-- to sit at the White House with the president and his wife

BALTIMORE -- Buck Showalter did a masterful job of guiding the Baltimore Orioles to the AL East crown, and now hes resting his players in the days leading up to the post-season. The benefit is already apparent. Adam Jones hit a pair of two-run homers and the Orioles received another steady performance from right-hander Chris Tillman in a 7-2 victory over the Boston Red Sox on Saturday night. Jones was coming off two straight days off and Tillman was pitching with an extra day of rest. Not only that, but Showalter rested Steve Pearce and Nick Markakis, who probably would have played if the games were particularly meaningful. Pearce got a cortisone shot in his ailing right wrist and Markakis sat out with a sore shoulder. On Friday, shortstop J.J. Hardy (back spasms) was rested. "One of the good things about being able to know youre in early is things like Nick," Showalter said. "During the season we probably would have pushed it. Same thing with Stevie, J.J. We gave Adam a couple days (off)." The victory moved the Orioles within two games of the Angels in the race for home-field advantage throughout the playoffs, pending Los Angeles late game against Texas. "We still have something to prove," Jones said. "Were trying to catch Anaheim for the best record overall. Guys understand that. Just because the normal stars arent playing doesnt mean that the guys that are playing cant easily fill in the role. Thats what the guys are doing. Its a collective team." But the object now is to be fresh and ready for the post-season. "Its tough, but weve got to be smart and Ive been cutting down on my swings a lot," Pearce said. "Its just that time of year." Tillman (13-5) gave up two runs and five hits in seven innings. He has allowed three runs or fewer in 20 consecutive starts, tied with Steve Barber for the second-longest such run in Orioles history behind Dave McNally (25). "He was getting better as the game went on," Showalter said. "Maybe in 10 or 11 days, two weeks or whatever it is, he continues to pitch in that game." Baltimores likely starter in Game 1 of the playoffs, Tillman is 6-0 in 13 starts since July 12. Jones connected against Rubby De La Rosa (4-8) in the third inning and Heath Hembree in the fifth. It was his sixth career two-homer game, the second this season. Christian Walker also went deep for Baltimore, hitting a solo shot in the fourth for his first major league homer. Boston got another home run from David Ortiz, his third in two games and No. 35 of the season. Ortiz now has 466 for his career, passing Dave Winfield for sole possession of 33rd place on the all-time list. De La Rosa gave up four runs in four innings and is winless in his last seven starts. "Hes still showing good velocity," manager John Farrell said. "Just the consistency to the overall execution is whats missing right now." After Mookie Betts walked to open the game, Ortiz hit a 75 mph curveball into the seats in left-centre. He was previously 2 for 24 against Tillman with no home runs. "We didnt really do anything after that," Farrell said. Jones tied it in the third with Baltimores major league-leading 200th home run of the season. The Orioles have hit at least 200 in three straight years for the first time in franchise history. Inserted as a late replacement for Pearce, Walker led off the fourth with a drive into the centre-field bleachers. The Orioles fourth-round pick in 2012 was playing in his third big league game. UP NEXT The Orioles wrap up their regular-season home slate when they send Miguel Gonzalez (9-8, 3.28 ERA) to the mound on Sunday against RHP Joe Kelly (2-2, 4.21 ERA) , who makes his ninth start for Boston since being traded from St. Louis on July 31. COUNT THE INNINGS Red Sox: De La Rosa has pitched exactly four innings in each of his last three starts. He needed 80 pitches to get through four in this one. Orioles: Tillman passed the 200-inning mark for the second straight year. "Two hundred is important because it means youre out there and competing for your team, and youre giving your chance a team to win," he said. Custom Chicago Cubs Nike Jerseys .com) - Avery Bradley scored 21 points and the Boston Celtics beat the Brooklyn Nets, 89-81. Custom New York Yankees Nike Jerseys . The premature end left 26 players still to finish the round in the Asian Tour event. Siddikur, who shot a bogey-free first round to share the lead with five others, eagled the par-5 first hole before bogeying twice and rebounding with six birdies. https://www.custombaseballnikejerseys.com/?tag=custom-new-york-mets-nike-jerseys . -- Deshorn Brown scored twice, the first coming 13 seconds into the game, and the Colorado Rapids beat the undermanned Seattle Sounders 5-1 Saturday night. Custom Minnesota Twins Nike Jerseys . He made another correct read. The Browns, who have been shuttling quarterbacks on and off the field all season, finally got some good news on that front: Campbells ribs are only bruised. Custom Oakland Athletics Nike Jerseys . The team also announced Tuesday that the Braves will wear a commemorative patch on the right sleeve during the season. The patch, shaped like home plate, carries the number 715, Aarons autograph and a "40th Anniversary" banner.TORONTO -- Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, the former American boxer who became a global champion for the wrongfully convicted after spending almost 20 years in prison for a triple murder he didnt commit, died at his home in Toronto on Sunday. He was 76. His long-time friend and co-accused, John Artis, said Carter died in his sleep after a lengthy battle with prostate cancer. "Its a big loss to those who are in institutions that have been wrongfully convicted," Artis told The Canadian Press. "He dedicated the remainder of his life, once we were released from prison, to fighting for the cause." Artis quit his job stateside and moved to Toronto to act as Carters caregiver after his friend was diagnosed with cancer nearly three years ago. During the final few months, as Carters health took a turn for the worse, Artis said the man who was immortalized in a Bob Dylan song and a Hollywood film came to grips with the fact that he was dying. "He tried to accomplish as much as he possibly could prior to his passing," Artis said, noting Carters efforts earlier this year to bring about the release of a New York City man incarcerated since 1985 -- the year Carter was freed. "He didnt express very much about his legacy. Thatll be established for itself through the results of his work. Thats primarily what he was concerned about -- his work," Artis said. Born on May 6, 1937, into a family of seven children, Carter struggled with a hereditary speech impediment and was sent to a juvenile reform centre at 12 after an assault. He escaped and joined the Army in 1954, experiencing racial segregation and learning to box while in West Germany. Carter then committed a series of muggings after returning home, spending four years in various state prisons. He began his pro boxing career in 1961. He was fairly short for a middleweight, but his aggression and high punch volume made him effective. Carters life changed forever one summer night in 1966, when two white men and a white woman were gunned down in a New Jersey Bar. Police were searching for what witnesses described as two black men in a white car, and pulled over Carter and Artis a half-hour after the shootings. Though there was no physical evidence linking them to the crime and eyewitnesses at the time of the slayings couldnt identify them as the killers, Carter was convicted along with Artis. Their convictions were overturned in 1975, but both were found guilty a second time in a retrial a year later. After 19 years behind bars, Carter was finally freed in 1985 when a federal judge overturned the second set of convictions, citing a racially biased prosecution. Artis was also exonerated after being earlier paroled in 1981. Carter later moved to Toronto and became the founding executive director of the Association in Defence of the Wrongly Convicted, which has seccured the release of 18 people since 1993.dddddddddddd Win Wahrer, a director with the association, remembers Carter as the "voice and the face" of the group. "I think its because of him that we got the credibility that we did get, largely due to him -- he was already a celebrity, people knew who he was," she said. "He suffered along with those who were suffering." Though Carter left the organization in 2005, the phone never stopped ringing with requests for him, Wahrer said. "He was an eloquent speaker, a passionate speaker. I remember the first time I ever heard him I knew I was in the presence of a man that could move mountains just by his presence and his words and his passion for what he believed in," she said. Carter went on to found another advocacy group, Innocence International. "He wanted to bring people together. That was his real purpose in life -- to get people to understand one another and to work together to make changes," said Wahrer. "It was so important for him to make a difference. And I think he did. I think he accomplished what he set out to do." Association lawyer James Lockyer, who has known Carter since they were involved in the wrongful conviction case of Guy Paul Morin, remembered how Carter called him just before sitting down with then-president Bill Clinton for a screening of his 1999 biopic "The Hurricane." The call was to ask for advice on how to bring the U.S. leaders attention to the case of a Canadian woman facing execution in Vietnam. "Even though this was sort of a pinnacle moment of Rubins life -- to sit at the White House with the president and his wife on either side of him watching a film about him -- he wasnt really thinking about himself," said Lockyer. "He was thinking about this poor woman who was sitting on death row in Vietnam that we were trying to save from the firing squad." The film about Carters life starred Denzel Washington, who received an Academy Award nomination for playing the boxer turned prisoner. On Sunday, when told of Carters death, Washington said in a statement: "God bless Rubin Carter and his tireless fight to ensure justice for all." Carters fight continued to the very end. Never letting up even as his body was wracked with cancer, Carter penned an impassioned letter to a New York paper in February calling for the conviction of a man jailed in 1985 to be reviewed -- and reflected on his own mortality in the process. "If I find a heaven after this life, Ill be quite surprised. In my own years on this planet, though, I lived in hell for the first 49 years, and have been in heaven for the past 28 years," he wrote. "To live in a world where truth matters and justice, however late, really happens, that world would be heaven enough for us all." ' ' '