National Post Sports

Jays slide past the Rays: The Toronto Blue Jays’ Brett Lawrie slides safely into third after hitting an RBI triple off Tampa Bay Rays pitcher Jake Odorizzi. The Blue Jays came away with a 7-5 win over the Rays thanks to a strong start from R.A. Dickey and a clutch double from Edwin Encarnacion on Monday afternoon. (Photo: Chris Young/The Canadian Press)

Resilient Senators refuse to quit in Game 3 win over Penguins
The Ottawa Senators had seen their season pronounced dead before, given last rites and a sympathetic benediction, so maybe this was old hat. Maybe being 35 seconds or so away from being down 3-0 in their second-round series with the Pittsburgh Penguins and short-handed — against Pittsburgh, there is a tendency to feel short-handed at the best of times — wasn’t the impossibility that it seemed. They’ve been dead before. It wasn’t so bad.

But the Senators didn’t die the first time. This time Karlsson was called for slashing with 1:27 left, and who scores short-handed with 1:27 left? But Pittsburgh was content to kill clock, dump the puck in, not attack, and Daniel Alfredsson started out of his own zone, under no pressure, with about 35 seconds left. The 40-year-old captain dropped a pass to Sergei Gonchar and kept skating down the right side, and Gonchar gained the zone and found Michalek on the left-side boards, inside the blue line, and the whole Penguins defence took a stride towards him, for whatever reason.

And Alfredsson was still skating away and was steaming to the net alone, and Michalek found him, and Alfredsson deflected the pass up and in with hands that have done it ten thousand times before. The clock said there were 26.8 seconds left. Scotiabank Place was so loud.

And in the second overtime Ottawa got the puck deep, and defenceman Andre Benoit got a shot from a sharp angle that hit Vokoun in the chest and bounced and fell, and Greening slapped at it and popped it over Vokoun’s shoulder at 7:39 of double overtime for a 2-1 win in an improbable Game 3. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press)

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Barcelona’s players celebrate during a ceremony at the Camp Nou stadium in Barcelona on May 19, 2013 after winning the Spanish League title. Barcelona celebrated lifting the La Liga trophy for a 22nd time with a 2-1 win over Valladolid. Photo: LLuis Gene/AFP/Getty Images)

After 1,500 matches in charge of Manchester United, Alex Ferguson was denied a final victory Sunday to cap the most successful managerial career in British football history.

But there was one final landmark for the 71-year-old Scot at West Bromwich Albion — the first 5-5 draw in the Premier League.

The official retirement party was last week at home when 76,000 fans at Old Trafford saluted Ferguson and the 13th and last of the record 20 English league titles he delivered for Man United.

Referee Michael Oliver blew the whistle on United’s season finale — and the last match of Ferguson’s career — at the Hawthorns in central England. From now on, the defensive fragilities on display Sunday are incoming manager David Moyes’ problem. (Photo: Adrian Dennis/AFP/Getty Images)

In five of his seven previous starts, Mark Buehrle had struggled, falling behind hitters and giving up a bundle of homers. The Boston Red Sox had knocked him around at the Rogers Centre the previous time he faced them.
Blue Jays hoping Brandon Morrow can get healthy fast

Then he walked into Fenway Park and was transformed.

The Toronto Blue Jays left-hander stumped the Red Sox on five hits over seven innings and left with a 2-0 lead in the eighth. Boston tied it up, but Adam Lind (pictured, left) whacked a long homer in the ninth and the Blue Jays hung on to win 3-2.

“It’s awesome,” Lind said. (Photo: Jared Wickerham/Getty Images)

Pat Neshek was overcome with emotion when he found out his teammates were taking the field wearing patches honouring his late son.

“I’ll be honest — I completely broke down,” Neshek said. “I can’t believe the support I’ve gotten from the team and my teammates. I couldn’t be doing this without that.”

The Oakland reliever pitched briefly in the Athletics’ 3-1 loss to Detroit in the American League playoffs Saturday night. The A’s wore patches with the initials GJN.

Gehrig John Neshek died 23 hours after his birth.
Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images

Canada’s Milos Raonic stunned U.S. Open champion Andy Murray 6-3, 6-7 (5-7), 7-6 (7-4) to reach the final of the Japan Open on Saturday.

The 21-year-old from Thornhill, Ont., will face Kei Nishikori in Sunday’s final.

Raonic remains firmly in the chase for one of four remaining spots at the November year-end championships in London and would rise to provisional tenth for the eight-man field should he win the title in Tokyo.
Photo: Koki Nagahama/Getty Images