Buckeyes hold off Spartans,Devils lose in Overtime and Tribe trounced.

The Ohio State Buckeyes controlled the first half and appeared to be
on their way to a blowout win over the Michigan State Spartans.
Instead the Buckeye offense began to have trouble holding onto the football,which allowed Michigan State to get back into the game before Ohio State ran out the clock.
The 24-17 victory was OSU's 8th of the season and pretty much ends the games that figured to be guaranteed wins,as the schedule gets far tougher from here.
Chris Wells was the star of yesterday's game finishing with 221 yards,a touchdown and being the end of the game workhorse in running the clock out.
The only downside to Wells yesterday was his fumble that was scooped up for a Spartan touchdown.
Todd Boeckman threw 2 touchdowns,a 1st quarter toss to tight end Jake Ballard and a 50 yd bomb to Brian Robiskie that was the only Buckeye second half points.
The Ballard catch was a tremendous catch of a high pass and showed that Ballard is beginning to come into his own as a pass catching tight end.
Boeckman threw one interception that was returned for an MSU TD.
So in effect the Ohio State defense allowed just 3 points.
The offense needs to step up next week for the visit to Penn State.
The Nittany Lion defense is vulnerable as the 31 points they gave up yesterday to Indiana showed,but the offense needs to keep the ball secure and be able to control the ball.

The Cleveland Indians were drilled 12-2 by Boston in Game 6 of the ALCS as Fausto Carmona allowed 7 runs in 2+ innings in a walk filled outing.
Victor Martinez hit a solo homer in the only Cleveland bright spot.
Not much else I can say about this bad night.
Game 7 tonight and it is winner takes the American League pennant.
Jake Westbrook for Cleveland vs Daisuke Matsuzaka for Boston.

The New Jersey Devils were behind 3-1 entering the final period,but did rally to force overtime (gaining a point) before former Devil Bill Guerin slid the game winner through Kevin Weekes with three seconds remaining in the overtime period to give the Islanders a 4-3 win.
Zach Parise scored the only first period goal(2) 55 seconds into the game with the assist going to Dainus Zubrus,but the Devils were dominated in a bad second period and allowed 3 Islander goals.
Jay Pandolfo cut the lead to 3-2 early in the third period with his third goal of the season,assisted by Sergei Brylin and Rod Pelley.
After killing off a four minute penalty to Brian Gionta,Gionta struck back with his 2nd goal of the season to tie the game.
Gionta was assisted by Zubrus and Paul Martin.
Again,a nice effort to rally and earn a point,but the Devils keep having one bad period a game and it is killing this team.
The defense has been poor once you get past Paul Martin and Andy Greene.
New Jersey finished this road run Thursday at Madison Square Garden vs the Rangers.

The Browns are on bye,but the 3-3 Seahawks are at home against the 0-6 Rams,.
Seattle still tied for first with Arizona needs this game for the standings,but as a confidence builder as well going into the bye week.
Our pick-Seahawks 24-6.

Bullpen Notes

The Islanders uniforms suck.

Learned something new from the NYI announcing team that I had not noticed.
The Devils players are all numbered from 1-30 with none of the higher specialty numbers.
Islander play by play man Howie Rose said that Devil GM Lou Lamoriello had told him that was done as a small nod to the "team" concept of the Devil organization.

I noted before the game in my game note that I wish the Devils had been able to bring Bill Guerin back last off season.
I think he would have added a lot to the team and after his game winning goal-I really wish that!

Former WWE and NCAA Heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar has signed with IFC to compete in the ultimate fighting universe.
UFC doesn't do much for me,but good luck to Lesnar.

Sorry to hear about former Packer Max McGee passing away after a fall from the roof of his house.
McGee is most remembered for scoring the first TD in Super Bowl history.
McGee was 75.

Finally,another recipe plea.....
Help me out a bit!

Photo Credits
Wells and Ballard-Neal Lauron-Columbus Dispatch
Carmona-John Kuntz-Cleveland Plain Dealer
Gionta-Bruce Bennett-Getty Images
Helmets-Helmet Project