Armadillo: Monday's six-pack
— Going into Sunday’s games, big league pitchers were batting .112 this season
— Texas Tech beat Florida, Arkansas beat Texas in the College World Series.
— Astros went 10-0 on a 3-city road trip to Texas, Oakland, Kansas City.
— Bryce Harper is a free agent this winter; he is hitting .217 right now. Not good.
— Oakland A’s are 36-36 with 90 games left and I’m OK with that.
— If the baseball playoffs started today:
AL: New York-Cleveland-Houston. Wild Cards: Boston-Seattle
NL: Atlanta-Milwaukee-Arizona. Wild Cards: Chicago-Washington
**********
Armadillo: Monday's List of 13: Wrapping up a sports weekend
13) Brooks Koepka is first guy since Curtis Strange in 1988-89 to win the US Open two years in a row; he has only one other Tour win, the 2015 Phoenix Open.
12) Rangers 13, Rockies 12— Horrendous pitching in this game; Colorado closer Davis walked four guys in 0.1 IP, then gave up the game-winning single to a 3rd-string catcher as Texas scored four times in the ninth inning for the comeback win.
11) Single-season record for most home runs by a team is 264, set by the 1997 Mariners. That record could easily fall this year.
10) Rookie QB Chris Streveler started for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers this week; he is the first rookie QB straight out of college to start a Week 1 CFL game since 1994, when Anthony Calvillo did it in 1994, playing for the Las Vegas Posse.
Yes, for a while in the 90’s, the CFL had teams in America; I think Baltimore won a CFL title.
Calvillo is now a CFL Hall of Famer.
9) Read on the Interweb this week that the country of Iceland has roughly the same amount of people as Santa Ana, CA.
Only thing I know about Iceland is that when Bobby Fischer played Boris Spassky for the world chess championship in the early 70’s, it was held in Iceland, in a town called Reykjavík, and I had to look up that spelling. Long way to go to play chess.
8) Giancarlo Stanton’s OPS in his nine-year career:
2010: .833, 2011: .893, 2012: .969, 2013: .845, 2014: .950, 2015: .952
Then the last three years: 2016: .815, 2017: 1.005, 2018: .798
He used to get hurt a lot, now he just seems unsure at the plate; too much film study?
7) Keith Hernandez was saying on TV last week that if he was still playing, he couldn’t do the all the film work that modern players do, as far as studying pitchers. Ron Darling came out and said that if a player now doesn’t want to do it, he is viewed as a malcontent by the team.
6) Giants 4, Dodgers 1— Giants scored five runs in their first six games at Dodger Stadium this season, but salvaged the last game of this series.
5) Kelly Johnson is the only ballplayer who played for all five AL East teams.
4) Go to Deadspin’s Twitter account and find the GIF of the fan at the Montreal-BC Lions CFL game Saturday who ran on the field during the game. A defensive back on the Lions absolutely crushed the guy, laid him out. I’m sure when he sobered up, it hurt like hell.
3) In top of 8th inning in Milwaukee Sunday, a Brewers reliever named Adrian Houser was puking his guts out behind the mound. Somehow, he finished the inning. He looked like Jamie Foxx in Any Given Sunday, when the backup QB barfed on the field before he started to play.
2) Most greeting cards sold, by holiday:
1) Christmas 2) Valentine’s Day 3) Mother’s Day 4) Father’s Day
1) NBA Draft is Thursday, so that’ll be in the news a lot. Most interesting player in the draft is probably Slovenian Luka Doncic. He is a 19-year old wing who played for Real Madrid in the EuroLeague this past season. ESPN’s Seth Greenberg tweeted Sunday that he is a better passer than Lonzo Ball, as well as a better shooter .
His description of Doncic: “ a bigger Lonzo Ball with jumper, a better feel for reading ballscreens and the toughness of a grown man.”
— Going into Sunday’s games, big league pitchers were batting .112 this season
— Texas Tech beat Florida, Arkansas beat Texas in the College World Series.
— Astros went 10-0 on a 3-city road trip to Texas, Oakland, Kansas City.
— Bryce Harper is a free agent this winter; he is hitting .217 right now. Not good.
— Oakland A’s are 36-36 with 90 games left and I’m OK with that.
— If the baseball playoffs started today:
AL: New York-Cleveland-Houston. Wild Cards: Boston-Seattle
NL: Atlanta-Milwaukee-Arizona. Wild Cards: Chicago-Washington
**********
Armadillo: Monday's List of 13: Wrapping up a sports weekend
13) Brooks Koepka is first guy since Curtis Strange in 1988-89 to win the US Open two years in a row; he has only one other Tour win, the 2015 Phoenix Open.
12) Rangers 13, Rockies 12— Horrendous pitching in this game; Colorado closer Davis walked four guys in 0.1 IP, then gave up the game-winning single to a 3rd-string catcher as Texas scored four times in the ninth inning for the comeback win.
11) Single-season record for most home runs by a team is 264, set by the 1997 Mariners. That record could easily fall this year.
10) Rookie QB Chris Streveler started for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers this week; he is the first rookie QB straight out of college to start a Week 1 CFL game since 1994, when Anthony Calvillo did it in 1994, playing for the Las Vegas Posse.
Yes, for a while in the 90’s, the CFL had teams in America; I think Baltimore won a CFL title.
Calvillo is now a CFL Hall of Famer.
9) Read on the Interweb this week that the country of Iceland has roughly the same amount of people as Santa Ana, CA.
Only thing I know about Iceland is that when Bobby Fischer played Boris Spassky for the world chess championship in the early 70’s, it was held in Iceland, in a town called Reykjavík, and I had to look up that spelling. Long way to go to play chess.
8) Giancarlo Stanton’s OPS in his nine-year career:
2010: .833, 2011: .893, 2012: .969, 2013: .845, 2014: .950, 2015: .952
Then the last three years: 2016: .815, 2017: 1.005, 2018: .798
He used to get hurt a lot, now he just seems unsure at the plate; too much film study?
7) Keith Hernandez was saying on TV last week that if he was still playing, he couldn’t do the all the film work that modern players do, as far as studying pitchers. Ron Darling came out and said that if a player now doesn’t want to do it, he is viewed as a malcontent by the team.
6) Giants 4, Dodgers 1— Giants scored five runs in their first six games at Dodger Stadium this season, but salvaged the last game of this series.
5) Kelly Johnson is the only ballplayer who played for all five AL East teams.
4) Go to Deadspin’s Twitter account and find the GIF of the fan at the Montreal-BC Lions CFL game Saturday who ran on the field during the game. A defensive back on the Lions absolutely crushed the guy, laid him out. I’m sure when he sobered up, it hurt like hell.
3) In top of 8th inning in Milwaukee Sunday, a Brewers reliever named Adrian Houser was puking his guts out behind the mound. Somehow, he finished the inning. He looked like Jamie Foxx in Any Given Sunday, when the backup QB barfed on the field before he started to play.
2) Most greeting cards sold, by holiday:
1) Christmas 2) Valentine’s Day 3) Mother’s Day 4) Father’s Day
1) NBA Draft is Thursday, so that’ll be in the news a lot. Most interesting player in the draft is probably Slovenian Luka Doncic. He is a 19-year old wing who played for Real Madrid in the EuroLeague this past season. ESPN’s Seth Greenberg tweeted Sunday that he is a better passer than Lonzo Ball, as well as a better shooter .
His description of Doncic: “ a bigger Lonzo Ball with jumper, a better feel for reading ballscreens and the toughness of a grown man.”
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