A Busy Few Days Of Sports

The Chicago Cubs haven’t always looked like a team planning to make more magic as the season has unfolded, but this weekend might have been a turning point for the defending World Series champions.

Alex Avila smacked a two-run walk-off single with one out in the 10th inning on Sunday to lift the Cubs to a 6-5 victory over the Toronto Blue Jays to sweep their series. Does this sound like last year’s Cubs’ magic? The Blue Jays had scored twice in the 10th, picking up the go-ahead run on Kevin Pillar’s RBI single. Their three straight wins have the Cubs two games up on the Milwaukee Brewers in the National League Central.

More baseball? Ok. Bartolo Colon, 44, struck out six in six innings and the Minnesota Twins beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 12-5. Colon now has a win over all 30 teams in MLB, and is the 18th pitcher in history to beat every other team. The Twins have won four straight and trail the Cleveland Indians by five games in the American League Central … Giancarlo Stanton hit his 45th home run, a three-run shot as the Miami Marlins beat the New York Mets 6-4. Stanton leads the majors. … The Los Angeles Dodgers bolstered their outfielder depth by acquiring Curtis Granderson from the Mets.

NASCAR: m pulled off an unusual sweep at Bristol Motor Speedway. He won all three races – the Camping World Truck Series event on Wednesday night, the Xfinity race on Friday night and the Bass Pro Shops NRA Night Race on Saturday. Busch was previously the only driver to pull off such a sweep at one track in one week. Now he’s the only one to do it twice.

GOLF: Henrik Stenson shot a final-round 64 to establish a tournament-record 22 under at the Wyndham Championship and nip PGA Tour rookie Ollie Schniederjans (64) by one shot. This was the last tournament to qualify for the FedExCup, which will see 125 players competinig. The top five are Hideki Matsuyama, Justin Thomas, Jordan Spieth, Dustin Johnson and Rickie Fowler. Lucky number 125 is J.J. Henry who moved up from 134th and into the final spot.

FOOTBALL: Anquan Boldin, 36, who played 14 seasons and had just signed with the Buffalo Bills two weeks ago, decided to retire to pursue his work with his foundation and other human rights causes. Boldin earned a Super Bowl ring with the 2012 Baltimore Ravens.
 
 
Post By: Larry Weisman, a longtime sportswriter for USA TODAY, blogs for Twistity.com. Follow him on Twitter @MrLarryWeisman