Now I understand that it’s exciting for fans if your favorite team gets off to a hot start or if one of your favorite players comes out of the gate playing very well. Now I’ll always give fans a break when they get a little carried away about their favorite team or player, but when the people who are suppose to be experts on these things start doing they need to be call out.
I’m sure you’ve heard by now that Shohei Otani had a very good outing as a pitcher against the Oakland A’s on Sunday, but people got a little carried away by it. Otani pitched 7 innings threw 91 pitching and gave up just 1 hit. He also struck out 12 while walking just 1 and improved his record to 2-0. Both of Otani’s starts have come against the A’s. Now after this start people got a little bit crazy. They’ve already have pretty much handed him the AL Rookie of the Year award, but I also heard someone say he should be the AL Cy Young award winner. Now surprisingly that’s not all. I also heard that he should be the AL MVP and one person went so far as to say that Mike Trout is now the second best player on the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.
Now all of this is happening after just 2 starts and 19 at bats. Am I the only one who thinks it might be a little too early to start handing him all of the awards. Don’t forget that these are the same people that wanted Otani to start the season in the minor leagues after the spring training he had.
The Angels plan is for Otani to pitch every Sunday. If he’s healthy and makes ever start he’ll end up with 27 starts. That will put him three to five starts behind guys he’ll be competing with for the Cy Young. Will voters take that into consideration when they’re casting their votes. Would he need to win 18 games to be a serious Cy Young contender?
You can look at the MVP race the same way. If Otani is going to be the Angels DH three times a week; will he get enough at bats to be a serious contender for the MVP? He’ll be in a race with guys who are hitting six or seven days at week and getting 600 plus at bats. Can you really look at him as an MVP when he’ll have a limited number of at bats compared to his competition.
Right now it’s a great baseball story, but the people who get paid to talk about baseball for a living have to learn to get themselves under control and stop handing out end of the season awards after 10 games.
Otani is going to be fun to watch, but now that he’s gotten some at bats under his belt in the regular season teams will start to adjust to him. How are these people going to react if he’s to go into a slump. How quickly will they jump off of the Otani bandwagon?
The NHL playoffs get started tonight with three game. There are two games dropping the puck at 6:00 p.m. in my time zone. One game has the Minnesota Wild at the Winnipeg Jets while the other game has the Philadelphia Flyers at the Pittsburgh Penguins. The late game tonight has the Los Angeles Kings at the Las Vegas Golden Knights.
The other five first round series get started on Thursday night. Again there are two games that will start at 6:00 p.m. in my area. The New Jersey Devils visit the Tampa Bay Lighting while the Toronto Maple Leafs are at the Boston Bruins. 30 minutes after that the next game starts. That game has the Columbus Blue Jackets at the Washington Capitals. The 8:30 p.m. game in my area has the Colorado Avalanche at the Nashville Predators. The night wraps up with the San Jose Sharks at the Anaheim Ducks.
I am playing the bracket challenge on NHL.com. I have the Predators facing the Capitals in the Stanley Cup Finals with the Capitals winning the Cup in six games.
Today is the last day of the NBA regular season and there are 12 games on the schedule and believe it or not there is still some drama in the Western Conference.
The Minnesota Timberwolves and the Denver Nuggets are tied for the 8th and final Western Conference playoff spot. The Timberwolves hold the tiebreaker, but that’s not going to matter. These two teams face each other tonight in Minnesota. So quite simply the winner gets in and the loser goes home.
The Nuggets are coming in as the hotter team as they’ve won six in a row and are 8-2 over their last 10 games. Minnesota has won their last two games, but they are just 6-4 in their last 10 games.
Who do you have grabbing that last Western Conference playoff spot the Nuggets or the Timberwolves?
Heading into the playoffs how big of a winning streak do you want to be on? There is always talk that a team can peak to early and that may be the question right now with the Philadelphia 76ers.
Philadelphia won it’s 15th game in a row last night and they are currently a game ahead of the Cleveland Cavaliers for the #3 seed in the Eastern Conference.
Philadelphia will try to make it 16 in a row tonight as they host the Milwaukee Bucks. The Bucks aren’t playing for anything tonight as they are locked into the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference. Now if the 76ers do win this game and claim the #3 spot this will be the first round playoff match up.
Now if the 76ers winning streak ends tonight and the Cavaliers get a win over the New York Knicks it will be Cleveland that is the #3 seed in the Eastern Conference and they would face Milwaukee in the first round of the playoffs.
While the #3 seed in the Eastern Conference will face the Bucks whoever ends up as the 4th seed will face the Indiana Pacers in the first round of the playoffs.
The question ight be here would it be better for the 76ers to drop this final game heading into the playoffs just to possible remind them of what it’s like to lose. Or do you think it’s better for them to keep rolling and head into the playoffs on a 16 game winning streak?
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