Armadillo Sports
Tuesday’s 6-pack:
Six of the top baseball free agents this winter:
— Shohei Ohtani, DH
— Yoshinobu Yamamoto, P
— Blake Snell, P
— Cody Bellinger, OF/1B
— Aaron Nola, P
— Josh Hader, RP
Quote of the Day
“I think my reaction is the same as everyone in the organization and the fan base. We’re just shocked initially.”
Milwaukee P Corbin Burnes, after manager Craig Counsell bolted to the rival Cubs
Tuesday’s quiz
Chargers have played in one Super Bowl; who was their QB in that game?
Monday’s quiz
Nick Saban went 15-17 in two years coaching the Miami Dolphins, just before he became coach at Alabama.
Sunday’s quiz
Patrick Mahomes was the 10th pick in the 2017 NFL Draft; Mitchell Trubisky was the only QB picked ahead of him that year.
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Tuesday’s Den: Nobody asked me, but……..
— Chargers 27, Jets 6:
Chargers ran a punt back 87 yards for a TD, 1:25 into the game.
Chargers’ second offensive TD came on a 2-yard drive, after a turnover.
Under is 5-0-1 in last six Charger games.
Bolts are 6-3-3 ATS in last 11 games coming off a win.
Jets converted only 3-17 third down plays.
Jets are 5-10-1 ATS in last 16 games with spread of 3 or less points.
Jets still haven’t averaged more than 5.8 yards/pass attempt in any game.
Jets scored 22-31-20-13 points in wins, 10-10-20-6 in losses.
Jets have now won three of last four games, which is good, but in those four games:
they scored only 3 touchdowns on 48 drives.
they went 3/out 15 times on those 48 drives- their offense is dismal.
College basketball started Monday night……..
— James Madison (+16) 79, Michigan State 76 OT
Dukes were a freakin’ 16-point underdog; a great win for them.
MSU shot 1-20 on the arc, 23-37 on foul line, and lost by 3.
JMU jumped out to a 25-12 lead, but trailed by 6 with 8:35 left in the game.
— Princeton (+5.5) 68, Rutgers 61— Not often an Ivy League team beats a Big 14 team.
— Wake Forest 101, Elon 78
Elon led 36-15 early on.
Deacons shot 74.4% inside the arc.
— Abilene Christian (+10.5) 64, Oklahoma State 59
Visiting Wildcats shot 54% inside the arc, led by 18 with 13:25 left in game.
— Bradley 73, UAB 71, OT
Visiting Braves led by 20 in first half.
UAB stormed back, led by 11 with 6:42 left in game.
Blazers were 3-19 on arc, 18-29 on foul line.
— Belmont 89, Georgia State 87— This was a really good game between two good mid-majors, kind of a like a play-in game to the tournament in March.
Belmont was 17-22 on foul line, Georgia State 8-14.
— Bad Beat of the Night; Tex-San Antonio 78, Western Illinois 68, OT— Very tough beat if you had the Leathernecks, +5.5.
— Word of the Day: Shill— someone who gets paid to talk about or describe someone or something in a favorable way.
— Managerial changes in baseball:
Cubs hired Milwaukee manager Craig Counsell, gave him $8M a year.
Mets hired Bronx bench coach Carlos Mendoza as their new manager.
Cleveland Guardians hired Stephen Vogt as their new manager.
Vogt played 10 years in the big leagues; he played 70 games in the majors as recently as 2022. He was a bullpen coach in Seattle last year.
Mendoza managed in the minor leagues for two years, has been a big league coach since 2018.
Counsell had a 9-year regular season record of 707-625 with Milwaukee; he was 7-12 in the five years he led Milwaukee in the playoffs.
— Nine weeks into the season, the entire AFC North is over .500.
— So far this season, under has been a profitable play in the NFL:
since Week 3, under is 67-35-1
since Week 5, under is 47-23-1
prime-time games, under is 21-7
overall for the whole season, under is 82-52-1
— Ravens’ QB Lamar Jackson is leading the NFL in completion %age; last year, he finished 25th in that category. New offensive coordinator Todd Monken has worked wonders with the Ravens’ offense so far this season.
— Over their last four games, Buffalo Bills have a minus-6 turnover ratio; hard to win that way.
— ESPN”s Doc Rivers said this last week about the Dallas Mavericks, who have two stars on their team, Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving:
“They have to want to play together” which sounds simple, but it doesn’t happen all the time.
— Kudos to Arizona Wildcats football coach Jedd Fisch, who has his Wildcats at 6-3 and eligible to go bowling in December. From 2018-22, Arizona was 15-38, so this is a huge leap forward for the Wildcats.
— I’d like to thank the support staff at YouTubeTV; had a problem with the set-up on my TV last Friday, wound up on the phone for a half-hour with a support person in the Phillipines and he fixed the problem for me. Appreciate your help.
