The Original Game » again.To those thinking the Swedes offered a bluepri

BALTIMORE -- Nothing that Joe Musgrove encountered in his first three major league games helped prepare him for facing the power-laden Baltimore Orioles in their compact home stadium. Don Mattingly Jersey .Musgrove allowed three of Baltimores six home runs, and the Houston Astros extended their losing streak to five games with a 13-5 loss Thursday night.Mark Trumbo set the tone in the first inning with his major league-leading 35th home run, a three-run shot to left against Musgrove, who looked every bit like a 23-year-old rookie making his third major league start.Theyre a fastball-hitting team. I like to throw fastballs, the right-hander said. I didnt locate pitches very well. Got behind.Musgrove (1-1) gave up eight runs and 11 hits -- including three homers -- over 5 1/3 innings.It was really just pitch execution, manager A.J. Hinch said.Picked by Toronto in the supplemental first round of the 2011 draft, Musgrove began his big league career with a flourish -- allowing only three runs in 19 1/3 innings. But this encounter lifted his ERA from 1.47 to 4.18.I firmly believe that I belong up here, he said. I know Im going to go through ups and downs. Ill try to limit the downs, analyze things tonight. Look at some film. Come back to work tomorrow.Alex Bregman and A.J. Reed homered for the Astros, who now stand just a game over .500 (61-60).Weve been in some uphill battles this year, Hinch said. A couple of different times we found ourselves in a little bit of a rut.After watching his pitching staff yield 12 runs and 17 hits over the first seven innings, Hinch called upon infielder Tyler White to pitch the eighth. White gave up one hit: Chris Davis second homer of the game, the third in two nights.They just continue to come at you, Hinch said. This is how they score. We didnt keep them in the ballpark the entire night.J.J. Hardy also hit two homers for Baltimore, and Manny Machado added a three-run drive.Kevin Gausman (4-10) struck out eight in 6 2/3 innings for Baltimore, giving up five runs, four earned.After Trumbo got things started for Baltimore by setting a career high in homers, the Orioles added two runs in the second inning and went up 7-2 in the fourth when Hardy homered with a man on.Hardy chased Musgrove with another shot in the sixth, and Machado and Davis connected in succession off James Hoyt later in the inning to make it 12-3.Baltimores Hyun Soo Kim enjoyed his first four-hit game in the majors, going 4 for 5 with his first triple. Playing in first year in the majors after a 10-year run in South Korea, the rookie cant help but marvel at his teammates power.I was never with a team that hits this many home runs, he said through an interpreter. It is very exciting. I feel just great being part of it.TRAINERS ROOMAstros: Luis Valbuena (right hamstring strain) made the trip to Baltimore, and Hinch said the infielder is inching toward a rehab assignment. ... The status of RHP Lance McCullers (sprained right elbow) remains unclear until he visits a doctor next week. Its all guesswork at this point, Hinch said.Orioles: RHP Chris Tillman (sore shoulder) threw off flat ground and is ready to go for his start Saturday against Houston, Showalter said.UP NEXTAstros: RHP Colin McHugh (7-10, 4.70 ERA) starts in the second game of the series Friday night. Hes 0-4 with a 7.65 ERA in his last four starts.Orioles: LHP Wade Miley (7-10, 5.23) makes his fourth start since being traded from Seattle. The lefty is 0-2 with a 7.04 ERA with the Orioles. Yankees Shirt Near Me . It was hard for Luck to pull off another comeback, or even get into the end zone, while standing on the sideline. Rivers threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to rookie Keenan Allen and Nick Novak kicked four field goals to give the Chargers a 19-9 victory against the Colts on Monday night. Dj Lemahieu Jersey Yankees . Just not the game. Kyle Palmieri scored two straight goals in the third period to rally the Anaheim Ducks past the Philadelphia Flyers 3-2 on Tuesday night. http://www.yankeesshoponline.com/alex-ro...-clearance.html . LOUIS -- Roman Polak was celebrating even before Alexander Steen scored the winning goal in Saturdays 4-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes. MINNEAPOLIS -- It is going to be a while before Carli Lloyd gets a chance at the mulligan that really matters to her: the chance to sweep World Cup and Olympic titles in successive years. That chance vanished in a haze of penalty kicks on a Brazilian afternoon in August.But as she stepped away from the U.S. womens national team for a bit, if only to let life beyond soccer intercede long enough to get married next month, a message followed her as she walked off the field: She and the U.S. will be back to work on unfinished business.A shaky Swiss defense happened to be the unwitting vehicle for the message, as Lloyds two goals set the United States on the path to a 5-1 comeback win over Switzerland.Even excluding a 9-0 romp against an overmatched Thailand, the U.S. has scored 12 goals in its other three games since the Olympics. Each of those dozen goals came against teams ranked in the top 20 in the world and preparing for next summers European Championship.You learn from your failures, Lloyd said. You learn from your losses more than you do from your wins. I think for this team to push on to the next [World Cup and Olympic] cycle -- not that I wouldnt have liked to win a gold medal -- but I think its good for everybody. Coaching staff, players, we need more will, desire. I think thats really what its all about.Thats especially true if intangible desire translates to a tangibly more productive team in the final third.Few will mistake this city across a river from Minnesotas state capital for Brasilia, Brazils capital. But on more than one occasion the past few days, locals generally aware the U.S. women were in town but hazy on the specifics confused Switzerland with Sweden, the team that eliminated the U.S. from the Olympics in Brasilia. The confusion proved prophetic.It took just seven minutes for Switzerland to take the lead off a counter similar to that which Sweden used to take a lead in the Olympics. The Swiss then dropped into a defensive shell, like the Swedes before them, and this half of the Twin Cities served up a healthy dose of déjá vu.The cause of the deficit was admittedly different. The lineup for the U.S. on Sunday included just six of the same players as the Olympic quarterfinal. Even more consequentially, for the second game in a row, the Americans?played out of a 3-5-2 formation, a departure defensively from their past bread and butter.The goal demonstrated all the perils of such a strategy, with the back three of Becky Sauerbrunn, converted midfielder Allie Long and national team rookie Casey Short pulled out of shape by the Swiss counter attack. Goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris stopped the first shot, but no one could prevent Sandrine Mauron from scoring the rebound for a 1-0 lead.Its unfortunate [that] the way we were going to get exposed in a three-back was kind of how it happened, Sauerbrunn said. We all had to shift over to one side of the field, which left the weak side, which was my side, very open. It was kind of a team breakdown.After Sweden struck first in the Olympics, the United States had 59 minutes -- the final 29 of regulation and 30 more in overtime -- to turn its overwhelming possession into two goals and a win. The Americans, of course, managed only one goal and then faced the lottery of penalty kicks.This time, Lloyd pulled the U.S. level in the 25th minute, turning after some nifty interplay with Andi Sullivan and Kelley OHara and blasting a shot from 27 yards past the goalkeeper. She then put her team ahead to stay in the 51st minute, first playing in Christen Press with a nice pass from deep in midfield and then following the play to line up and finish Press deflected shot.The floodgates opened, and the U.S. soon added three more goals: one from Press, one from Crystal Dunn and one from Kealia Ohai 48 seconds after she made her national team debut, which broke by one second the mark teammmate Lynn Williams set days earlier against Switzerland in Utah. Derek Jeter Jersey Near Me. But look again at the timing of Lloyds goals: two within 44 minutes of going behind. Thats good enough to have escaped Brasilia in a parallel universe.Among the ways Hope Solo erred in her now infamous comments after the Olympic exit was that in calling Sweden cowards, she left the impression that what the Swedish team did that day was easy, that any team could do it, but most werent willing to sink to such supposed moral depths. The Swiss proved otherwise. The stakes were obviously different, but they werent nearly as committed to the cause as Sweden. It was a lackluster and disjointed defensive effort.But it wasnt just bad defense. The U.S. was better able to pick apart a compact defense than with a barrage of hopeful shots against Sweden. Against the Swiss, rookies Williams and Sullivan excelled for the second game in a row. The defensive alignment that tested the back line also gave the U.S. better numbers with which to attack in the middle of the field.What I was really impressed with today was our ball movement in the final third, Ellis said. I thought just a lot of combinations, we created a lot of chances. I thought the personnel in there today gave us a lot of types of options. I thought Carli was superb in the pocket, in terms of coming off and playing final passes. I thought our forwards did a great job of holding it up. In the final third, when a team sits and defends as well as they do or sits that low, youve got to have really good movement on and off the ball.No one was a more active part of that than Lloyd, who began the game as one of two forwards but soon settled in as the attacking midfielder behind forwards. Whether combining with Sullivan behind her or playing in balls to Williams, Press and Dunn, she exerted an influence on the game worthy of FIFAs player of the year.It has been an eventful year for Lloyd, to say the least. While adjusting to the newfound fame that came with her starring role in the 2015 World Cup, she began by inheriting the role of co-captain from Christie Rampone and Abby Wambach. That was no honorary title when a spokesperson was needed to address a wide range of issues. The year also included a knee injury that left her racing the clock to be at full speed for the Olympics. Lloyd has navigated all of that, plus the not inconsequential matter of a wedding.Through it all, she scored 17 goals -- one shy of her magical 2015 total.Its probably been one of the most challenging years shes ever had, in terms of a lot of off-the-field stuff, Ellis said. In terms of her form, I think the qualifying, there were some goals to be had there. And I think in retrospect, the longer layoff going into the Olympics, its hard for a player to hit their form when theyve not been playing games. But I think shes just given us a great visual of what she can do.She will do it amidst open competition for playing time that looks all the more intriguing after Williams, Sullivan and Short, in particular, seized the opportunity of their first call-ups and looked ready to stick around for some time. Lloyd might also do so playing in a system that, if nothing else, made largely inconsequential friendlies endlessly intriguing.The U.S. is changing, but lets be clear: It is changing around Lloyd.For me, 2016 was good, Lloyd said. Could I have been better? Absolutely. I think everybody can always be better than they think they were. But now its about getting married and taking a little time off and rebuilding and getting after it again.To those thinking the Swedes offered a blueprint of how to undo Lloyd and the Americans: Well, you better be able to follow that plan a good bit better than the Swiss did Sunday. Wholeslae Jerseys NFL Jerseys Cheap Wholesale NBA Jerseys Cheap NHL Jerseys Cheap MLB Jerseys Wholesale Soccer Jerseys Cheap College Jerseys Cheap Football Jerseys Cheap Basketball Jerseys Cheap Baseball Jerseys ' ' '