— Couple nights ago, was watching YouTube late at night, and every MLB team has at least one podcast on there. Guys like me, sitting on their couch, spewing opinions about what went right or wrong this season. Some of them are good, some of them aren’t.
First of all, I couldn’t talk for an hour straight like that- no way. They must have notes or a script to follow, but that’s not my thing. Two-person podcasts are better, by the way.
My question is this: If you’re a major league player, and you make a few million $$$ a year, do you ever listen to these podcasts? Do you dismiss these nerdy types as wannabe athletes and ignore them?
Two guys do a podcast about the Cincinnati Reds; you would never know that the Reds made the playoffs this year, for only the second time in 12 years. Lot of criticism.
— Tigers 9, Mariners 3
Mariners led this game 3-0 in the fifth inning.
Javier Baez went 2-for-4, with 4 RBI
Riley Greene, Gleyber Torres also homered.
Game 5 is in Seattle on Friday
— Cubs 4, Brewers 3
Cubs scored four runs in the first inning and made them stand up.
Chicago bullpen got the last 15 outs, allowed only two hits.
Jake Bauers homered for Milwaukee.
Game 4 is at Wrigley Thursday.
— Blue Jays 5, New York 2
Blue Jays used 8 pitchers; no one got more than five outs.
Nathan Lukes was 2-5, with two RBI
Toronto wins series 3-1, moves on to the ALCS.
— Phillies 8, Dodgers 2
Ranger Suarez had 5 IP as the bulk reliever, allowed only one run.
Schwarber hit two home runs, had three RBI
Trea Turner was 3-for-5, with two RBI
Game 4 is Thursday in Los Angeles
— Wednesday was the last day this year with more than two baseball games.
— Mets went 83-79 this year, missed the playoffs, then fired the pitching coach, both their hitting coaches, their 3rd base coach, their catchers’ coach and the bench coach.
Somehow the “strategy coach” didn’t get fired; not really sure what he does, but if a team fires six of their coaches, how good could their strategy have been?
Turns out the strategy coach is a 35-year old ex-pitcher who went to Princeton, majoring in economics. He pitched in 119 games for Toronto, posting a 4.33 ERA in 120.2 IP.
David Stearns, who runs the Mets’ front office, went to Harvard, where he was a writer for the school’s newspaper.
Famous birthdays, October 9th:
Freddie Patek, 81
Shera Danese, 76
Brian Downing, 75
Robert Wuhl, 74
Scott Bakula, 71
John O’Hurley, 70
Mike Singletary, 67
Kenny Anderson, 55
Dexter McCleon, 52
Mark McLemore, 45
Derek Holland, 39
Starling Marte, 37
— Cleveland Browns traded 40-year old QB Joe Flacco to division rival Cincinnati Tuesday, and Flacco will start for the 2-3 Bengals this week in Green Bay.
Flacco has a career record of 116-95, 10-6 in playoff games.
The move leaves Cleveland with two rookie QB’s, Dillon Gabriel/Shedeur Sanders, as well as journeyman Bailey Zappe, who is 4-5 in nine NFL starts.
— Browns don’t have a bye week after playing in England Sunday, which is unusual, Team that didn’t have a bye week after playing overseas are:
11-6 SU/9-8 ATS. Browns are +5.5 in Pittsburgh Sunday.
— Indianapolis Colts lost their kicker (knee) for the year last week; they signed Michael Badgley as their new kicker. Badgley kicked for the Colts in 2021.
— Virginia off to a 5-1 start this season; they beat Louisville 30-27 in OT last week, in a game where they got outgained, 383-239, but the Cavaliers scored two defensive TD’s, and held Louisville to 54 rushing yards on 27 tries.
— Best college football teams against the spread this year:
6-0 Memphis
5-0 Louisiana Tech
5-0 Texas Tech
5-0 Utah State
4-0-1 Ohio State
— This past week was the first time the Ravens, Bills, Chiefs all lost in the same since Week 9 of the 2017 season, when Josh Allen/Lamar Jackson were still in college.
— 5-0 college teams that haven’t been 5-0 in a while
1959- North Texas
1974- UNLV
2013- Texas Tech
2014- Georgia Tech
2016- Texas Q&M
2022- Ole Miss
