ekansekans's blog: "df"

PHILADELPHIA -- Injured Philadelphia 76ers all-star centre Andrew Bynum said Friday he has suffered a "setback" in his return from a knee injury. Bynum, acquired by Philadelphia in a four-team trade before the season, has yet to play for the Sixers and spoke before a game against Utah. He has been recovering from a bone bruise on his right knee and his return has been pushed back three times since the beginning of training camp. The Sixers were hoping Bynum would be cleared to return to basketball activities by Dec. 10. That date is now in question because of issues with his left knee. Bynum now said he has swelling and a bone bruise on both knees. "I had a little bit of a setback," Bynum said. "Just working through some issues with the right knee, I kind of have a mirror thing going on with the left knee. I dont know whats going on. The doctors are saying its a weakened cartilage state, so we kind of wait, I guess. We cant do anything. I just have to wait for the cartilage to get strong." Bynum did say he targeted Dec. 10 as a possibility, with one to four weeks of basketball-related activity to follow, pushing his much-anticipated debut to anywhere from mid-to-late December to as late as mid-January. "Its the same exact spot (as the right knee) with the cartilage," Bynum said. "Just doing routine things and it started swelling up. No blunt-force injury or anything like that. Its the same timetable still." The Sixers are 4-4 without Bynum, including three straight losses at home. Bynum announced in May, while still a member of the Los Angeles Lakers, that he was going to Germany in September for the Orthokine blood-spinning treatment in his knees that other professional athletes have sought. The Sixers announced before training camp that Bynum needed to delay his return to allow the effects of the Orthokine treatment to work. The bone bruise in his right knee caused the Sixers to push the return date from training camp to the regular season and now possibly to midseason. But the Sixers are still looking long term with Bynum, whos in the last year of his contract. "My main concern is Andrews health," Sixers general manager Tony DiLeo said. "My main concern is big picture. We want to have a long relationship with him." Wholesale Jerseys USA . Poland led 3-0 by halftime. Ludovic Obraniak scored in the 13th minute, then striker Robert Lewandowski and midfielder Jakub Blaszczykowski scored in a two-minute span just before halftime. Marcin Wasilewski made it 4-0 in the 77th. Wholesale Jerseys Cheap . Now were into the thick of it with the second round of action. http://pavansukhdev.org/wholesalejerseys.html . J.J. Watt wasnt interested in them, anyway. All that mattered was the result, and the Houston Texans will take that along with everything else they took from this game.(Sports Network) - A perennial Cy Young Award candidate takes on one of the front-runners in the 2012 National League field when the Philadelphia Phillies visit the New York Mets for the first of a three-game series. The Phillies start the set with left-hander Cliff Lee, the 2008 Cy Young winner in the American League and a two-time top-10 finisher for the honor in the AL (2005, 2010) along with a third-place finish in the NL in 2011. New York counters with knuckleballing righty R.A. Dickey, whos already won a career-best 18 games and is considered among the top contenders for the 2012 award along with Washingtons Gio Gonzalez and Cincinnatis Johnny Cueto. Lee is 3-1 in seven career starts against the Mets with a stingy 2.25 earned run average across 48 innings while posting a .233 batting average. He began the season with just one win in his initial seven starts, but has since won four of the last five across nine starts while trimming his ERA from 3.95 to 3.36. In his last game, against Miami on Sept. 12, he tossed seven innings and allowed an unearned run in seven innings of a 3-1 defeat of the Marlins. Hes lasted at least seven innings in eight of his last 10 starts, in which the Phillies have gone 7-3. For the Mets, Dickey, who entered the season with 41 wins in 204 big-league appearances, got win No. 18 of 2012 with a 6-2 victory at St. Louis on Sept. 5. He allowed two runs on eight hits in 6 2/3 innings of the victory, in which he walked one batter and struck out five. His initial chance at win No. 19 came six days later against Washington and ended in a 5-3 loss after he was touched for three runs on eight hits in seven innings. Dickey is 3-3 in eight career starts against the Phillies with a 2.94 ERA. On Sunday in Houston, Matt Dominguezs two-run single in the seventh inning proved to be difference, as the Astros held on to beat the Phillies, 7-6. Philadelphia arrived at Minute Maid Park on a seven-game winning streak that put the club back into playoff contention. But the Phillies dropped three of four to the MLB-worst Astros and are now four games out in the race for the National Leagues second wild-card spot. In Milwaukee, Ryan Braun hit two homers, Wily Peralta pitched eight shutout innings and John Axford closed it out in the ninth as the Brewers blanked the Mets 3-0 to take the rubber match of a three-game set. The Mets managed only two hits, both off of Peralta (2-0), who made just the third start of his career. He fanned five and walked only one. Chris Young (4-8) pitched well, but gave up three homers to account for all of the Brewers runs. He lasted 6 2/3 innings, giving up eight hits while striking out two. The Mets won 10 of the first 15 games between the teams in 2012, while the Phillies were an 11-7 winner in the 2011 series against New York. Pirates aim to avoid .500 mark in fiinale with Cubs Veteran right-hander Kevin Correia can keep the Pittsburgh Pirates above .dddddddddddd500 Monday when they visit Wrigley Field for the finale of a four-game series with the host Chicago Cubs. Pittsburgh, which led the National Leagues Central Division earlier this season and was in a close race with St. Louis and Cincinnati through much of the summer, has faded badly in recent weeks and fallen behind Milwaukee into fourth - 14 games in back of the Reds. The Pirates, which trail the NLs second wild card spot by three games, were dropped within a game of .500 in Sundays third game with the Cubs, in which they lost a 13-9 decision. Correia, who was 12-11 in his initial season with the Pirates in 2011, got to 10-8 with a Sept. 5 defeat of Houston before dropping a 5-3 decision to the Reds in Cincinnati on Sept. 11. Hes 3-3 in his last 10 appearances - in which the Pirates are 4-6 - while his earned run average has ticked slightly upward from 4.24 to 4.29. Hes 4-4 in 14 career meetings with the Cubs with a 5.53 ERA in 55 1/3 innings. Correia won a 3-2 decision over the Cubs in their last get-together on July 25 in Pittsburgh, where he allowed two runs on four hits in six innings. Chicago opposes him with lefty Travis Wood, a 25-year-old whos won two straight starts, including one at Pittsburgh. The Arkansas native, whos 3-3 in six career meetings with the Pirates, allowed a single hit in six scoreless innings with five strikeouts while winning a 12-2 decision. He followed it up with a 5-1 decision at Houston five days later, scattering four hits and giving up a single run in 7 2/3 innings with six strikeouts. The two wins signaled the end of a 10-start drought in which Wood had gone 0-8, though hed allowed three earned runs or less six times. On Sunday, Anthony Rizzo smacked two homers, including the go-ahead grand slam in the bottom of the sixth inning, as the Cubs downed the Pirates, 13-9. With the bases loaded and none away in the sixth, Jared Hughes (2-2) relieved Rick van den Hurk and allowed an RBI single to Darwin Barney. Rizzo stepped up next and pulverized a grand slam deep into the right-center field bleachers for a 10-9 Cubs lead. Rizzo drove in six and scored three runs, Alfonso Soriano tallied three hits, two RBI and a run scored, Joe Mather hit a solo shot and Barney recorded two hits, scored three runs and drove in an run for Chicago, which has won seven of its last nine games. Jeff Beliveau (1-0) picked up the final two outs in the visitors sixth for the win. Pedro Alvarez cracked a pair of homers and racked up five RBI for the Pirates, who have dropped eight of their last nine contests. The Pirates and Cubs split their first 12 games of the season in 2012, before Chicago won two of three to begin this series. The teams split 16 games in 2011. ' ' '