Sky Rests Big 3, Loses, Secures Dream Matchup

August 18, 2014 @ admin → No Comments

Monday meanderings: The Chicago Sky lost its final regular-season game Sunday against the visiting San Antonio Stars 84-72. The Sky rested key players Elena Delle Donne, Sylvia Fowles and Epiphanny Prince. So they would be ready for the playoffs. And, it would seem, so the Sky doesn’t have to face the Indiana Fever in the first round of the WNBA playoffs. As long as the league doesn’t mind teams essentially taking the game off, then nobody else should mind, right? Well, except perhaps for those who came to see 2013 rookie of the year Delle Donne. Or Fowles. Or Prince. Here’s hoping the Sky gives fans at the game a ticket to a contest next season — when either those players actually play or when the team informs folks in advance that such star talent will be on the sidelines.

Video below of Kindly Myers. She is a model, not a WNBA player.

* Speaking of the Sky, its first-round foe will be the Eastern Conference champion Atlanta Dream. Whether the Sky’s strategy works will be known in two or three games (it’s a best-of-three series that starts Friday in Atlanta with Game 2 on Aug. 24 at Allstate Arena in Rosemont, Ill. One factor in the Sky’s favor is the team has recovered from injury and illness to be in what appears its best health of the season. And the team appears more potent with Delle Donne — whose playing time lately has been limited because of being sidelined by Lyme disease — coming off the bench. Not sure that’s the way the WNBA wants to promote one of its most prominent players. But if coach Pokey Chatman continues to do so and the team reaches the league finals, most everyone — at the league level at least — should be thrilled.

* With a home run and three runs batted in in the White Sox 7-5 victory vs. visiting Toronto, Jordan Danks had half of his season total for home runs and one-third of his season total for RBI. Baseball is how some of learned math — to the extent that we learned much. For the arithmetically challenged (such as your humble correspondent), that means Danks has two homers and nine RBI this season in 62 at-bats. He also has 26 strikeouts — meaning he has fanned 42 percent of the time.

* Speaking of home runs, Conor Gillaspie’s first-inning grand slam that preceded Danks’ two-run shot was the first of his career.

* Speaking of firsts, Cubs second baseman Javier Baez had his first big-league walk in a 2-1 victory vs. the host New York Mets. Also his second. Baez went 0-for-2 with two strikeouts. He has 22 strikeouts in 55 at-bats (40 percent of the time).

* Cubs hot-shot prospect Kris Bryant has a contusion of his left foot that is sidelining him. He is day-to-day (as has been observed: Aren’t we all?). He had no comment for the media covering the Class AAA Iowa Cubs — although you might have thought someone such as the third baseman with a college education might have offered up something. A simple “Ouch!” would have sufficed.

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