On display for the Yankees at Tropicana Field on Wednesday was a 34-year-old veteran starter who agreed to a minor league deal in January, not even receiving the safety of a guaranteed contract.

That pitcher, Freddy Garcia, lifted the Yankees to a 4-0 victory, working six and two-thirds innings to outduel the Rays’ superb 25-year-old left-hander, David Price. Garcia scattered eight hits and struck out seven without issuing a walk, rebounding from a poor outing last Friday in Toronto. The wild-card-leading Yankees hold a six-and-a-half-game lead over Tampa Bay with their ace, C. C. Sabathia, scheduled to pitch Thursday night.

“It doesn’t matter how hard I throw,” Garcia said. “I told you, I’ll find a way to get people out. That’s more important. A lot of people throw hard, and they don’t get nobody out.”

Not that Garcia’s rotation spot was in jeopardy — “Because they’re older, people tend to think, is this the end every time they had a bad start,” Manager Joe Girardi said — but it reassured the Yankees to see him stymie the Rays with a nasty splitter that challenged catcher Russell Martin all game.

The only person beat up more than Martin was Curtis Granderson, who supplied the only runs Garcia needed, launching Price’s seventh pitch into the right-field seats for a two-run homer. Granderson later fouled a ball off his right calf, was drilled between the shoulder blades by a Price fastball and crashed into the center-field fence while nabbing Evan Longoria’s deep drive in the fifth, all coming 24 hours after his left ankle was struck by a pitch.

“It probably looked a lot worse than it was,” Granderson said of the catch, then added, “If it had happened at Yankee Stadium, it wouldn’t have been pretty.”

Only one other time did the Rays threaten against Garcia, and it was not even he who quelled the rally. After a bunt single and an error by Eduardo Nunez in the seventh, Girardi summoned Boone Logan with two outs to face the left-handed-hitting Casey Kotchman.

Despite making a costly fielding error Tuesday, Logan earned praise from Girardi, who called his stuff “outstanding.” Logan fired a 94-mile-per-hour fastball by Kotchman to end the inning and pumped his fist as he walked off the field.

“That’s a perfect scenario,” said Logan, who has retired 19 of his last 22 left-handed batters. “That’s what we want to do.”

As Girardi weighed a possible lineup shakeup, Granderson’s home run offered conflicting evidence for a move out of the No. 2 spot — a power struggle, so to speak. The Yankees value having a slugger like Granderson hitting second, hoping that with one swing he can give them a quick two-run lead, just as Nick Swisher did last season and Johnny Damon in 2009.

Already this season, Granderson has hit five two-run homers in the first, all with Derek Jeter on base.

A lineup configuration with Brett Gardner, the team leader in on-base percentage, batting eighth or ninth, and Granderson, the team leader in homers and runs batted in, batting second seemed to work for Girardi when he had a full complement of players.

But without the power potential of Alex Rodriguez, Girardi said he had been thinking about different lineups to lift a sagging offense — in particular, one with Gardner leading off against right-handed pitching, a move that would drop Jeter to second and Granderson to third.

“It’s something you definitely think about,” Girardi said before referring to Gardner. “You know, maybe you get him back up top somewhere. I mean, I don’t have any plans. I haven’t done it yet.”

To capitalize on Gardner’s scorching streak since the All-Star break, the test case could come as soon as Thursday, when James Shields is scheduled to pitch for Tampa Bay. Over the last seven games, Gardner is hitting .560 with a .621 on-base percentage, seven stolen bases and six runs scored. Girardi was eager to employ a leadoff platoon coming out of spring training but abandoned it after two weeks when Gardner started slowly, then revisited the idea before a July 8 rainout because Rodriguez and Swisher were injured.

The Yankees have scored 36 runs in nine games without Rodriguez, who will miss up to four weeks after knee surgery. Take away Jeter’s five-hit game July 9, when he collected his 3,000th career hit, and over that span he is batting .200 with no extra-base hits. If Girardi were to follow through with this minor — and, potentially, temporary — switch, Jeter would again become the subject of intense scrutiny.

Published by: BEN SHPIGEL

A deflating feeling washed over Burnett at Progressive Field, where the Cleveland Indians countered the Yankees’ two-run seventh by rallying for four runs in the bottom of the inning to roll to a 6-3 victory, spoiling Derek Jeter’s return to the lineup.

Burnett bemoaned the damage that was self-inflicted — two walks, each scoring — more than the pivotal hits by two former teammates, a two-out run-scoring single by Shelley Duncan and a three-run homer by Austin Kearns.

In his clubhouse, Brett Gardner and Alex Rodriguez shared a different view. From their perspective, the pitch that produced the most harm did not result in a run or even land in fair territory. It was the 1-0 fastball that Burnett threw to Lonnie Chisenhall with a runner on first and two outs in the seventh.

Chisenhall lofted a fly tight to the left-field line that sent Gardner and Rodriguez in pursuit. Rodriguez admitted to getting a poor jump. Gardner felt he called him off too late. The ball dropped, and Chisenhall went on to work an eight-pitch walk. As Kearns’s homer zipped toward the right-field seats, Rodriguez could not stop thinking about that missed chance.

“No question,” Rodriguez said. “Bottom line is that ball needs to be caught. A. J. pitched his tail off tonight.”

Curtis Granderson hit a two-out homer in the eighth to cut the Indians’ lead to 4-3, but Carlos Santana answered by hammering a two-run shot in the bottom of the inning off Cory Wade. The conflicting opinions of Rodriguez and Gardner seemed rather fitting on a day that generated mixed returns on the Yankees’ injury front.

As Jeter rejoined the team after missing the last three weeks with a strained right calf, going 0 for 4 to remain stalled at 2,994 career hits, Mariano Rivera sat out with a sore triceps. He said soreness crept in after Sunday’s game, when he blew a save against the Mets.

“I’m not concerned at all, I can tell you that,” Rivera said. “Just things that happen.”

That is a boilerplate response from Rivera: things happen. They just do, and he brushes them off with no interest in seeking an explanation, perhaps because one might not even exist. Through six innings Monday, there had been only two hits — both by Asdrubal Cabrera — and it was not hard to identify a prevailing reason. The game began at 6:36 p.m., with two hours of daylight remaining. Shadows crept over the infield, in back of the mound, to create a natural deception. Jeter, trying to regain his timing, called the conditions “a little difficult.”

Nick Swisher was a little less diplomatic about the start time. “Six-thirty’s a dumb time to start a game,” he said.

The Indians had to contend with Burnett, who flaunted a crackling fastball and erratic control of his curveball. The Yankees had to deal with Josh Tomlin, who retired 18 consecutive batters after Jeter (error) and Granderson (walk) reached base in the first inning.

Tomlin became the first pitcher since 1919 to work at least five innings in his first 29 career starts, a stretch that began last July against the Yankees. That night, he faced the minimum 21 batters through seven before exiting in the eighth, and back then, the Yankees had an excuse: they often struggled against pitchers they had not seen before.

That defense no longer applies to Tomlin. Just three weeks ago, on June 12 at Yankee Stadium, the Yankees handled him just fine, battering him for six runs in five innings. He left a different impression on Swisher.

“As a whole, I don’t think we’ve really had his number,” he said.

Tomlin allowed his first hit, a single to Mark Teixeira to open the seventh, ending his bid to join Dave Righetti, who threw a no-hitter at the old Yankee Stadium on July 4, 1983. With one out, Robinson Cano reached on an infield single before Swisher drilled a two-run double into the left-center field gap. When he pulled into second base, Swisher held his arms outstretched before pointing to the sky, putting the Yankees ahead, 2-0.

In Jeter’s absence, the Yankees had won 14 of 18 games, and they lost Monday without receiving any contributions. In his first at-bat, Jeter reached on an error by Chisenhall. His next time up, he flied out to shallow center and, in the sixth, he grounded out to third. When he batted in the eighth off Vinnie Pestano, he lined out to shortstop.

“You don’t get hits, and it’s timing,” Jeter said. “You do, and they say you’re well rested.”

INSIDE PITCH

The Yankees sent outfielder Chris Dickerson to Class AAA Scranton/Wilkes-Barre to clear roster space for Derek Jeter. After the game, Jeter said that his calf felt good and that he expected to play Tuesday.

Obtained by: Ben Shpigel

Lisicki, recovering from injury and ranked 62nd in the world, broke into a wide grin when Bartoli’s final forehand found the net. She is the first German to reach the women’s semifinals since Steffi Graf in 1999.

“I have absolutely nothing to lose and I’m just going to fight,” she told a courtside interviewer who pointed out that she was two victories from the championship.

Played under a Centre Court roof that shielded the players from a heavy London thunderstorm, it was an oddly jittery encounter, punctuated by Bartoli’s eccentric jumping antics as she awaited Lisicki’s serve.

After a vigorous extended rally, Lisicki clipped a backhand down the line and out of Bartoli’s reach to clinch the first set in 43 minutes, hitting 18 winners and 4 aces.

Lisicki began over-hitting shots in the fourth game of the second set, sending a backhand long to hand Bartoli a break point, and a forehand into the net to lose her serve and trail, 1-3.

At moments, it was a duel of angled drop shots. Lisicki got the best of them, discovering that Bartoli’s two-handed forehand made it awkward for her to reach forward for low shots.

Lisicki held a remarkable 6-1 lead in successful drop shots by the fifth game of the set. Bartoli scored with one of her own and took away another of Lisicki’s by racing to net and lofting a low forehand up the line over Lisicki’s outstretched racket.

Bartoli and Lisicki traded service breaks early in the second set. In the ninth game, Lisicki rifled a backhand service return down the line to claim the first point, then sent a forehand into the net. Then she hit an inside-out forehand winner and a crosscourt forehand winner to go up 40-15.

It was Bartoli’s biggest challenge and she met it first with an ace. But she jammed a forehand long to lose the game and put Lisicki in place to win the match on her serve.

Then Lisicki’s nerves kicked in. She bungled an easy high forehand at the net but recovered on the next point by jamming a forehand down the line and then hit an ace, her sixth, and another winner to set up match point. After trading winners, Lisicki crafted a low overhead that Bartoli couldn’t reach.

But Lisicki’s failed drop shot on another match point suggested she had gone once too often to that well. Bartoli soon offered her another match point and Lisicki couldn’t convert it, sending a forehand wide.

Lisicki ultimately lost her serve by double-faulting and it appeared that her game was about to fall apart. Bartoli moved to the line to serve and began running Lisicki side to side. Lisicki’s reserve was shattered and she lost the 11th game with a pair of erratic forehands.

But she wouldn’t yield, winning her serve to pull even at 6-6. Then she resumed an erratic style of hitting sound shots followed by forehand errors. Bartoli piled up a 5-3 lead when Lisicki rushed a backhand into the net.

Then Bartoli faltered, yielding two points on her serve, the two points that would have given her the set. She got to set point when Lisicki drove a backhand long. She took the set when, of all shots, Lisicki couldn’t handle Bartoli’s drop shot.

As they began the final set, Lisicki had hit a remarkable 42 winners to Bartoli’s 10, an unusually wide margin for a match that was virtually dead even.

Soon the difference began to appear in the score. Bartoli double-faulted to drop her serve in the second game of the set.

Lisicki’s moment was coming. She held serve to lead, 3-0, and raced to her chair for the changeover. Bartoli looked dejected and leaned forward to rub her upper left thigh.

With Bartoli serving in the key fourth game of the final set, which ran more than 10 minutes, both players repeatedly fumbled chances to win before Lisicki lost it by driving a backhand wide. Lisicki stepped to the line and lengthened her lead to 4-1 by hitting two forehand winners and drawing two Bartoli backhand errors.

By now, Lisicki had hit 49 winners to Bartoli’s 11, a gap that was widening every game. In the sixth game, Bartoli slammed an easy overhead long to face three break points, which Lisicki converted on another backhand error by Bartoli.

Posted by: John Martin

The first three games of this four-game set in the Bronx have produced three resounding victories by the Yankees, who clobbered the Indians, 9-1, on Sunday afternoon behind a season-high 18 hits, but none that left the ballpark, which no doubt appeased the chorus of critics claiming that home runs are the Yankees’ tragic flaw.

After homering in the previous two games, Granderson settled for three singles and a double Sunday, scoring twice and driving in two. Alex Rodriguez (three R.B.I.) and Brett Gardner (three runs scored) added three hits each. Derek Jeter went 2 for 5 with a pair of run-scoring singles, increasing his career hit total to 2,993, to help back a solid outing by Freddy Garcia, who rebounded from a miserable start Tuesday against Boston by allowing one run in six and two-thirds innings.

“I hope I don’t do it with seven hits in one game,” Jeter said of reaching the 3,000-hit plateau. “That’s a long time to be out there.”

Jeter’s teammates are as conscious of his march toward baseball immortality — “How could I not?” Gardner said. “It’s all over the place” — as their own place in the American League East standings. The Yankees dropped to second place after a three-game sweep by Boston that Alex Rodriguez likened to being punched in the mouth. The Indians’ free fall now stands at 14 losses in 18 games, and the Yankees do not feel the least bit sorry for them. They are happy to feast on a struggling team.

“We don’t look back,” said Jorge Posada, who went 2 for 3 Sunday and whose six-game surge — 13 for 22 — has pushed his average (.226) past that of Nick Swisher (.225). “We keep looking forward.”

If so, then Monday’s starter, A. J. Burnett, must extend a run of stellar starting pitching that has produced a 1.33 earned run average over the first three games of this series. Garcia often worked out of trouble against the Indians, never having a clean inning, but relied on his splitter to hold the Indians hitless in 11 at-bats with runners on base — 10 with runners in scoring position.

For the season, opponents are batting .134 (9 for 67) against Garcia with runners in scoring position, which ties him with Oakland’s Gio Gonzalez for lowest in the American League, according to Stats LLC.

“You have to make a good pitch,” Garcia said. “I’ve been able to do that, and hopefully I’ll continue to do that.”

When Garcia pitched for the White Sox, Granderson would often face him with the Tigers. And he remembered approaching his at-bats thinking that Garcia, whose size (6 feet 4 inches, 250 pounds) belies a savvy pitching style, would try to bury fastballs by him.

“And I think that works to his advantage,” Granderson said, “because he’s not necessarily going to do that.”

The Yankees are hopeful that Garcia can remain healthy and strong, offsetting the loss of their other off-season budget signing-turned-revelation, Bartolo Colon. The day after straining his left hamstring while covering first base, Colon seemed to think that he could return after sitting out the minimum 15 days on the disabled list.

The results of his magnetic resonance imaging test encouraged the Yankees, but hamstring injuries are notoriously tricky, and given his age (38) and size (265 pounds, give or take a bowl of sancocho), they will probably take a conservative approach.

“I feel bad because I know the team needs some help and now I got hurt,” said Colon, who is eligible to be activated June 27. “But there’s nothing I can do about it.”

No replacement has been named to start Thursday’s game against Texas, but the leading candidates are the Class AAA right-handers David Phelps and Adam Warren. Hector Noesi, recalled Sunday, is also an option, though the Yankees seem more inclined to use him as a late-inning reliever.

Their normal late-inning tandem of Dave Robertson and Mariano Rivera were able to rest Sunday, in large part because of the Yankees’ five-run fifth against Cleveland’s Josh Tomlin.

The Yankees’ lineup was not posted until about 70 minutes before first pitch, not that it made much difference. Manager Joe Girardi wanted to check on the health of Russell Martin and Rodriguez, who was sore after being hit in the left thigh Saturday.

Rodriguez delivered key hits in both of the Yankees’ rallies, in the fifth and the eighth. Martin, who missed the last four games with a stiff back, was one of two starters — Mark Teixeira (0 for 4 with a walk) being the other — who failed to record at least two hits. Martin grounded into two inning-ending double plays en route to going 0 for 4 and also failed to throw out any of the five attempted base stealers.

“It feels the same as it did before the game,” Martin said of his back, “so that’s a good sign.”

And so were the last three games for the Yankees.

INSIDE PITCH

Outfielder Chris Dickerson replaced reliever Amauri Sanit, who went on the disabled list with a sore elbow.

Obtained by: Ben Shpigel

Einhorn was too timid or too late to make a formal offer, and the Brewers went to a group led by another financier, Mark Attanasio. One person involved in the sale said that Einhorn wanted to join the group and buy a small piece of the Brewers. But his timing was off. He had lost out on his hometown team.

“He looked seriously at the Brewers,” said Bill Ackman, another hedge fund heavyweight, who runs Pershing Square Capital Management. He said that Einhorn did not view his interest as a lark. Indeed, Ackman said Einhorn “kicked himself” when he heard that Attanasio paid only a share of what his investment group paid for the team: $223 million.

Disappointing as that was, Einhorn did not give up. In 2009, he met in Manhattan with Bob DuPuy, baseball’s president at the time, and Jonathan Mariner, the chief financial officer of Major League Baseball, to discuss the path to buying a team, to find out what teams were on the market and to explore and understand various ownership structures.

“He wanted to learn about the industry and what had happened over the past 10 years, but the discussion was not team-specific,” said DuPuy, who left baseball last year.

Barely two years later, Einhorn got very specific. He wanted a piece of the Mets. The team was not yet for sale, but reports had surfaced that its owners had lost hundreds of millions of dollars in Bernard L. Madoff’s Ponzi scheme.

Then, last January, his chance came: Fred Wilpon, the Mets’ principal owner, announced that he was seeking an investor for a minority stake in the team.

Einhorn emerged last month as the last suitor standing. He agreed, pending a signed contract, to pay $200 million for a third of the money-losing team, according to people with knowledge of the deal. He will have an option to buy a majority stake in several years.

If the Wilpons try to block his attempt to buy control of the team, they must return the $200 million to Einhorn, who can then keep a minority share of the Mets.

Einhorn, a Cornell graduate whose trademark is a willingness to take unconventional and contentious public stances, impressed many sports bankers and colleagues with his offer’s creativity.

“I’m sure other people are saying, ‘What, I would have done that deal,’ ” said Karen L. Finerman, the hedge fund manager who was a co-founder of Metropolitan Capital Advisors, who is a friend of Einhorn’s.

Einhorn will not be in Milwaukee to see his two favorite teams, the Mets and the Brewers, start a three-game series Tuesday. But he can watch the games on SNY, the cable network owned in significant part by the Mets’ owners, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz. It is not impossible that he could wind up owning a piece of the network in the course of his dealings with Wilpon and Katz.

Einhorn, the older of two brothers, was 7 when his family moved from New Jersey (hence the interest in the Mets) to Fox Point, Wis., a well-to-do suburb on Milwaukee’s North Shore that is home to some of the city’s business elite, including Bud Selig, baseball’s commissioner. By all accounts, his childhood was a studious and comfortable one, and one in which his baseball passion turned to the Brewers from the Mets.

He attended Nicolet High School, considered one of the best in the state, where he learned some of the skills he would use professionally while competing on the debate team. Recently, he donated $1 million through his family charity to finance debate clubs in 14 high schools in Milwaukee.

Einhorn’s father, Stephen, a banker who specializes in mergers, and his mother, Nancy, a bookkeeper, have been active in the arts and charities. Through the Einhorn Family Charitable Trust, they donate to educational, religious, medical, youth service and antibigotry causes; the trust also provided money to produce “The Bully Project,” a documentary.

Posted by: NYTIMES

So, after their offense had sputtered and their defense escaped them Thursday night, James and Wade were back on the defensive, rationalizing another premature celebration while trying to explain a horrendous collapse against the Dallas Mavericks in Game 2 of the N.B.A. finals.

The Heat blew a 15-point lead in the final 7 minutes 14 seconds and lost, 95-93, allowing Dallas to tie the series. Wade and James were shockingly ineffective down the stretch, missing their last seven shots combined, including five 3-pointers.

But first they frolicked a bit, at the wrong time and in the wrong place.

The clock showed 7:14 when Wade hit a 3-pointer that pushed Miami’s lead to 15 points. The arena boomed. James and Wade boogied. Wade held his follow-through longer than usual and had his arms up in the shape of a V. Then James joined him, smiling, backpedaling and fake-punching Wade in the chest, right in front of the Dallas bench.

The Mavericks noticed.

“Just seeing them celebrate like that, man, it was disheartening for us,” said Jason Terry, who scored the Mavericks’ next 6 points to start their game-closing 22-5 run. “Then I took another glance at the score and at the time; there was a lot of time left.”

From there, the story took a familiar turn. Wade and James were asked repeatedly about the premature celebration — echoing the criticism they invited last July when they held a raucous rally upon becoming teammates. They were skewered again, albeit less intensely, when they exuberantly celebrated after eliminating the Boston Celtics in the second round.

“It was no celebration at all,” James said of his tango with Wade. “I was excited about the fact that he hit a big shot and we went up 15. The same thing we’ve done over the course of the season. There was no celebration at all. We knew we had seven minutes to go still to close out the game.

“As far as celebration, that word has been used with us all year,” James continued. “But we knew how much time was left in the game still.”

The discussion did not end there, as another reporter pointed out that the cameras had captured the entire sequence. This time, Wade answered, more indignantly.

“First of all, every team in the league, when they go on a run, they do something,” Wade said, adding: “A celebration is confetti. A celebration is Champagne bottles. There was no celebration.”

This is the Heat’s burden, its penance for that audacious party last summer, when James predicted “four, five, six, seven” championships after a smoke-filled, bass-thumping introduction. James, Wade and Chris Bosh danced that day, and have been targets ever since.

For the last six weeks, there has been little to criticize, and no schadenfreude for the Heat-hating masses. Wade and James have been splendid and dominant, powering the Heat through the three rounds of playoffs with 12 wins against 3 losses.

For six weeks, James and Wade had owned fourth quarters, overtimes and anything that could remotely be defined as a clutch situation. Their late-game playmaking, dunks and 3-pointers buried the 76ers, overwhelmed the Celtics and finally extinguished the Bulls. The Heat’s defense has been its most stifling in the final minutes of playoff games, with James locking down Paul Pierce and Derrick Rose and Wade blocking shots at just the right moments.

They seemed nearly invincible until late Thursday night. James and Wade, perhaps the two best closers in the game, could neither score when they needed to, nor stop the Mavericks when they had to.

The Heat’s usually fluid offense became stagnant down the stretch, which accounted for the high number of low-percentage shots. Seven of their last 11 field-goal attempts came from the arc, or deeper. Only one of those shots went in, a Mario Chalmers 3-pointer that tied the score at 93-93 with 24.5 seconds left.

Twenty-one seconds later, Dirk Nowitzki drove around Bosh, past James and over Udonis Haslem to drop in the game-winning layup.

“We said in the huddle, when we were up 15, that this team is very capable of coming back,” Wade said. He added: “We didn’t have to score another point to win the game. Our defense was what we lay our heads on. We didn’t play it the way we normally play. They deserved it. And we didn’t.”

The Mavericks, meanwhile, surprised the Heat by blitzing pick-and-roll plays and forcing James to give up the ball or take bad shots. Miami attempted 30 3-pointers — the second most in postseason franchise history — which as Coach Erik Spoelstra noted, “is not our style of basketball.”

So, for the first time in this postseason, Miami is in a tied series, and with the next three games on the road, starting with Game 3 on Sunday. It is unfamiliar territory for James and Wade as teammates. The chirping criticism about their celebratory tendencies, however, is not.

“Don’t make nothing out of that celebration, like you guys did in the Boston series,” Wade said. “It’s just being excited about the moment. It had nothing to do with the outcome of the game for us.”

For 48 hours, at least, there would be no chance of repeating the mistake.

Posted by: Howard Beck

Andretti, the 24-year-old grandson of the legendary Mario Andretti, also already knows how quickly a driver’s fortunes can change here, which is why he is back for a sixth run. He barely made the field for Sunday’s Indianapolis 500, but now he thinks he can win anyway.

“I’m frustrated — are you kidding me?” he said, cracking a smile. “After ’06, I didn’t expect my career to be playing out like this. But I know I can beat these guys.”

As a 19-year-old rookie, Andretti finished second at Indy to Sam Hornish Jr., who made a breathtaking pass 150 yards from the finish line to win by 0.0635 seconds, or less than a car length. After the race, Andretti was forecast to have a bright future.

Driving a car owned by his father, Michael, Marco Andretti has not exactly done poorly. He has won one race on the Izod IndyCar Series (as many as Danica Patrick), and has finished third in two of the last three Indy 500s. But he is an Andretti.

“He knows he should have more to show for it at this stage of his career,” Mario Andretti, 71, who won the Indy 500 in 1969, said in an interview Thursday morning. “Sooner or later, the right thing will come around for him. I’m fully confident that his turn is coming.”

Marco Andretti earned big points with his grandfather just by getting into the 33-car field. He was the last driver to make a qualifying attempt, literally beginning his run one minute before the deadline. Even Mario Andretti said his knees were shaking.

“He was really on the edge of disaster,” Mario said of his grandson.

Bumped from the field earlier in the afternoon, Andretti said later that he would either put his car into the fence or the show. His four-lap average speed of 224.628 miles an hour got him a spot near the back of the grid. But he bumped Ryan Hunter-Reay, a teammate.

“We were both worried that it was going to come down to cannibalism at the end,” Hunter-Reay said Thursday.

Hunter-Reay ended up making the field, anyway, because Michael Andretti paid A. J. Foyt, the four-time Indy 500 winner, for Hunter-Reay to replace Bruno Junqueira in a car owned by Foyt and qualified by Junqueira. Fans have ripped Marco Andretti for being a lousy teammate. John Andretti, Mario’s 48-year-old nephew, said he was proud of the way Marco Andretti battled to get into the race. John Andretti, who is to start 17th, said he would have driven just as hard as Marco and would probably win way more than one Indy 500.

“If I’m leading, I hope it’s not the year that he breaks through,” John Andretti said.

John Andretti, the son of Aldo Andretti, Mario’s twin brother, has not won in 11 Indy 500s. Michael Andretti was a champion everywhere else except Indianapolis, where he did not win the Indy 500 in 16 tries. After a two-year absence, he made a comeback and finished third in 2006.

And then there is Mario Andretti. His only victory at Indianapolis came in his fifth attempt. He did not win in 24 more tries. Including Jeff Andretti, Michael’s brother, the Andretti family has one Indianapolis 500 victory in 64 tries. “Andretti luck” at Indianapolis is not good luck.

“There’s a lot that can happen in 500 miles,” Marco Andretti said, shrugging. “I knew if we could field this car, put it in the show, we have a shot to win.”

Although the cars owned by Roger Penske and Chip Ganassi are considered to be strong, as always, there are no clear-cut favorites.

There are no clear favorites in the race. Patrick, Andretti’s teammate, struggled to find speed during rain-interrupted practice sessions this month on the two-and-a-half-mile oval and scuffled to qualify for the race. She is to start 26th, which will be her worst starting position in seven attempts to win the race.

“Unfortunately, when you start farther back, you tend to take more chances,” Patrick said, “but because of the fact that it’s 500 miles, we can let it play out and see how it goes.”

One hundred years ago, Ray Harroun hopped in his Marmon Wasp and won the first Indianapolis 500 nearly seven hours later. Harroun started 28th — perhaps a bit of good luck for Marco Andretti, who will also start 28th. He thinks he has a “darn good chance” to win.

His grandfather thinks Marco’s race team has played it way too safe. Marco just showed him on Sunday that he is capable of pressing for more speed when he really needs it. The pressure was on, period, Mario Andretti said, and Marco Andretti really looked good.

“Could you imagine what he had to grow up with, from the time he took the first turn of a wheel in a go-kart?” Hunter-Reay said.

Published by: DAVE CALDWELL

On the first tee shot of the day Thursday, with the sun peeking over the small scoreboard to the right of the tee, Woods tried to hit a draw down with a 3-wood and felt something give in his left knee — the same knee that was surgically repaired two years ago after his victory at the United States Open at Torrey Pines.

The knee then affected his Achilles’ tendon, which he had torn two years ago, and his calf muscle began to cramp, and he struggled to shoot a six-over-par 42 on the front nine before he was forced to withdraw.

It was Woods’s toughest nine holes in his last 14 starts. He has shot 43 for nine holes on four other courses.

“I was trying to draw that ball out there just a little bit; I pushed forward and just didn’t feel good,” Woods said.

He added: “Everything started getting tight. It was like a whole chain reaction.”

Woods struggled through the first nine holes, bogeying the first after his foot slipped in the pine straw while he was hitting his second shot. He missed the green, chipped on, and missed a 20-footer for par.

He failed to birdie the second hole, hit the third green and two-putted for par, then pulled his 3-wood off the fourth tee, missing the fairway by some 30 yards to left in the deep rough on a mogul, 133 yards from the green.

His ball was sitting down, and he caught the shot heavy, moving it 116 yards into the moat surrounding the green. Forced to drop, he caught his pitch thin, bounced it off the railroad ties back into the moat, pitched on, and made a long putt for a triple-bogey 7.

By this time, he was limping noticeably, favoring his left knee whenever he stepped and keeping his weight off it whenever he stood. He bogeyed the fifth hole, saved par on his next three and bogeyed the ninth after hitting a 290-yard 5-wood downwind and through the back bunker.

“I’m having a hard time walking,” he said when asked to rate his pain on a scale from 1 to 10. Asked if he had to cut any practice sessions short because of similar pain, Woods replied, “It would be sore, both Achilles’ and knee would be sore. Nothing that icing and treatment wouldn’t do at night.

“This morning, felt fine during warm-up and during play, it progressively got worse.”

Woods said he was surprised he had to withdraw.

“Yeah, actually,” he said. “As I said, treatment’s been good. It’s been getting better. Unfortunately, it just wasn’t good enough.”

Asked if would have been wiser to come off earlier, Woods replied, “Probably.”

By the seventh hole, Woods was trailing well behind his playing partners as he worked his way slowly down the fairway. By the time he walked across the bridge at the ninth hole, there was little question that he would not be going on. And when he removed his glove and gave it to his caddie, Steve Williams, beside the ninth green, all doubt was gone.

As he stood and answered questions, Woods did not once shift his weight off his right side. He said he did know that he had reinjured himself, but did not know the degree and would not know until consulting with doctors who, he said, had given him the O.K. to play.

“They said I could play,” Woods said. “The more rest I get, the better it would be, obviously. Obviously, it’s a big event. I want to come back for it and play and, unfortunately, I wasn’t able to finish.”

When he will be able to start again is the question now, one that will not be answered for days.

Posted by: LARRY DORMAN

Wednesday night was no different. Brian Boucher made a great side-to-side save to deny the Bruins’ Brad Marchand on a backdoor tip-in 26 seconds into Game 3. Four seconds later, the puck slid to Zdeno Chara, who slapped it past Boucher: 1-0, Bruins. Thirty-three seconds later, David Krejci wristed a shot past Boucher: 2-0, Bruins.

The Bruins went on to a 5-1 victory that gave them a three-games-to-none lead in the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Boucher was given the hook by Coach Peter Laviolette in the second period, making this the sixth of 10 playoff games in which a Flyers starting goalie did not finish the game.

Laviolette said the first two goals were not Boucher’s fault, but that of a surprisingly flat team.

“The first three minutes, four minutes in a visiting team’s building have to be good minutes,” he said. “Obviously the start was not good for us.”

Of course, the Bruins were up by 3-0 on the Flyers last year and Philadelphia rallied to win the series in seven games.

Based on Boston’s performance at TD Garden — and especially the flawless work of goaltender Tim Thomas — it is hard to believe they will collapse again.

Thomas kicked out 37 shots after his terrific 46-save performance Monday in a 3-2 overtime victory by conducting a clinic in angle work. He plucked screened shots out of the air and defied conventional goaltending by coming out well beyond the lip of his crease to attack shooters, running his consecutive-save total to 68 before Andrej Meszaros scored for Philadelphia with 3 minutes 34 seconds left in the second period.

By that time Boston had scored four goals. The fourth came from Nathan Horton with 4:46 to go in the second period, a shot that went between the legs of Boucher, who has been lifted four times this spring.

The door opened for Sergei Bobrovsky, and Boucher went off, stalking down the corridor to the dressing room, hurling his useless stick before him.

Boucher finished with 16 saves on 20 shots, leaving his playoff save percentage at .904. Bobrovsky’s is .875.The playoff save percentage for Thomas, who won the Vezina Trophy in 2009 and is expected to win it again this year, stands at .935. Thomas was on the bench last year when the Flyers rallied with four straight wins to beat the Bruins. Tuukka Rask was in goal for Boston, but now he is the backup.

Unless the Flyers produce another miracle, the Bruins could claim their second series here Friday night in Game 4. It would be the first time since 1992 that the Bruins won two series in the same postseason.

“We learned last year that the fourth win is the hardest,” Thomas said. “Hopefully we just hit the reset buttons in our minds, and the games before don’t mean anything. It’s one game at a time, one period at a time, one shift at a time. Hopefully we approach it like that.”

The Bruins finally broke their power-play drought when Chara beat Bobrovsky during a two-man advantage with 1:22 left in the game. Until that goal, Chara’s second of the game, the Bruins had gone 0 for 30 in the playoffs with a man advantage.

  When the Bruins beat Montreal in seven games in the first round, they became the first team in N.H.L. history to win a best-of-seven series without scoring a power-play goal.

SLAP SHOTS

Jeff Carter, the Flyers’ leading scorer in the regular season, returned after a five-game absence for a knee injury…. Defenseman Chris Pronger missed his second straight game with an undisclosed injury believed to involve the broken hand that forced him to sit out the last six weeks of the regular season.

Posted by: JEFF Z. KLEIN

On Monday, the Knicks (42-38) clinched the Eastern Conference’s sixth seed when the Philadelphia 76ers fell to the Orlando Magic and the Washington Wizards beat the undermanned Celtics in overtime.

The Knicks will conclude the regular season with back-to-back games against Chicago and in Boston, beginning Tuesday. The Celtics lead the season series against the Knicks, three games to none.

The Miami Heat (57-24) clinched the conference’s second seed with a win over Atlanta on Monday, coupled with Boston’s loss. Boston (55-26) all but conceded the spot to Miami after a 100-77 loss to the Heat on Sunday. Against Washington, Boston trotted out a makeshift lineup and rested the starters Rajon Rondo, Ray Allen, Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett. The Celtics’ second string still managed to take the Wizards to overtime but Crawford’s playoff-clarifying 3-pointer handed Boston a 95-94 loss.

The Knicks’ series with the Celtics will probably open on Sunday in Boston. Games 3 and 4 will be played at Madison Square Garden.

The Knicks were swept by the Nets in 2004 and have not won a playoff game since 2001, when they beat the Toronto Raptors twice in the first round, but lost the series, three games to two.

They will be looking to expunge that mark, although the Knicks routinely struggle against Boston. All of this season’s games were close, with the veteran Celtics like Allen and Garnett taking over by the end of the games. The Knicks lost, 105-101, to Boston, in their second game of the season. In another loss in December, Amar’e Stoudemire’s would-be game-winning 3-pointer was ruled to have come after time expired.

Only the last matchup featured the teams in their current form: the Knicks with Carmelo Anthony and Boston without Kendrick Perkins, their talented and perpetually scowling center. He and Nate Robinson were traded to Oklahoma City for Jeff Green and Nenad Krstic.

In that third game, Boston scored the final 10 points to pull away for a 96-86 victory. But over all, Boston has struggled somewhat since the Perkins trade, although they also lagged last year in the second half of the season before reemerging in the playoffs and taking the Los Angeles Lakers to the seventh game of the N.B.A. finals.

At the moment, Boston has depth issues, chemistry concerns and injury woes, particularly concerning Shaquille O’Neal, who has missed 44 games with injuries to his right leg. Some have speculated that this may be Boston’s last stand with its current core. Meanwhile, the coach, Doc Rivers, has debated his return each summer.

The Knicks and the Celtics are part of the N.B.A.’s original franchises and their playoff matchups date back to the 1950-51 season, only a few years seasons after the birth of the N.B.A. The Knicks have met Boston 13 times in the playoffs, more than any other opponent. They have won six of those series.

However, this is their first playoff meeting in 21 years, with each franchise rotating between being at the bottom and top tiers of the N.B.A. in the past two decades. The Knicks won that last matchup, stunning the Celtics by capturing the fifth and final game of the first-round series in Boston, with point guard Maurice Cheeks playing all 48 minutes for the Knicks.

The Knicks appear to finally be adjusting to their trade for Anthony and have won seven straight games. The latest victory came on Anthony’s game-winner against Indiana on Sunday. A win against Chicago on Tuesday night would match their longest winning streak of the season.

However, Coach Mike D’Antoni may choose to rest Anthony and others, although he does want Stoudemire, who has missed the last two games with a sprained ankle, to play again before the regular season ends. It is not clear how much the key members of the Knicks and the Celtics will play in the regular-season finale against one another on Wednesday. But it probably will not be much.

The rest of the Eastern Conference matchups are: Chicago against Indiana, Miami against Philadelphia, and Orlando against Atlanta. But none of them resonate like the Knicks versus the Celtics, provided the Knicks can make a series out of it.

Published by: nytimes