sometimes its about playing smarter not hard

NEW YORK -- Max Scherzer celebrated aboard a boat off the British Virgin Islands, doused by college pals on a floating party.Rick Porcello enjoyed the moment at his parents home in New Jersey, surrounded by family, friends and a few bottles of wine.As for Justin Verlander, well, fuming supermodel Kate Upton brought the heat for her fiance.Rotation mates for five seasons in Detroit, the three right-handers topped the Cy Young Award talk Wednesday: Scherzer easily won the NL prize, Porcello edged out Verlander for the AL honor.Thats just the weird thing about these, said Scherzer, who ruled the majors with 284 strikeouts and topped the NL with 20 wins for Washington. Its the voting.Porcello led baseball with 22 wins for Boston, and had a 3.15 ERA.Porcello won despite getting just eight of the 30 first-place votes from members of the Baseball Writers Association of America -- this was the first time the AL Cy winner didnt get the most firsts.Verlander went 16-9 with a 2.40 ERA while leading the AL in strikeouts and other categories. He got 14 first-place votes, but didnt draw as much support across the board -- he was left off two ballots, too.Overall, Porcello won 137-132 in the second-closest vote since 1970 (Verlander lost by four points to David Price in 2012).Voters list their five picks in order. A first-place vote is worth seven points, four for second, three for third, two for fourth and one for fifth. Verlander needed to pick up five more points to match Porcello.Upton fired off three tweets, one of them rather saucy, telling Porcello you didnt win.Asked whether he was bothered by the brouhaha, Porcello simply said, No, I honestly dont care.Im not the one who made the decision, he said on a conference call.Porcello got a $100,000 bonus for winning the Cy. Verlander, who won the 2011 award, wouldve gotten $500,000 for this win.Porcello bounced back from going 9-15 in his first season with the Red Sox, finishing 22-4 for the AL East champs.He shared this last win of 2016 with those who never wavered in their support, admitting, It was hard not to start balling and crying.Clevelands Corey Kluber was third and got three first-place votes. Baltimore reliever Zach Britton, who went 47 for 47 on save chances with a 0.54 ERA, had five first-place votes and was fourth.Scherzer breezed, drawing 25 first-place votes to beat out Chicago Cubs teammates Jon Lester and Kyle Hendricks.Scherzer became the sixth pitcher to earn the Cy Young in both leagues. After earning the AL honor in 2013 with the Tigers, Scherzer joined Roger Clemens, Randy Johnson, Pedro Martinez, Gaylord Perry and Roy Halladay as winners in both leagues.This award, Scherzer said, meant even more than the first one.It just verifies everything I try to achieve, he said.Scherzer posted a record-tying 20-strikeout performance for the NL East champion Nationals, a year after he threw two no-hitters in his first season with Washington.I want to find a way to be better, he said.Scherzer is the first pitcher from a Washington franchise to win a Cy Young. The award was first presented in 1956.Dodgers ace Clayton Kershaw got three first-place votes and finished fifth. Jose Fernandez, the Miami star killed in a boating accident in September, was seventh.The final major postseason awards will be presented Thursday when the MVP honors are announced.Cubs slugger Kris Bryant, Washingtons Daniel Murphy and newly presented Rookie of the Year Corey Seager of the Dodgers are up for the NL award. Mike Trout of the Angels, Mookie Betts of the Red Sox and Jose Altuve of the Astros are the AL contestants. Tyler Naquin Jersey . It was hard for Luck to pull off another comeback, or even get into the end zone, while standing on the sideline. Rivers threw a 22-yard touchdown pass to rookie Keenan Allen and Nick Novak kicked four field goals to give the Chargers a 19-9 victory against the Colts on Monday night. Mike Napoli Jersey . A forerunning sled crashed into the worker Thursday at the Sanki Sliding Center. The unidentified worker broke both legs and was airlifted to a nearby hospital. http://www.indiansteamproshop.com/Indians-Jose-Ramirez-Kids-Jersey/ . The Vikings announced Thursday that Priefer will be one of seven holdovers from the previous staff, along with offensive line coach Jeff Davidson, wide receivers coach George Stewart and others. Norv Turner will mark his 30th year of coaching in the NFL as the offensive co-ordinator, as widely reported for weeks, and George Edwards will be the defensive co-ordinator. Josh Tomlin Jersey . Tuesdays surgery at Atlantas Piedmont Hospital was performed by Dr. Xavier Duralde and Hawks team physician Dr. Michael Bernot. B.J. Upton Jersey . Anthony Calvillo, through 20 CFL seasons, was frequently invincible and largely stoic in the heat of competition. But underneath the professional exterior he was, and is, compellingly human. MELBOURNE -- The Australian Boomers must finally announce themselves as one of the premier teams in world basketball, coach Andrej Lemanis says.The physical Aussies dominated the Pac-12 All-Stars in their second and final contest in Melbourne on Thursday night, surging to a commanding 93-63 win at Hisense Arena.Having finally sorted out his insurance paperwork after crossing from Cleveland to Milwaukee during the NBA off-season, star playmaker Matthew Dellavedova slotted back into the team but was subdued in collecting only two points, three rebounds and four assists.Patty Mills (29 points) and Aron Baynes (19 points and eight rebounds) were both superb against the visiting Americans, with the Boomers improving greatly from their nine-point win in the opening encounter.The squad departs Australia for Rio on Wednesday, and speaking after the victory, Lemanis said the Boomers had to finally prove their credentials on the biggest stage of all.With this group theres that little bit of a sense that its time - we need to do something special on the world stage, he said.Weve been talking about it long enough, but this group has a certain belief, and feels a sense of responsibility for Australian basketball - for all the good stuff that goes on, the junior development, all the stuff that goes beneath this [Boomers] - needs to be noted on the world stage.The Opals have done a great job of doing that, but the men havent yet, and this group wants to get that done.The Boomers have been united in their belief that they can defy the withdrawals of Ben Simmons and Dante Exum - and the possible unavailability of hobbled big man AAndrew Bogut - and push for gold at Rio.ddddddddddddLemanis said while the Pac 12 All-Stars didnt offer the fiercest resistance, he was pleased by his teams improvement. He said the most impressive feature was the Boomers rugged defensive pressure, which repeatedly forced the visitors into mistakes and turnovers.It was a good improvement from Tuesday night - thats what this is about, getting a bit better each day, he said.I thought we made some significant improvement defensively.[On] Tuesday night - [we were] perhaps over-anxious, trying to do too much ... sometimes its about playing smarter not harder.For the most part we were ruthless [on defence] - we need to continue to find our rhythm and spacing, but also ... reducing our turnovers, making the easy play not the spectacular play.He added the coaches had to be smart in managing Dellavedovas workload ahead of the Olympics, due to his insatiable appetite for involvement.Delly was good for his first game back, Lemanis said. Hes practised once with the group, yesterday ... we had to be smart with easing him back in.The most important thing for us is [the Boomers first Olympics clash on] August 6 - he doesnt have to be great tonight, he doesnt have to be great on July 20, he needs to be great on August 6.The challenge for us is keeping the reins on Delly - hes such an incredible worker and we need to be smart about him not overloading himself and driving himself into the ground so by the third game of the Olympics hes got nothing left. ' ' '