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Armadillo: Thursday's six-pack
-- Braves are building a new ballpark; 60% of the 41,000 seats will be under cover. 19,000 tickets each night will be priced at $20 or less.
-- Texas Rangers are 6-0 on the road when Nick Martinez pitches.
-- Padress sent 2B Jedd Gyorko to AAA; they still owe him $30M on his deal.
-- Giants' LF Nori Aoki is hitting .415 on the road this season.
-- Mets' catchers had dismal .277 slugging percentage with Travis d'Arnaud on DL.
-- Nike signed an 8-year, $1B deal to do the NBA's uniforms/warmups.
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Armadillo: Thursday's List of 13: Doing some thinking out loud.......
13) There is so much turnover in baseball teams from year-to-year now, the first half of the season is a mishmash of sloppy play, with some teams then selling off players, and then a few teams getting hot in the second half and making the playoffs. Teams come from nowhere one year, then go back under the woodwork the next year.
12) Dodgers are now the big money team; they have a seemingly bottomless budget. I have no idea what Bronx is doing- they've got a lot of old, expensive players-- Joe Girardi has done a great job keeping them atop a weak AL East, but they took a big blow yesterday when closer Andrew Miller went on the DL
11) Houston has lost eight games in a row now, as they try to patch holes with young guys promoted from the minor leagues. Toronto has won eight in a row, as their big bats begin to heat up. The big question becomes, "Which teams will spend money to supplement their roster with players from other teams?"
10) Phillies are 22-39, an aging/bad team but if the games were only five innings long, they would be even worse. Their five-inning record: 10-39-12; only ten times in 61 games have they led after the fifth inning.
9) Lebron James is a good guy; he sent one of the kids who tied for the spelling bee title an autographed pair of sneakers and a pair of Beats headphones, which hopefully doesn't drill spelling words into his ears.
8) Oakland A's had 24 wins in their final at-bat last year; they got their first one this year last night- they're 1-10 in games decided in a team's final AB.
7) Why did the Miami Marlins fire their manager? How did that help anything? Now the remaining coaches are at odds with the new coaches, the players are rolling their eyes with another season of dysfunction- their team stinks. Baseball is basically an individual sport-- a guy's stats dictates his salary to some degree, so players play for themselves at all times but it still makes the Marlins much less fun to watch.
6) Run differential is a stupid stat; Oakland has scored three more runs than it has alloowed and they're a putrid 24-37, because they suck in close games!!! Thats the stat that matters; the A's pound on bad righty pitchers- they cannot beat a lefty (3-11).
5) Orioles 1B Chris Davis bunted for an easy hit against a Boston shift in bottom of 2nd last night; Red Sox had no one left of shortstop. If you don't like being shifted against, you have to do stuff like that to get teams to change defenses.
4) San Diego Chargers will retire LaDanian Tomlinson's #21 at halftime of game in November, a Sunday night game. That guarantees a sellout that night.
3) A high school kid named Skylar Mays is moving from Louisiana to Las Vegas for his senior year of HS, to play ball at Findlay Prep. Mr Mays is a recruiting target of UNLV, so this is convenient for them. Has to be tough for a kid to leave home for his last year of school though. Mays is a 6-3 point guard.
2) Danny Ainge's son is going on a 2-year Mormon mission; when he comes back he will be on basketball scholarship at Utah State. The elder Ainge played at BYU.
1) Football teams are using virtual reality technology to help accelerate their QB's development; they can put this helmet on and see what opposing defenses would look like on a field-- coaches are raving about technology while also wishing no one would write about it, so not everyone will have the same tools to work with.
-- Braves are building a new ballpark; 60% of the 41,000 seats will be under cover. 19,000 tickets each night will be priced at $20 or less.
-- Texas Rangers are 6-0 on the road when Nick Martinez pitches.
-- Padress sent 2B Jedd Gyorko to AAA; they still owe him $30M on his deal.
-- Giants' LF Nori Aoki is hitting .415 on the road this season.
-- Mets' catchers had dismal .277 slugging percentage with Travis d'Arnaud on DL.
-- Nike signed an 8-year, $1B deal to do the NBA's uniforms/warmups.
**********
Armadillo: Thursday's List of 13: Doing some thinking out loud.......
13) There is so much turnover in baseball teams from year-to-year now, the first half of the season is a mishmash of sloppy play, with some teams then selling off players, and then a few teams getting hot in the second half and making the playoffs. Teams come from nowhere one year, then go back under the woodwork the next year.
12) Dodgers are now the big money team; they have a seemingly bottomless budget. I have no idea what Bronx is doing- they've got a lot of old, expensive players-- Joe Girardi has done a great job keeping them atop a weak AL East, but they took a big blow yesterday when closer Andrew Miller went on the DL
11) Houston has lost eight games in a row now, as they try to patch holes with young guys promoted from the minor leagues. Toronto has won eight in a row, as their big bats begin to heat up. The big question becomes, "Which teams will spend money to supplement their roster with players from other teams?"
10) Phillies are 22-39, an aging/bad team but if the games were only five innings long, they would be even worse. Their five-inning record: 10-39-12; only ten times in 61 games have they led after the fifth inning.
9) Lebron James is a good guy; he sent one of the kids who tied for the spelling bee title an autographed pair of sneakers and a pair of Beats headphones, which hopefully doesn't drill spelling words into his ears.
8) Oakland A's had 24 wins in their final at-bat last year; they got their first one this year last night- they're 1-10 in games decided in a team's final AB.
7) Why did the Miami Marlins fire their manager? How did that help anything? Now the remaining coaches are at odds with the new coaches, the players are rolling their eyes with another season of dysfunction- their team stinks. Baseball is basically an individual sport-- a guy's stats dictates his salary to some degree, so players play for themselves at all times but it still makes the Marlins much less fun to watch.
6) Run differential is a stupid stat; Oakland has scored three more runs than it has alloowed and they're a putrid 24-37, because they suck in close games!!! Thats the stat that matters; the A's pound on bad righty pitchers- they cannot beat a lefty (3-11).
5) Orioles 1B Chris Davis bunted for an easy hit against a Boston shift in bottom of 2nd last night; Red Sox had no one left of shortstop. If you don't like being shifted against, you have to do stuff like that to get teams to change defenses.
4) San Diego Chargers will retire LaDanian Tomlinson's #21 at halftime of game in November, a Sunday night game. That guarantees a sellout that night.
3) A high school kid named Skylar Mays is moving from Louisiana to Las Vegas for his senior year of HS, to play ball at Findlay Prep. Mr Mays is a recruiting target of UNLV, so this is convenient for them. Has to be tough for a kid to leave home for his last year of school though. Mays is a 6-3 point guard.
2) Danny Ainge's son is going on a 2-year Mormon mission; when he comes back he will be on basketball scholarship at Utah State. The elder Ainge played at BYU.
1) Football teams are using virtual reality technology to help accelerate their QB's development; they can put this helmet on and see what opposing defenses would look like on a field-- coaches are raving about technology while also wishing no one would write about it, so not everyone will have the same tools to work with.
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