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Just like everyone else I like to make predictions at the start of ever season no matter which sport it is. I think the thing that I always laugh at is when people start to back away from their predictions or when they try to jump on a bandwagon after they wrote a team off to start the season. Humorously when you jump on a bandwagon it can blow up in your face and sometimes it happens very fast. This was the case just last week.

Last week the Los Angeles Angels where rolling and I heard quite a few people talk about how they were the American League favorites to make the World Series and that we’d finally get to see Mike Trout in the playoffs. While it would be great to see the best player in baseball finally get a chance to show his skills on a bigger stage the people pushing the Angels may have put the cart before the horse as they say.

Now the Angels are 27-23 and in 2nd place right now in the American League West. The issue is the fact that last week they were 27-16 and in 1st place in the A.L. West. The Angels have stumbled on their recently having lost the final game of their series with the Texas Rangers and then dropping four in a row to the Toronto Blue Jays before losing last night’s opening game in their series with the New York Yankees 9-1.

Noah Syndergaard lasted just 2 1/3rd innings last night. Syndergaard gave up 5 runs on 7 hits and walked 1 before being removed from the game last night. Syndergaard has made 8 starts for the Angels this season and two of the last three have been rough. While I don’t think it’s time to panic with Syndergaard you do have to remember that he is coming off an injury and had only pitched a total of 2 innings over the 2020 and 2021 season combined.

Now, baseball is a sport that ebbs and flows and the Angels could just as easily win their next six games, but if they’re going to start a new winning streak tonight, they’ll have to do it against what has probably been the best pitcher in baseball so far.

Nestor Cortes is scheduled to make the start for the Yankees tonight. This will be Cortes 10th start of the season. He has a 4-1 record with an ERA of 1.70 over his first 9 starts this season. Cortes has pitched 53 innings in those 9 starts and has struck out 61 batters while walking 12.

Reid Detmers is the Angels scheduled starting pitcher tonight and will be tasked with matching up with Cortes. Four starts ago Detmers no-hit the Tampa Bay Rays, but in his four starts since the no-hitter he is 1-1 with two no decisions and hasn’t pitched more than 5 innings in any of those four starts. Detmers is doesn’t turn 23 years old until next month and the shorter starts may just be the Angels protecting him after allowing him to go the distance in his no-hitter, so will have to see how he’s handled tonight against the Yankees.

If you happen to rad the blog before this game start let me know if you think the Angels will break their losing streak tonight or if Cortes continues to pitch like he has all season and hands the Angels, their 7th loss in a row.

I believe that I’ve mentioned here before that I play FanDuel. Now I haven’t played that much this season since I’m not watching baseball, but I do get a weekly NASCAR line up in as well as playing some other games here and there. Well, this week I ran into some really bad luck with my NASCAR FanDuel line up.

On Sunday NASCAR ran the Coca-Cola 600 at the Charolotte Motor Speedway. I made sure to get my line up in and coming down to the final laps I was looking like I was going to manage to win some money, but then there was an accident, and the race went into overtime. That changed everything for me.

As overtime started, my line up looked really good. I had Kyle Larson in 1st, Ross Chastain in 2nd, joey Logano in 3rd, Aric Almirola in 15th. My fifth driver was Kurt Busch, and he was involved in an accident earlier and finished 31st. So, I was set up to have a decent finish.

Then overtime started and Austin Dillion got a big run and made a move for the lead. Dillion managed to get to the front but couldn’t hold his line and started to spin out. Dillion ended up wrecking and he collected all Larson, Chastain and Logano while he was wrecking. Needless to say, my chances of winning anything went away with that accident.

In the end Larson finished 9th with Chastain 15th and Logano 20th. Almirola wasn’t involved in that overtime accident and ended up 17th.

I actually turned the race off after that all three of my drivers where wrecked at the front of the field and I didn’t even know that Denny Hamlin ended up winning until the next day. Oh well, it happens.