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Tuesday’s six-pack
Updated odds to win the World Series:
5-1- Houston Astros
6-1— Chicago Cubs
7-1— San Francisco Giants
15-2— Boston Red Sox
8-1— Cleveland Indians
17-2— Los Angeles Dodgers
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Tuesday’s List of 13: Nobody asked me, but…….
13) I’m not real interested in how long baseball games last; I enjoy watching the game, but some people are bent out of shape because games are longer now. One easy way to shorten games; eliminate coaches’ visits to the mound. There’s your 5-7 minutes a game right there.
12) Last week, Marlins’ manager Don Mattingly put Giancarlo Stanton in the #2 spot in the order, which was surprising, but since then, Stanton is 11-26 with two walks, so he has gotten better pitches to hit in that spot. The two walks were last night; one was intentional.
11) Underrated: Joe Gibbs won three Super Bowls coaching the Redskins; now he owns NASCAR teams and is a giant in that sport. Not many people have been so prominent in two different sports.
10) Mets’ OF Michael Conforto has impressive bloodlines; his mother won two gold medals in the Olympics in synchronized swimming. His dad played football at Penn State.
9) Was reading on SI.com where the Falcons’ new domed stadium will have 1,264 beer taps in it. The GeorgiaDome had 30 beer taps.
8) Miami Hurricanes missed out on the NCAA baseball tournament for the first time in 45 years; losing a series to Dartmouth isn’t good for your tournament resume.
7) Only four of the Braves’ first 49 games (2-2) have come against lefty starting pitchers.
6) In college basketball, Belmont has finished #1 in whole country in 2-point FG% four of the last five years; thats hard to believe, but they run lot of backdoor plays and get lot of layups. Still, with 351 teams in the country. to be #1 four out of five years is really impressive.
5) Astros (10 games), Nationals (8.5 games) have huge divisional leads; 2nd place in the NL East is 21-27, so thats a terrible division. 2nd place in AL West is 26-27. Those two teams will basically coast from here into the playoffs.
4) Second Wild Card in NL is 10 games over .500, so going to be hard to make the playoffs there. In AL, second Wild Card is only two games over .500, so a straggler now can get hot and become a contender.
This stuff will influence who is a seller when the trade deadline rolls around. Lesser teams in the National League are more likely to sell off veteran players than American League teams.
3) Astros 16, Twins 8— Minnesota led this game 8-2 after seven innings behind Ervin Santana, who has a 1.75 ERA. Twins’ bullpen then allowed 11 runs in the 8th inning, three more in the 9th- they faced 22 hitters- 16 of them reached base, 14 scored. Yikes.
Houston has a team like the Red Sox teams when they had Butch Hobson batting 9th when he knocked in 100 runs. You cannot outslug the Astros; very impressive lineup.
Elias Sports says that before Monday, Astros were 0-659 in franchise history when trailing by 6+ runs in the 8th inning. Now they’re 1-659.
2) Nationals 3, Giants 0— In the top of the 8th, reliever Hunter Strickland drilled Bryce Harper in the hip and a hockey fight broke out— a real donnybrook, a Pier 6 brawl. Harper got a couple shots in before both benches converged on the mound.
Seemed like there was some history there- they seemed to actually dislike each other— turns out Harper homered twice off Strickland in the 2014 playoffs; one ball went in the upper deck at Nationals Park, the other one landed in McCovey Cove. Only times they’ve faced each other, until Monday.
1) Mike Trout has a torn ligament in his left thumb, will miss a couple weeks unless surgery is needed, then it’ll be a lot more than that.
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Updated odds to win the World Series:
5-1- Houston Astros
6-1— Chicago Cubs
7-1— San Francisco Giants
15-2— Boston Red Sox
8-1— Cleveland Indians
17-2— Los Angeles Dodgers
************************
Tuesday’s List of 13: Nobody asked me, but…….
13) I’m not real interested in how long baseball games last; I enjoy watching the game, but some people are bent out of shape because games are longer now. One easy way to shorten games; eliminate coaches’ visits to the mound. There’s your 5-7 minutes a game right there.
12) Last week, Marlins’ manager Don Mattingly put Giancarlo Stanton in the #2 spot in the order, which was surprising, but since then, Stanton is 11-26 with two walks, so he has gotten better pitches to hit in that spot. The two walks were last night; one was intentional.
11) Underrated: Joe Gibbs won three Super Bowls coaching the Redskins; now he owns NASCAR teams and is a giant in that sport. Not many people have been so prominent in two different sports.
10) Mets’ OF Michael Conforto has impressive bloodlines; his mother won two gold medals in the Olympics in synchronized swimming. His dad played football at Penn State.
9) Was reading on SI.com where the Falcons’ new domed stadium will have 1,264 beer taps in it. The GeorgiaDome had 30 beer taps.
8) Miami Hurricanes missed out on the NCAA baseball tournament for the first time in 45 years; losing a series to Dartmouth isn’t good for your tournament resume.
7) Only four of the Braves’ first 49 games (2-2) have come against lefty starting pitchers.
6) In college basketball, Belmont has finished #1 in whole country in 2-point FG% four of the last five years; thats hard to believe, but they run lot of backdoor plays and get lot of layups. Still, with 351 teams in the country. to be #1 four out of five years is really impressive.
5) Astros (10 games), Nationals (8.5 games) have huge divisional leads; 2nd place in the NL East is 21-27, so thats a terrible division. 2nd place in AL West is 26-27. Those two teams will basically coast from here into the playoffs.
4) Second Wild Card in NL is 10 games over .500, so going to be hard to make the playoffs there. In AL, second Wild Card is only two games over .500, so a straggler now can get hot and become a contender.
This stuff will influence who is a seller when the trade deadline rolls around. Lesser teams in the National League are more likely to sell off veteran players than American League teams.
3) Astros 16, Twins 8— Minnesota led this game 8-2 after seven innings behind Ervin Santana, who has a 1.75 ERA. Twins’ bullpen then allowed 11 runs in the 8th inning, three more in the 9th- they faced 22 hitters- 16 of them reached base, 14 scored. Yikes.
Houston has a team like the Red Sox teams when they had Butch Hobson batting 9th when he knocked in 100 runs. You cannot outslug the Astros; very impressive lineup.
Elias Sports says that before Monday, Astros were 0-659 in franchise history when trailing by 6+ runs in the 8th inning. Now they’re 1-659.
2) Nationals 3, Giants 0— In the top of the 8th, reliever Hunter Strickland drilled Bryce Harper in the hip and a hockey fight broke out— a real donnybrook, a Pier 6 brawl. Harper got a couple shots in before both benches converged on the mound.
Seemed like there was some history there- they seemed to actually dislike each other— turns out Harper homered twice off Strickland in the 2014 playoffs; one ball went in the upper deck at Nationals Park, the other one landed in McCovey Cove. Only times they’ve faced each other, until Monday.
1) Mike Trout has a torn ligament in his left thumb, will miss a couple weeks unless surgery is needed, then it’ll be a lot more than that.
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