Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored three goals as the New York Rangers beat Philadelphia 5-2 on Saturday for their seventh straight win over the Flyers.
Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
CFT: Jordan Jefferson makes it clear he wasn't happy with LSU's game plan in the Tigers' BCS Championship Game loss to Alabama.
Move over, Hollywood and NFL types, golf's two real A-listers take center stage Sunday at Pebble Beach, both in need of a win.
The United States swept favored Switzerland out of the Davis Cup on Saturday when Mardy Fish and Mike Bryan beat Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.
Luis Suarez's refusal to shake hands with Patrice Evra overshadowed Manchester United's 2-1 win over rival Liverpool that lifted the defending champions to first place in the Premier League on Saturday.
Marlies Schild of Austria won her sixth World Cup slalom of the season Saturday after overall leader Lindsey Vonn and defending champion Maria Hoefl-Riesch crashed out in the opening run on the windy Pyrenees course.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
AP
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No National League East title for the fourth year in a row; not even the wild card for Charlie Manuel’s team.
The NL’s first back-to-back pennant winner since the 1995-96 Atlanta Braves were sitting in a third-place tie in the wild-card race, with the league’s sixth-best record.
Rarely has there been a more overwhelming consensus pre-season favorite — it only figured because they added arguably the game’s best pitcher to their rotation in Roy Halladay.
But the Phillies find themselves in a 5-11 slide that has raised vital questions:
How deep do their issues go, and how long will they last? Are they just bored? Or is this the beginning of the unraveling that could see them miss the playoffs, then lose key player Jayson Werth in free agency this winter?
But the answers point to this being more temporary than long-term.
Go back only to May 17, when after a 12-2 trouncing of the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Phillies stood 24-13, comfortably ahead in the NL East.
And it wasn’t as if they had been injury-proof in getting there, as Jimmy Rollins, Brad Lidge, J.A. Happ, J.C. Romero and Joe Blanton had spent time on the disabled list — as much as it didn’t seem to matter.
Second, it’s not hard to figure the primary reason behind the current skid. The offense has lost its top two table setters in Rollins (back on the DL with calf issues) and Placido Polanco, leaving it more prone to slumps and too home-run-reliant.
That’s a big reason you see the Phillies hitting .202 in the 16-game stretch, scoring more than three runs only twice, and getting shut out six times, including the hard-to-believe stretch of three in a row and five of six games.
Manager Charlie Manuel isn’t questioning his hitters’ preparedness, or the efforts of hitting instructor Milt Thompson. Instead, Manuel — a longtime former hitting coach — seems convinced this is the inevitable tough time over every six-month, 162-game grind.
But what Manuel said in his lengthy postgame comments to the Philadelphia Daily News on Wednesday about his team’s mental state is revealing:
“Success changes you. Winning changes you. People sometimes don’t even know that. But you’d better stay the same if you think you’re going to be as successful as you have been. ...
“I think there’s complacency every year, especially since we’ve been to the World Series. I’m not saying right now that’s the big thing. But I think we definitely have some, and we have to take care of it.’’
And by the way, Manuel thinks it’s part of his job to do so.
But there is much that remains right about the Phillies.
Their bullpen has gotten healthier. Brad Lidge is back after a disabled-list stay, J.C. Romero is throwing the ball as well as he has since 2008, and they have another quality ninth-inning option in Jose Contreras.
There is nothing wrong with the rotation, either — 3.85 ERA over a 4-11 stretch, and 3.56 if you throw out Cole Hamels’ rain-shortened 24-pitch outing Tuesday in which he allowed three runs and recorded only two outs.
Halladay tossed a perfect game in the midst of all the struggles, and since two disastrous early-April starts, No. 5 starter Kyle Kendrick has a 3.35 ERA.
The other thing that’s making the Phils’ slide seem worse is a comparison with the streaking Braves, who have built a small lead in the NL East.
How much of an about-face have the Braves done lately? They went from a nine-game losing streak in April that dropped them into last place to an eight-game winning streak that has punctuated an 18-5 surge to the top. How’s that for a worst-to-first?
The biggest then-and-now differences: In their nine-game losing streak April 21-29, the Braves were shut out three times, and scored more than three runs only twice. Sound familiar?
And in an 18-4 run, they allowed three runs or less no fewer than 17 times, including in the entire eight-game winning streak.
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The schedule has been fortuitous: A series in Milwaukee against a struggling Brewers team that can’t win in Miller Park, another with the last-place Diamondbacks, two series with the Pirates, and catching the Phillies at their worst.
But Troy Glaus was NL player of the month in May, Eric Hinske has become a productive all-but-everyday player, Yunel Escobar is off the disabled list and producing, and an infusion of young power arms in Jonny Venters and Kris Medlen has deepened a staff that has been thriving without Jair Jurrjens.
But if you saw the Braves during a very impressive spring training that made them a popular wild-card pick, none of this should be too shocking. What was shocking was the nine-game losing streak that bottomed out with the Braves at 8-14 on April 29.
So if/when the heavily-favored Phillies make a similar return to form, don’t be at all surprised.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
DeMarco: Plug in a well-heeled ownership group and negotiate one of those mega-bucks TV deals that are going around, and the Dodgers could become the west coast version of the New York Yankees or Boston Red Sox.
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Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
Doron Lamb hit a 3-pointer with 3:18 left to put No. 1 Kentucky ahead to stay, and the Wildcats took a big step toward a Southeastern Conference regular-season title by beating Vanderbilt 69-63 Saturday night for their 17th straight win.
Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
