The Ramos roundup is a weekly Philadelphia sports column highlighting all the pertinent news of the week featuring the Eagles, Phillies, Flyers, Sixers, and Union.
Phillies Swept by Pirates
Things are going from bad to worse for the Phillies on Sunday. The club fell to the lowly Pirates 2-1 and as a result, have now dropped nine of their last 10 games. According to the Inquirer’s Scott Lauber, this is the first time the Phils have been swept in the steel city since 2015, almost to the exact day.
Of course, the Phillies have been without Zach Wheeler, Bryce Harper and Aaron Nola of late. This doesn’t, however, represent an excuse for falling to a last place club like Pittsburgh. Over the last three series, the same issues have continued to persistent. The Phillies have mustered up just one run in four of the last five games. Their shouldn’t be an outage like this when one player goes out.
The Phillies will look to right the ship when they come home to host the Cubs at Citizens Bank Ballpark on Monday.
Union Take Down Atlas F.C. in Friendly
The Union continued to roll on Saturday evening with a 2-1 victory over Liga MX side Atlas F.C. Due to the Concacaf Gold cup, Philly signed six players in the organization to short-term agreements for the match. Eddy Davis, Stas Korzeniowski, Nick Pariano, Neil Pierre, Mike Sheridan, and Leandro Soria all got added to the club; Davis, in fact, picked up the game winning goal in the 65th minute of play. Markus Anderson picked up the other marker in the win.
The boys in blue will resume MLS play on Saturday, June 14th, against Charlotte FC. at 7:30 p.m. The match will be broadcast on MLS Season Pass on Apple TV.
Report: Flyers Close to Signing Maxim Shabanov
News broke Friday that the Flyers are in the process of landing KHL MVP finalist Maxim Shabanov. According to Sport-Express columnist Igor Eronko, Shabanov to Philadelphia is a done deal, but local beat reporters with club sources have thrown cold water on that report over the last few days.
Nevertheless, Philly has been connected to Shabanov for a few months, competing with the likes of the Vegas Golden Knights for his services.
The 24-year-old forward possesses tantalizing skills and can play center and wing. Although he’s listed at 5’8″ and 160 pounds, Shabnaov’s offensive ability and fantastic skating ability make him an intriguing addition to the Flyers.
For more on Shabanov, you can watch his highlight reel here.
AI Turns 50
The basketball world wished former Sixers guard Allen Iverson a happy 50th birthday on Saturday.
Iverson, to be sure, represented everything that was cool about basketball, especially during my childhood. A former MVP and 11-time All-Star, I owned a black Iverson jersey and the original pair of Reebok Question’s with the blue toe growing up. His run with the 2001 Sixers still remains one of my favorite play-off runs by any Philadelphia sports team ever.
Had the Sixers run into anyone besides Kobe, Shaq and the vaunted Lakers, I truly believe he would’ve been a champion.
Nevertheless, Iverson still carved out a Hall of Fame caliber career despite never winning a championship. Above all, he did so with being a modest 6’0″ in a much more physical NBA then we see today.
You can watch AI’s top 50 plays here.
Happy Birthday to The Answer!
