Sonny went eight for the Oakland A’s today, giving up four hits, no runs, with one walk and nine strikeouts. A’s won 5-0. Sonny threw 118 pitches, 75 for strikes, with 43 balls. Sonny throws a sinking fast ball so sometimes he misses low or in the dirt. I’m going to watch the taped version tomorrow afternoon, but he must have been exceptional. Sonny moves to 1-1 and has a 1.00 ERA. He has walked. Sonny has now walked five guys on the season and struck out 20. Lovin that. A’s now 68-52 and virtually tied with the Rays for first in the AL wild card standings. Rays at 67-51. A’s have played two more games to date. Rays host the Mariners tonight with Alex Cobb coming off the disabled list to pitch. Alex will face veteran Joe Saunders of the M’s. Rays and A’s are my two favorite teams in AL. Gotta still go with my Rays to trump every team in my favorite category. But want Sonny and A’s to get to October too. But if they faced off in the wild card game would have to go with my staple, DP and the Rays.
Pirates lost a tough one, 6-5, in 12 to the Cards. Bucs now two up on the Cardinals in the NL Central. Pirates now 71-49, Cards 69-51. Bucs host Zona Dbacks this weekend. Braves off tonight. Host Nationals this weekend. Mike vs Strasburg Saturday Night. Rays host Toronto for a weekend series. Dave will pitch again Monday night at Baltimore. A’s host a good Cleveland Indians team this weekend. Sonny will pitch next Tuesday when the A’s host Seattle. First pitch at 10:05 PM ET/9:05 CT. I’m tired already thinking about Wednesday, but that’s the job and I’m very pumped about Sonny. Will absolutely get that done for Wednesday.

Bears coming up at 8 PM ET/7 CT on ESPN.

Brandt with a good day shooting -1, 69 at the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, NC. Brandt won there in 2007, his rookie year. He’s five back of leaders Chris Stroud and Ross Fisher. Brandt started a little slow on the front going one over, but birdied the Par 3, 12th and the par 5, 15th.Luke at +2, OK position. Really needs to make this cut and hopefully do well once he does.

Football with a solid practice yesterday. Another freshman receiver to watch is Carlos Burse, the four-star out of Alpharetta, Georgia. Carlos is 6’2″, 202, so he is ready for college football Saturdays. He along with Rayford and Cunningham are having very good camps. ACS with a good practice and Patton Robinette is closing the gap on Josh Grady for the number two job under center. Patton has a lot of talent, and he’s very smart, so things look to be clicking for him. Good depth at linebacker with redshirt freshmen and a couple of true frosh, Zach Cunningham and Oren Burks, looking good in camp. Ja’karri Thomas, a redshirt frosh, has a nice practice yesterday according to reports. We’ve got some really good players at lb.

Nothing right now on football recruiting front though four-star receiver Jalen Brown has us in his top five with Ohio State, Wisconsin, the Quack Attack and Oregon State. Josh is one we really want. He took an unofficial a week and a half ago and we made his final cut for officials. He’s coming to town Oct. 4 to see us play Mizzou. Would be a very good pickup.  Four-star receiver Jamil Kamara out of Virginia also has us in his top seven. Would be nice to get both of these guys, and/or four-star Josh Malone who we are heavily involved with.

Basketball could get Wade Baldwin, a three-star combo guard to come our way. Wade is from New Jersey and has a great relationship with new VU assistant Yanni Hufnagel, who recruited him at Harvard before coming to VU this summer. Watched film on Wade and like his game. He’s tough physically is an excellent finisher, he’s strong, he’s a competitor and can shoot it well. Wade is 6’2″, so he’ll definitely have to shoot it well and play good defense to help us, but he looks like a tremendous competitor. We need about  three more in this class, particularly a power forward or two. I’d love a 6’8″, 6’9″ 230 pounder, or better yet, two of”em.

Will hit ya back in the next couple of days.

David Price didn’t have his best stuff last night, but he kept battling and helped keep his team in the game as the Rays fought back from a 4-1 deficit and beat the Seattle M’s in the bottom of the ninth scoring two times to win, 5-4. It was a highly needed victory. They Rays had dropped six in a row, after getting swept by Arizona and LA Dodgers last week and losing the first game to the Mariners on Tuesday Night. David pitched fine. Not his best, but he really competed and threw a lot of strikes once again. His fastball was topping out at 93, not his best, but his change up and his curve were working well. Dave went seven, gave up five hits, four runs, with one walk and seven K’s. He threw 117 pitches, 85 for strikes and 32 balls. I loved the way he pitched really. He got a couple of bad breaks that led to runs earlier in the game, but Joe Maddon put him out there in the seventh, when I thought he might pull him after six when Dave had thrown 101 pitches. I like the fact that Joe trusts Dave completely, and knows even if DP is a little tired he will battle. Dave got’em three up, three down in the seventh and gave his team a chance. The Rays scored two in the bottom of the sixth to cut the lead to 4-3. Jake McGee and Joel Peralta kept the M’s at four runs and the Rays opened the bottom of the ninth down a run.

Ben Zobrist led off with a deep blast to right the just missed going out. It hit the two pieces of yellow padding at the  top of the wall and came back into play. Ben got a triple out of it. Matt Joyce came up next and quickly got two strikes against him, but he bounced the next pitch over the pitchers head and past a drawn in infield for the  game tying base hit. Longo then doubled and Wil Myers was intentionally walked. Newly called up outfielder Jason Bourgeois, a 31 year old journeyman player, came up and hit the second pitch over the right fielder’s head for the game winner. It was almost relief for the team. Jason seems like a great guy, and he probably kept a spot on the roster with the game winning hit. Pitcher Alex Cobb is coming off the disabled list and pitching today, so the Rays have to send down a player. I bet it will be Ryan Roberts, whose bat is anemic.

Just a huge victory for the team. The BoSox lost last night to the Blue Jays, so the Rays are three back of Boston. The Astros beat the A’s, so the Rays are the overall leader in the wild card standings, leading the A’s by a half game. The Rays are 67-51 and the A’s are 67-52. The Orioles are next at 65-55, three back of the Rays and 2 1/2 back of the A’s.

Speaking of the A’s, Sonny Gray gets the call today for the A’s in a 3:35 PM ET/2:35 CT start against the Astros. Big start for Sonny as it is important for him and his team. The A’s trail the Texas Rangers by two in the AL West. Sonny is 0-1 with a 1.80 ERA with four walks and 11 K’s. Just needs to keep his control and he should be good. Sonny facing veteran Eric Bedard who is 3-8 with a 4.28 ERA. Bedard has walked 56 and struck out 106.

Pedro and the Bucs won last night, 5-1, over the Cards in St. Louise. Pedro hit number 29 last night and got his 76th RBI. Still struck out twice. I don’t know how you correct that if you’re Pedro or the Pirates hitting coach. Just needs to really try and see the ball better. I know it’s hard when you have four seconds to react to a pitch. Just have to remain patient and Pedro just needs to get better and better. Good win for the Bucs though. Bucs snapped a four game losing streak and moved to 71-48, three games ahead of the Cards, who are 68-51.

Braves still rolling. SI has them atop the power rankings and I believe that 100 percent. Braves now 74-47, the best record in baseball. They’re still cruising, but need to finish strong. Won 6-3 over Phillies last night. Jason Heyward went yard last night, his 11th of the season. He’s heating up and with him, Justin Upton, Freedie Freeman, Brian McCann, Evan Gattis and Chris Johnson, the Braves are really stroking it right now. Just ona roll. The Braves are the team to beat barring injuries. I have the Rays to win it all from my prediction in April, so not giving up on that pick, but the Braves are outstanding. Mike Minor (12-5, 2.87 ERA, 32 walks, 143 K’s) goes Saturday against the Nationals’ Stephen Strasburg (6-9, 2.83, 43 BB’s, 153 K’s).

Bears in action in preseason game tonight at Soldier Field against San Diego Chargers. Should be interesting to see how Jay does in his probable limited action. But it’ll be a good gauge of the team. Earl Bennett out right now with a concussion. Hopefully, Earl can get back to action soon. Bears need him and of course want to see Earl play. One of my favorite athletes ever at Vanderbilt. Love Earl. Jay too.

Team practicing well in anticipation of the Thursday Night ESPN game with the Black Bears on Aug. 29th at 9:15 PM ET/8:15 CT. ACS doing well, JMatt is fantastic, Chris Boyd is fantastic, Jonathan Krause is going to have a breakout year and the freshmen wide receivers are having a very good camp, particularly Jordan Cunningham and Latevius Rayford. O line is going to be very good and deep, the running backs are solid; could even be better than last year, even though Zac was unbelievable. We have three very good rbs this year in Wes Tate, Brian Kimbrow and Jerron Seymour, and Raph Webb and Derek King are coming along pretty well. C.J. Duncan, a freshman like Webb, is making some noise. Could help us this year. Somebody or really two guys need to step up at tight end. Steven Scheu looks to be leading, but I still believe in Dillon van der Wal. We’ll see what develops. James was pleased with both Patton Robinette and Josh Grady as backup qb’s on Tuesday. Didn’t see anything on them Wednesday. Defense solid. We’ve got a really good unit there. Look for big things from Darreon Herring this year at outside linebacker. Among others. I’m pumped to see Caleb Azubike and Stepehen Weatherly play at defensive end. They’re going to be beasts.I’m also very excited to see cornerback Andre Hal and safety Kenny Ladler play. Can see five or so interceptions from both. Both potential first team All-SEC players and possible All-Americans. Chase Garnham is one of the best kept secrets in the league at linebacker. Will have a great year.

Basketball team having a great time and getting some good reps in Greece and Italy on their trip over there for bball and a little culture. The guys needed to get away from the stuff that went on in late July with Kedren and Kevin Bright. Kedren got kicked off and Bright left the team to play pro ball in Germany. Eric McClellan and Damian Jones, two of our newcomers, are ballin’ in Europe. I think we’re going to be real pleased with them. Rod Odom has been very solid as has Kyle Fuller. We’re going to have a good team. Nobody expects us to be good, but we are going to be.

Brandt at even through four at the Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C. Luke at +2 through 17.

Will have a Sonny report later…