thependulumswings

It’s a new week and the key to it’s success is getting it off to a good start.  The key to getting Monday off to a good start lies below.  A sports Ten Piece Nuggets is served.

1. The Houston Astros beat the Baltimore Orioles 3-2 last Friday night and 23-2 on Saturday.  The “23” is no typo.  It is, though, the most runs ever scored by the 52 year old franchise.  Houston shortstop Carlos Correa, hit a 474 foot home run during the obliteration.  It’s the longest ever hit in the 27 year history of Camden Yards.
2. So, Sunday, Las Vegas made the Astros a huge favorite to win the third and final game of the series and sweep the lowly 39-77 Orioles.  Cy Young former winner and possibly this year’s favorite, Justin Verlander, was on the bump for the 77-40 Astros.  A $100 bet on the lowly Orioles would pay you $420.  And a walk off, two out, two strike homerun by Rio Ruiz gave Baltimore the win.  It was the largest MLB single game upset v. the betting odds in 15 years.
3. Despite the loss the Astros have a quite comfortable 10 game lead over the Oakland A’s in the AL West with about 44 regular season games left to play for most teams.   The NY Yankees have a quite comfortable 8.5 game lead over the second place Tampa Bay Rays in the East.  But the Central Division is shaping up as a “down to wire” two team horse race.  Cleveland and Minnesota are tied for first there with identical 71-47 records.  The playoffs only have room for three of Minnesota, Cleveland, Oakland, and Tampa Bay.  The Central winner sits home while the runner up falls to a one game wild card playoff situation as it stands today.   That’s huge for both teams.
4.  Meanwhile in the NL the Los Angeles Dodgers can start printing home field advantage playoff tickets.  Their 79 wins are nine more than East Division leading Atlanta.  And, it’s a ridiculous 19 games over 59-59 Arizona, second in the West Division.  The Braves are clear of Washington by 6.5 games.  Like the AL, the NL horse race is in the Central where only 2.5 games separate the division leading Chicago Cubs over Saint Louis and Milwaukee.  And from the back of the pack comes the hard charging NY Mets.
5. Do you know what happened on this August 12th date in MLB in 1994, 25 years ago today?  Nothing.   Players, under the threat of a salary cap, went on strike.  A month later Commissioner Bud Selig announced that the owners voted to cancel the season.  The dark ballparks were symbolic of some of the darkest days of “America’s Game” history.
6. NCAA football stadiums won’t be dark for much longer.  It’s under two weeks and counting until teams the country over kickoff.  Twenty coaches enter year two with their teams.  It’s usually the year that programs under new coaches make the biggest leap if they are going to turn around the direction for which they were hired to begin with.  Turnover, transfers in and out, philosophy, culture, and two recruiting years take hold.  Or, they don’t.  Last year Ed Orgeron went from a too soon hot seat in year two to a ten win, top ten finish in year two.  Tom Herman guided Texas back into the final top ten standings for the first time in nine long(horn) years.
7. Who might make that leap this year?  Let’s look west.  How about Herm Edwards at Arizona St?  BBR says meh.   Kevin Sumlin at Arizona perhaps?  No.  Chip Kelly is in year two at UCLA.  We doubt it.  But in Eugene, Oregon we like Mario Cristobal to get his Ducks in a top ten row.
8. The SEC is brutal, but teams that go 8-4 or a tad better can get to the top ten with a an impressive bowl win to conclude 2019.  Five choices are available.  Joe Moorhead leads Miss St into year two.  We think they regress actually.  Chad Morris at Arkansas is rebuilding in his image from the ground up and has zero chance.  Jeremy Pruitt volunteered to engineer a turnaround at Tennessee.  They’ll be better, but Florida, Georgia, and Alabama and  one or two others will visit the orange and white checkerboard end zone too often still.  Dan Mullen is a rather underrated coach.  Florida could make that leap.  They return an improving Felipe Franks at QB as well.   But, we like Jimbo Fisher at Texas A&M the most.  They return an improving Kellon Mond at QB, and Jimbo is a QB Whisperer.  The schedule is brutal.  They tangle with Alabama, LSU, and Auburn in the west and Georgia in the east.  Oh, and out of conference they have the Tigers from Clemson.  Brutal.  It says here that they will go 9-3 or better.
9. Peyton Manning is doing 100 short feature stories for ESPN+ to celebrate the first 100 years of the NFL.  Peyton’s Place.  If you haven’t seen any, you must catch up.  They are a trip down memory lane, some obscure, all interesting, and quite humorous.  We think Peyton had a great past and we think Peyton has a great future wherever that takes him.  Meanwhile he has a great feature story run.
10. Another great quarterback is on the move as well.  Tom Brady and his family listed their Brookline, Massachusetts home for a cool $39.5 million last week.  Keeping it under $40 million is quite the value pricing move.   Meanwhile, most of New England area went into full meltdown as to what this meant to his future and the future of the Patriots.  Brady’s restructured deal has team opt outs for 2020 and 2021.  Is this the final season of the longest running hit show in NFL history?  Calm down says Tom.  “You shouldn’t ready into anything.  My house is a little bit of an expensive one, so it doesn’t fly off of the shelf in a couple of weeks,” he advised.  Ya think?  “I love playing for the Patriots.  This is where I want to be.”  Sounds like he might become a commuter.

Hang in there, Tuesday is but a day away.