Tweet
Monday’s six-pack
— If you like fantasy football, you may know that Blake Bortles was the #4 QB in fantasy points LY. Surprising but true.
— Cleveland Indians are having a great season; how are they #28 (out of 30 teams) in attendance?
— Vin Scully has called 23 no-hitters in his amazing broadcasting career.
— Best records this year in 1-run games: Texas 30-8, Bronx 22-9, Detroit 24-15, Arizona 19-12.
— Worst records this year in 1-run games: Twins 11-24, Rockies 9-17, Rays 11-20, Padres 15-26.
— If the baseball playoffs started today, they would look like this:
NL: Nationals-Cubs-Dodgers. Wild Card: Giants-Cardinals
AL: Blue Jays-Indians-Rangers. Wild Card: Red Sox vs Det/Balt
Monday’s List of 13: Summing up a summer Sunday
13) Wyoming 40, Northern Illinois 34 OT– This game was at first delayed by lightning, then went three OTs, finally ending just after 4:30am Sunday here in the east. Some of the NIU players looked legitimately exhausted when the game ended.
12) That ended a long day that started when two Jehovah’s Witnesses rang my doorbell Saturday morning. I am NOT a morning person; even when I had a job that started at 8am, I was useless until my first Cherry Coke of the day, so these two religious people were greeted with a scowl when I answered my door.
JW guy: “How are you today?”
Me: “Sleeping”
JW guy: “Here is one of our cards. Have a nice day”
Door shuts. Quickly.
11) Phillies shut down pitching prospect Vince Velasquez for the season, not because he is hurt, just because he reached his innings limit and they do not want to risk injury.
There is a thing in baseball now; teams don’t want prospects exceeding their previous years innings pitched by more than 20%. Research says that is the threshold that increases injury risk for a pitcher.
10) Umpire Brian Gorman’s last three games behind the plate: 1-0, 1-0, 1-0. In his 10 games behind the plate before that, over was 8-1-1, but generally he has always been a pitcher’s friend.
9) David Dahl and Raimel Tapia are Colorado Rockies OF prospects who started the year with the AA Hartford Yard Goats, an Eastern League team that didn’t have a home field this year. What a year for the two of them.
Dahl played in 76 games for Hartford, Tapia 104 games, all on other teams’ fields, then they both played a little in Albuquerque before they got the call to the big leagues- now they’re in the luxury of the major leagues and hope never to go back to the minors.
8) Speaking of the Rockies, not surprising that they showed interest in Tim Tebow’s baseball career. Russell Wilson, Todd Helton, Seth Smith all played in the Rockies’ system. All three were college QBs.
7) San Francisco Giants endured an 0-40 skid as a team in a stretch that went from the 3rd inning Thursday to mid-game Friday. There was a walk or two in there, but zero hits.
6) Houston Cougars ran a missed FG back 109 yards for a TD to stretch their lead over Oklahoma Saturday; naturally, there was great jubilation over such a big play, but officials called a celebration penalty on Houston, because the rules are so stupid, happiness/joy aren’t allowed.
There is zero common sense involved in called the celebration penalty; there was no taunting, just kids happy they were upsetting a top 10 team.
This rule needs to be changed; allow kids to have fun, they’re not pros. Make it an anti-taunting penalty- that makes at least some sense.
5) Seattle Seahawks have 14 rookies on their 53-man roster; 22 of the 53 players (41.5%) were undrafted free agents. Hungry players are better players; Seattle has struck a formula for winning and this is part of it.
4) Bishop Gorman HS is in Las Vegas; nice school, good facilities. Their football team’s first two games this year were against teams from Texas and Florida. Who foots the travel bills for those games?
3) Mets TV analysts Ron Darling/Keith Hernandez got into a discussion the other night about holding runners on base. Eventually Hernandez drew Darling into saying that pitching coaches in the Mets system aren’t teaching pitchers about the intricacies of holding runners on, because they’re afraid it’ll screw up their pitching motion and cause an injury.
Have players gotten that soft that you can’t teach them stuff, because they cannot concentrate on two things at once? I hope not.
2) Atlanta Braves are 17-15 since they traded for Matt Kemp; they were 37-68 when they made the trade.
1– Big 14 football teams generally use MAC teams as a preseason piñata to get ready for conference play, but since the beginning of last season, MAC teams are 13-4 against the spread when facing Big 14 teams.
— If you like fantasy football, you may know that Blake Bortles was the #4 QB in fantasy points LY. Surprising but true.
— Cleveland Indians are having a great season; how are they #28 (out of 30 teams) in attendance?
— Vin Scully has called 23 no-hitters in his amazing broadcasting career.
— Best records this year in 1-run games: Texas 30-8, Bronx 22-9, Detroit 24-15, Arizona 19-12.
— Worst records this year in 1-run games: Twins 11-24, Rockies 9-17, Rays 11-20, Padres 15-26.
— If the baseball playoffs started today, they would look like this:
NL: Nationals-Cubs-Dodgers. Wild Card: Giants-Cardinals
AL: Blue Jays-Indians-Rangers. Wild Card: Red Sox vs Det/Balt
Monday’s List of 13: Summing up a summer Sunday
13) Wyoming 40, Northern Illinois 34 OT– This game was at first delayed by lightning, then went three OTs, finally ending just after 4:30am Sunday here in the east. Some of the NIU players looked legitimately exhausted when the game ended.
12) That ended a long day that started when two Jehovah’s Witnesses rang my doorbell Saturday morning. I am NOT a morning person; even when I had a job that started at 8am, I was useless until my first Cherry Coke of the day, so these two religious people were greeted with a scowl when I answered my door.
JW guy: “How are you today?”
Me: “Sleeping”
JW guy: “Here is one of our cards. Have a nice day”
Door shuts. Quickly.
11) Phillies shut down pitching prospect Vince Velasquez for the season, not because he is hurt, just because he reached his innings limit and they do not want to risk injury.
There is a thing in baseball now; teams don’t want prospects exceeding their previous years innings pitched by more than 20%. Research says that is the threshold that increases injury risk for a pitcher.
10) Umpire Brian Gorman’s last three games behind the plate: 1-0, 1-0, 1-0. In his 10 games behind the plate before that, over was 8-1-1, but generally he has always been a pitcher’s friend.
9) David Dahl and Raimel Tapia are Colorado Rockies OF prospects who started the year with the AA Hartford Yard Goats, an Eastern League team that didn’t have a home field this year. What a year for the two of them.
Dahl played in 76 games for Hartford, Tapia 104 games, all on other teams’ fields, then they both played a little in Albuquerque before they got the call to the big leagues- now they’re in the luxury of the major leagues and hope never to go back to the minors.
8) Speaking of the Rockies, not surprising that they showed interest in Tim Tebow’s baseball career. Russell Wilson, Todd Helton, Seth Smith all played in the Rockies’ system. All three were college QBs.
7) San Francisco Giants endured an 0-40 skid as a team in a stretch that went from the 3rd inning Thursday to mid-game Friday. There was a walk or two in there, but zero hits.
6) Houston Cougars ran a missed FG back 109 yards for a TD to stretch their lead over Oklahoma Saturday; naturally, there was great jubilation over such a big play, but officials called a celebration penalty on Houston, because the rules are so stupid, happiness/joy aren’t allowed.
There is zero common sense involved in called the celebration penalty; there was no taunting, just kids happy they were upsetting a top 10 team.
This rule needs to be changed; allow kids to have fun, they’re not pros. Make it an anti-taunting penalty- that makes at least some sense.
5) Seattle Seahawks have 14 rookies on their 53-man roster; 22 of the 53 players (41.5%) were undrafted free agents. Hungry players are better players; Seattle has struck a formula for winning and this is part of it.
4) Bishop Gorman HS is in Las Vegas; nice school, good facilities. Their football team’s first two games this year were against teams from Texas and Florida. Who foots the travel bills for those games?
3) Mets TV analysts Ron Darling/Keith Hernandez got into a discussion the other night about holding runners on base. Eventually Hernandez drew Darling into saying that pitching coaches in the Mets system aren’t teaching pitchers about the intricacies of holding runners on, because they’re afraid it’ll screw up their pitching motion and cause an injury.
Have players gotten that soft that you can’t teach them stuff, because they cannot concentrate on two things at once? I hope not.
2) Atlanta Braves are 17-15 since they traded for Matt Kemp; they were 37-68 when they made the trade.
1– Big 14 football teams generally use MAC teams as a preseason piñata to get ready for conference play, but since the beginning of last season, MAC teams are 13-4 against the spread when facing Big 14 teams.
Comment