Posts Tagged ‘Kurt Busch’

How was your week

Posted: March 5, 2016 by Sports Time Radio in Auto Racing, baseball, basketball, sports, Uncategorized
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With the start of the baseball season less than a month away spring training is up and running at full speed. This week 3 teams suffered their first injuries where players will miss regular season time. The defending champion Kansas City Royals lost outfielder Jarrod Dyson for 6 weeks with a Grade 2 strain of his right oblique. Dyson is going into his 7th season with the Royals, but has been used mostly as a defensive replacement and pinch runner. This season the Royals where hoping that Dyson would be part of there right field platoon with Paulo Orlando. With Dyson out Travis Snider might be given the first chance to fill his role at the start of the season. Snider was signed as a free agent this off season. The Detroit Tigers also lost and outfielder as Cameron Maybin was hit by a pitch and suffered a non-displaced fracture of his left wrist and is expected to miss the first couple of weeks of the regular season. After struggling through most of his career Maybin seemed to find something with the Atlanta Braves last season hitting .267 with 10 home runs while stealing 23 bases in 141 games. The Tigers sent 2 pitchers Gabe Speier and Ian Kroll to the Braves this off season for Maybin so he could compete with Anthony Gose for playing time in center field. Gose should be the full time center fielder while Maybin tries to recover from his wrist injury. The first pitcher to go down with a serious injury was Los Angeles Dodgers left-hander Brett Anderson. Anderson was found to have a bulging disc in his lower back that will require surgery. The time frame for Anderson return has been set between 3 and 5 months. Anderson has had various injuries tough his career, but stayed healthy during the 2015 season making 31 starts. Anderson went 10-9 with a 3.69 Earner Run Average (ERA) last season. Even with Anderson out and Brandon McCarthy not scheduled to return from his injury until the All-Star break the Dodgers still have some depth in there staring rotation. Of course Clayton Kershaw is at the top of the rotation. Hyun-jin Ryu is returning from injury and looks like he’ll be ready to go for the start of the season. The Dodgers signed Scott Kazmir as a free agent as well as Japanese free agent and Kenta Maeda this off season. The Dodgers also have Alex Wood and Mike Bolsinger as 5th starter options. Will have to see which pitcher ends up filling Anderson’s rotation spot. There are always injuries in spring training you just have to hope that it’s not a key player who gets hurt or that your team has a player who can fill his role on the team.

Have there been two more disappointing teams this NBA season than the Houston Rockets and the Chicago Bulls? The Rockets are 30-31, but are holding onto the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. The Bulls are 30-30 , but are 1/2 game behind the Detroit Pistons for the final Eastern Conference playoff spot. As the schedule would have it these two disappointing teams are the marquee match up for NBA Saturday night. What are we going to get on a national telecast with these two teams playing. Each team has shown flashes of the team people thought they might be at the beginning of the season, but haven’t shown enough to make people think they could be a factor in the playoffs. At this point right now if both of these teams end up as the #8 seeds in their conferences do you think they’d have a shot at all of beating the #1 seed. They better question might be would they even win a game in that series or would they just be swept out of the playoffs.  The Rockets where so bad at the start of the season that there head coach Kevin McHale lost his job. The coaching change hasn’t made a whole lot of difference with the Rockets. The Rockets feature James Harden along with Dwight Howard. Harden leads the team in scoring with 28.7 points per game and dominates the basketball. Harden does also lead the team in assists averaging 7 a game. Howard is the team leader in rebounds grabbing an average of 12 a game. Howard can still block shots; he’ll block 1.5 per game on average. Howard is also averaging 14.9 points per game. Harden and Howard are the Rockets top two scorers. The Bulls had been a playoff team under defensive minded head coach Tom Thibodeau, but the front office wanted to go another and replaced Thibodeau with a more offensive minded coach in Fred Hoiberg. As the Bulls attempt t adjust to a new system the defense hasn’t been what it was and the offense isn’t where it’s suppose to be. The Bulls are fighting some injuries, but there’s a chance that their best player Jimmy Butler will return tonight. Butler is the Bulls leading scorer averaging 22.4 points per game. Pau Gasol has shown he can still play offense averaging 16.9 points per game and is the tam leader in rebounding at 10.9 rebounds per game. Derrick Rose has played more this season, but still misses games with injuries that wouldn’t keep other players out. Rose is the Bulls 3rd leading scorer at 16.5 points per game, but does lead the team in assists averaging 4.8 assists per game. Rose and Butler have had some issues working together on the court, but it seems as though one of them has always been out injured; so that hasn’t been a huge issue yet. Will we get a good game tonight or we will get a game where two disappointing teams show up.

Just a reminder Chris Olmstead from http://www.BeyondtheFlag.com will join the Sports Time Radio podcast to preview The Kobalt 400 at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway. Kurt Busch won the pole in qualifying with a speed of 196.328 miles per hour. Joey Logano, Matt Kenseth, Brad Keslowski and Austin Dillion round out the Top 5 qualifiers. Will one of these drivers be in Chris’ 3 drivers to look for in victory lane? You’ll have to listen to Sports Time Radio on BlogTalkRadio.com to find out who Chris is going with.

Listen to Sports Time Radio on BlogTalkRadio.com

You can find me on Twitter @Burketime

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Let’s call it Wednesday.

Posted: February 25, 2015 by Sports Time Radio in baseball, sports
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So it was a bad week to be a Busch brother. Saturday in the first  Xfinity Series race of the season Kyle Busch crashed late in the race and suffered a broken right leg and a broken left foot. He was transferred from Halifax Health Medical Center in Daytona Beach, Florida, to a Charlotte-area hospital for treatment. Matt Crafton filled in for Busch in the #18 Joe Gibbs Racing (JGR) car for the Daytona 500 on Sunday and finished 19th. There has been no timetable set for Busch’s return. For now veteran David Ragan will take over the #18 ride for Busch and  JGR development driver Erik Jones will replace Busch in the # 54 Xfinity Series car this weekend, with a replacement for future races in that series still to be determined. Ragan has two career Cup wins in 291 career starts. He spent his first five seasons at Roush Fenway Racing. He has driven for the underfunded Front Row Motorsports since 2012. Jones, a JGR development driver who competes in the Camping World Truck Series for Busch and also was scheduled to compete in several Xfinity races for JGR this year, has four wins in 18 career truck starts and a career best of sixth in four Xfinity starts. Toyota sponsors Jones’ truck and thinks highly of the driver, who doesn’t turn 19 until May. Busch hired Jones to drive his truck part-time two years ago after Jones held off Busch to win the late-model showcase Snowball Derby in December 2012. Jones competed in both the truck and Xfinity races at Daytona, finishing second in the trucks and 18th in the Xfinity race after being involved in the same accident in which Busch suffered his injury.

In the case of Kyle’s brother Kurt Busch he was suspended indefinitely Friday after a Delaware judge said the 2004 champion almost surely choked and beat his former girlfriend, Patty Driscoll, last fall at Dover International Speedway. A three-judge panel denied his first appeal Saturday. He had one final chance to plead his case to Moss, who is in his first year as NASCAR’S final appeals officer. Then a final appeals officer upheld NASCAR’s suspension Saturday night. Gulfstream President Bryan Moss made the decision, ending Busch’s already-slim hopes of racing Sunday in the season opener. Busch represented himself in the first appeals hearing at NASCAR headquarters, located across the street from Daytona International Speedway. Jim Cassidy, senior vice president of racing operations, represented NASCAR. The panelists were former NASCAR executive Paul Brooks, former driver Lyn St. James and Kevin Whitaker, operator of Greenville Pickens Speedway in South Carolina. Regan Smith filled in for Busch in the Stewart/Haas Racing (SHR) owned #41 at the Daytona 500 finishing 16th. It’s unclear what SHR will do beyond Daytona. Busch’s car is funded out-of-pocket by team co-owner Gene Haas, who hand-picked the former champion to drive a car adorned with Haas’ machine tools building company. He wanted Busch because he believed Busch could get the car to victory lane. Haas has not commented since the Friday suspension, and he may not be willing to pay for the car if Busch is not behind the wheel. Smith drove co-owner Tony Stewart’s No. 14 car last season at Watkins Glen after Stewart hit and killed a fellow driver who got out of his car in a short-track race. Smith, who has one Cup victory, also filled in two races in 2012 while Dale Earnhardt Jr. recovered from a concussion.

It’s almost time for the baseball regular season to get rolling and your fantasy drafts have to be just around the corner. We’re looking for some players to fill out our 20 team standard snake style league. It’s a free league that we run through Yahoo. All we ask is that you play the entire season. If you’re interested in signing up you can use this link to do so.  Hope to see you in the league.

I play in three fantasy baseball leagues. There’s the league above that I invited you into then there’s a 20 team auction league that I play in and finally there’s a 14 or sometimes 15 team money league where Mr. Fantasy and I co-manage a team. This money league draft is March 8th which is very, very early for us this season. Mr. Fantasy and I are picking 8th and we’re starting to look at who might be available when it gets to us. For some reason outfielders don’t get any respect in this league, but Mike Trout should be long gone by the time our pick comes up. There is a chance that players like Andrew McCutchen of the Pittsburgh Pirates or Giancarlo Stanton of the Miami Marlins might be sitting there when the pick gets to us. I’d like to think that we’d grab one of these two players very quickly and move along to the 2nd round. Now if the draft flows in a regular type of order there’s a chance that we’re looking at a player like  Carlos Gómez of the Milwaukee Brewers; who by the way Mr. Fantasy loves. We might be looking at  José Abreu of the Chicago White Sox, Adam Jones of the Baltimore Orioles or Jose  Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays. Would you take one of those players or would you look at a pitcher like Felix Hernandez of the Seattle Mariners or Chris Sale of the Chicago White Sox. There is a chance we could actually land two of these players if the draft falls right and we make the correct 1st round pick. The early part of this draft doesn’t concern me all that much; it’s the later rounds. With a draft this early there are quite a few questions still out about players and if you miss your season is done early and no one wants to have that type of season. Last year Mr. Fantasy and I where able to select Tom Koehler of the Miami Marlins. Now it’s not a flashy pick, but it’s the kind of pick late in a draft tat can get your team into the playoffs. Koehler made 32 starts posting a 10-10 record with a 3.81 ERA. He struck out 153 batters while walking 71. Now it’s not a Cy Young winning season, but Koehler is the kind of guy you need to fill in when a starter goes down or if he just has a great match up. What I’m wondering for Mr. Fantasy and I this season is who is this seasons Tom Koehler?

Just so everyone knows we don’t let Schaumburg Stu play in the fantasy baseball leagues because he draft all Chicago Cubs players. Of course this season that might not be the worst strategy.

About 5:30 p.m. tonight Phil Watson from DairylandExpress.com will join the podcast to talk about the Wisconsin sports scene. You can listen to the Sports Time Radio on BlogTalkRadio.com

You can follow me on Twitter @Burketime