Hilfestellungen » be for Wisconsin to win the Big Ten because the Buckeyes

PHILADELPHIA -- Given the chance to play every day, Domonic Brown is showing why he once was the Philadelphia Phillies top prospect. Brown hit a pair of homers, Erik Kratz and Ryan Howard also had solo shots to back Kyle Kendrick and the Philadelphia Phillies beat the Boston Red Sox 4-3 Wednesday night. Kendrick (5-3) allowed two runs and four hits in six innings, helping the Phillies win their second straight against the Red Sox to get within one game of .500. They havent had an even record since they were 6-6. Brown is doing his best to get them back there. He hit his fourth homer in three nights and leads the Phillies with 13, including an NL-high 10 in May. "Im seeing it pretty well," Brown said. "Im getting good pitches to hit. After the first at-bat, I swung at a bad pitch, I told myself to wait for one to handle." Antonio Bastardo pitched the seventh, Mike Adams struck out two in a perfect eighth and Jonathan Papelbon finished for his 11th save in 11 tries, including the second in two nights against his old team. Papelbon allowed an RBI single to Jacoby Ellsbury, snapping his scoreless at 19 1-3 innings. But with runners on second and third, he retired Daniel Nava on a grounder to first to end it. The fiery Papelbon enthusiastically pumped his fist twice after the last out. "A real hard-fought game," Red Sox manager John Farrell said. "The opportunities were there. They made pitches with men on base." Nava hit a solo shot for AL East-leading Boston, which got a third straight quality start from John Lackey (3-5), who gave up six hits and three runs in six innings, but raised his ERA to 2.96. The teams split two games at Fenway Park before moving their home-and-home, four-game set to Philadelphia. Brown and Kratz hit consecutive homers in the fourth to put the Phillies up 3-1. Brown then lined one out in the eighth off Koji Uehara to make it 4-2. That extra run proved important. "Hes very confident right now," Phillies manager Charlie Manuel said. Brown had failed to live up to expectations in previous stints with the Phillies. He had an excellent spring and it has carried over. "Just his mind-set, going out there swinging, Im not surprised by it at all," Howard said. Howard lined an opposite-field homer to left in the second to tie it at 1. He hadnt gone deep since May 7 against San Francisco, a streak of 61 homerless at-bats before hitting his seventh. Nava hit an 0-2 pitch high off the right-field foul pole in the sixth. Kendrick worked out of jam later that inning, making a nice grab on Mike Carps sharp one-hopper to start a 1-6-3 double play. Lackey got out of a first-and-third, one-out jam in the sixth by getting Freddy Galvis to ground into a double play. "I just had to keep making pitches and hope our guys hit a couple out," Lackey said. The Phillies wasted another chance in the seventh when Howard struck out with one out and the bases loaded and John Mayberry Jr. popped out. The Red Sox went up 1-0 in the first on Dustin Pedroias sacrifice fly. Ellsbury led off with a triple on a ball that was misplayed by Ben Revere in centre. Revere broke in a couple steps and had no chance to recover on the drive that landed in front of the warning track. Pedroia acknowledged before the game that hes been playing despite sustaining a complete tear of the ulnar collateral ligament in his left thumb diving into first base in the season opener. "I didnt expect this to come out," Pedroia said. "As players here, we all want our medical stuff to stay private. I kind of feel uncomfortable talking about it." Pedroia is hitting .332 and has no errors while playing in all 54 games, so the injury clearly hasnt hurt his performance. Shane Victorino, a two-time All-Star centre fielder and key member of the Phillies World Series championship team in 2008, received a loud standing ovation following a video tribute. Victorino, who is on the disabled list, was traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers last July. NOTES: Injured Phillies 2B Chase Utley (oblique) and C Carlos Ruiz (hamstring) are expected to return by the middle of June, according to general manager Ruben Amaro Jr. "Theyre both improving," Amaro said. "Were being cautious with these injuries and thinking about the long term." ... Brown and Kratz have two of Philadelphias five sets of back-to-back homers this season. ... The Phillies had a season-high four stolen bases. ... The Red Sox recalled OF Jackie Bradley Jr. from Triple-A Pawtucket to take RHP Alex Wilsons roster spot. ... Navas seven homers are a career-high. ... Franklin Morales faces Phillies rookie Jonathan Pettibone (3-0, 3.21) on Thursday night. Jon Lester has been moved to Friday night against the New York Yankees and Clay Buchholz may not start until Sunday. Authentic NHL Jerseys Cheap . -- Former San Diego Chargers safety Paul Oliver was found dead at his Atlanta-area home Tuesday night, and a medical examiner said Wednesday that the ex-player committed suicide. Fake NHL Jerseys . In the lead up - which seemed to begin the moment Mike Geiger blew the whistle in Houston last Thursday night - the Impact rumour mill went into overdrive. The speculation went into meltdown mode, of the golden nugget variety. http://www.cheapnhlcustomjerseys.com/ . Its the second straight game Bell has scored in extra time for Kelowna, which beat the Brandon Wheat Kings 6-5 on Friday, and he now has four game-winning goals on the season. Fake Adidas NHL Jerseys . Louis. To which I would say two things: 1. Where there is smoke, there is or perhaps has been a little fire. Or, in other words, the two teams would appear to have at least spoken. And spoken is defined as one calling the other to inquire, no more, no less. Cheap Adidas NHL Jerseys . - Levi Browns tenure at left tackle for the Pittsburgh Steelers is over before it even began. Brace yourself, Washington.Be cautiously optimistic, Penn State.Keep your fingers crossed, Wisconsin.No. 2 Ohio State is looming like a bully, ready to pluck the College Football Playoff dreams from somebody who earned a conference championship. The Buckeyes have elbowed and earned their way into the selection committees top four in each of the past two weeks and should stay there again on Tuesday after knocking off No. 3 Michigan in double overtime. The biggest question facing the committee, though, will come on Dec. 4, when it has to determine the value of a conference championship and what to do with an Ohio State team that didnt even win its own division.In each of the past two seasons, speculation swirled about how the committee would handle an independent like Notre Dame or a team that didnt win its conference title, but that debate never came to fruition -- until now. With four wins against Top 25 teams -- at Oklahoma, at Wisconsin, Nebraska and now Michigan -- Ohio State has a playoff résumé that rivals that of any other team in the country save for undefeated Alabama. Penn State, though, clinched the East Division and will play Wisconsin for the Big Ten title, guaranteeing the conference a two-loss champion.And there sits one-loss Ohio State, which beat Wisconsin but lost to Penn State.This will be quite the conundrum for the selection committee, which has been directed by the 10 FBS commissioners in its protocol to use head-to-head results and conference championships as tiebreakers when résumés are comparable.Because Penn State has two losses, though, is it comparable? Dont forget: PSU lost to an unranked Pitt team and lost by 39 points to Michigan -- hence its current No. 7 ranking.The Nittany Lions and their fans need to prepare for the fact that Penn State could win the Big Ten and be left out of the playoff in favor of a team they beat in October. As of today, the gap between No. 2 Ohio State and No. 7 Penn State is significant, according to committee chair Kirby Hocutt, but it should shrink after PSUs convincing win over Michigan State to clinch the East. The more justifiable scenario for the committee would be to have Penn State AND Ohio State in their top four.At the expense of ... ahem ... Washington.Told you to brace yourself, Huskies.Washingtons nonconference schedule -- wins against Rutgers, Idaho and FCS foe Portland State -- is Bayloresque. Worse than that, in fact. Those teams are a combined 12-22 right now. According to ESPN Stats & Information, Washingtons nonconference schedule is ranked 127th out of 128 FBS teams. (Only Boston Colleges is worse.) An undefeated record could compensate for that, but one loss opens the door for debate. The good news is that Washington will have earned wins over ranked opponents Stanford, Utah and Washington State, plus a top-10 team in Colorado if it wins the Pac-12 title.dddddddddddd.None of those wins, though, is as good as Ohio States win over Michigan. Its also possible No. 23 Washington State drops out of the committees Top 25 this week. If the committee puts Washington in, it will send a message contradictory to everything it has hammered home to this point about strength of schedule. Athletic directors and coaches would then be less inclined to schedule aggressively if they could get away with playing a nonconference lineup like Washingtons and still get in, despite losing a game.And yet ... dont dismiss the possibility that the top four could include Ohio State AND Washington -- but not Penn State.Heres what we know: Alabama and Clemson should be locks if they win their respective conference championships, and somebody from the Big Ten is getting in.Maybe two somebodies.The best-case scenario for Ohio State would be for Wisconsin to win the Big Ten because the Buckeyes beat the Badgers back in October. That head-to-head result would certainly make it easier on the selection committee to explain why it put Ohio State in.What would be difficult to justify would be keeping Michigan in after its second loss of the season. Yes, it was a double-overtime loss on the road to the No. 2 team in the country, and its certainly reasonable to make a case that the Wolverines are one of the best teams in the country with wins over the two Big Ten teams that will be playing for the league title.But Michigan also lost to Iowa. And it now loses the head-to-head argument against the Buckeyes. Michigan should still be ranked ahead of Wisconsin and Penn State this week -- but that will likely change once one of them has the Big Ten title. The Wolverines arent just competing against the Big Ten champs résumé: Michigan would now have to compete against the Buckeyes résumé, a battle its unlikely to win -- again.Big Ten fans want answers. Washington wants in. The problem is that plenty can and will change with one more week of games. The conference championship games -- and in the Big 12s case, Bedlam -- are the final pieces to the puzzle. Only then will the committee have the full body of work to evaluate.But were only three years into this fledgling system, powered by 12 humans who are impossible to predict.They havent been faced yet with a team like Ohio State. The system was constructed this way, though, so they have the freedom to pick the four best teams -- not necessarily four conference champions.The Big Ten will force them to determine what matters most -- and its something not even they know the answer to yet. ' ' '