THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
TUESDAY, MAY 1, 2012
PAGE 7B
Copyright 2014 by The New York Times Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
MLB
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Rain delay allows teams more time to improve
ASSOCIATED PRESS
DETROIT — Rain is following the Kansas City Royals.
Their scheduled game against the Detroit Tigers was postponed because of bad weather Monday night, Kansas City's second rainout in three days. This one will be made up at 7:05 p.m. on Sept. 24, which had been a mutual off day for both teams before playing each other the following day at Comerica Park.
"You don't want to wait until September, but that's a better option than sitting here for hours trying to wait out this rain," Royals manager Ned Yost said. "You don't want to sit here all night and still not be able to play."
Luke Hochevar had been slated to pitch for the Royals against
Tigers left-hander Duane Below. Hochevar was pushed back a day, but Detroit will skip Below and start Rick Porcello as scheduled on Tuesday night.
Play never started and the game was called after a delay of about 40 minutes.
"If you looked at the forecast and the radar, you pretty much knew there wasn't going to be a chance of getting this one in," Yost said. "There was just way too much rain."
The Royals had won three in a row before Saturday's game in Minnesota was postponed, but Yost doesn't think the lack of action has hurt his team's momentum. Kansas City lost to the Twins 7-4 on Sunday.
"These guys are in here ready and raring to go," he said.
"Obviously, they want to play baseball, but when you get to this level, you are used to things like this happening."
The rainout could help both teams on the mound.
The Royals will pitch Hochevar and Jonathan Sanchez in Detroit, then have Danny Duffy and Bruce Chen ready to start the first two games of a home series against the New York Yankees this week. That would allow Kansas City to skip struggling Luis Mendoza.
"It will help us a little," Yost said. "We go Hoch, Sanchez and Duffy, and then we can still use Bruce on his regular day if we want to do that."
The Tigers, already facing a shortage in the bullpen, were going to start Below against the Royals. The rainout not only gives
Detroit's overworked relievers an extra day off, it lets manager Jim Leyland return Below to his preferred role of long relief.
Doug Fister (strained ribcage)
is scheduled for a rehab start Wednesday with Triple-A Toledo, and the Tigers hope he'll be ready to pitch the next time his spot in the rotation comes up.
"If everything goes well on Wednesday, and
fairly gloomy place for much of Monday afternoon, with the team having lost eight of 10 and Delmon Young waiting for news on his punishment for Friday's trouble in
"You don't want to wait until September,but that's a better option than sitting here for hours trying to wait out this rain,"
I obviously don't know if it will. Fister would start next Monday in Seattle," Leyland said. "That's what we are hoping will happen."
The Tigers' clubhouse was a
NED YOST Royals manager
New York.
The outfielder was suspended by Major League Baseball for seven days without pay following his arrest on a hate crime h a r s s m e n t charge last week. The commissioner's office
said the suspension is retroactive to Friday, when Young was arrested after a late-night tussle at his hotel during which police say he yelled anti-Semitic epithets.
But things immediately brightened up when injured designated hitter Victor Martinez limped into the Detroit clubhouse. Martinez, expected to miss most of the season after injuring his knee during offseason workouts, hadn't been to Comerica Park yet this year.
"It is really great to be back here," he said. "I can't tell you how much I miss this."
Martinez's arrival seemed to energize his smiling teammates.
"It feels good to be able to walk back in here and be with these guys. No one else understands how special this is," Martinez said. "Now that I got rid of my crutches
PGA
— well, I still have them, but I'm going to make a fire with them — I'll be here more often."
One weekend winning the PGA, marrying his wife the next
ASSOCIATED PRESS
AVONDALE, La. — A first-time PGA Tour winner one weekend, a married man the next.
The spring of 2012 will go down as a memorable time in Jason Dufner's life.
Although it took pair of playoff holes, Dufner finally proved he could hold it together and make a mid-tournament lead stand up, making a birdie on his second extra trip down the par-5 18th hole at the TPC Louisiana to win the Zurich Classic in a playoff with Ernie Els.
"It's always really tough playing on Sundays whether you're in the lead or middle of the pack, and today I was fighting, trying to win an event, and I think I showed myself a good bit out there," said the 35-year-old Dufner, whose wedding is next weekend. "Ernie made a great run at me and it felt like with five or six holes (to go) we were probably going to be battling for the win."
Dufner, whose average score at the cut this season ranks second on the Tour, finished atop the leader board for the first time in 164 career PGA Tour starts.
Now if he can only figure out his honeymoon plans.
"The honeymoon is going to be at The Players Championship," Dufner joked about the event in two weeks at TPC Sawgrass. "They got an island green."
Dufner's fiancee, Amanda Boyd, wasn't about to complain. Watching from behind the 18th green, she was tearful as Dufner finally made the clutch shots he needed to finish on top.
"It's awesome. He's been so close so many times. I don't feel like it."
real," Boyd said. "It will be a good wedding."
Dufner said he was more nervous about his final putt of less than 2 feet than about his impending marriage.
"There's a been a good bit of pressure," Dufner said. "People talking about, 'Why aren't you winning? Why can't you close the deal?' ... Friends, family, media, even people in my inner circle. And not in a negative way, but when you're leading tournaments going into weekends and you're finishing 24th, there's going to be some questions."
The win should also stamp out some of the bad memories haunting Dufner since the Masters, when he shared the lead after two rounds but faded to 24th.
Dufner lost playoffs last year to Mark Wilson in the Phoenix Open and Keegan Bradley in the PGA Championship for two of his three career runner-up finishes. He had held five previous leads through two rounds, including twice this year.
Entering the fourth round with a two-shot lead in New Orleans, Dufner shot a 2-under 70, while Els had a 67 to match Dufner for a course-record 19-under 269 total.
Both missed birdie putts within 8 feet in the first playoff, so they went back to the 18th tee for the second extra hole, which Dufner won by hitting the green in two strokes and tapping home a short birdie putt after Els' birdie attempt from the fringe narrowly missed.
The 6-foot-3 Els, who goes by the nickname "The Big Easy," hasn't won on the PGA Tour since the 2010 Arnold Palmer Invitational at Bay Hill, a little more than two
years ago.
He did not have a bogey in the final round or the playoff, and could have celebrated his 19th career PGA Tour title in the Big
Easy if he could have made a birdie putt of a little less than 6 feet on the first playoff hole.
"It was a nice little charge I made and, you know, nice to catch the leader." Els said. "I had a chance to win the tournament with a 6-footer and missed it, but I
made quite a few putts on the back nine to keep myself in it. ... Hit the ball pretty well today — no bogeys on the final round — so there's a lot of positives."
"It's always really tough playing on Sundays whether you're in the lead or middle of the pack, and today I was fighting, trying to win an event, and I think I showed myself a good bit out there,"
On the second playoff hole, Els' tee shot went into a fairway bunker, and his second shot landed 137 yards from the pin. His third shot landed on the fringe, nearly 19 feet from the pin, but he nearly saved birdie from there, his putt missing by 2 inches.
Dufner then made his birdie putt, and in his typically low-key way, briefly raised both arms to acknowledge the cheering crowd before casually walking off the green to accept some congratulatory hugs.
After becoming the seventh player to take his first career PGA Tour triumph in New Orleans since 2002, Dufner called it a "great wedding present" for himself and his bride to be.
"It helps with paying for the
wedding, obviously," added Dufner, who earned $1,152,000. "They're a little more expensive than I thought or had imagined. ... It'll be a big celebration not only for our marriage
JASON DUFNER pro golfer
Bubba Watson watches his tee shot into the mulch on the second hole during the final round of the Zurich Classic golf tournament at TPC Louisiana in Avondale, La.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
but also for my first victory out on the Tour."
Luke Donald shot a 67 to finish third at 17 under, and move past Rory McLlroy for the No.1 ranking in the world.
time since a life the Masters over
entered the final round eight shots off the lead. He was unable to mount a charge after bogeys on his first two holes. He wound up tied for 18th at 11 under, a solid outing by most standards, but one of his worst finishes of the year.
changing win at Easter weekend,
Defending Zurich Classic champ Bubba Watson, playing for the first changing win at
"All in all, pretty good week being tired, coming back for the first time after winning the Masters, all this different media attention," Watson said. "It's something you got to get used to. (It) wears on you, tires you out. Somehow I finished — I'm in the top 20. A lot of guys wished they did that."
While Els was on the practice green preparing for a possible playoff, Dufner chipped on to set up a potential winning putt from 10 1/2 feet.
Els' 17-foot birdie put on 18 missed by about an inch, opening the door for Dufner to win in regulation if he could birdie the 585-yard hole to cap his fourth round.
Els and Dufner were tied at 19 under after 11 holes. Els made par on each of his final seven holes of regulation. Dufner made par on his final eight, none more difficult than on 16, when he hit into water, but salvaged par with a 44-foot
Although he could not convert, pushing the ball about a foot past the right edge of the hole, he made up for it in the playoff.
"Obviously, I haven't had a great history in playoffs last year," Dufner said. "It kind of enters your mind: 'I'm in another playoff. Am I going to be able to get this done?'"
putt.
He won't have to ask himself that question any more.
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