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Monday MLB — Rockies at Giants, 7 p.m., CSNBA White Sox at Indians, 4 p.m., WGN FIBA — Basketball World Championship, Brazil vs. US, 11:30 a.m. ESPN, 8 p.m. ESPN2 Tennis — US Open, 11:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., ESPN2 Sports 1B Monday August 30, 2010 A day to remember at Montreal San Francisco remained 1 1/2 games behind Philadelphia for the NL wild card. Stephen Drew had four hits for Arizona, including his 11th home run of the season. Jeremy Affeldt (3-3) got two outs for the win while Brian Wilson recorded the final five outs for his 36th save in 38 tries. MCT photo Andrew Ranger keeps ahead of Jason Bowles at the Senna curve at the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve in Montreal Sunday. MONTREAL (AP) — Max Papis may no longer be running a full Sprint Cup schedule, but he still gets stoked when things go right in whatever he’s driving. After topping the speed charts in Happy Hour for Sunday’s Nationwide race, Papis qualified ninth in Kevin Harvick’s Chevrolet and was ecstatic because he knew he had a good ride for his first Nationwide race of the year. ‘‘It’s good for the morale,’’ said Papis, who has one top-10 in five starts in NASCAR’s truck series and not much to show in 18 Cup starts for Ger- main Racing. ‘‘I even told myself, ‘When you’re in a good car, you do your best and results will come.’ ‘‘ It did on Sunday. Papis ran up front all afternoon at Circuit Gilles Vil- leneuve and passed eventual winner Boris Said entering the final chicane on the tricky 14-turn layout. Unfortu- nately, Papis swung too wide and Said beat him to the line by a nose in the fifth-closest finish in series history — .012 seconds. ‘‘We had a strong race car, but it’s not a win,’’ Papis said. ‘‘It’s maybe the first time that I had a chance to really sit in a car that had a legitimate chance to win and we came down to the last corner.’’ This season in Cup, Papis has had two blown engines, suffered overheat- ing problems in three races, and also has a handful of start-and-parks. He has plans to drive the truck series next year. The 40-year-old Italian, an accom- plished road racer, won three times in the former CART Series and has won the Rolex 24 Hours at Daytona. He’s made 35 Cup starts in three years. His best finish this year was 22nd at Texas and on the road course at Watkins Glen. ‘‘I’m pretty proud. I came a long way,’’ Papis said. ‘‘When I came here the first time a couple of years ago, I was definitely a fish out of water. Now, I feel I’ve improved tremendously. It’s like Christmas four months early for me.’’ ——— ROAD COURSE RINGERS: The NASCAR Nationwide race at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Sunday had a strong group road-course talent in Marcos Ambrose, Robby Gordon, Boris Said, and Max Papis, along with Canadians Ron Fellows, Jacques Vil- leneuve, Patrick Carpentier, J.R. Fitz- patrick and Andrew Ranger. Series leader Brad Keselowski is intent on joining them. After finishing last in his first series road race at Mex- ico City in 2007, Keselowski’s average finish in the next 12 road races was 6.9, including consecutive career-best fourth-place efforts at Road America Kuchar wins Barclays on first playoff hole PARAMUS, N.J. (AP) — Matt Kuchar’s fortunes took quite a turn Sunday, and so did his golf ball. Kuchar beat Martin Laird in a playoff at The Barclays with a 7-iron out of the rough that rolled toward the back of the 18th green, then caught enough of the slope to turn back toward the hole and stop 30 inches away for a birdie. It was a stunning conclusion to the first FedEx Cup play- off event. Kuchar closed with a 5-under 66, and it didn’t look as though it would be enough. Laird had a one-shot lead and needed two putts from just inside 25 feet for the victory, when he ran his putt 7 feet past the hole. He missed the par putt, set- ting up the playoff. The timing could not have been better for Kuchar. His first victory of the year came two weeks after he made his first Ryder Cup team, and the win can only give him a shot of confidence. Kuchar moved to No. 1 in the FedEx Cup standings by winning the first playoff event, giving him a good shot at the $10 million prize. And his third career win is likely to move him to a career-best No. 10 in the world rank- ing. ‘‘Even if I had shut it down without a win, I would have felt it was a great year,’’ Kuchar said. ‘‘To win, it’s an incred- ible year.’’ Tiger Woods continues to make progress, which in this case means he gets to keep going. Woods, who started these playoffs at No. 112 in the stand- ings, closed with a 4-under 67 to easily make the top 100 who advance to the second round next week at the Deutsche Bank Championship. Woods tied for 12th, his best finish since June, and moved up to No. 65. Laird, who recovered from a shaky start, looked just as shaky at the end, especially with his putter. He was tied with Kuchar when he had a 20-foot eagle putt on the par-5 17th, only to roll it nearly 8 feet beyond the hole. He made that birdie putt to take the lead, then repeated his mistake on the final hole in regulation. See HOLE, page 2B and Watkins Glen earlier this summer. He made it three straight fourths on Sunday after starting eighth in the crash-filled Nationwide race in Mon- treal. ‘‘It takes a little bit of experience,’’ said Keselowski, fifth last year at Montreal. ‘‘Experience is going to get you farther than anything else, just doing it yourself. I can watch Shaquille O’Neal dunk all day long, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to dunk. It takes a little bit of experi- ence, and I think I can get there.’’ ——— RANGER’S ROOST: Rising French Canadian driver Andrew Ranger started from the pole and won the NAPA Auto Pro 100 in the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series on Sunday at Circuit Gilles Villeneuve. After surviving an early challenge from series points leader JR Fitz- patrick, who had to retire with a bro- ken axle, Ranger beat Jason Bowles on a restart with two laps to go and had a lead of several car-lengths entering the final lap on the 14-turn road course. Bowles made one final charge heading into the 10th turn, a hairpin right-hander, blatantly slamming the right rear of Ranger’s No. 27 Dodge and gaining the lead. The 23-year-old Ranger, who won See DAY, page 2B The Giants dropped the first two games of the series after their starting pitchers struggled to get out of the first inning. Tim Lincecum and Barry Zito allowed a combined nine runs in the opening frame and both took the loss. This time it was San Francisco’s bullpen that fell apart and nearly proved costly until Guillen bailed the Giants out. Guillen, acquired from Kansas City on Aug. 13 after being designated for assignment, couldn’t get the ball out of the infield in his first three at-bats before singling off Esmerling Vasquez (1-5) to drive in Sanchez and Aubrey Huff. Guillen later scored on a sacrifice fly by Cody Ross. Cain pitched 6 1-3 solid innings, scattering six hits while striking out seven. He left with a 5-2 lead and a runner on first before San Francisco’s normally reliable relievers fell apart. Manager Bruce Bochy’s bullpen had been solid in August, going 6-1 with a 3.26 ERA in 25 games but stumbled against Arizona. The Diamondbacks scored three runs in the seventh after Cain left, taking a 6-5 lead on Adam LaRoche’s two-run double. The two RBIs give LaRoche 87 for the season, tying Tony Clark’s franchise record for first basemen set in 2005. The Giants answered with three runs in the bottom half and held on for the victory. Drew homered off Cain leading off the third, then Arizona got some help from the Giants pitcher to score its second run. Cain struck out pinch-hitter Ryan Church but the ball skipped past catcher Eli Whiteside, allowing Church to reach first on the wild pitch. Church took second and third when Cain uncorked two more wild pitches and scored on Drew’s grounder. San Francisco scored four runs in the third off Ari- zona starter Rodrigo Lopez. NOTES: Bochy said he expects LHP Dan Runzler to be activated from the disabled list Wednesday when rosters are expanded. ... Guillen is batting .372 in 13 games with the Giants. ... Lopez lasted four innings and gave up five runs and eight hits and is winless in his last nine starts. A’s take series at Texas, cut gap to 7.5 ARLINGTON, Texas (AP) — Gio Gonzalez pro- vided quite a follow-up to Dallas Braden, going to a near extreme to copy his Oakland teammate while pitching the Athletics to a series-clinching victory over AL West-leading Texas. A day after Braden threw a shutout, Gonzalez limited the Rangers to two runs over six innings Sun- day to win his third straight start, an 8-2 victory that cut Oakland’s division deficit to 7 1/2 games. ‘‘I was just trying to fol- low in the footsteps behind a guy who pitched a great game,’’ Gonzalez said. ‘‘The Rangers are a great hitting team, but we’ve been doing our homework. We sat down and went through it with Dallas. He gave me a pep talk on each one of them and it worked.’’ Gonzalez (12-8) left with a 7-2 lead after throw- ing 65 of his 95 pitches for strikes on another hot day in Texas. The left-hander, now 7-1 with a 2.10 ERA in 10 day games this sea- son, even talked to the baseball — a la Braden. ‘‘I had a pep talk with the baseball today ... It’s the first time. I guess he’s rub- bing off too much on me,’’ Gonzalez said. ‘‘After Hamilton’s homer, I got the ball and started yelling at it. Giants hold off Diamondbacks to avoid sweep SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Jose Guillen hit a go- ahead, two-run single in the seventh inning and the San Francisco Giants beat the Arizona Diamondbacks 9-7 on Sunday after wasting a fine outing by pitcher Matt Cain. Freddy Sanchez added three hits and two RBIs for the Giants, who avoided being swept by the last-place Diamondbacks and pulled within five games of San Diego in the NL West. MCT photo Oakland Athletics' Rajai Davis catches a fly ball hit by Texas Rangers Alex Cora in Arlington,Texas, Sunday. ’C’mon, do your job.’ Then the baseball told me to calm down. I’m losing my mind.’’ Josh Hamilton drove in both Texas runs, with a two-out bloop RBI single in the third and his 31st homer in the sixth. Hamil- ton has five homers his past 10 games and raised his majors-best batting average to .359. Hamilton’s 403-foot blast off the facade of the second deck of seats in right field was the only homer Gonzalez allowed his last seven starts. Mark Ellis and Kevin Kouzmanoff homered for the A’s off Colby Lewis (9- 11), while Cliff Pennington snapped out of a 2-for-24 slide with two singles and a sacrifice squeeze bunt. Lewis missed on his eighth attempt to get his 10th victory, and six of the season-high seven runs he gave up in 5 2-3 innings were earned. The unearned run came after his throwing error on what should have been an inning-ending dou- ble play. ‘‘You have a job to do, period. Apparently, I didn’t do it today,’’ Lewis said. ‘‘I didn’t make pitches when I needed to, and of course didn’t make a play when I needed to. Definitely, I take that burden.’’ There is only one more series between the AL West’s top two teams the final five weeks of the reg- ular season. That is a four- game set Sept. 23-26 at Oakland, which has an 8-7 series lead after winning the pitching gems by Braden and Gonzalez. ‘‘Don’t count us out yet. We’re still fighting,’’ Gon- See A'S, page 2B