Fab 4 picks
Man, spinning wheels is a great time when you’re 17, couple of iced-down Coca-Colas in the mud.
Yep, as Hardy tried to sing, growing up, I was rednecker than you.
In the entertainment cycle, spinning your wheels means you have to pay that man his money.
Too many picks? Maybe.
Too little preparation? Too much? Maybe.
Ignoring the trending ways of betting – laying first-half numbers or half team totals? Almost assuredly.
But our biggest miss was getting on the terrible teams too late.
And before we get to the picks, how about this story for dreadfulness?
And amazingly, it has nothing to do with UMass, which is so bad it is getting 10 points – at home – from a 1-6 UConn.
It also has nothing to do with the Akron Arths, who remain perfectly imperfect straight up and against the number. Tom Arth’s Zips lost 21-0 last week and are 0-7 in the ledger of the stats and in the eyes of Vegas. (Akron plus-23 at Northern Illinois with a total of 45. Likely going to parlay both of those – NIU and the under – this week.)
It has nothing to do with Georgia Tech or Vandy, who not only covered for much-maligned coaches, they pulled off outright wins as 17-plus-point underdogs.
This is about Rutgers, which has assumed a historic place of stinkyness among Power 5 conference schools.
How bad is Rutgers through that prism?
Rutgers is paying Liberty $1 million to come to New Jersey – hey, if you’ve been to Jersey, you understand. And you may need to negotiate more than seven figures.
But a Power 5 paying a lesser foe that kind of coin to come for a whippin’ is nothing new.
To pay that kind of freight and realize that Liberty is a 7.5-point favorite.
Seriously.
(As for the actual picks, we had some daddy obligations and an early morning meeting today. Check back at noon. Deal? Deal.)
World Series wrap?
So that happened.
Lots of numerical history in the Nats’ improbably impressive and impressively improbable Game 2 win over the Houston Astros.
Think about the run the Nationals are currently riding.
They have handed postseason losses to at least three pitchers on track to be Hall of Famers – Cole, Verlander, Kershaw – in a record-tying eight-game winning streak in a single postseason.
In that eight-game streak, Washington has outscored the Dodgers, Cardinals and Astros 53-19.
Beating Cole and Verlander was beyond generational. ESPN Stats and Info tweeted this morning that Cole and Verlander were the first teammates to each win 20 or more games during the regular season and lose Games 1 and 2 of the World Series since Drysdale and Koufax in 1965. (Dodgers won that series in 7, in case you’re curious.)
In the macro sense, the Nationals grabbing firm control of this series and being two games from a world title shows truly how meaningless the regular season is.
Get to the dance and the hottest team in baseball’s coldest month is the heavyweight.
After 50 games, the Nationals were 19-31, which was the same record as the Detroit Tigers. (The Tigers finished 47-114.)
The Nationals were down 3-1 with two outs in the eighth in the wildcard game against Milwaukee. A bad-hop single became a three-run knock and the Nationals advanced.
The Nationals were in a 2-1 hole against the best Dodgers team ever and found a way out, including an extra-inning Game 5 clincher that included three homers in the final three innings.
Now, after becoming the first team since the 1999 Yankees to take Games 1 and 2 on the road, the Nationals are staring a conclusion that 50 games into the season, or 24 outs through the wildcard game, or after three games against Dodgers, was forever unlikely.
Welcome to the ‘er’ months, my friends.