Tuesday’s Den: Nobody asked me, but……..

— Mets 8-0, Braves 7-3
Teams split their twinbill, both make the playoffs.
Rough day for the Diamondbacks, who get nosed out of the playoffs.

September 22, Arizona led 8-0 in 3rd inning in Milwaukee, lost 10-9. That one will sting all winter long. 

Mets’ 8-7 win in Game 1 Monday was an epic ballgame, fun to watch. 

— Neither team that played in last year’s World Series made the playoffs this year.

Titans 31, Dolphins 12
Titans’ backup QB Rudolph was 9-17/85 passing, with NO TURNOVERS.
Pollard carried ball 22 times for 88 yards and a TD.
Both teams were 2-12 on third down.
Titans are 1-3, but outgained three of four opponents, led 3 games at halftime.

Miami has already played four different QB’s in five games.
Miami has been outscored 67-23 in first half of games.
Last two weeks, Dolphins were 3-24 on third down.
Last three games, Dolphins have two touchdowns on 33 drives.

Lions 42, Seahawks 27
Detroit scored six touchdowns on ten drives.
Goff was 18-18 passing, averaging 12.4 yards/attempt.
Goff also caught a 7-yard TD pass from WR St Brown.
Under Campbell, Detroit is 15-8 ATS in games coming off a win.

Smith was 38-56/395 passing, career highs.
Detroit led 21-7 at halftime.
Seahawks in first half: 31 plays, 172 yards, 7 points.
Seattle has gone over its team total in all four games.

— Purdue’s football team is 1-3, losing its three I-A games by a combined 132-38, so they fired the offensive coordinator Graham Harrell, who is making $950,000 this year and was going to make $1M next year. Purdue is heading towards its 10th losing season in 13 years; they did well in 2021-22 under Jeff Brohm, but then he bolted to Louisville.

— Miami Marlins/manager Skip Schumaker parted ways, which was expected. Schumaker was last year’s Manager of the Year when the Marlins went 84-78 and the playoffs, but the GM from last year quit during the off-season when the new owners inserted someone above her in the team hierarchy. Schumaker will be a coveted free agent this winter.

— Tough few days for celebrities: Kris Kristofferson, Dikembe Mutombo, Pete Rose all passed away in the last few days. RIP, guys.

— You hear Pete Rose’s name and you think Hall of Fame; I’ve got a name of someone who needs to be inducted into Cooperstown.

Dr Frank Jobe was the first doctor to perform Tommy John Surgery on pitchers’ elbows; who has contributed more to baseball than he has?

They put Marvin Miller in the Hall of Fame; he made players a lot wealthier but screwed the small market teams- what value did he provide the game?

Frank Jobe definitely belongs in the Hall of Fame.

Famous birthdays, October 1st:
Rod Carew, 79
Mark McGwire, 61
Zach Galifianakis, 55

Matt Cain, 40
Brie Larson, 35
Robbie Ray, 33

Xander Bogaerts, 32
Cedric Mullins, 30
Jordan Whittington, 24

— College basketball season starts in five weeks; Gonzaga-Baylor will play on on Opening Night, November 4 in Spokane, the first of a 3-year series between the two teams.

Random trivia: Only two players ever have appeared in all 162 games of a baseball season, being the team’s DH in every game:

Rusty Staub, 1978 with Detroit
Willie Horton, 1979 with Seattle

  Forgot to mention this last week; it was pretty cool that before the A’s last game in Oakland Thursday, Barry Zito sang the national anthem. Zito was a really good pitcher; he was 102-63 in eight years with the A’s during the Moneyball era, later pitched seven more years with the Giants.

— This was the first baseball season in ten years where no team won 100+ games.

— Padres’ 1B Luis Arraez won his third consecutive batting title, playing for a different team all three years.

— Some early season college football conference trends:

AAC- Favorites are 5-1 ATS in conference games.

ACC- Non-conference home favorites are 3-10 ATS.

Big X- Favorites were 2-4-1 ATS in conference games this past week.

Big 18- Home teams are 6-9 ATS in conference games.

C-USA- Non-conference road underdogs are 5-8 ATS.

MAC- MAC teams are 13-21 ATS in non-conference games.

Mountain West- 7-4 ATS in non-conference home games.

SEC- Conference home favorites are 0-6 ATS, home dogs are 3-2.

Sun Belt- Non-conference road underdogs are 10-6 ATS

— Imagine what a day Sunday was for Charlie Blackmon; after 14 years in the major leagues, four All-Star teams, 1,805 hits and $138M in career earnings, Sunday was the last day in his career, all of which was spent with the Rockies.

When the Rockies took the field for the start of the game Sunday, Blackmon ran out, but his teammates stayed in the dugout, while Blackmon stood in the outfield and got a huge ovation from the home crowd. Pretty cool. 

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.

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