Thursday’s Den: Doing some thinking out loud……..

So much for home field advantage in the AL playoffs; road team was 4-0 in the AL Wild Card games, with home teams scoring four runs in the four games.

— Tigers 5, Astros 2
Andy Ibanez hit a bases-loaded double in 8th inning.
Detroit used seven pitchers are they continue a 33-13 run.
Astros won’t play in ALCS for first time in seven years.

— Tigers’ payroll this year is just over $103M, over $32M of which is to guys who aren’t on the Tigers’ roster right now.

— Royals 2, Orioles 1
Baltimore scored one run in losing two games in this series.
Orioles were 33-35 after the All-Star break.
Baltimore has lost its last ten playoff games.

— Mets 8, Brewers 4
Garrett Mitchell, who entered game as a pinch-runner, hit the game-winning HR.
Jackson Chourio/Mitchell both homered in 8th inning.
Game 3 is Thursday.

MLB had to breathe a big sigh of relief when Milwaukee won; Game 3’s in this round get the bigger TV ratings, winner-take-all games.

— Padres 5, Braves 4
Padres scored five runs in second inning, hung on for dear life.
San Diego advances to play the Dodgers in the next round.

— The remote control on my TV died at 3:30 in the morning the other night, so while I wait for Amazon to deliver my new remote, I don’t have access to YouTubeTV on my main television; I’ve been watching the baseball playoff games on my laptop.

Yesterday, just laid on the couch and listened to the Royals-Orioles game on ESPN radio on my phone; it was a throwback to being a kid. Way back when, I listened to a lot of baseball on the radio, before I controlled the remote control in our house.

It was fun, in an odd way, though I am looking forward to getting the new remote today,

Famous birthdays, October 3rd
Lindsey Buckingham, 75
Dave Winfield, 73
Dennis Eckersley, 70

Jack Wagner, 65
Greg Foster, 56
Anquan Boldin, 44

Courtney Lee, 39
CJ Abrams, 24
CJ Stroud, 23

— There will be scapegoats: Minnesota Twins went 12-27 in their last 39 games; they fired four coaches Wednesday, with all three hitting coaches being told to take a hike.

— Texas State apparently has said no to the Mountain West, will stay in the Sun Belt, where the travel costs will be much lower.

NFL divisional trends:
NFC East non-divisional home teams are 0-4 ATS
NFC East non-divisional road underdogs are 5-1 ATS. 

NFC North non-divisional favorites are 6-0 ATS
NFC North non-divisional home teams are 7-1 ATS

NFC South non-divisional home teams are 2-6 ATS
NFC South non-divisional road underdogs are 4-0 ATS

NFC West non-divisional underdogs are 1-5 ATS

AFC East teams are 3-8-1 ATS in non-divisional games. 

AFC North non-divisional home favorites are 2-5 ATS
AFC North non-divisional road teams are 6-3 ATS

AFC South non-divisional favorites are 1-5 ATS

AFC West non-divisional road teams are 6-1 ATS

— We close with an unusual story: 

Missouri plays Texas A&M this week. Marcel Reed is Texas A&M’s quarterback, taking over for an injured Connor Weigman; his sister is Missouri’s assistant director of on campus recruiting.

The sister is “not allowed at practice this week” according to Mizzou coach Eli Drinkwitz.

Awkward…….

Author: Armadillo Sports

I've been involved in sports my whole life, now just write about them. I like to travel, mostly to Las Vegas- they have gambling there.