— Not a whole lot of drama Thursday in the Wild Card round of the playoffs; Phillies-Braves is the only series that has a Game 3.
By the way, in the playoffs, there are no ghost runners in extra innings- they play real baseball.
— Phillies 4, Braves 3 (10)
Alec Bohm hit a home run in the 10th inning.
Schwarber/Harper hit back/back HR’s to tie game in 8th inning.
Tyler Mahle allowed one run in 7 IP for the Braves.
— White Sox 6, Astros 3
Chicago got four runs off Hunter Brown in first inning.
Chase Meidroth homered, had three RBI.
White Sox-Guardians are the matchup in the next round.
Last three years, White Sox were 61-101/41-121/60-102, just a tremendous job by manager Will Venable and the White Sox front office.
— New York 9, Red Sox 0
9-0/9-2 losses to their rival; rough end to the season for Boston.
Cody Bellinger homered, had four RBI.
New York-Tampa Bay is the matchup in the next round.
— Padres 4, Cubs 1
Gavin Sheets pinch-hit a 2-run homer in 4th inning.
Five San Diego pitchers did the job; Nick Pivetta got 10 outs.
San Diego has won 19 of its last 22 games.
Padres-Brewers is the matchup in the next round.
Was pretty cool Tuesday night when Joe Musgrove pitched the 9th inning, his first appearance in a big league game in two years.
— Dallas Cowboys traded a 2nd round and a 6th round draft pick to the Steelers in exchange for CB Joey Porter, as they try to fortify a defense that has given up 82 points in three games.
— Wednesday was the last day until December 1st without an NFL or Division I college football game. 61 straight days, and college hoop starts in the middle of that stretch.
Famous birthdays, October 1st:
Julie Andrews, 91
Rod Carew, 81
Alton Lister, 68
Mark McGwire, 63
Zach Galifianakis, 57
Brie Larson, 37
Robbie Ray, 35
Xander Bogaerts, 34
Otto Lopez, 28
Jordan Whittington, 26
Our first look at the re-structured Pac-9 basketball conference:
— Gonzaga
Going to miss the Gonzaga-Saint Mary’s games late at night.
Last five years, Zags are 9-5 in NCAA Tournament.
This year’s Gonzaga team isn’t as deep as usual.
— San Diego State
Aztecs-Gonzaga should become an excellent rivalry.
Six of their players bolted to bigger $$$ teams.
San Diego State missed NCAAs last year for first time since 2019.
— Utah State
Ben Jacobson is Utah State’s 6th head coach in 13 years.
All this despite fact that Aggies’ last losing season was 2017.
Last four years, Utah State was 109-31, 57-19 in league games.
— Oregon State
Beavers were 19-17 in the WCC the last two years; now they’ve got a new coach, Justin Joyner who was an assistant coach on Michigan’s national title team.
Oregon State has only one returning starter from LY’s 17-16 team. New coach, new roster makes for a lot of questions to answer.
Beavers have four players between 6-11 and 7-2 tall.
— Colorado State
Rams went 10-8/16-4/11-9 in Mountain West the last three years.
Rams are only Pac-9 team bringing back three starters from last year.
Problem is, the two starters who are gone were their best two players.
— Boise State
Went 26-14 in Mountain West last 2 years, but missed NCAAs both times.
Broncos lost three starters, but added six transfers from smaller leagues.
Leon Rice has made five NCAAs coaching Boise, but he’s 0-5 in tourney games.
— Washington State
Wazzu lost just about its whole roster; they were 12-20, so no big deal.
Coogs were 4-9 last year, in games decided by 7 or fewer points.
Wazzu gave up 77.5 ppg last year; that needs to improve.
— Fresno State
Fresno doesn’t have any players who played a minute for Fresno last year.
Fresno slowed tempo LY from #32 to #136; they’ve got lot of international players.
Last four years, Bulldogs are 19-57 in conference games.
— Texas State
Bobcats are in Pac-9 because of football; their last NCAA Tournament was 1997.
Texas State was in bottom 5 in country last year on defensive boards.
Bobcats kept their best two guys, added transfers; they may have a good NIL program.
— NCAA Tournament will have 76 teams this year, which will be weird.
