five straight NL East titles and the 2008 World Series title.
Also:
— Two straight last-place finishes are causing the Minnesota Twins to shake up things. The Twins fired longtime bullpen coach Rick Stelmaszek, third base coach Steve Liddle, first base coach Jerry White and head athletic trainer Rick McWane. They also resassigned bench coach Scott Ullger and hitting coach Joe Vavra in a significant shake-up of manager Ron Gardenhire’s staff.
— The Royals have chosen not to renew the contract of hitting coach Kevin Seitzer after the team finished 72-90 for its ninth consecutive losing season. Seitzer worked with a team that put together a .265 average this season, seventh-best in baseball, but struggled to score. Kansas City finished 20th in runs scored.
— The Seattle Mariners will not retain hitting coach Chris Chambliss for 2013 after another season during which their offense was among the worst in baseball. The rest of the team’s staff will return next season. Chambliss held the Seattle job for the past two seasons. The 63-year-old previously was the hitting coach for the New York Yankees and Mets, St. Louis and Cincinnati.
Over .500-Rams prevent Cards from 5-0 start
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The high-flying Arizona Cardinals came back to earth hard in St. Louis. Coach Jeff Fisher’s upstart Rams upset the previously undefeated Cardinals 17-3 to improve to 3-2. It’s the first time since 2006 — a span of 93 games — that the 4-3 Rams have been over .500.
Sam Bradford busted a lengthy slump with a 52-yard touchdown pass to rookie Chris Givens. Lance Kendricks caught a 7-yard TD pass in the first quarter and rookie Greg Zuerlein kicked a 53-yard field goal for the Rams.
Robert Quinn had three of the Rams’ nine sacks on Kevin Kolb to keep the Cardinals grounded. Arizona had scored at least 20 points in each of its first four games, but had no luck containing a pass rush that entered the game with only six sacks.
Arizona fell to 4-1. The only undefeated teams in the NFL are Houston and Atlanta.
13th-ranked Trojans win high-scoring affair in Utah
SALT LAKE CITY, Utah (AP) — It took Southern California, the 13th-ranked team in The Associated Press poll, 95 years to return to Salt Lake City to play a road game against Utah. Coach Lane Kiffin’s team figured that as long as it was making the trip, the Trojans ought to make it worthwhile.
The Trojans did. After a slow start, Matt Barkley engineered a 38-28 win over the Utes. Barkley completed 23 of 30 passes for 303 yards, the 13th time in his career he has surpassed the 300-yard figure. He tossed three TD passes.
The Trojans are 4-1 and 2-1 in the Pac-12, while the Utes fall to 2-3 and are 0-2 in the Pac-12.
Williams gets good news: no further surgery planned
CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina says Roy Williams’ second kidney tumor isn’t cancerous.
The school announced test results Thursday night, a day after the Hall of Fame men’s basketball coach had a biopsy of the tumor discovered on his left kidney. The school says the tumor is a benign growth often indistinguishable from kidney cancer on X-rays. It doesn’t spread like a cancerous tumor would.
Doctors removed the same kind of growth from Williams’ right kidney during a 3½-hour procedure on Sept. 19.
League wipes out start of the season
NEW YORK (AP) — The National Hockey League has announced the cancellation of the 2012-13 regular-season schedule through October 24. A total of 82 regular-season games were scheduled for Oct. 11 through the 24th.
The league says the cancellations were necessary because of the absence of a Collective Bargaining Agreement between the NHL Players’ Association and the NHL.
Representatives for the two sides have met sporadically and agreed to some of the minor, non-economic issues.
Players union executive director Donald Fehr called the cancellation of the first two weeks of the season a “unilateral choice of the NHL owners.”
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly says the league is “deeply disappointed” to cancel the games.
NATIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUE
St. Louis 17 Arizona 3
TOP-25 COLLEGE FOOTBALL
(13) Southern California 38 Utah 28
