Biete - Kristall » those first steps towards a stellar career could

OAKLAND, Calif. -- With three wins in four games since the All-Star break against two of the hottest teams in the majors, the Athletics are building some momentum.Theyve still got quite a ways to go to dig themselves out of the cellar in the AL West. Still, its as good a streak as manager Bob Melvin could have expected after a disappointing first half.Yonder Alonso drove in three runs with a pair of two-out hits to back Kendall Gravemans fifth consecutive win, and Oakland Athletics beat the Houston Astros 7-4 on Monday night.Guys are putting up some numbers now, Graveman said. You could go one to nine no matter whos in there, and I think a lot of guys are starting to feel comfortable at the plate. Us as starters are just trying to keep them in ballgames and we know theyre going to put up runs.Khris Davis hit his fourth home run in three games, Marcus Semien had two hits and scored twice while Ryon Healy added an RBI double for the As.Oakland has won three of four since the All-Star break.Its just timely hitting, Davis said. When we get those crooked numbers, our pitchers are doing a great job of throwing up a zero and getting us back in. That momentum is huge.Alonso doubled in a run in the second inning then added a two-run single as part of five-run fourth when the As sent 12 men to the plate. The Astros walked five batters in the inning, two with the bases loaded.Graveman (6-6) allowed three runs over seven innings to earn his second straight win over Houston. The right-hander, who also beat the Astros in his final start before the break, struck out five and walked one.Dyan Dull retired three batters and Ryan Madson pitched the ninth for his 20th save.Marwin Gonzalez homered for the second time in three games for Houston.The As got plenty of help from the Astros pitching.Starter Mike Fiers allowed six runs over 3 2/3 innings to remain winless in five career starts against Oakland. Fiers (6-4) fanned five and walk three, including two in the fourth.Michael Feliz replaced Fiers and walked three consecutive batters including Josh Reddick and Danny Valencia with the bases loaded. Reddick had struck out swinging in his first two at-bats before drawing a four-pitch walk to force in Healy.Davis hit his 23rd home run this season off Scott Feldman in the seventh.We got beat by a big inning, Astros manager A.J. Hinch said. Its frustrating because we had four or five walks in that inning.. They kept putting up quality at-bats and we couldnt close the inning out.Houston took a 2-1 lead in the top of the fourth when Carlos Correa scored an unearned run on a throwing error by Healy, Oaklands rookie third baseman. As manager Bob Melvin tried to argue that Correa interfered with Healy while running from second to third on the play.FIERS, GOMEZ SQUABBLEFiers was not happy about being pulled from the game in the fourth and exchanged words with Hinch. Fiers later got into it with teammate Carlos Gomez as the two went face to face in the Astros dugout. I cant show that much emotion in the dugout so he was just letting me know that if I had to say something or act, take it inside and do it without anybody watching, which hes right, Fiers said. I think my emotions got the best of me. I need to be more professional about what Im doing out there on the field and in the game.TRAINERS ROOMAthletics: Right-hander Nick Tepesch was claimed off waivers by the Royals. Tepesch had been designated for assignment when Oakland needed to clear room for 3B Ryon Healy last week.UP NEXTAstros: LHP Dallas Keuchel (6-9) makes his second consecutive start against Oakland on Tuesday at the Coliseum. The reigning AL Cy Young winner allowed one run over seven innings against the As in his final outing before the All-Star break.Athletics: Dillon Overton (1-1) will be called up from Triple-A Nashville to start against Houston. This is the rookie left-handers second stint in the majors.Pittsburgh Penguins Gear . P.A. Parenteau scored early in the third period to help the Avs edge Toronto 2-1 on Tuesday night. Cory Sarich also scored for Colorado (3-0-0), which is off to its best ever start. Stitched Penguins Jerseys . LOUIS -- Mike Smith is used to facing plenty of shots, so this was nothing new. https://www.cheappenguinsjersey.com/ . -- Patrick Reed got an early start in golf. Cheap Penguins Jerseys . The Swede became the first golfer to win the PGA Tours FedEx Cup and European Tours Race to Dubai in the same season. "It is still taking a little time to sink in what Ive achieved this week as was the case when I won the FedEx Cup but then it just kept getting better and better as the days went on and I am sure this will be the same," he said. Penguins Jerseys China . Gerald Green and Miles Plumlee? Green had bounced around the NBA when he wasnt playing overseas. The Pacers gave up on Plumlee after just one season. Now Green and Plumlee are key cogs in the Suns surprising breakout season.An Under-21 match played in Santiago, Chile in August 2011 is Manika Batras fondest memory so far. Indias top-ranked womens table tennis player, 16 at the time, came back from two games down in the semi-final against Japans Kasumi Ishikawa to win the next four games on the trot. Ishikawa, who won the womens singles title two days later, is now ranked sixth in the world.I had no expression on my face, though I was delighted, says Manika, who will be leading the Indian challenge in the womens singles event at the Rio Olympics alongside the seasoned Mouma Das.Born into a family in Delhi where elder siblings Anchal and Sahil both took up table tennis, Manika tried her hand at the sport at the age of four. Early signs of natural ability came when she won a match in a state-wide tournament for Under-8 players. That was around the time she enrolled with Sandeep Gupta, her coach to date.She was four years old when I first took a trial of hers, says Gupta. I have seen how other countries formulate their sports plan; for instance in China, by the time a child is four-five years old, they can tell which sport he/she is best suited for. Thats why it was an advantage for Manika to start this young.On Guptas recommendation, Manika switched schools in the first standard, joining her coachs academy at Hansraj Model School. This also brought her in contact with her elder sisters peer Neha Aggarwal, who would go on to play a major role in inspiring Manika.Neha, who competed in Beijing eight years ago and will complete a sports management degree from Columbia University in New York soon, remembers Manikas early days as a shy child who kept to herself. For some reason, she used to be really scared of our coach, says Neha. Id keep telling her to open up.Gupta says: In India, theres often a very thin line between having respect for a coach, and getting into a comfort zone. Manika always followed everything I said. But her problem was her nature; she often couldnt express herself. If she wanted to learn something new or work on something in her game, she could often not say it for herself, which made it a greater challenge for me as coach.Thats when Gupta employed a novel method to work with Manikas strength, her backhand, and turn it into a potent weapon. Neha remembers how both she and Manika were made to play with long-pimple rubber on their backhand and the more conventional inverted rubber on their forehand. This has made Manikas forehand considerably stronger over the past four years, says Neha.Manikas height, five feet eleven inches, also gives her an edge over many opponents. Because of her reach, shes always close to the table and hence can switch from forehand to backhand without too much movement. But the downside is that balls played to her body require an extra split-second to retrieve. Her height has also made her vulnerable to injuries in the past. Because I am tall, I have had issues with my back and thighs, but I have been working hard to strengthen my core, Manika says. I have paid a lot of attention to fitness.The effort Manika has been putting into fitness is just one of the things that has always impressed both Neha and Gupta. What often happens with kids is they get bored if you ask them to master one aspecct at a time, Gupta says.dddddddddddd Due to lack of maturity, they want to quickly move on from skills to exercise to fitness. But Manika was always dedicated, and she would continue to do whatever she was asked to without complaining.Neha says: Shes a completely different person on the table from what she is off it. She knows how to put her game face on. On the table, shes very aggressive. She can be very deceptive with her game, and her game has the perfect mix of aggression and passive play.Manikas performances have improved over the past two years, with a quarterfinal finish at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, a match she believes she should have closed out against eventual bronze-medallist Lin Ye of Singapore.Since 2014 she has cultivated the habit of recording the matches of every competitor to analyse their strengths and weaknesses. Daily meditation also helps her stay calm.These attributes helped her in a competitive group alongside compatriots Das, Pooja Sahasrabuddhe and K Shamini at the Asian qualifiers for the Olympics in Hong Kong in April. After losing her first match to Pooja, she came back strongly to top her group by beating both Shamini and Das to book her berth to Rio. The last win would have been the most satisfactory, as the experienced Das had beaten Manika in the final at the South Asian Games in February to deny her a perfect return from the event, after golds in the womens team event, the womens doubles and the mixed doubles.Neha believes Manika is part of a generation of players who can revive the status of womens players in India, who have lagged behind the men for a variety of reasons. While all the top five Indian men play for clubs abroad, few among the women do -- only Shamini among the top womens players spent two years playing in Germany. Among the younger players, Diya Chitale of Mumbai and Archana Kamath of Bengaluru are breaking the mould by training abroad, but this is just the start.Indian womens table tennis has lagged behind because our women have never looked beyond a Commonwealth medal, says Neha. The men have sacrificed national championships to go and participate abroad, but that shows that they have learnt to prioritise better.Gupta believes those first steps towards a stellar career could begin in Rio. Manika is still young, and qualifying for Rio in itself is a big thing, says Gupta. Shes the first Indian who has had wins over top-10 womens players in the world across the last couple of years. I wouldnt be surprised if Manika makes the quarterfinals or even better, but I will say that shes got nothing to lose.Neha sounds a word of caution though about expecting too much from someone ranked number 130 in a competitive field of 86 participants. The former Olympian chooses instead to focus on how Manikas role could be significant in terms of the larger picture of womens table tennis in India. Manika is a symbol of a whole new generation of players who are young, talented and much more driven, Neha says. She hasnt trained abroad as yet, and thats where the real challenge for her is. Her career starts once the Olympics get over. ' ' '