NEW YORK -- The New York Yankees have not gained much ground in the wild-card race because they have not been playing the teams they are pursuing.On Friday their first attempt to beat a team they were pursuing was successful and the Yankees get another chance to inch closer in the race Saturday afternoon when they face the Baltimore Orioles.New York has won five of its last seven games and four of five from Baltimore at home this season. The Yankees will face the Orioles eight more times before the season ends.New York is 3 1/2 games out of the second wild-card spot thanks to a 14-4 win Friday that featured another big night from Gary Sanchez.Guys are excited around here and we believe, Yankees manager Joe Girardi said.Sanchez fell a triple shy of the cycle during his fifth career game with three hits and highlighted his latest big night with a long two-run home run.Sanchez is batting .403 and his 10 home runs equal the total he had with Triple-A Scranton Wilkes/Barre.Since he joined the Yankees on Aug. 3, they are a respectable 13-8, and the rookie catchers big night helped them go a season-high five games over .500 at 66-61.We still got a chance at this thing, Yankees left fielder Brett Gardner said. Were believe in ourselves and we got an important game tomorrow. We play all the teams ahead of us, we play them a lot the rest of the year. So we feel good about the place that were in.The Orioles have dropped four of five games in New York this season after winning four of six in Baltimore. Overall, the Orioles (70-58) have dropped seven of 11 since Aug. 15 when they last held a share of first place.Besides failing to gain ground over the Yankees, the Orioles lead over the other teams was reduced. The Orioles lead Detroit by one game, Seattle by two games and Kansas City and Houston by three games.The Orioles will be hoping for a significantly better performance on the mound after Yovani Gallardo allowed eight runs and six hits in a career-low 1 1/3 innings.Baltimore might have the right guy on the mound Saturday in Dylan Bundy, who is 5-3 with a 3.56 ERA in eight starts since being added to the rotation following the All-Star break.His ERA is slightly inflated by a sub-par outing in Boston on Aug. 17 and when Bundy limited the damage while allowing a baserunner in five of six innings Monday in Baltimore it prompted high praise from Washington manager Dusty Baker.He reminds me of the old Mets, like Tom Seaver and Gary Gentry and those guys. Baker said. He has one of the best curve balls weve seen. We heard he had great stuff, it was just a matter of his command.After Yankees pitcher Luis Cessa allowed two home runs to Manny Machado among five hits in six effective innings on Friday, Chad Green will make his seventh start for the Yankees and third since correcting some things in the minors. Since returning from Triple-A Scranton/Wilkes Barre Aug. 15, Green has allowed one earned run in 12 innings during his last two starts.The right-hander followed up six outstanding innings with 11 strikeouts vs. Toronto by allowing one run and five hits in six innings during Sundays 2-0 loss at the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.As a starting pitcher, Green is 2/3 with a 4.80 ERA and in half of his starts he has allowed one run or less while completing six innings. His 11.10 strikeouts per nine innings is the sixth-highest in the majors among pitchers with at least 30 innings as starting pitchers.The Orioles will likely be without center fielder Adam Jones Saturday. Jones was in the starting lineup Friday despite his hamstring cramping up Thursday but departed with a strained left hamstring in the second inning.Manager Buck Showalter did not think it would require a stint on the disabled list, but it was indicative of a frustrating night for the Orioles.Lets try and get this correct and make that big push, Jones said. At this point in time in the season missing more than a few games would hurt the team. Nike Lunarestoa Sale . The Lightning are 2-0 so far on a four-game road trip, giving the club five straight wins as the guest and improving Tampas away record this season to 11-8-2. Air Jordan 20 Sale . Now, with Game 6 set for Fenway Park and an 8:07 p.m. ET first pitch, the Detroit Tigers face the unenviable task of having to beat the Boston Red Sox twice, on the road, to advance to the World Series. https://www.wholesaleshoesforcheap.com/air-max-120-sale/ . Jim Rutherford, President and General Manager of the Carolina Hurricanes, announced Wednesday that the team would assign Swedish forward Elias Lindholm to his nations team for the upcoming tournament. Air Jordan 30 Sale .ca. Hey Kerry, big fan of yours, just finished reading your book. I think that we all saw the Canucks/Flames line brawl just after puck drop. It was obvious that something was about to happen, even to the referees because the fourth lines were on to start. Wholesale Shoes .C. -- Al Jefferson joked that he feels he can score from anywhere on the court. G2 esports location at the top of the rankings in the 2016 League Championship Series Summer Split is hardly surprising. Its perhaps the most predictable aspect of the European LCS nowadays. Some may love the team for its crisp play, and others may hate it for its transgressions online.One thing is certain: the team is here to stay, and it will ensure that one game at a time, perhaps in a similar fashion to Team SoloMid in North America. But unlike its North American counterpart, the teams star player, Luka PerkZ Perkovics expressiveness would go no further than a smile after a quadra-kill.Such is the way PerkZ approaches the match ups, with serenity and confidence. Its hard to believe that he is one split removed from his rookie season, where he almost claimed Player of the Split.G2s head coach, Joey YoungBuck Steltenpool, knew his mid laner (mainly because of his reputation) before coaching him. I just noticed he was really good, he explained. I didnt really know anything about him before I started coaching G2. I didnt expect him to be that good. I thought he was just going to be a decent mid laner, and then he just turns out to be a superstar.Not surprising, considering PerkZs mindset going into his endeavors. By age 15, he was pursuing four avenues at once: musical school as a guitarist, wrestling as a sports activity, academics and League of Legends. But after an injury sidelined him indefinitely from practicing sports, and as musical school came to an end, he focused on the remaining two.I just liked competition in anything I did, Perkz explained. No matter what I did -- school, sports, music, whatever -- [I wanted] to be the best at what I did.For many, the drive to be the best eventually dissipates, leaving room for good enough to settle in. But PerkZ is not the type to do so, and YoungBuck recognizes that.Hes a kid whos really motivated to get the best out of himself, YoungBuck said. A lot of people say they want to be the best, but they dont put the actions behind their words. Luka is the kind of person who actually puts actions behind [his] words, and when he says he wants to be the best in the world, he actually wants it, and hes going to try everything he can to be that.Of course, there is a price. PerkZ notes how he spent 15 hours a day from September 2015 to January 2016 to prepare for the split, how he needed to adapt to G2s roster changes, and how he needed to stay calm under pressure, the latter he confronted during his days playing the guitar.PerkZ recalled those days nostalgically, I was really nervous when I was playing guitar onstage. My palms were sweaty, and everything was so hard to focus. I was making a lot of mistakes onstage unless I was super-prepared for the piece I was playing. I played so much more League and I was so much more confident in my ability to play League. When I played [in] the LCS [for] the first time, I already knew how good I was, and I was just ready to win versus everyone.And he found an ally in an unexpected South Korean import from CJ Entus, Kim Trick Gang-yun. The hire was a hit: YoungBuck and League off Legends analysts noticed how symbiotic their play was.dddddddddddd But YoungBuck points out rather than have one player playing around the other, the mid-jungle pairing enhanced both players. [They] played off of vision, he said. Tried to enable each other -- push out mid lane and deep-ward -- or try to find picks. Or Trick would gank mid lane to help him or put vision so Luka could play very aggressive.Trick also helped PerkZ evolve as a player. Whether it involved positional knowledge from South Korea or his opinion on certain champions, the jungler was ready to assist his mid laner. And it went both ways, as the mid laner conversed about possibly strong jungle picks in the meta. Just as importantly, he taught him how to stay focused.Fast forward to the summer split, and G2 still leads the European standings, albeit one point ahead of a YellOwStaR-powered Fnatic. In between the spring and summer, the Mid-Season Invitational allowed PerkZ to move closer to achieving his goals: becoming the best mid laner. But it was also a botched event for G2 esports, who found itself eliminated after the group stage, drawing the ire of the most vocal parts of the European League of Legends fan base.I dont care about people praising me or berating me after MSI because MSI was just a really unlucky event, PerkZ said. I dont care what happened there. I just want to go to Worlds and show people there.He went on to describe his mid lane competition, I thought [Xiaohu] was good but really overrated, playing aggressive. He was getting punished so much, even in games versus us. Against [Royal Never Give Up], we were ahead both games by 3,000 gold or something, and we were the worst team there, and we still almost won a game off RNG.But one player impressed him, indeed. Let YoungBuck and PerkZ highlight how.[PerkZs] opinion about certain matchups changed after playing against Faker, YoungBuck chimed in. For example, he thought that Zed was really good against Azir until he played that matchup against Faker and realized how good Azir can actually be against Zed.PerkZ added, Hes also super aggressive, but the way he plays was so good, so I learned a lot from scrimming [SK Telecom T1] and playing SKT onstage.With low-mobility mid lane picks entering the meta, PerkZs flashy displays are less frequent than they used to be.Right now, in the meta, when you play Viktor, Azir, Ryze, these kinds of champions [are] very static and dont have a lot of outplay potential, so [PerkZ] has to tone down the aggression a bit, YoungBuck explained. He still sometimes wants to find that outplay, but usually it isnt there because of the champions that are in the meta.All in the name of being the best, which may involve surpassing Faker, and sometimes neglecting a few not-so-minute details within the gaming house. As I ask the coach if he wants to tell his mid laner anything, he replies, with barely any hesitation, Do the dishes. Dont leave the corn flakes on the table. ' ' '