The Fives: April 10th, 2010

Five observations from Friday in sports…

1.    Tiger has himself in perfect position after Friday.  He won’t have the added focus of playing in the final group and being only two shots back can put pressure on the leaders to follow by getting off to a great start.

2.    The Rangers hold serve with a big win over the Flyers and pulled themselves even for the 8th and final playoff spot.  It’ll come down to 1 game in Philly tomorrow afternoon.

3.    I know it’s only the first week of the season, but the best division race in baseball might be in the NL West this year.  Both the Giants and Rockies look very strong and that could be very close the entire season.

4.    With the draft less than two weeks away, I’ll be curious to see if and how many trades there are in the NFL with it being an uncapped year and it seeming like not too many clubs are looking to break the bank and playing it close to the vest.

5.    It looks like Ben Roethlisberger won’t face any charges for his incident in Georgia.  But I’m still putting money on him missing the start of the season, even if it’s only one game.  That seems to be the way Roger Goodell is handling most of these cases that come through his office.

Five top performances from Friday…

1.    Alex Ovechkin, Capitals LW: 2 goals (including his 50th) and an assist in WAS’s 5-2 win over ATL

2.    Terrence Williams, Nets SF: 27 pts, 13 reb, 10 asts in NJ’s 127-116 win over CHI

3.    Jorge De La Rosa, Rockies SP: 0 runs on 1 hit with 9 K’s over 7 IP in COL’s 7-0 win over SD

4.    Dirk Nowitzki, Mavericks PF: 40 pts and 10 rebs in DAL’s 83-77 win over POR

5.    Rick Ankiel, Royals OF: 4 for 4 with a HR and 3 RBI’s in KC’s 4-3 win over BOS

Five events to watch on Saturday…

1.    NHL: Hurricanes at Bruins, 1:00 PM (Boston wins and they’re in the playoffs)

2.    Golf: 3rd round of the Masters (Coverage begins at 3:30 pm on CBS)

3.    MLB: Yankees at Rays, 3:00 PM FOX (Sabathia vs. Davis this afternoon)

4.    NHL: Maple Leafs at Canadiens, 7:00 PM NHL NET (Montreal wins and they’re in the playoffs)

5.    NBA:  Spurs at Nuggets, 9:00 PM NBA TV (Battle for 2nd in the West continues)

Have a good day.