By Juan C. Rodriguez South Florida Sun-Sentinel

WASHINGTON – Five Leo Nunez pitches and it was over.

Anibal Sanchez’s six shutout innings, Hanley Ramirez’s 100th career homer, Chris Coghlan’s exceptional baserunning to give his team a two-run lead in the top of the ninth, all for naught.

Willie Harris crushed the first pitch he’d ever seen from Nunez into the right field seats Two batters later with a man on, Ryan Zimmerman unloaded on a 1-1 changeup to give the Nationals a series-salvaging 5-4 walk-off win at Nationals Park Sunday.

“Bam, bam, bam and we’re done,” third baseman Wes Helms said. “That’s unusual for a comeback… That’s the way it went today.”

In blowing his third save in 19 chances since assuming the closer role, Nunez allowed his 11th and 12th home runs. Seven of those have come over his last 18 1/3 innings. He is now tied with former Marlin and current Cubs right-hander Kevin Gregg for most home runs surrendered among National League relievers.

“This time of year all [losses] are tough, especially when you have leads in the eighth and ninth innings,” manager Fredi Gonzalez said. “Those pitches there in the ninth inning, they don’t bother me as much as the eighth inning…That top of the order doesn’t even come up in the ninth if we take care of business in the eighth.”

Renyel Pinto looked like he was all business in getting Adam Dunn and Josh Willingham fly outs on five pitches to start the inning. Then a four-pitch walk to Elijah Dukes, a Josh Bard pinch-hit single, and another four-pitch walk to eight-hole hitter Wil Nieves sunk him.

Kiko Calero entered the game tied for the sixth-best first batter efficiency among NL relievers, having allowed a .154 average (8 for 52). He left a slider up to Fort Lauderdale native and Nova High School product Mike Morse, who delivered a pinch-hit single good for two runs to tie it.
More – SunSentinel.com

ST. PETERSBURG — Manager Joe Maddon might call the bullpen’s recent funk a “hiccup” or a “bump in the road.”

But the unit, one of the best in the American League earlier this season, is in a significant slump at the worst possible time for the Rays, who hit the road for a 10-game trip with their playoff hopes slipping away like the games they seemingly had in their grasp the past two days.

Sunday, Maddon took his matchup-style bullpen to another level, using five relievers to get the final three Detroit outs — but not before Brandon Inge’s grand slam lifted the Tigers past the Rays 5-3 and spoiled an impressive major-league debut by Wade Davis before 28,059 at Tropicana Field.

The right-hander said he was calmer than he thought he’d be while giving up just one run and striking out nine over seven innings.

But the hard-thrower left the Trop empty-handed, and Edwin Jackson picked up the win in his first start against his former team since being traded in December. He lasted eight innings, then benefited from the Rays’ bullpen meltdown.  More – TampaBay.com

TAMPA – The opponent might be someone you haven’t heard much about, and probably you couldn’t name two of their players if your mortgage check depended on it. If history has taught us nothing else, though, you have to look beyond the name, because you can never be sure about anything in the opening game of the college football season.

So it was Saturday night at RayJay, when the University of South Florida met Wofford, a scrappy Division I-AA team from Spartanburg, S.C. Chances are you hadn’t heard much about the Terriers before this night, and it’s unlikely they’ll pass USF’s way again, but for the better part of the first half they were exactly what Bulls coach Jim Leavitt feared they would be.

They were fearless, unorthodox and more than a little game. They also came to town for more than just the $300,000 guarantee they’d receive for playing the lamb to the slaughter.

They had the Bulls back on their heels a bit, and no one was quite sure when USF would do what superior teams are supposed to. The answer came in a nine-point blitz in the final 36 seconds of the first half that enabled the Bulls to break a tie game and eventually cruise to a comfortable 40-7 victory.

I’m not sure what conclusions we can draw from all this, since the result ended up being what everyone basically expected – although, like we said, you can never be sure when it’s opening night. Two years ago, USF struggled to put away Elon 28-13 in the first game. The year before that, the Bulls led mighty McNeese State by only four points in the fourth quarter before pulling away for a 41-10 win.

Compared to those, this was cake.

In a departure from the norm, Leavitt focused mostly on his team and not the opponent in the weeks leading up to the game.

“I was nervous about it,” he said. “We didn’t really get to Wofford until game week.”

The Bulls gave up 177 yards on the ground, but Wofford runs a funky option attack and it took the Terriers 50 carries to run up that number. USF won’t see anything like that the rest of the season, though. Take what comfort you will from that.  More – TBO.com

Anybody catch a whiff of the University of Central Florida Saturday night?

Stinky stuff.

Samford was supposed to be a gimme, an orchestrated scrimmage to help George O’Leary’s team gather confidence for the Saturdays ahead.

Instead of confidence, we got chaos.

Starting quarterback Rob Calabrese was so inconsistent he couldn’t finish the half. The secondary got smoked for TD passes of 29 and 67 yards. The kicking game disintegrated — two missed field goals, a missed extra point and an offsides penalty allowed Samford a second chance to make good on a field goal. Kicker Jamie Boyle was replaced by Nick Cattoi in the second half.

This team wasn’t ready to play against a Division 1-AA opponent. The Knights had to come from behind — at home — to win 28-24. And it might have been much worse if not for a Samford drop deep in UCF territory in the fourth quarter.

Inexcusable.

The pressure builds on O’Leary on a number of fronts. And it’s not just about the legal entanglements involving the death of Ereck Plancher last year.

Now in his sixth season, O’Leary needs to give players, students and alumni reason to believe in his leadership ability. His 27-36 overall record doesn’t exactly exude big-time bravado.

O’Leary wasn’t brought in to be below average. He is the marquee coach this school wanted, a guy who could establish this program in a state where college football is an obsessive passion.

He was supposed to help quiet all those Gator chomps and Seminole tomahawks, and lift UCF to stand among them as competitive peers.

Hasn’t happened.

Needing a solid W to jump-start the season, UCF looked less like a team that won a Conference USA championship in 2007 and more like the team that stumbled to a 4-8 record last season.

Bouncy football programs not only make people dizzy, they make them lose patience.

O’Leary has to win over fans again after last year’s fall. That’s what high-profile coaches are supposed to do. That’s how they justify huge salaries in a time when schools are trying to salvage teachers and textbooks from the next economic-driven purge.  More – OrlandoSentinel.com

ST. PETERSBURG — It’s hard to say there is any one reason the Rays are losing games when it matters most.

Because so much is going wrong.

They’re giving games away late. They’re not scoring runs when they have chances. They’re losing at home. They’re even losing on concert nights.

But most of all, they keep losing. Saturday’s 8-6 handover to the Tigers — they led by three as late as the seventh — made it three straight, six of nine in their critical 17-game stretch and 15 of their past 27.

So much for battling to get back into the AL wild-card race.

“We’ve got to get better,” starter James Shields said. “We’ve got to get better.”

There were the usual descriptions of the loss as unfortunate and disappointing and not much emotion in the largely vacant clubhouse, with the assumption most of the players weren’t rushing to get a good spot for the postgame Beach Boys show.

Making it worse, the Rays for a second straight day wasted a rare chance to gain ground on the wild-card-leading Red Sox, who lost again in Chicago. As a result, the Rays are 72-63 and six games behind the Sox with 27 to play.

Plus, they ensured a losing homestand, at 1-4 heading into today’s finale, for the third time in the past two seasons. And they lost for the second time in 17 postgame concerts over that span.

The focal point lately has been the failure of the bullpen, and Saturday it was a group effort. Once the Tigers cut the lead to 6-5, Maddon used five relievers in the seventh and eighth innings and — for various and assorted reasons — none got the job done.  More – TampaBay.com

GAINESVILLE — Welcome to the most boring game in the country, where the Florida Gators inflicted nothing but pain and touchdowns.

And to think Charleston Southern was trying to appreciate the scenery in Ben Hill Griffin Stadium.

“You can still feel the presence of the tradition of Florida even when they aren’t on the field,” said CSU linebacker Brad Sweatt, an Edgewater High School graduate, about the team’s pregame walk-through at the Swamp on Friday.

The Buccaneers‘ game experience wasn’t so idyllic in No. 1 Florida’s 62-3 blowout Saturday, partly because they didn’t have a stop watch.

The Gators’ game plan didn’t involve Tim Tebow under center or hardly even Tebow on the run.

Florida’s only objective was to rival Usain Bolt on the way to the end zone with playmakers.

Consider the first half:

Time of possession: 9:25

Offensive points: 35.

Points per offensive minute: 3.78.

For Tebow’s last home opener as a Gator, Florida threw up 385 offensive yards in the first 23 minutes. If the Gators didn’t pull their starters by the second quarter, they might have broken the school record for offensive yards in a game with 774.

Even fourth-stringers were involved in the offensive explosion after playmakers Jeff Demps and Chris Rainey and Riley Cooper and Aaron Hernandez had their way. Rainey took 13 seconds to finish a one-play, 76-yard scoring drive in the first quarter.

Receiver Cooper looks more lethal than lethargic after getting a chance to do more than block downfield. The senior led all receivers with 105 yards on five catches, even throwing up before making a catch after battling the flu all week.

“It feels good,” Cooper said. “I love getting catches.”

While Heisman candidate Sam Bradford injured his shoulder in a devastating loss to Brigham Young, Gators fans can’t even get more than two Tebow rushes.  More – OrlandoSentinel.com

cspencer@MiamiHerald.com

Luke McCown had a feeling his days as a Buccaneer were numbered. And indeed they were.

Less than a week after losing the starting quarterback’s job to Byron Leftwich, McCown was traded to the Jacksonville Jaguars late Saturday for an undisclosed pick in the 2010 draft.

The deal alleviated a logjam at the most important position on the field for the Bucs, who dealt McCown in large part to ensure that rookie Josh Freeman gets the work necessary to quickly advance his career.

With McCown out of the way, the Bucs are expected to quickly — if not immediately — promote Freeman to the second spot on their QB depth chart.

McCown is expected to move into the same slot on the Jaguars’ depth chart behind David Garrard, and though it’s not the starting opportunity he’s always wanted, he’s happy with it.

“I’m smiling right now,” McCown said. “It’s really not a bad situation at all for me. I’m going to a good team with lots of talent.”

McCown said he sensed a trade would come for whichever quarterback lost the battle for the starter’s job because the Bucs are clearly eager to get Freeman on the field.

“I’ve been around the business long enough to know how it works,” McCown said. “When you have a first-round pick waiting in the wings, you want to get him on the field. I understand that and that’s fine.  More – TampaBay.com

DAVIE – The Miami Dolphins have released six players who were members of last season’s AFC East Division champs, and placed outside linebacker Matt Roth on the physically unable to perform list.

Moving Roth, who is battling a groin injury, to the PUP creates an extra roster spot until the sixth week of the season.

The most notable cut was receiver Brandon London, one of the team’s top special teams contributors. Also let go was offensive tackle Brandon Frye, defensive end Rodrique Wright, safety Courtney Bryan, cornerback Joey Thomas, and inside linebacker William Kershaw.

Kershaw’s team-leading seven tackles and one sack in Thursday the exhibition season finale against New Orleans wasn’t enough to earn him a spot on the 53-man roster.

The converted inside linebacker who started last season on the practice squad before getting a late call-up, drastically improved this training. But clearly it wasn’t enough to extend his South Florida stay.

Frye, who was claimed off Houston’s practice squad early last season, didn’t make the offensive line cut because the Dolphins kept offensive tackles Nate Garner and Andrew Gardner, the team’s sixth-round pick, instead. Frye played in seven games for the Dolphins in 2008, and was versatile enough to play both guard and tackle.

Wright, the team’s seven-round pick in 2006, had the longest tenure of all the players released. The Dolphins presently plan to keep eight defensive linemen on the 53-man roster, which includes second-year end Lionel Dotson.  More – SunSentinel.com

TAMPA – The Bucs actually went a little further than necessary in reducing their roster to the 53-man limit Sunday. By placing S Tanard Jackson on the reserve suspended list, the Bucs got their roster down to 52 players. That means at least one more move is coming, but look for several others as the team scans the waiver wire for more talent.

Below is a list of the players moved off the active roster Saturday.

Waived:
· T Anthony Alabi
· CB Kyle Arrington
· DT Chris Bradwell
· C Rob Bruggeman
· DE Jarriett Buie
· S Steve Cargile
· WR Patrick Carter
· DT Rashaad Duncan
· DE Louis Holmes
· RB Kareem Huggins
· CB Darrell Hunter
· T James Lee
· TE Jason Pociask
· TE Ryan Purvis
· LB Bo Ruud
· WR Mario Urrutia

Waived/Injured:
· S Donte Nicholson

Terminated Vested Veterans:
· K Matt Bryant
· FB Jameel Cook
· WR Cortez Hankton
· WR Marcus Maxwell

Placed on Injured Reserve
· T Xavier Fulton

Moved to Reserve/Suspended List
· S Tanard Jackson

TBO.com