Barry Sokol on Sports

Ken Griffey Jr. is looking to reach a milestone by hitting his 600th home run of his baseball career.  

Griffey hit home run number 598 against the San Diego Padres Thursday night in their 8-2 loss.  He had not hit a home run in his last 90 at-bats.  The last time he homered was about a month ago on April 23rd against Houston.  It was the second longest drought of his career without hitting a home run. 

The thirty-eight year old is in his 20th season batting .247 and has hit 5 HRs, 22 RBIS, and scored 20 runs this season.  His prime with hitting home runs was with the Seattle Mariners back in 1997 and 1998 when he had 56 home runs both seasons.

Obviously, he is past his prime, but hopefully Griffey can become the sixth major league baseball player in history to hit 600 career home runs this season.  (Now if only the Reds could be good and achieve a milestone by finally making the playoffs).

The Cincinnati Reds swept the Cleveland Indians in a three game series this weekend in Cincinnati at Great American Ballpark. 

The Reds beat the Tribe on Friday 4-3, 4-2 Saturday, and 6-4 to conclude the series on Sunday. 

Former Dayton Dragons player, Reds left fielder Adam Dunn was the star in the series having a home run in each game.  He was a big contributor for Cincinnati in all 3 games.  On Friday, Dunn had the bases-loaded go-ahead walk for the Reds in their 4-3 victory.  On Saturday when they were down 2-1 in the bottom of the 9th inning, Dunn hit the game winning 3 run homer to make it 4-2.  Dunn has continuted his streak of 4 straight games with a home run.  The streak of 4 straight games with a home run matches his career high of home runs when he did it in August 2004 and June 2006.

The 21-23 Cincinnati Reds are on a 6 game winning streak and have swept Florida and Cleveland in their 6 game homestand.  Not only did they sweep Cleveland, but they are no longer in last place in the division and have their longest winning streak of the season. 

The Cincinnati Reds will now have to keep the winning streak alive and test it out on the road as they head out to southern California this week and begin their 7 game road stand.  They take on Los Angeles Dodgers in 3 games starting Monday night at 10:10PM and then move on to play a 4 game series with San Diego.

After having a rough start to begin the season (3-9 at one point), the Columbus Clippers have improved and now have a current record of 23-19. 

In the last 10 games Columbus is 6-4. The Clippers are 11-9 at home and 12-10 on the road.   They are only 4 games behind 27-15 first place Toledo in the International League West Standings. 

Standings >

Team	Wins	Losses	PCT	GB	Home	Away	Last 10	Streak
International League North
Scranton/WB	28	13	.683	-	17-6	11-7	6-4	L2
Pawtucket	25	17	.595	3.5	16-6	9-11	8-2	W2
Syracuse	24	17	.585	4.0	11-10	13-7	5-5	L1
Buffalo	18	23	.439	10.0	9-10	9-13	5-5	L2
Rochester	17	25	.405	11.5	11-10	6-15	3-7	L1
Lehigh Valley	11	31	.262	17.5	8-11	3-20	7-3	W3
International League South
Richmond	22	18	.550	-	13-7	9-11	4-6	L1
Durham	18	22	.450	4.0	9-11	9-11	5-5	L1
Charlotte	17	23	.425	5.0	10-11	7-12	3-7	W1
Norfolk	13	27	.325	9.0	8-11	5-16	0-10	L10
International League West
Toledo	27	15	.643	-	16-7	11-8	6-4	W1
Louisville	25	16	.610	1.5	12-7	13-9	8-2	W5
Columbus	23	19	.548	4.0	11-9	12-10	6-4	W1
Indianapolis	20	22	.476	7.0	10-11	10-11	4-6	W1

Tonight, the Clippers finish their road stand against Rochester before returning home to take on the first-place Toledo Mud Hens for two games and then playing the next two games at Toledo. 

If the Columbus Clippers can win tonight against Rochester and sweep Toledo in 4 games, then the Columbus Clippers can take first-place in the International League West Standings.

The Ohio State Buckeyes basketball squad will have two more players to the 2008 recruiting class to provide depth for the 2008-2009 season. 

Thad Matta announced this week that 6′ 2” sophmore guard Jeremie Simmons from Mott Community College in Flint, Michigan and Nikola Kecman, a 6′ 9″ freshman forward from Eastern Arizona College signed National Letters of Intent to play basketball at Ohio State.

Simmons will have 2 seasons of elgibility for the Buckeyes, while Kecman will have 3 as a Buckeye.

Simmons, a first team NJCAA All-American last season, was a 2007-08 All-Michigan Community College Athletic Association selection as a sophomore and was named the league’s player of the year. 

An interesting fact I found out about Jeremie Simmons from a blog post dated April 10th on Hotbed Hoops was Dayton was trying really hard to recruit him. The blog made a good point that both the Flyers and Buckeyes needed a good versatile guard like Simmons after the graduation of Ohio State guard Jamar Butler and Dayton guard Brian Roberts.

Kecman is a native of Belgrade, Serbia.  He averaged 13.4 points as a freshman at Eastern Arizona. He scored 428 points, the second-highest scoring total on the squad. He made 170 of 301 (.565) field goals and 35 of 80 (.438) 3-pointers. In 32 games, he grabbed 120 rebounds (3.8 rpg) for the 30-6 Gila Monsters.

Nikola Keckman will be a good replacement for Kosta Koufos. He will be a power forward who can add outside presence by playing on the perimeter and playing inside as well.

The Buckeyes 2008 recruiting class is now made up of 6 players, including Rivals 2008 #1 5 star basketball recruit 7 foot center BJ Mullens.  Another 5 star recruit the Buckeyes have is shooting guard William Buford, ranked #19 overall and the #4 shooting guard by Rivals.  The rest of the class is point guard Anthony Crater and shooting guard Walter Offutt.

Rivals.com has the Buckeyes as a pre-season top 25 team for 2008-2009.  The team should be good and I expect the Buckeyes to make the NCAA Tourney and be contenders for a Big Ten Title.

The Columbus Crew defeated the Kansas City Wizards Saturday night at home in Crew Stadium 2-1 in front of 10,447 people to improve their undefeated home record to 4-0 and continued their hot start of the 2008 season.

The game was pretty intense with Columbus having a total of 15 fouls and Kansas City with 12 fouls.  There were also 3 yellow cards and 1 red card in the game.  In the first half, Crew player Frankie Hejduk fouled Wizards midfielder Roger Espinoza while the two came in contact for a loose ball.  After the whistle blew, Espinoza struck Hedjeck above the shoulders with a raised elbow.  Hedjuk was given a yellow card and Espinoza, who played soccer at The Ohio State University, was given a red card and ejected from the game.

The Columbus Crew scored both of their goals in the first half. The Kansas City Wizards scored their only goal on a penalty kick at the 79 minute mark when Crew defender Danny O’Rourke pulled down a Wizard player.

Columbus is currently the outright first place team in the Eastern Standings with a 5-1 record and the outright best team in MLS with the most points (15) and best record.  The Columbus Crew’s next game is against the San Jose Earthquakes at San Jose Saturday night at 10 PM.