Sibling rivalry turns a corner
A solid start by Yohander Mendez went to waste as the Oklahoma City Dodgers completed a three-game sweep of the Round Rock Express with a 3-1 win Thursday night in Oklahoma City.
Mendez allowed three runs on six hits in 5⅔ innings. Runs remained tough to come by for the Express (1-7).
Destin Hood’s sacrifice fly in the fourth inning provided the only run for the Express. Michael O’Neill scored on the play.
Manny Banuelos picked up the win as he gave up one run on two hits in six a chronic one, most likely stemming from overuse. And even though the Spurs have cleared him to play while Leonard’s medical team has not, neither group thinks his current status would be any different if Leonard had not landed on Pachulia’s foot.
But other dynamics have changed, and this is where the Spurs might benefit.
For one, playing without Leonard will not be a surprise this time.
For two, they no longer are the only once-dominant franchise showing signs of wear and tear.
To be clear, the Warriors are huge favorites this week and deserve to be. The Spurs will have to play the defensive series of their lives to keep the games close, and even then they might not have enough scoring to win more than a game or two. With Leonard still sidelined, this remains a mismatch in talent.
But much like the tendinopathy that has kept Leon- ard out of all but nine games since May, a potentially debil- itating condition is creeping up on the Warriors.
The symptoms include lethargy and fatigue, and they have plagued seem- ingly invincible superpowers before. There is a reason no innings.
Rob Segedin went 2 for 4 with two runs, a home run and twoRBIs for the Dodgers.
Segedin drove in a run to start things for Oklahoma City (5-1) in the bottom of the second. His single scored Alex Verdugo.
Breyvic Valera also hit an RBI single in the second to make it 2-0 for the Dodgers.
After Hood pulled Round Rock to within a run, Sege- din responded with a homer team coming off three consecutive trips to the NBA Finals has won a title in more than 30 years.
Maybe the Warriors have been waiting to flip a switch, and maybe that will happen Saturday. But they lost 10 of their last 17 games, and coach Steve Kerr says Steph Curry will not be available in the first round.
In other words, Golden State is vulnerable. In all likelihood, that vulnerability will not become evident until it has to face a team like the Houston Rockets. But it also would not be a huge surprise if a team that played deep into June three years in a row struggles to bring the same energy to this postseason.
Like with tendinopathy, an accumulation of little things takes a toll. And perhaps part of that toll is having players openly wonder what might happen to the franchise if it does not win a title this year.
That is what Golden State’s Draymond Green did this week in an interview with The Athletic. Granted, his point was not that he expects the Warriors to lose. All he was saying was that they should not be blown up if they do.
Even so, his comments spoke volumes about the challenges of sustaining success.
“To think you are going to win a championship every in the bottom of the fourth.
Brian Schlitter earned his first save of the season by inducing a groundout with two men on base.
The Express dropped the first game of the series by a single run but were outscored in the last two games 22-2.
Round Rock will begin a four-game series at Colorado Springs on Saturday evening. They had been scheduled to play Friday night, but the game was postponed because of high winds and freezing temperatures. It will be made up as part of a doubleheader starting at 1:30 p.m. Sunday. year is unrealistic,” Green said. “We all say the Spurs is the model franchise of the last 20, 25 years, right? Most people would say that.
“Well, they’ve never won back-to-back. Yet, the guys who won a championship, other than the guys who have retired, are still there. So you can fool yourself and think, ‘Oh, we didn’t win it this year, time to break it up,’ and you may never get that opportu- nity back again.”
Spurs fans know a little something about the sentiment Green was referring to there. Plenty of people in San Antonio have suggested that because the Spurs didn’t beat the Warriors last year — and because they apparently are no closer to doing so now — the franchise should trade everyone.
But as Green noted, the Spurs’ own history contradicts that argument. More than any other team, San Antonio illustrates the value of sticking with a plan even when it looks as if there might not be an immedi- ate payoff.
Maybe it really is all over, but it’s worth it to give yourself a chance to be sure.
Sometimes you miss that chance because of a linger- ing, chronic disease that appears without anyone noticing. And sometimes you might get lucky because your opponent is dealing with the same thing.
Kyle and Kurt Busch haven’t always seen eye to eye.
But as the years have passed, NASCAR’s iciest sibling rivalry has thawed to the point where they can joke around a bit.
Kurt Busch did just that Friday after Kyle Busch edged him out by two-thousandths of a second to take the pole for the Cup Series race Sunday at Bristol Motor Speedway.
“I can walk up to him and say, ‘Yeah, I let you have it,’ and he will giggle. He will actually laugh,” Kurt Busch said.
This will be the third time the Busch brothers have started on the front row together —the first since 2013. In all three cases, Kyle started first and Kurt second.
“He always told everybody, ‘If you think I’m good, just wait for my younger brother,’” joked Kyle Busch.
Kurt Busch said he messed up in turn one and that cost him a shot at a second straight Cup Series pole.
“If I am going to get beat by somebody if I don’t hit a perfect lap, I would rather it be my little brother,” Kurt Busch said.
There was a time when the Busch brothers rarely spoke at all.
But Kurt Busch said they do communicate now.
“It’s better now with age,” he said of their relationship.
Last year the Busches finished 1-2 at Sonoma, with Kyle holding off his older brother. There is a chance that could happen again Sunday as they clearly had the fastest cars in all three rounds of qualifying at the half-mile track.
“It was tough years ago for a few times, but lately I guess we have been racing each other a little better,” Kyle Busch said. “Overall, we just need to keep trying to make sure they are good battles and clean battles and not ugly ones.”
Harvick’s tough break: Kevin Harvick will have to start Sunday’s race at the back of the field after crashing in practice and going to a backup car. Harvick’s suspension broke on a practice lap in the morning, and his car took a right turn into the outside wall.
“It definitely wasn’t a tire failure or anything like that, but just going in the corner as soon as I let off the gas, it just hung a right, so it’s unfortunate, but we’ll get another one out and do it again,” said Harvick, who is fourth in the NASCAR standings and has six top-10 finishes in seven starts.