Coach Mason landed three more commits over the weekend during the Friday Night Lights camp on West End. 85, three star defensive ends Jalen Pinkney and Dayo Odeyingbo both committed Friday before the camp, and 85 three star safety Tae Daley committed after camp on Friday night.

Dayo, 6’4″, 235,  is the younger brother of VU sophomore defensive end Dare Odeyingbo, who is a highly promising player for us, and is expected to be a major impact player this season. Dayo, like his older brother, hails from Carrollton, Texas and plays at Ranchview High School, where he is not only a standout defensive end, but also is an outstanding wide receiver/tight end. He catches anything thrown his way. He looks a lot like VU redshirt junior standout tight end DeAndre Woods. Not sure where Coach Mason wants to play Dayo, but he’ll definitely have some options on offense of defense. Dayo’s film is superb.

Jalen is the younger brother of VU redshirt freshman tight end Jared Pinkney, who is 6’4″, 250, and could play a key role in our tight end rotation this season. Jalen is 6’4″, 225, and is from Norcross, Georgia, a really good football school, just outside of Atlanta. Watched Jalen’s film and he looks super.

Tae is a 5’11”, 175 pound safety from Northside High School in Warner Robbins, Georgia also close to Atlanta. Also a good football school. He is a terrific cover guy. Tae can play either corner or safety. He looks proficient at both. He has lightning quick feet and has terrific ball skills and covers wide receivers like a glove. 

Like all three of these commits, and there could be more coming this week. We now have eight in the fold in what’s shaping up to be a pretty stellar class if we can keep the momentum going.

David, Pedro, Sonny, Carson

David Price had a rough night on the hill at Globe Life Park in Arlington, Texas on Friday Night. Shin Soo Choo greeted David with a leadoff homer and it got worse from there. Price only went 2.1 and gave up 12 hits, six runs with one walk and one K. He threw 59 pitches with 42 for strikes, most of which were hit hard and out of reach of any Red Sox infielder or outfielder. Not his best, but the Sox bailed him out in a miraculous way. In the top of the ninth with two outs and Jackie Bradley Jr on second and the BoSox trailing 7-4, Rangers hard throwing right hander Jake Diekman had a two strike count on Sox pinch hitter Sandy Leon. Leon fouled off six pitches and had an 11 pitch at bat before lining a double to the left field corner to cut the lead to 7-5.  Texas manager Jeff Banister brought in sure handed right hander Matt Bush to close the deal. Bush had a 2.00 ERA coming in and a 1,00 WHIP, so it still looked pretty bleak for the Sox with leadoff hitter Mookie Betts at the plate. But Betts caught a Bush fastball and drove it over the left central field wall, for a two run homer which tied the game 7-7. It was impossible. Dustin Pedroia then walked and Xander Bogaerts singled to right to move runners to first and third before David Ortiz came to the plate. Bush threw a wild pitch past Papi and Dustin slid home to put the Sox up 8-7. The awesome Koji Uehara, 40 years young like BIg Papi, came in and struck out slugger Prince Fielder, .290 hitter Elvis Andrus, and .273 hitter  Rougned Odor to close out the miraculous come from behind victory. Leon is 12 for 24 as a pinch hitter, .545, so the BoSox might need to find a spot for him at catcher to platoon with Christian Vazquez or when Papi needs a day off at DH. His bat is superb. 

In 8 starts against the Rangers, David has a 7.68 ERA and has given up six homers. David needs to improve on that, and I’m sure he’ll work hard to not let that happen again vs the Rangers. But it was not an aberration for Red Sox pitchers. The Rangers crushed Steven Wright and Clay Bucholz Saturday night and Sunday respectively as they took two of three from the Sox. The Rangers are a hitting machine, and particularly at Globe Life Park. The Rangers are now 49-27, and trail the Chicago Cubs by percentage points for the best record in baseball. The Cubs are 4-6 in their last 10 and  are at 48-26, .649 ball. They are still outstanding. The Rangers are playing .645 ball and are 8-2 in their last 10. Knowing David, he wants another shot at the Rangers. David goes again Wednesday at Tampa Bay against his old team with a noon ET/11 AM CT first pitch. He’ll go against left hander Matt Moore, a young lefty he mentored at Tampa Bay. Matt is 3-5 with a 5.04 ERA, but he’s been really good in the past, so it’ll be a tough matchup for David and the Sox.

David is now 8-4 with a 4.68 ERA with 24 walks and 110 K’s, which is a 4.5:1 strikeout to walk ratio, still stellar in that department. His WHIP is at 1,22, so I know he wants to get that number down. His career ERA is 3.19 and his career WHIP is 1.14, but he can do better than both those numbers if he gets hot again, like he was before the Rangers start. 

Pedro Alvarez had a clutch two out, two run single to drive in the fourth and fifth runs in the bottom of the seventh off left hander Enny Romero of the Rays in the Baltimore Orioles 5-0 victory over Tampa Bay. It was awesome to see El Toro hit well off a lefty and maybe that will give Buck Showalter confidence that he can use Pedro against any pitcher, righty or lefty. Hopefully so. The O’s swept the Rays in four games and are now 45-30, and four games up on the Bosox, who are 41-34. The O’s head out west to play San Diego on Tuesday. No DH as they’re playing a National League team at a National League park, so Pedro may not see much action against the Padres unless it’s as a pinch hitter. Pedro is now hitting .236 with 9 homers and 26 Ribeyes, so the numbers are getting better and better. I wish Showalter would give him more of a shot sometimes. In the second game of the doubleheader Saturday against a right hander, Showalter didn’t start Pedro. Didn’t understand that after his clutch hit against a lefty in the first game. And he didn’t start him yesterday. Pedro is hitting .333 in his last seven days with two homers and seven Ribeyes, so you would think Showalter could see that and put him in the lineup. It’s frustrating.

Sonny Gray pitched great ball, but didn’t get the victory for the A’s yesterday. The A’s had taken the first two games of their series at the LA Angels and held a 6-2 lead when Sonny exited the game. The Halos came back and won 7-6 as the A’s bullpen let the team down. Sonny went 6, gave up six hits, two runs, both in the first inning, with one walk and three K’s. He threw 106 pitches, 59 for strikes with 47 balls, but only walked one. His fastball was running up at 94-95, and his curve and slider were pretty solid. Not vintage Sonny, but pretty good Sonny. It was too bad the A’s couldn’t finish off a sweep of the Angels. Sonny pitches again Friday night at home versus the Pirates. Sonny is now 3-6 with a 5.03 ERA and a 1.46 WHIP, walks plus hits per inning pitched, so he needs to improve on those numbers, but he looked a lot sharper yesterday. He’s still getting his legs back under him from the trapezius injury that sent him to the 15 day DL a month ago, so yesterday was very encouraging. 

 Carson Fulmer pitched a super game for the Birmingham Barons yesterday in their 10-0 win over the Mobile Bay Bears, the Arizona Diamondbacks double A affiliated team. Carson went 7, gave up only two hits, with two walks and 7 K’s. He threw 94 pitches with 62 for strikes to go along with 32 balls, a solid number. Carson, like Sonny and Tyler Beede, has such great movement on his pitches, that he misses the plate sometimes. But if he can keep his control in good shape, he’s always effective because he’s got electric stuff. Carson is now 4-8 with a 5.28 ERA with 44 walks and 75 ring ups. He has a 1.57 WHIP, so I know he wants to get the ERA and WHIP numbers down. Yesterday was a good game to get him back to being Carson Fulmer. 

Thirty four year old Billy Hurley III won his first PGA tournament in 104 starts at the Quicken Loans National at Congressional Country Club in Bethesda, MD. and clinched a two year exemption on the PGA Tour, he will have his tour card for the next two years, he qualified for this year’s 145th Open Championship at Royal Troon in Scotland, July 14th-17th, this year’s 98th PGA Championship at Baltusrol, just outside of NYC, July 28th-31st, and he qualified for next year’s 81st Masters, April 6th-9th, 2017, at Augusta National.

Hurley shot -17 to win by three shots over 53 year old Vijay Singh, firing a 69 in the final round yesterday with two hugely clutch shots, one a 35 yard chip in for birdie on No.15, and a 30 foot birdie putt on 16. He cruised in with solid pars on 17 and 18 to capture the $1.8 million first place check and all the benefits that went with winning the tournament.

Hurley’s story is amazing actually. He went to the Naval Academy, graduating in 2004,  and served for five years in the Navy upon graduation, including a tour of duty in the Persian Gulf. This tournament, sponsored by Tiger Woods, was all about the military, so it was pretty fitting that an ex-military man won this event. Hurley had told a friend when he was at the Naval Academy that he was going to play on the PGA Tour one day. His friend laughed. 

Hurley’s story gets even deeper as it’s almost a year after his father, William Hurley Jr.,  went missing from their home in Leesburg, Virginia, and then two weeks later shot and killed himself. A very emotional Hurley talked to Peter Kostis of CBS after the round and you could feel what this victory meant to him. All of his emotions came out in his post round interview. He was there with his wife, and three children, one an adopted child from an orphanage in Honduras.

Hurley was playing on a sponsor’s exemption after losing his PGA Tour card last year amid the grief that consumed him during his father’s disappearance and after his death.

Hurley is not sure he’s playing at the Open Championship because his sister is getting married in Virginia that weekend. But he’ll definitely be at the PGA Championship and at Augusta National in 2017. And he’s quite a player who looks to have some serious clutchness about him. With the tragic flooding in West Virginia that caused 25 or more people to lose their lives and washed out the Greenbriar Classic in two weeks, it was nice to see something positive happen. 

It’s a special story about Billy Hurley, and, to go along with his moving story, he played spectacular golf and closed the deal when he had to. Storybook stuff.

Kershaw could be the all time greatest at some point, but not last night

Clayton Kershaw came into last night’s game at PNC Park versus the Pittsburgh Pirates with a 20:1 strikeout to walks ratio. The previous all time record was set in 2014 by Phil Hughes of the Minnesota Twins at 11.5:1. The game on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball, featured Kershaw and his 141 strikeouts against 7 walks for the season. He was facing 23 year old Chad Kuhl, pronounced Cool, whom the Pirates had just called up from triple A Indianapolis for this game due to a slate of injuries to their starting pitching. 

Kershaw pitched 6 innings, allowed 9 hits, four earned, with two walks and four K’s. He now has 145 strikeouts to 9 walks, a 16:1 ratio.  He has electric stuff no doubt. His fastball was running up at 95 and his curve is harder to hit than Kenyan Drake in the open field. But he got rocked a little bit in the bottom of the second as Adam Frazier hit an RBI single off of him, which also loaded the bases, then David Freese hit a base clearing double to put the Pirates up 4-0. The Pirates got great pitching and competitiveness from Kuhl, who went five against a good Dodgers lineup and gave up four hits, three runs, with four walks and five ring ups. When the Pirates were hitting Kershaw pretty hard, a Pirates fan held up a sign that read, “Kershaw ain’t Kuhl.” It was beautiful. Kershaw is still the best in baseball, and could be one of the top two or three of all time before his career is over, but the Pirates and Kuhl got the better of him last night at PNC Park. 

Jose’ Fernandez

23 year old Jose’ Fernandez is already a phenom, and he did nothing to hurt that reputation yesterday in a Miami Marlins 6-1 victory over the Chicago Cubs at Miami. Fernandez struck out 13 Cubs and now has 6 career games of 13 strikeouts. There are only seven other 13 strikeout games in Marlins’ history. That’s a total number amongst all of the pitchers in the Marlins’  27 year history. That’s spectacular. Fernandez’s ERA in his last 9 starts is 1.18 and he has allowed no more than 1 earned run in eight of them. He’s 24-1 at home and he’s won his last seven home decisions. He’s the first pitcher in the Modern Era of baseball, since 1900, to win 24 of his 25 decisions at home. He moved to 10-3 on the season with a 2.28 ERA with 30 walks and 138 K’s, a 4.6:1 strikeouts to walks ratio. Shows how good Kershaw’s numbers are when you’ve got a stud like Fernandez, who strikes out 13 and walks three and is still a a long way behind Kershaw in that category.

The Marlins moved to 41-35 on the season and are just three back of the first place Washington Nationals in the National League East and tied with the New York Mets for second place. The Mets are 40-34 and lead the NL Wild Card, while the Marlins are 41-35 ball. The Mets are at .541 winning percentage, while the Marlins are at .539. Quite a story developing in South Beach.

The Long ball is back

There were 52 home runs hit yesterday in major league baseball. One of the most dramatic was Colorado Rockies’ slugger Mark Reynolds’ 468 foot shot that beat the Arizona Dbacks, 9-7, in the bottom of the ninth inning. The 52 homers were the fourth most hit in a day/night in Modern Era major league baseball history. The most was 62 on July 2, 2002, the second most was 54 hit on July 11, 2006, and the third most was 53 on August 13th, 2004. Maybe the roids are back. It’s kind of nice to see some serious hitting this year though.