Monthly Archives: August 2017

CLEVELAND -- Boston Red Sox outfielder Jackie Bradley Jr. will have his sprained left thumb in a splint for five to seven days after being injured Tuesday night.

Bradley was placed on the 10-day disabled list Wednesday. He was injured while reaching for home plate during a slide in Tuesday night's game against the Cleveland Indians.

Bradley was sent back to Boston for an MRI on Wednesday. Manager John Farrell said the tests showed no tears or fractures.

Bradley won't be ready to come off the disabled list in 10 days, but the Red Sox are hopeful he will return before the postseason.

"It's hard to tell at this point," Farrell told reporters when asked if there's a general timeframe for Bradley's return. "I wish I had more of a definitive answer, but I just don't know."

Farrell said he's concerned whenever a hitter is dealing with a hand injury.

Bradley slid around catcher Yan Gomes' tag to score on Eduardo Nunez's seventh-inning double. Indians manager Terry Francona challenged the call, which was upheld after a review. Farrell said had the call been overturned he would have challenged that Gomes blocked the plate and didn't give Bradley a clear lane to slide.

"It's unfortunate that he wound up in an unfortunate position on the slide," Farrell said.

Andrew Benintendi was starting in center field with Brock Holt in left Wednesday. Chris Young will also see action in left field, and Farrell said Nunez may see time there as well when second baseman Dustin Pedroia (left knee inflammation) returns from the DL.

Pedroia remained in Boston while the team went on road. He's been running on the treadmill and hitting in the cages, but he hasn't begun any on-field work.

To take Bradley's spot on the roster, the Red Sox called up infielder Deven Marrero from Triple-A Pawtucket.

Bradley was batting .262 with 14 home runs and 54 RBIs this season, hitting .400 in his past seven games.

Marrero has played 58 games in three stints in the majors this season. He has batted .212 with 3 homers and 23 RBIs with the Red Sox.

ESPN's Scott Lauber contributed to this report.

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Red Sox place CF Jackie Bradley Jr. on DL with sprained left thumb - ESPN

It will stay open through end of year to host high school swim teams

The Newton A. Perry Aquatic Center, which was set to close in about five weeks, will remain open through the end of the year now that the College of Central Florida agreed to extend the lease so that area high school swim teams can hold fall competitions.

The lease extension, which was approved by the colleges Board of Trustees on Wednesday, comes three months after CF President Jim Henningsen announced the pool complex would be closed. The pool was built by the college 39 years ago, but has not been needed for academics for about 25 years.

For more than a decade, Ocala Aquatics, a nonprofit group that offers swimming lessons and recreation team sports, has leased the facility from CF for $10 per year. The agreement was that Ocala Aquatics pay for the $180,000 annual upkeep and the college would take care of broken equipment in excess of $2,500.

Henningsen announced in May the college would not renew the lease with Ocala Aquatics. He said the complex would be closed on Sept. 30 because the college could not afford the $1.5 million needed to renovate the aging facility, which has become a liability. Ocala Aquatics did not have the money to pay for the renovation.

After the news of the impending closing, Marion County Superintendent of Schools Heidi Maier and her administrative team soon realized there are few pools available for high schools to conduct fall practices and competitions. Maier met with Henningsen and asked for the extension so that high school swimming programs could proceed. Henningsen agreed to bring the request before the Board of Trustees on Wednesday.

The swimming complex has the areas only certified Olympic-size swimming pool. Ocala Aquatics has held swimming lessons there for decades and high school swimming teams have used the facility.

We are thankful they did extend the lease, Maier said on Wednesday.

Maier said the district has been looking at leasing one of the city of Ocalas two public swimming pools. But both city pools are used by many groups and scheduling would be difficult. She said they have considered negotiating with the Frank Deluca YMCA to use its pool. However, it appears the YMCA pool, which is used often, is likely not a viable option.

Brandie Bennett, the chairwoman of the Ocala Aquatics' board of directors, said Wednesday the group is finalizing its plans to launch a massive capital campaign in October to build its own swimming complex. Bennett said the new facility would be built on property in the Ocala area. Bennett said she could not offer any more details until the board of directors finalized its plans in the coming months.

Henningsen told trustees on Wednesday that reputable Marion County businessmen have talked to him about the possibility of extending the lease beyond December so that funding can be secured to build a new swimming complex.

Henningsen told the board that he expects the group to ask for that extension later in the year. He said he will be willing to work with the group if an adequate fundraising campaign is underway and that immediate repairs of some of the biggest concerns are financed by the group.

Trustees agreed to give the three-month extension, though they insisted the college would not be responsible for any repairs or providing maintenance manpower. Henningsen said the lease extension with Ocala Aquatics is clear that the college would not be paying for any repairs or equipment during the lease extension.

When Henningsen announced in May that the college would not renew the lease, Ocala Aquatics officials balked, stating the complex is still operational. The nonprofit asked if they could conduct needed repairs in stages over years and not at one time. Henningsen declined the request, stating he had warned the group four years ago to start raising money to renovate the complex or he would be forced to close the pool. A study conducted several years ago showed the pool was in dire need of substantial repair.

The college first tried to close the pool in 2003. The pool was only being used by the community and the college was paying all of the bills. College officials agreed then to lease the facility for $10 per year to Ocala Aquatics. The deal was that Ocala Aquatics had to pay the operational costs, which is about $180,000 annually. The college pays about $40,000 annually in other costs.

Henningsen told Ocala Aquatics in 2013 that the group needed to raise at least $1 million to pay for a renovation or he would shut it down. Since then, the group has raised $80,000. Henningsen decided early this year that the complex was too much of a safety risk to keep open.

Ocala Aquatics officials also said in June that Henningsen had promised the colleges help to raise the funds for the renovation. Henningsen said the CF Foundation initially agreed to help, but decided to focus instead on fundraising for the colleges academic programs. In 2011, a fire destroyed the main building at the pool complex and CF paid $2 million. Along with insurance funds, the building was rebuilt.

Joe Callahan can be reached at 867-4113 or joe.callahan@starbanner.com. Follow him on Twitter @JoeOcalaNews.

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Brief reprieve at CF pool - Ocala

By Rod Nickel

Aug 24 (Reuters) - Fertilizer companies, coping with a stubborn price slump, are banking on tighter emissions standards for diesel trucks in the United States and Europe to buoy their balance sheets.

Nitrogen fertilizer producers including CF Industries Holdings Inc and Agrium Inc are accelerating output of diesel exhaust fluid (DEF), a water and urea solution used to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide. The niche market offers premiums of $50 to $100 per short ton over the crop nutrients they sell at prices that are depressed due to excessive supplies.

DEF demand has risen since the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency set tighter emissions controls in 2010 for diesel trucks made by Volvo, Daimler AG and others. The European Union, in which DEF is known as AdBlue, introduced similar legislation in 2013.

Fertilizer companies have increased DEF output this year to coincide with openings of several new or expanded U.S. nitrogen plants, and as lower-emission trucks replace aging vehicles on the road.

"We love it - it's a great business for us," Bert Frost, CF Industries' senior vice-president of sales, market development and supply chain, said in a recent interview. "It builds our customer base and gives us (options) on production."

CF Industries started production this year in Louisiana to turn 400,000 tons of urea annually into DEF. Altogether, CF, the largest North American producer by capacity, can convert 800,000 tons of urea into DEF annually.

DOUBLING DEMAND

Total U.S. demand for DEF is about 1 million tons of urea equivalent, a fraction of North America's annual consumption of 14 million tons of urea, Frost said. But he added that DEF demand is likely to double within five years as 60 percent of U.S. heavy diesel trucks are replaced by models with lower-emission engines.

Engine technology called selective catalytic reduction (SCR) uses DEF to trigger a chemical reaction that converts nitrogen oxides, a pollutant, into natural components of air that are then expelled through the tailpipe.

The market hinges on the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump, which pulled the United States out of the Paris climate change agreement, continuing the country's move to lower-emission trucks.

The U.S. administration is unlikely to roll back emissions standards because trucking companies benefit from using more fuel-efficient vehicles and manufacturers have made huge investments in technology, said Allen Schaeffer, executive director of Diesel Technology Forum, a nonprofit group.

Global consumption of DEF may reach 10 million tonnes of urea equivalent annually by 2027 from 2 million currently, said Adam Panayi, research manager at Integer Research.

The market for DEF will peak in the United States and Europe toward the end of the 2020s, while potential growth continues in developing markets such as China and India, he said.

There may already be too much DEF available, said Andy Austin, senior vice-president of specialty products at Mansfield Energy Corp, which buys DEF from CF, Yara International ASA and Potash Corp of Saskatchewan, and distributes it to XPO Logistics Inc, United Parcel Service Inc and FedEx Corp for their trucks.

"I would say there is a glut," Austin said. "That risk is certainly there for (producers)." (Reporting by Rod Nickel in Winnipeg, Manitoba; Editing by Matthew Lewis)

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Slumping fertilizer producers gear up to fill truck demand (CF, AGU, DAI, YAR, POT, UPS, FDX) - Markets Insider

Vertex Pharmaceuticals has announced that both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and European Medicines Agency (EMA) have accepted its applications for the use of the tezacaftor/ivacaftor combination treatment in a subset of patients with cystic fibrosis (CF).

The application acceptance is for people with CF ages 12 and older who have 2 copies of the F508del mutation or an F508del mutation and 1 residual function mutation that is responsive to tezacaftor/ivacaftor.

The news comes just 1 month after Vertex announced positive data from Phase 1 and Phase 2 studies of 3 drugs being used in CF patients with these mutations; 2 of those drugs were tezacaftor and ivacaftor and the third was VX-440. The combinations of tezacaftor/ivacaftor and tezacaftor/ivacaftor/VX-440 are being investigated separately in the same subset of CF patients (who have 2 copies of the F508del mutation or an F508del mutation and 1 residual function mutation).

In March, it was reported that Phase 3 studies testing the combination of tezacaftor and ivacaftor in CF patients met their primary endpoints with statistically significant improvements in lung function in CF patients.

CF is an often-life-threatening hereditary disorder that causes damage in patients lungs and digestive systems. Common symptoms include frequent lung infections, heavy coughing and difficulty breathing. Current treatment options for the condition include management of the symptoms, and, it currently affects an approximate 75,000 people in North America, Europe and Australia.

CF is caused by a faulty or absent cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein, and in CF patients with the F508del mutation, the CFTR protein is not processed, or folded, normally within the cell and usually does not reach the cell surface.

If approved, the tezacaftor/ivacaftor combination treatment would become Vertexs third medicine to treat the underlying cause of cystic fibrosis, offering an important new treatment option for a large group of patients with this rare and life-shortening disease, said Jeffrey Chodakewitz, M.D., Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Vertex in a press release. We look forward to working with the agencies to facilitate a rapid review of these applications.

Tezacaftor is intended to address the processing defect of F508del-CFTR and permit the protein to reach the cell surface, while ivacaftor can further enhance the it's function.

If approved, the combination will be the third of Vertexs drugs approved for CF patients and the second specifically intended to treat patients with F508del mutations; Orkami (lumacaftor/ivacaftor) is also approved for patients with mutations.

The third drug, Kalydeco(ivacaftor), is approved to treat CF in patients age 2 years and older who have one of the following mutations in their CF gene:G551D, G1244E, G1349D, G178R, G551S, S1251N, S1255P, S549N, S549R,orR117H.

For more on FDA applications, designations and approvals, follow Rare Disease Report on Facebook and Twitter.

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New Combination Therapy for Cystic Fibrosis Being Reviewed by FDA and EMA - Rare Disease Report

Baltimore Orioles veteran Adam Jones finished Tuesday's game against the Oakland Athletics 4-for-4 with two home runs, becoming the team's first center fielder since William "Baby Doll" Jacobson in 1924 to post that stat line, per ESPN Stats & Info.

Jones's two home runs were both solo shots, but he did score three runs on the night en route to the team's 7-3 victory. His four hits on the night also increased his batting average from .275 to .281 on the season.

The 32-year-old has been on a tear during August, batting .342/.378/.605 with five home runs and 12 RBI over 76 at-bats. His output assisted in a win that keeps the Orioles within striking distance of the Wild Card.

Despite Jones' recent surge, the Orioles own just a 10-10 record during August and a 2-4 record in their last six games. The club sits 3.5 games back of the Minnesota Twins for the second wild-card spot following Monday's results.

Although the five-time All-Star and four-time Gold Glove-winner began his career with the Seattle Mariners when he debuted in 2006, he joined the Orioles two short years later and has roamed center field for the club ever since.

Since joining the outfield in Baltimore, he hasn't played fewer than 119 games in a season and has hit at least .265 in every campaign. Jones has also collected at least 25 home runs in each of the last six seasons and needs just one more to reach the mark again in 2017.

Jones has one additional year remaining on his contract with the Orioles in 2018, but his future with the club remains uncertain beyond that. He will be 33 years old entering 2019, so he should have at least a couple years of effectivenessremaining when his current deal expires.

For now, Jones and his teammates will continue to focus on inching up the standings toward a Wild Card berth. The club returns to action for the second of a three-game set against the Oakland Athletics on Tuesday evening.

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Adam Jones Becomes 1st Orioles CF Since 1924 with 4-for-4, 2-Homer Night - Bleacher Report