KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The clock has not struck midnight yet for the Kansas City Royals to defend their World Series championship, but it is getting close.The Royals were not just swept in a four-game series by the Oakland Athletics, who are in last place in the American League West, but were embarrassed. They fell 14-5 Thursday and did not score a run until the ninth inning.They were outscored 43-12, the most runs they have allowed in a four-game series in Royals history. The previous high was 41 by the New York Yankees in 1998 and Minnesota Twins in 2006.Its been tough, said Christian Colon, who hit a three-run homer with two out in the ninth for his first career home run. Were not used to this, so its hard. Its hard to really enjoy this because you play to win the game. Thats what matters the most at the end of the day.The Royals chances to get back into postseason are rapidly fading with 16 games left.The Royals, who have lost eight of their past nine Kauffman Stadium games, continue this eight-game homestand with four games against the Chicago White Sox.The White Sox are coming off a 2-1 victory over the Cleveland Indians, who are running away with the American League Central. Jose Abreu homered for the White Sox, while Carlos Sanchez had a walk-off RBI-single.He (Abreu) started out a bit slow but when you look at the end of the year hes probably going to have numbers there as impressive as anybody in the league, White Sox manager Robin Ventura said. If he can get a few more homers and everything else, its historic stuff hes chasing (30 HR, 100 RBI).The White Sox will start All-Star left-hander Chris Sale in the series opener Friday. Sale, who leads the American League with a 3.03 ERA and five complete-games, lost 2-0 to the Royals on Sunday in Chicago.Sale is among the AL pitching leaders with 205 strikeouts, 15 victories, 201 2/3 innings, .220 opponents batting average, 2.55 road ERA and 9.1 strikeouts per nine innings.Sale usually has little difficulty with left-handed hitters, but Royals first baseman Eric Hosmer is 18-for-45, .400, off him. Hosmer is the only left-handed hitter with three home runs off Sale.Royals shortstop Alcides Escobar has a .354 average, 23-for-65, with one home run, off Sale. Royals designated hitter Kendrys Morales has only a .190 average in 21 at-bats off Sale, but two of his four hits are home runs.The Royals will start right-hander Ian Kennedy, who outdueled Sale Sunday, pitching six scoreless innings and allowing just one hit, a leadoff single to Adam Eaton, but worked around four walks, while striking out six.Kennedy is 5-0 with a 2.16 ERA, yielding 12 earned runs in 50 innings, since the beginning of August.Kennedy is 1-1 with a 4.00 ERA in three starts this season against the White Sox. He has a 2-1 record with a 3.38 ERA in his career against the White Sox.It seems unlikely Royals outfielder Lorenzo Cain will appear in the series as he continues to nurse a sore left wrist. He has played in only game this month and could be out for the remainder of the season. China Shoes 2020 . LOUIS -- Roman Polak was celebrating even before Alexander Steen scored the winning goal in Saturdays 4-2 win over the Carolina Hurricanes. Fake Shoes 2020 . 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Durant finished with 24 points and 13 rebounds, Jackson matched his career high with 23 points on 10-of-14 shooting and Lamb scored 12 points on 5-of-7 shooting, lifting the Thunder to a 94-88 win over San Antonio and snapping the Spurs 11-game winning streak. MINNEAPOLIS -- It is going to be a while before Carli Lloyd gets a chance at the mulligan that really matters to her: the chance to sweep World Cup and Olympic titles in successive years. That chance vanished in a haze of penalty kicks on a Brazilian afternoon in August.But as she stepped away from the U.S. womens national team for a bit, if only to let life beyond soccer intercede long enough to get married next month, a message followed her as she walked off the field: She and the U.S. will be back to work on unfinished business.A shaky Swiss defense happened to be the unwitting vehicle for the message, as Lloyds two goals set the United States on the path to a 5-1 comeback win over Switzerland.Even excluding a 9-0 romp against an overmatched Thailand, the U.S. has scored 12 goals in its other three games since the Olympics. Each of those dozen goals came against teams ranked in the top 20 in the world and preparing for next summers European Championship.You learn from your failures, Lloyd said. You learn from your losses more than you do from your wins. I think for this team to push on to the next [World Cup and Olympic] cycle -- not that I wouldnt have liked to win a gold medal -- but I think its good for everybody. Coaching staff, players, we need more will, desire. I think thats really what its all about.Thats especially true if intangible desire translates to a tangibly more productive team in the final third.Few will mistake this city across a river from Minnesotas state capital for Brasilia, Brazils capital. But on more than one occasion the past few days, locals generally aware the U.S. women were in town but hazy on the specifics confused Switzerland with Sweden, the team that eliminated the U.S. from the Olympics in Brasilia. The confusion proved prophetic.It took just seven minutes for Switzerland to take the lead off a counter similar to that which Sweden used to take a lead in the Olympics. The Swiss then dropped into a defensive shell, like the Swedes before them, and this half of the Twin Cities served up a healthy dose of déjá vu.The cause of the deficit was admittedly different. The lineup for the U.S. on Sunday included just six of the same players as the Olympic quarterfinal. Even more consequentially, for the second game in a row, the Americans?played out of a 3-5-2 formation, a departure defensively from their past bread and butter.The goal demonstrated all the perils of such a strategy, with the back three of Becky Sauerbrunn, converted midfielder Allie Long and national team rookie Casey Short pulled out of shape by the Swiss counter attack. Goalkeeper Ashlyn Harris stopped the first shot, but no one could prevent Sandrine Mauron from scoring the rebound for a 1-0 lead.Its unfortunate [that] the way we were going to get exposed in a three-back was kind of how it happened, Sauerbrunn said. We all had to shift over to one side of the field, which left the weak side, which was my side, very open. It was kind of a team breakdown.After Sweden struck first in the Olympics, the United States had 59 minutes -- the final 29 of regulation and 30 more in overtime -- to turn its overwhelming possession into two goals and a win. The Americans, of course, managed only one goal and then faced the lottery of penalty kicks.This time, Lloyd pulled the U.S. level in the 25th minute, turning after some nifty interplay with Andi Sullivan and Kelley OHara and blasting a shot from 27 yards past the goalkeeper. She then put her team ahead to stay in the 51st minute, first playing in Christen Press with a nice pass from deep in midfield and then following the play to line up and finish Press deflected shot.The floodgates opened, and the U.S. soon added three more goals: one from Press, one from Crystal Dunn and one from Kealia Ohai 48 seconds after she made her national team debut, which broke by one second the mark teammmate Lynn Williams set days earlier against Switzerland in Utah.ddddddddddddBut look again at the timing of Lloyds goals: two within 44 minutes of going behind. Thats good enough to have escaped Brasilia in a parallel universe.Among the ways Hope Solo erred in her now infamous comments after the Olympic exit was that in calling Sweden cowards, she left the impression that what the Swedish team did that day was easy, that any team could do it, but most werent willing to sink to such supposed moral depths. The Swiss proved otherwise. The stakes were obviously different, but they werent nearly as committed to the cause as Sweden. It was a lackluster and disjointed defensive effort.But it wasnt just bad defense. The U.S. was better able to pick apart a compact defense than with a barrage of hopeful shots against Sweden. Against the Swiss, rookies Williams and Sullivan excelled for the second game in a row. The defensive alignment that tested the back line also gave the U.S. better numbers with which to attack in the middle of the field.What I was really impressed with today was our ball movement in the final third, Ellis said. I thought just a lot of combinations, we created a lot of chances. I thought the personnel in there today gave us a lot of types of options. I thought Carli was superb in the pocket, in terms of coming off and playing final passes. I thought our forwards did a great job of holding it up. In the final third, when a team sits and defends as well as they do or sits that low, youve got to have really good movement on and off the ball.No one was a more active part of that than Lloyd, who began the game as one of two forwards but soon settled in as the attacking midfielder behind forwards. Whether combining with Sullivan behind her or playing in balls to Williams, Press and Dunn, she exerted an influence on the game worthy of FIFAs player of the year.It has been an eventful year for Lloyd, to say the least. While adjusting to the newfound fame that came with her starring role in the 2015 World Cup, she began by inheriting the role of co-captain from Christie Rampone and Abby Wambach. That was no honorary title when a spokesperson was needed to address a wide range of issues. The year also included a knee injury that left her racing the clock to be at full speed for the Olympics. Lloyd has navigated all of that, plus the not inconsequential matter of a wedding.Through it all, she scored 17 goals -- one shy of her magical 2015 total.Its probably been one of the most challenging years shes ever had, in terms of a lot of off-the-field stuff, Ellis said. In terms of her form, I think the qualifying, there were some goals to be had there. And I think in retrospect, the longer layoff going into the Olympics, its hard for a player to hit their form when theyve not been playing games. But I think shes just given us a great visual of what she can do.She will do it amidst open competition for playing time that looks all the more intriguing after Williams, Sullivan and Short, in particular, seized the opportunity of their first call-ups and looked ready to stick around for some time. Lloyd might also do so playing in a system that, if nothing else, made largely inconsequential friendlies endlessly intriguing.The U.S. is changing, but lets be clear: It is changing around Lloyd.For me, 2016 was good, Lloyd said. Could I have been better? Absolutely. I think everybody can always be better than they think they were. But now its about getting married and taking a little time off and rebuilding and getting after it again.To those thinking the Swedes offered a blueprint of how to undo Lloyd and the Americans: Well, you better be able to follow that plan a good bit better than the Swiss did Sunday. ' ' '