Sunday’s 6-pack
Major League leaders in OPS:
1.683— Duvall, Bos
1.432— Reynolds, Pitt
1.429— Outman, LA
1.349— Anderson, Milw
1.284— Torres, NYY
1.269— Smith, LA
Fortune Cookie Thought of the Day
“Pay attention to the seemingly minor details. They may change your life.”
Sunday’s quiz
Where did Aaron Rodgers play his college football?
Saturday’s quiz
From 1967-73, UCLA won seven consecutive national titles in college basketball; NC State beat UCLA at the 1974 Final Four and ended their streak.
Friday’s quiz
Buck Showalter was the first manager of the Arizona Diamondbacks.
**************************************************
Sunday’s Den: Wrapping up a sports Saturday……..
— I’m watching the Las Vegas-St Louis XFL game Saturday; the game goes to overtime, the league’s first OT game this season, Funny thing was, not many people seemed to know what the rules for overtime were, then Las Vegas seemed to get the short end of the stick on their 2-point conversion in overtime, and St Louis won, 21-17.
XFL has been fun to watch this spring, but both teams in this game had QB’s who seemingly came from nowhere to suddenly be starters. Las Vegas’ QB was starting only his 4th game since he graduated from high school, eight years ago. He started one game in college, and he went to three different colleges.
AJ McCarron was out for St Louis; their backup QB was Dak Prescott’s backup at Mississippi State for a while, then transferred to I-AA Chattanooga and played three years there- this was his first professional start. St Louis is 6-2, but has three wins by 4 or fewer points.
Both QB’s played well enough, it was just a little strange.
— Florida Atlantic signed basketball coach Dusty May to a 10-year contract to keep coaching the Owls, with a salary of over $1M a year. FAU was 35-4 this year, and made the Final Four as a #9-seed; they’re moving from Conference USA to the AAC next season.
— Southern Utah hired Rob Jeter as its new basketball coach; Jeter led Western Illinois to a 16-14 record this season, the Leathernecks’ first winning season on 10 years.
Southern Utah went 67-29 the last three years under Todd Simon; he bolted to Bowling Green, to become the Falcons’ new coach.
— Rays 11, A’s 0
Tampa Bay is 8-0, with all eight wins by 4+ runs.
Wins have come against Washington, Detroit and the A’s, three dismal teams.
A’s lost Fujinami’s first two starts by a combined 24-1, though in fairness, he was much better in this game than in his first start.
— Phillies 3, Reds 2
Season is 10 days old, Reds are already 0-4 in games where winning run scored from 7th inning on. Cincinnati has trailed only one of their games after five innings (5-1-1) but they’re 3-4.
— Mets 5, Marlins 2
Kodai Senga won his first two starts with the Mets, allowing two runs in 11.1 IP. Both starts came against the Marlins, so caution is advised before putting him in Cooperstown, but early returns have been positive.
— White Sox 11, Pirates 5
Chicago’s last eight games all went over the total. Three of the White Sox’ first four batters are hitting .343 or better.
— Twins 9, Astros 6
Houston is off to a 3-6 start, losing five of their last six games. Seven of their last eight games went over the total.
— New York 4, Baltimore 1
Rookie P Johny Brito allowed one run in 5 IP; he’s allowed 8 baserunners, one run in 10 IP in his first two major league starts.
— Arizona 12, Dodgers 8
Top three guys in Arizona’s lineup went 9-14, with six runs scored, six RBI.
Diamondbacks are 5-4, but this was their first game this year where they led after five innings. Arizona is tied with the Dodgers/Padres atop the NL West.
—
Red Sox 14, Tigers 5
Boston is 4-4; they’ve scored 9-9-6-14 runs in the wins. They’re 0-2 when they score less than six runs. Over is 5-2-1 in their games so far.
— Angels 9, Blue Jays 5
Trout hit his third homer and Rendon was back in the lineup. He makes a big difference in their lineup, batting behind Ohtani.
Angels are 5-3, in first place at this early stage of the season. They have a huge decision coming up, whether to trade Ohtani before he hits the open market next winter, but if they’re competing for a playoff spot, they can’t trade him, can they?
— Cardinals 6, Brewers 0
Big win for St Louis; they would’ve been five games behind Milwaukee had they lost this game. Nolan Arenado hit his 300th career home run in this game.
