Kritik und Lob » mpare the postseason worthiness of th

SOUTHAMPTON, England -- Southampton striker Charlie Austin scored twice against former club Burnley in a convincing 3-1 Premier League win.Even with Shane Long, James Ward-Prowse and Pierre Emile-Hojbjerg on the bench, Southampton retained a strong look and climbed to eighth in the standings.Sundays home fixture represented Southamptons first game in a run of seven in 22 days, with a trip to Inter Milan in the Europa League on Thursday followed by an away match at Manchester City.A third loss in four left promoted Burnley only a point above the relegation zone. But Southampton took until seven minutes into the second half to break through Burnleys resistance.Dusan Tadics corner was headed across goal by Virgil van Dijk. Austin, from his second attempt amid Burnleys desperate defending, finally stabbed his first goal into the back of the net from directly in front of goal.Southamptons second goal -- provided by Nathan Redmond on the hour -- was of a higher quality. In space in the penalty area after another corner, Redmond waited for the ball to arrive at his feet before sending a low finish into the bottom right beyond goalkeeper Tom Heatons reach.Southampton went further in front six minutes later. After Johann Berg Gudmundsson brought down Sam McQueen, Austin made it seven goals in six games by converting a penalty.A consolation arrived for Burnley when the north-west club was awarded a penalty in the 72nd minute. Referee Mike Dean felt Tadic had fouled Ben Mee, allowing Sam Vokes to become the first player to score against Southampton in 612 minutes. Mikko Rantanen Jersey . Miikka Kiprusoff had just announced his retirement after a decade-long run in Calgary and it would be up to Berra and Ramo to fill the void. Peter Forsberg Jersey . -- Claudio Bieler hadnt scored since early September, and not from the run of play since mid-July. http://www.cheapavalanchechinajerseys.com/nail-yakupov-jersey/ . The 17-year-old native of Marystown, N.L., pulled out of Skate Canada International last month in Saint John, N.B., with the same problem. Nathan MacKinnon Jersey . 9. Price, heading to the 2014 Olympics for Canada, was named the First Star after posting wins in three starts with a 1.00 goals-against average and a .971 save percentage. Rene Robert Jersey . -- Team after team passed on Andre Ellington in the draft. For the younger generations of Chicago Cubs fans, reaching the postseason isnt quite the novelty it was for the generations before them. For all the years that have been tacked on to the teams epochal championship drought, the Cubs have more or less been steady crashers of the playoff party in recent years.Between the Cubs most recent World Series appearance in 1945 and their 1984 NL East title, they drew a big, fat goose egg when it came to playoff baseball. Thats why that 1984 team looms so large in the collective memory of North Siders and why players such as Rick Sutcliffe and Ryne Sandburg are now folk heroes.This season will mark the Cubs seventh playoff appearance since 1984. Its not the Yankees or Red Sox or Cardinals or Braves, but once every four or five years isnt bad. Still, all living generations of Cubs faithful are united by the title drought -- and they all hope this years postseason entrant will be different.Is it different? Of course, that remains to be seen. What we know now is that as a regular-season team, this Cubs bunch was good. As it turns out, with a couple turns of the statistical screw, they were very special indeed.As we wrote the other day, the Cubs have sported a run differential that,?translated to wins via the Pythagorean formula, marks them as a 108-win team. Their differential ranks in the top 25 all time in the modern era (since 1901). Thats 2,452 team seasons. However, the Cubs is only the fifth-best run differential (per 162 games) in franchise history. Four pre-1910 Cubs teams did better, including the only two Cubs teams to win the World Series and the 1906 team that established the big leeague record with 116 wins.dddddddddddd.If we are to compare the postseason worthiness of the Cubs teams that advanced past the regular season, we must do a couple things. What were trying to do is estimate how strong each team was compared to the league it was in. To a significant extent, run differential does this.The problem comes when trying to compare teams over different seasons and eras. Baseball was very different a century or so ago, especially in the decades before Jackie Robinson came along. Not only was the talent pool less than what it should have been, but also, in the pre-draft era, the talent major league teams allowed in was not distributed equitably. Those early-20th c