Herzlich Willkommen » their pitchers didnt give

PHOENIX -- There were too many players close behind and too many low scores to be had for Lydia Ko to feel at ease at the top of the JTBC Founders Cup leaderboard. That wont change the 16-year-old New Zealanders approach Sunday at Desert Mountain. "Im just going to play my own game," Ko said. "If somebody goes crazy low like shooting 10 under, 9 under or whatever, its not something I can control." She shot a 5-under 67 on Saturday to reach 16-under 200. Jessica Korda and Mirim Lee were a stroke back, and a dozen players were within four shots on a course that gave up a 63 and two 64s in the third round. "Obviously, theres going to be some nerves," Ko said. "Of course, thats always there." Ko was 3 under on Wildfires Arnold Palmer-designed front nine Saturday after playing it in even par the first two days. She eagled the par-5 fifth after hitting a 5-wood to 7 feet. "I played much better on the front nine, so I was really happy with that," Ko said. Ko tapped in for birdie on the par-5 15th after missing an eagle try and took the outright lead with a 10-footer on the par-3 17th. Shes 13 under on the Nick Faldo-designed back nine, where the tournament will be decided. "You never know until the last hole, last putt," Ko said. Ko won the Canadian Womens Open as an amateur the last two years and took the Swinging Skirts World Ladies Masters in December in Thailand in her second start as a professional. She has five victories in pro events, also winning in Australia and New Zealand. "It would be pretty special and especially at the Founders Cup," Ko said. "Without the founders, there would be no LPGA. This has been my dream tour." Ko will play alongside Korda. They also played together in the first two rounds. "Its always cool to play with her," Ko said. Korda, the winner in the season-opening event in the Bahamas, birdied the final two holes for her second bogey-free 66 in a row. "I look at her like a little sister," Korda said about Ko. "Shes a great girl." Lee, the leader after each of the first two rounds, bogeyed the 15th and shot 70. Shes making her third start on the LPGA Tour after winning three times on the Korean LPGA. Sun Young Yoo, the 2012 Kraft Nabisco winner, was 14 under after a 68. Michelle Wie had a 67 to join Azahara Munoz, So Yeon Ryu, Amy Yang and Chella Choi at 13 under. "I couldnt get anything to the hole, but scrambled and shot 5 under," Wie said. "Im really happy to be in the position that I am. Im really excited for tomorrow." Munoz, coming off a playoff loss to Paula Creamer three weeks ago in Singapore, shot 64 -- one of 19 rounds of 67 or better in the 74-player field Saturday. Yang had a 67, and Ryu and Choi shot 68. Choi holed out from the fairway for eagle on the par-4 18th. Creamer had a 64 to match defending champion Stacy Lewis and Morgan Pressel at 12 under. Creamer played the first 15 holes in 9 under, then bogeyed the short par-4 16 after driving into a bunker. "I have hit the ball great this week," Creamer said. "Ive given myself so many opportunities, its kind of ridiculous. I just didnt putt my best the last two days." In Singapore, she holed a 75-foot eagle putt to beat Munoz on the second extra hole. Lewis and Pressel, 9 under after 11 holes Thursday, shot 67. "Pretty disappointing," Lewis said. "I left a ton of shots out there today. The greens were a bit softer and I just didnt quite adjust to it. Speed was a little bit different." Scottsdale resident Cristie Kerr matched the course record with a 63 to reach 11 under, finishing an hour before the leaders teed off. "I saw Cristie shot 9 under and Paula was 8 and I was like, Wow! Thats serious scoring," Korda said. "But the greens are a little bit bouncier in the afternoon and you can kind of see where people have walked." Kerr, playing a new set of irons this week, had an eagle, eight birdies and a three-putt bogey. "Im glad that I had the courage to switch because Im just so much more consistent now," Kerr said. DIVOTS: The third-round scoring average was 69.421. ... Top-ranked Inbee Park was 11 under after a 70. ... Ai Miyazato set the course record in the first round last year. ... Fifty-year-old Laura Davies shot 66 to reach 11 under. New York Yankees Gear .Y. - Carey Price had an early feeling that one goal might be enough to settle the latest matchup between his Montreal Canadiens and longtime Original Six foe, the New York Rangers. Jordan Montgomery Yankees Jersey . Edmonton opened the season with 14 straight victories before falling Friday night 10-8 to the host Colorado Mammoth in National Lacrosse League action. https://www.cheapyankees.com/1721g-don-m...ey-yankees.html. Hes just beginning to get similar results. The right-hander struggled after winning the honour in 2008 and 2009, but a retooling of his game has begun to pay off and has the San Francisco Giants thinking about the Lincecum of old. Jake Barrett Yankees Jersey .Stanton suffered fractures in his face and other injuries when he was hit by a pitch Sept. 11. The Marlins are confident hell fully recover and be ready for spring training, and they hope to reach a long-term agreement with him. Yankees Jerseys China . Third-place Madrid fell behind and settled for a 2-2 draw earlier at Osasuna in a match both sides finished with 10 men, and Barcelona didnt let the chance escape. Barcelona, still without the injured Lionel Messi, again turned to Neymar after his hat trick against Celtic in the Champions League on Wednesday to convert a penalty on the half-hour mark and restore the lead in the 68th after Villarreal levelled.TSN Baseball Insider Steve Phillips answers several questions each week. This weeks topics include the Blue Jays struggles at Yankee Stadium, what the Tampa Bay Rays should do with David Price, remembering Tony Gwynn and his pick for the best team in baseball. 1) What is it about the Blue Jays and Yankee Stadium that dont go together (15 straight losses through Wednesday)? You would think an offensive team would do well in a hitters park. In your experience, what was the toughest park to play in and why? There isnt anything wrong with the Blue Jays. They just cant seem to beat the Yankees. The Yankees have the Jays number. Baseball is such a mental game. What you think or feel impacts how you play. When one team dominates another like this it gets in the mind of the losing team. It also empowers the winning team. As each subsequent game unfolds, the losing team feels that a loss is inevitable. When something goes wrong in the game it feels like that will be the reason the team loses on that day. In contrast the winning team has a feeling of inevitability as well. They just know someone will make a play or get a big hit to win the game. The Jays have a defeatist attitude against the Yankees. Im sure they start out each game telling themselves that this will be the day they end the losing streak. But at some point a lost scoring opportunity, an error, a bloop base hit, etc causes the voices of doubt start to scream in their psyche. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. I lived this nightmare when I was Mets general manager. We could not beat the Atlanta Braves, especially at Turner Field in Atlanta. It didnt matter what we did, we lost. We could get good starting pitching but their starters pitched better. We could score a bunch of runs but they would find a way to outscore us. We lost every way imaginable. We lost some games with bad first innings and some with bad ninth innings. We lost on home runs, errors, wild pitches and squeeze bunts. We would rally and look like we were coming back and then hit in to a double play to end the game. We even walked in a game-winning run in the NLCS in 1999. What makes matters worse is when the team that has your number is in your division. With the unbalanced schedule we played division rivals nineteen times each. We always finished second to the Braves mainly because we couldnt beat them head-to-head. I told Braves GM John Schuerholz and manager Bobby Cox that if I ever had to pick them out of a police line-up I would have to have them turn around because I chased them for six years and only saw their backside and never saw their faces. In fact I am convinced that the only reason we advanced to the World Series in 2000 against the Yankees was because the Braves lost in the NLDS that year to the Cardinals. Our struggles ran from one season into another season. Not even an off-season flushed out the demons. In fact, several years after I was general manager I returned to Turner Field as a baseball analyst to broadcast a game. I remember walking in the visiting clubhouse and the awful feelings of past losses at Turner Field flooded me. It was still in my head. Every team has that other team. Unfortunately for the Jays that team is the Yankees. 2) There are a lot of suggestions that the Rays should be trading David Price now. Would you do it, and what would be your expected return in a deal for Price? What team has assets that fit that wish list? The Rays must trade David Price. Small market teams have to do all they can to maximize their assets. Price is the Rays most substantial asset. They cant afford to keep him and they cant afford not to trade him. In order to continuously reinvent themselves, small market teams have to recycle their roster. It seems highly unlikely that the Rays would trade David Price withinthe AL East. It is already a very difficult division so why make it that much tougher. Certainly the Jays, Orioles, Yankees and Red Sox would all have interest in Price. But so do the Tigers, Athletics, Angels, Braves, Cardinals, Reds Giants, and Dodgers. The Rays have had success being an organization built around deep pitching and just enough offense. Unfortunately for them, this year they dont have anywhere close to enough offence. The challenge for small market teams is finding the right balance between their pitching and offence. The timing between the two is critical since they cant spend significant dollars in the free agent market to fill deficiencies. The Rays want to compete again as soon as possible so finding young major league talent instead of a bevy prospects is preferred. The team that can make the best deal with the Rays is the St. Louis Cardinals. The Rays should ask for 1B Matt Adams and RHS Michael Wacha. This would replace Prices role in the rotation and give them a big power bat for the middle of their lineup. I would expect the Cardinals to say no to including Wacha in the deal. So the Rays should then ask for RHS Shelby Miller and RHP Carlos Martinez in the deal with Adams. The Cardinals would have a rotation that would include Adam Wainwright, Wacha, Price, Lance Lynn and Jaime Garcia. Alan Craig can play first base in the absence of Adams and Oscar Tavares can play right field. The Rays would get a quality young starter in Miller, a potential impact starter/closer in Martinnez and a big bat for their lineup.dddddddddddd. It will be very interesting to see where Price goes and what the deal will be. One thing for certain he will not finish the season with the Rays. 3) We lost one of the great hitters and great personalities in baseball last week. What is your fondest memory of Tony Gwynn and where does he rank among the hitters you saw play? Tony Gwynn is one of the best pure hitters that baseball has ever known. He was a student and a teacher of the game. Gwynn is one of the rare players who played for one team his entire career. He is known as Mr. Padre. He never had a contract dispute. He didnt play for the money. He could have taken advantage of the free agent market and squeezed every last dollar out of his ability. But he wasnt about money. He played for the love of the game. Interestingly Gwynn got more attention in his death than he did as a Hall of Famer. People in some ways diminished his accomplishments because he was a singles hitter. The most home runs he ever hit in a season were seventeen. He could have hit more but he chose to stay within himself and do what he did best. He punched the ball the other way. He was a contact hitter. He hit for average. Gwynn had a .338 career batting average. He led the league in hitting eight times. He was a 15-time All Star and a five-time Gold Glover. His .393 batting average in the strike-shortened 1994 season, was the closest that anyone has gotten to .400 since Ted Williams did it in 1941. The hole between the shortstop and third baseman became know as the "5.5" hole because of Gwynn. He had an uncanny knack of being able to hit any pitch anywhere in the zone through that hole. I remember an afternoon when I was GM for the Mets that I was sitting in my office and heard the crack of the bat coming from the field at 1pm. We had a 7pm game that night so I wondered who could possibly be hitting that early. I went out on the concourse and saw Tony Gwyn taking early batting practice with one of the Padres coaches. I couldnt believe it. The game was six hours away. Then after regular batting practice I saw Gwynn walking with a bucket of balls down to the batting age under the stadium. He was going to practice some more. The best pure hitter of his era was also the hardest worker. That told me all I needed to know. The other remarkable thing about Gwynn was his smile. He was the least Hall of Fame acting Hall of Famer I have ever met. He was genuine, sincere, compassionate, kind and friendly. He greeted fans and opponents and ground crew workers in exactly the same way. He wasnt too big for anyone and no one was too small for him. Baseball lost the best pure hitter of this era and one of the best ever in the game. But the bigger loss was that of the man that was Tony Gwynn. 4) Baseball is such a great sport. Everyday gives you some different feeling about your team and its chances. It is made for sports talk radio. Or maybe it made sports talk radio. Either way our team can excite us one day and disappoint us the next. One week we feel like we are going all the way and the next week our team is a bunch of bums. The season is a marathon-long roller coaster ride. It can be exhilarating or exhausting depending upon the end result. Statistics allow us to continuously grade the progress of our team and how it is performing. The numbers can be made to tell just about any story and often times suit our bias. I love the weekly power rankings that come out and show which team is ranked ahead of its competition. Each week the teams are moved up and down based upon how they performed over a seven-day time frame. Seven days in a baseball season is only a snapshot of a team and who they are. There is a saying in baseball that no team is as good as they are when playing its best or as bad as they are when they play their worst. Yet each week we come up with an ordering of the teams according to some arbitrary evaluation. This year is no different. So far in one ranking the Giants, Cardinals, As, Brewers and Tigers have all been atop the rankings at one point or another this season. This is bizarre to me because there is one team that is the best and no one else is even close. The best team in baseball by far is the Oakland As. Why? The As have outscored the opposition by 134 runs. The next closest team is the San Francisco Giants who are a +47. Isnt the idea to outscore your opponent? The As have scored the most runs in baseball. "Well isnt pitching more important?" you ask. The As have given up the least number of runs as well. Back when Billy Beane co-wrote "Moneyball" everyone focused on the need for hitters to have a good OBP. Yet, Beanes teams back then had much better pitching than they did offence. They didnt win because their hitters had a great plan at the plate, they won because their pitchers didnt give up OBP. This As team is a true "Moneyball" team through and through. They are baseballs best offensive team while also having the best pitching. Beane has been criticized because his teams never won anything. That means championships. His clubs won a ton of games and got more bang for the buck than anyone else but that doesnt seem to matter. This is their year. Here are my power rankings: Its the Oakland As and then everybody else. ' ' '