NFL
David Montgomery rushed for 121 yards and three touchdowns, and the Detroit Lions asserted themselves as the team to beat in the NFC North, beating the Green Bay Packers 34-20. Montgomery carried the ball 32 times. He became the first Lion to rush for three touchdowns at Green Bay and the first Detroit player to top 100 yards rushing with three TDs since James Stewart in 2000. The Lions beat the Packers for the fourth straight time, a streak that includes the final game of last season. Jordan Love threw for a touchdown and ran for another for the Packers.
Zach Wilson knows the noise is out there and it’s blaring right now. The New York Jets quarterback is being criticized, slammed and ripped apart by frustrated fans on social media and sports talk radio and his unflattering play has been documented and dissected by reporters. Wilson understands it all. The embattled one-time face of the franchise is trying to tune it out. Wilson is also trying to get better and insists he will. The third-year Jets quarterback Zach Wilson is set to make his third straight start in place of the injured Aaron Rodgers on Sunday night against the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs.
MLB
Anthony Santander homered in the first, DL Hall worked out of a sixth-inning jam and the Baltimore Orioles clinched the AL East title with a 2-0 victory over the Boston Red Sox. Dean Kremer allowed two hits and a walk in 5 1/3 innings, striking out eight, and the Orioles reached 100 wins for the sixth time in team history and first since 1980. Now the Orioles will enter the postseason as the top seed in the American League. The team also announced on the scoreboard after the third inning that it had reached an agreement with the state keeping the Orioles in Baltimore for at least the next 30 years.
Chris Bassitt reached 200 innings for the first time, Brandon Belt hit a three-run homer and the Toronto Blue Jays moved one step closer to an AL wild card berth by beating the New York Yankees 6-0. With the win, Toronto is in sole possession of the second wild card, a game ahead of Houston. Daulton Varsho and Matt Chapman hit solo home runs for the Blue Jays (88-71), who are in position for the second AL wild card, one game ahead of Houston (87-72) and two games in front of Seattle (86-73). George Springer had three hits and Cavan Biggio had two hits and reached base three times for Toronto (88-71), which finished with 13 hits.
Kyle Schwarber went deep, Bryce Harper went off on an umpire and was ejected and Trea Turner went from second to home on a stolen base but the Pittsburgh Pirates topped the Philadelphia Phillies 3-2 on Thursday night. Schwarber launched his 46th homer of the season, which matched last year’s total when he led the National League, into the second deck for a 1-0 lead in the first. Turner stole third base in the eighth and came around to score on a wild throw by catcher Jason Delay that made it 3-2. Harper was ejected when he argued a called check swing on strike three.
Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Yuri Gurriel had consecutive run-scoring hits in the ninth inning as Miami rallied to take a 2-1 lead over the New York Mets, but the game was suspended by rain at 12:58 a.m. after a 3-hour, 17-minute delay. Miami moved into the third and final NL wild card spot when the Chicago Cubs lost at Atlanta, a half-game ahead of the Cubs (82-77). The game would be resumed at the point of suspension if needed to determine a playoff berth.
The Boston Red Sox say announcer and former knuckleballer Tim Wakefield is undergoing treatment for a disease they did not specify and asked for fans to respect his privacy after his illness was outed without his consent by ex-teammate Curt Schilling. The team issued a statement on Thursday after Schilling said on a podcast that Wakefield had brain cancer. The news led to an outpouring of support for Wakefield – and criticism of Schilling. Wakefield is 57. He retired in 2012 with a 200-192 record and 4.41 ERA in more than 3,000 major league innings. He was a part of Boston’s 2004 and ’07 World Series championships and was inducted into the team’s Hall of Fame in 2016.
More than 70 million fans will attend Major League Baseball games for the first time in six years, a post-pandemic rebound for a sport that instituted its biggest on-field changes in decades. A pitch clock to speed play, limits on defensive shifts to increase offense, new social spaces at ballparks and technology innovations to speed entry have factored into a 9.2% rise in average attendance to 29,176. Expanding the playoffs to 12 teams, which began last year, led to more than half the teams remaining in mathematical contention.
WNBA
The WNBA Semifinals continue tonight with New York at Connecticut at 7:30 p.m. and Las Vegas at Dallas at 9:30 p.m. The Liberty and Sun are tied at a game apiece, and the Aces lead their series with the Wings 2-0.
NHL
Pittsburgh 3 Buffalo 1
New Jersey 3 N-Y Rangers 2
RYDER CUP
All the foursomes matches are on the course at the Ryder Cup. All the boards are filled with European blue. Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton are 2 up in their match with Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns. Europe is up in three of the matches. The anchor match is tied through three holes. That one has the most star power — Rory McIlroy and Tommy Fleetwood against Xander Schauffele and Patrick Cantlay. The American tandem has never lost in foursomes.
COLLEGE FOOTBALL
Colorado two-way standout Travis Hunter and the Colorado State safety whose late hit landed him in the hospital showed there are no hard feelings by going bowling. Hunter and defensive back Henry Blackburn went to a bowling alley in the Boulder area on Wednesday to roll a few frames. Hunter was running a deep route in the first quarter of a game on Sept. 16 when he was hit by Blackburn shortly after the ball sailed over his head. Hunter returned to the game but later left to go to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with a lacerated liver. Hunter missed last weekend's 42-6 loss at Oregon.
PAC-12
A hearing has been set for Nov. 14 in Oregon State and Washington State’s legal fight with the Pac-12 and its departing members to govern the conference and control its assets. The preliminary injunction hearing will be held in Washington Superior Court in Whitman County. A judge in that same court granted a temporary restraining order to the two schools earlier this month that blocked a board of directors meeting with Pac-12 Commissioner George Kliavkoff and university leaders from schools that have announced plans to leave the league.
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