— I like researching trends and this week, found a pretty good one.
NFL has had a Week 1 Thursday game for the last 20 years; the last 10 years, the 20 teams that played in that Week 1 Thursday game are 13-6-1 against the spread in Week 2— those extra three days or rest/prep before Week 2 are important early in the season.
— Colts 27, Eagles 13
Eagles didn’t play any of their starters.
Colts’ rookie QB Richardson completed only 6 of 17 passes for 78 yards; he ran the ball five times for 38 yards.
— Last year at Florida, Richardson was on the field for 767 snaps, only 17 of which were under center. Will be a big adjustment for him in short yardage situations.
Six years ago, Jared Goff had the same issue with getting used to taking snaps under center when he was a rookie, but he didn’t start a real game until game #10.
— This game was on Amazon Prime, with the great Al Michaels doing play-by-play; can’t figure out why Amazon hired Kirk Herbstreit to be their analyst. He is a very good college analyst, but he never played in the NFL. Amazon could do better.
— Steelers 24, Falcons 0
Game was 24-0 at halftime.
Steelers outgained Atlanta 311-199; Falcons didn’t play their starters.
— Shohei Ohtani will DH but won’t pitch any more this season; if you were advising him, wouldn’t you want him to get his pitching elbow fixed as soon as possible? Angels are pretty much out of the Wild Card race anyway.
Will be interesting to estimate how much all this is going to cost him when he signs his next contract this winter.
— Arizona 3, Cincinnati 2
Corbin Carroll’s 8th-inning home run was a game-winner.
Arizona passes Giants/Reds, own 3rd Wild Card slot in NL.
— Washington 6, New York (A) 5— In their last 15 series, Bronx Bombers won one series, lost 11 series, split the other three.
— Movie of the Day— Bull Durham (1988)— A veteran minor league catcher is assigned to mentor a young pitching prospect, but a female baseball groupie tries to mentor him too, both on and off the field. Complications result.
Kevin Costner is the veteran catcher, Susan Sarandon is the groupie, Tim Robbins the young pitcher. Robert Wuhl is the Bulls’ pitching coach.
Durham Bulls were a single-A farm team when this movie came out; now they’re the Tampa Bay Rays’ AAA team. Hard to believe its been 35 years since I first saw this movie, a good one.
— College Football Trend of the Day— Favorites are 6-3 ATS in last nine Citrus Bowls.
— Cleveland Browns traded QB Joshua Dobbs to Arizona for 5th and 7th-round draft picks.
Dobbs has been in the NFL since 2018; he’s started only two games, losing both of them with Tennessee last year.
Arizona’s starting QB Kyler Murray screwed up his knee December 12 last year; looks like Colt McCoy/Dobbs will fill the void until Murray gets back on the field.
— Right now, Arizona Cardinals aren’t favored in any of their games this season, they’re expected to be a bad team, but they also have six draft picks in the first three rounds of next April’s draft, so they are expecting to be a lot better in 2024.
— Red Sox 17, Astros 1— In their last seven games, Houston’s starting pitchers have an 8.81 ERA.
— A’s 8, White Sox 5
Chicago is 2-11 in its last 13 series openers.
Oakland is having an unusually good week (3-1)
— Washington P Stephen Strasburg is expected to retire in the next couple weeks; his arm is pretty screwed up— he’s thrown a total of 31.1 innings the last four years, since he led the Nationals to their World Series title.
35-year old Strasburg has a 113-62 career record, a 3.24 ERA and 1,723 strikeouts in 247 regular season starts; his postseason ERA was 1.46 in 55.1 IP.
Thing is, he has a contract worth $35M a year that runs until 2026; it is unclear if he will bank all that money.
— Last seven games, Kansas City Royals have been consistent; they scored exactly four runs in six of the seven games, scored three runs in the other game.
