ld on to it.Weber isnt angry.As his former player continues to rediscover his gro

PHILADELPHIA -- Philadelphia Phillies manager Pete Mackanin is looking forward to Mondays series-opening game against the Miami Marlins. And its not just because he wants to quickly forget about Sundays 5-0 shutout loss Jacob deGrom and the Mets.Mackanin will finally get to see struggling pitcher Aaron Nola return to the mound for the first time since July 2. It will be 16 days since Nola was on the mound in a game when he throws the first pitch Monday night at Citizens Bank Park. He will oppose Marlins right-hander Jose Fernandez.The Phillies (43-50) elected to give Nola, their young, right-handed ace, extra rest heading into the All-Star break after the worst stretch of his young major-league career. He will return to the mound having given up at least four runs in five consecutive starts. In four of those starts, he failed to get out of the fourth inning.In total, the damage was 27 earned runs in 18 innings pitched. This after posting a 2.65 ERA in his first 12 starts of the season. His ERA now sits at 4.69.Hes ready to go, Mackanin said. He had a good side and hes anxious to get back out there. Hes a competitor and he doesnt want to sit. Im anxious to see him.Nola, 23, threw a simulated game last Saturday.I dont really think its a mental break, Nola told the Philadelphia Inquirer. Mentally, I feel fine. I just felt like the past month, I struggled. The ball was up. It wasnt where it should be. When youre elevating balls and not getting ahead of guys, they make you pay for it. That was the main part.Nola and the Phillies, though, face a daunting task against Fernandez, 23, who is trending in the opposite direction, save for a rare dud on July 2. Fernandez is 11-4 with a 2.52 ERA. He has amassed 154 strikeouts in 107 1/3 innings pitched.Fresh off his second All-Star appearance, Fernandez, in his first full year since Tommy John surgery, is having his best season. His strikeout rate of 12.91 per nine innings leads the league by plenty. His 154 strikeouts before the break are a Marlins record.I think its just making pitches and not trying to make pitches, Fernandez told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel before heading to San Diego for the All-Star Game. When the catcher calls a fastball away, it doesnt have to be 100 (mph), it can be 93 -- just down in the zone. I feel like Im getting a lot better results like that.The results, right now, are much better than Nolas.The Marlins (49-42) finished off a series win in St. Louis with a 6-3 win Sunday. They head to Philly for a four-game set.Cheap Air Jordan 1 NZ .C. United of Major League Soccer. United chose the defender in the second round of the 2013 MLS re-entry draft. 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There are some early surprises in the race for the Hart Trophy, but two of the contenders are the leagues biggest stars over the past decade. There are many more players in contention for the awards than just the three that Ive named, and a good or bad week can easily alter the landscape, but through the first 20 or so games of the NHL season, this is how the awards races look to me.Marcus Foster hopped on the fast train to fame, riding it for all it was worth from the first stop of high school obscurity all the way to the best Kansas State freshman since Michael Beasley hyperbolic platform.Two-plus years and one school change later, Foster doesnt look back and ask, What happened?Theres no need. He knows exactly how his career went off the tracks. He steered it there.I got cocky. I thought I had it, he said.Sadly, his is not an uncommon story. The zero-to-fame acceleration has ruined more than a few people in more than a few walks of life.Foster is just hoping for an uncommon ending.Its not about redeeming himself, or anything so simple or trite. Because Foster doesnt feel compelled to prove hes changed to outsiders.He has a much bigger challenge in mind.He wants to show himself.I want to get better, he said, as a basketball player, but also as a person.Frankly, Foster is right. He did have it as a freshman.And no one saw it coming.When Bruce Weber first spied Foster on the summer league scene, the Kansas State coach saw a blue-collar worker who mixed in on a team full of like-minded players. Foster was relatively unheralded, a top-150 recruit but not even top 10 in his home state of Texas. Weber thought hed be good but not otherworldly good. When Foster arrived at Kansas State, he lived in the gym and in the weight room, working with such a vengeance that Weber started raising his own expectations, envisioning a player who could score upward of 20 points per game.I remember after one of our early games, a coach asked me about him, and then it was just boom! And he kind of burst on the scene, Weber said.Foster scored 25 points in the second game of his college career and continued on a double-figures pace throughout his freshman season. In 33 games, he failed to reach double figures only six times. He scored 34 against Texas, dropped 29 against Baylor, connected on 79 3-pointers for the season and finished the year with 513 points.The following summer, Creighton coach Greg McDermott saw Foster at the LeBron James Skills Academy. McDermott had recruited Foster hard out of high school, ultimately finishing as the runner-up to Kansas State and Weber. He knew Foster well, but the kid he saw working as a counselor that summer wasnt the same one hed recruited. He phoned assistant Steve Lutz, who had developed a great relationship with Foster during this recruitment.I said, Im worried about Marcus, McDermott said. He looks like he thinks hes arrived.Weber had the same fears. The same kid he couldnt get out of the gym as a freshman didnt spend nearly as much time working on his game leading into his sophomore season.The coach and star player butted heads throughout the season, Foster appearing sullen and downright pouty at times. A two-game benching temporarily rejuvenated him into a better version of himself, but by February, things were on the skids again. Weber suspended his best player for three games, and by the end of the season decided to sever ties altogether.Foster was dismissed from the team.He just didnt take care of business, Weber said. Ive been at this a long time ... second chances, third chances, fourth chances, whatever I can do, I do. But he needed to learn how to take care of business.Foster admits at first he was bitter, placing the blame more at Webers feet than at the man in the mirror. With his career and reputation in tatters, Foster reconsidered who really was to blame, recognizing that he had blown his chance at success.You go from high school and nobody is talking about you, to all of a sudden youre on SportsCenter and everybody is talking to you, he said. It went to my head and I didnt handle it right..ddddddddddddIn desperate need of a second chance, Foster called the coach who recruited him during his sophomore season in high school. At the same time, Fosters mother, Alvita, called McDermott as well.I want my son back, she told him.McDermott continued the phone chain, calling Weber to make sure McDermott understood all that went on at Kansas State, and also as a professional courtesy since he was considering bringing Foster to Creighton.I liked him, Weber told McDermott. I didnt like what he had become.Armed with his own gut feeling for the kid he had known for years, and with as much new information as he could gather on the person Foster had become, McDermott decided to roll the dice.I knew exactly what I was getting myself into, he said. And I decided it was worth the risk.Maurice Watson Jr. knows a thing or two about feeling out of place. After two years at Boston University, the guard transferred to Creighton, bringing his Philadelphia attitude into the Midwestern heart of Omaha, Nebraska. The two didnt necessarily jibe.Watson didnt have basketball to close the gap, either, since he had to sit out a full season under NCAA transfer rules. Then he was sidelined by a broken foot.So when Foster arrived at Creighton, Watson offered two things to his soon-to-be backcourt mate: advice and a clean slate.I didnt want him to think I was going to judge him on what I heard or word of mouth, Watson said. People here will accept you with open arms, but youve got earn it. I also told him that second chances dont come around a whole lot.Foster heeded that advice, using his transfer year on the sideline not just to work on his game but also to readjust his attitude. Determined not to be a burden to either his coaching staff or his teammates, he shut out the other voices who had crammed their way into his head, the ones telling him he was NBA-ready before he had really become college-savvy.He went back to what made him so good as a freshman, chasing basketball with a fervor again. When he arrived on Creightons campus, his body fat had ballooned to 16 percent. Foster had quite literally become fat and happy with his success.Now its down to 8 percent.I realized, just like people can tell you that youre a good player, they very quickly will tell you when youre not good, he said. I had success and then I didnt. You have to work to hold on to it.Weber isnt angry.As his former player continues to rediscover his groove at Creighton, Weber is more philosophical than disappointed.There are a lot of different paths for a lot of kids, he said. If my decision helps him in the long run to get his head right and do what hes supposed to, then I couldnt be happier for Marcus.It certainly looks to be case.The numbers are familiar, to be sure. Foster is averaging 19.4 points per game for 10th-ranked Creighton (8-0), two 15-point nights against Wisconsin and NC State marking his season lows. Hes shooting 51 percent from the floor and 43 percent on 3s, and hes the first player in 30 years to score 15 or more points in each of Creightons first eight games.Yeah, that includes a fella by the name of Doug McDermott.Then theres this:Just the other day, Foster pulled freshman Justin Patton aside. The freshman is averaging 12.8 points and 6.5 rebounds per game and twice has earned Big East Rookie of the Week honors. Hes also an Omaha native, and the city loves its Bluejays, so Patton especially is getting a lot of attention.Hes doing even better early on as a freshman than I did, Foster said. I told him, Whatever you do, dont let it go to your head. ' ' '