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If you’re a baseball fan I’m sure you’ve heard the game described as weird or strange or something to that affect at some point in time. There are upsets in baseball pretty much every day and personally I think it’s the most difficult game of all to predict on a game-to-game basis. Here’s a couple of examples for you.

On Monday the Tampa Bay Rays the team with the best record in all of baseball rolled into Wrigley Field for a three-game series with the Chicago Cubs. While the National League east leading Atlanta Braves started a three-game series on Monday against the team with the worst record in baseball the Oakland A’s.

Now looking at these two series you’d think that the Rays and the Braves would most likely sweep these series are at least win two out of the three games. This is where baseball gets odd.

On Monday Marcus Stroman limited the Rays to just 1 hit as he threw a complete game shutout against Tampa Bay as the Cubs won Game 1 of that series 1-0. In Oakland Michael Soroka returned to start the game for the Braves after missing almost two full seasons due to an Achillies injury. While it was a positive for the Braves to get Soroka back into their starting rotation the A’s scored 4 runs off of Soroka on their way to a 7-2 victory.

You look at those two scores and you might think well that’s just baseball and bad teams beat good teams every now and then. Well on Tuesday the Cubs and the A’s kept the weirdness of baseball going.

Cubs pitching again limited the Tampa Bay offense as the Rays managed just 1 run in last night’s game as they lost their second in a row to the Cubs 2-1. In Oakland the Braves could only manage 1 run as the A’s picked up a win in Game 2 of that series by the same 2-1 score.

So, Tampa Bay and Atlanta went from teams that coming into these series had a very good chance to sweep to teams that are just looking to salvage a game in these series. Is there anybody out there that predicted that?

The Cubs have Justin Steele starting for them today while Tampa Bay has Zach Eflin as their starting pitcher. Steele is 6-2 on the season for the Cubs but is coming off his worst start of the season in his last outing. Steele lasted just 3 2/3rd innings and took the loss against the Cincinnati Reds. Eflin is 7-1 for Tampa Bay this season and is coming off a win in his last start. Eflin threw 7 innings in a 6-3 win over the Toronto Blue Jays.

In Oakland the A’s will send James Kaprielian to the mound as they try to sweep the Braves. Kaprielian is 0-5 with an ERA of 8.45 this season. In his last start Kaprielian took the loss against the Houston Astros, he pitched 5 innings in that loss. The Braves will counter on the mound with rookie Jared Shuster who will be making his 6th major league start. Shuster pitched 5 2/3rd innings in his last start, and he took the loss against the Philadelphia Phillies.

Tampa Bay has lost two games in a row four times this season, but they’ve never lost three games in a row. Interestingly all three of those times that the Rays lost two games in a row it was to the same team. Is it possible that the Cubs could not only sweep the Rays, but could they be the first team to take three in a row from Tampa Bay.

Atlanta has had one four game losing streak and two three game losing streaks but is it possible that facing a team that even after winning two games in a row still has the worst record in baseball at 12-45 that Atlanta could lose three in a row.

There is absolutely no logic at all for the Cubs and the A’s to have won these first two games in their current series, but that’s baseball.

Let me know what you think. Do you see the Cubs and the A’s doing the improbably and sweeping Tampa Bay and Atlanta? Or do you see the Rays and the Braves bouncing back today and getting one win in the series? Let me know what you think the outcome of today’s games will be.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

With June right around the corner, it’s normally the time where the contenders in Major League Baseball have shown that they’re the teams to beat this season, but that’s not actually the case everywhere.

There are teams like the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Atlanta Braves who were expected to be at or close to the top of their divisions and both teams are currently in 1st place. It’s not even a huge surprise that the Milwaukee Brewers are in 1st place in the National League Central. Of course, there are still some things that no one thought would happen. No one had the Tampa Bay Rays going out and having the best record in baseball at 38-16. It’s also a bit of a surprise that the second-best record in baseball belongs to the Texas Rangers with the Baltimore Orioles holding onto the third best record just a half a game behind the Rangers. The Arizona Diamondbacks have also been a nice surprise as they currently find themselves in 2nd place in the National League West just 2 1/2 games behind the Dodgers. The Pittsburgh Pirates are also a surprising 2nd place team, but they’re just one game over .500 and their placing might be more of a weak division than a surprising start.

While Tampa Bay and Baltimore have gotten off to very good starts the rest of the American League east has played well themselves. The other three teams in the division the New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Toronto Blue Jays are all over .500 and would be in 1st or 2nd place in every other division in baseball except the American League West.

Of course, with the good there has to come the bad. You could throw either Central American or National in with the bad. The A.L. Central only has one team over .500 the division leading Minnesota Twins while the N.L. Central has managed to get two teams over the .500 mark the aforementioned Brewers and Pirates. Sadly, there will be a team that will end up winning these divisions and getting into the playoffs while it’s very possible a team with a better record could miss out on the playoffs.

Two of the more disappointing teams reside in these Central divisions. In the A.L. the Chicago White Sox have been a huge disappointment while in the N.L. it’s easily the St. Louis Cardinals who have been quite disappointing. The White Sox are currently 10 games under .500 at 22-32 but believe it or not they’re just 6 games behind the 1st place Twins. As foe St. Louis well they’re 7 games under .500 at 23-30 but they’re just 4 1/2 games behind 1st place Milwaukee. The one advantage for both the White Sox and the cardinals is that their divisions are so bad that their terrible starts haven’t hurt their chances of winning their divisions all that much. If either team can put together a winning streak they’ll be right back at the top of their respective divisions.

Another team that you can file under disappointing is the San Diego Padres. Believe it or not San Diego actually finds itself in 4th place in the N.L. West. San Diego is 4 games under .500 at 24-28 and 7 1/2 games behind the 1st place Dodgers. It was hoped that the return of Fernando Tattis Jr. would help the Padres go on a run and while Tatis Jr. has hit 9 home runs so far this season his batting average is .254 and he’s struck out 28 times in the 32 games he’s played in. Manny Machado had also struggled this season before getting hurt. Don’t forget that Machado finished second in the voting for National League Most Valuable Player last season, so his struggles and then his injury are a big concern for the Padres. Unlike the White Sox and the Cardinals, the Padres don’t have the luxury of being in a weak division and they’ll will probably find it hard to catch the Dodgers.

You can probably throw the Philadelphia Phillies into the disappointment pile, but they have taken two straight from the 1st place Braves and are now just two games under .500 at 25-27. Philadelphia is 6 games behind the Braves in the division but are just two games out of what would be a wild card spot. Don’t forget that just last season the Phillies went to the World Series as a wild card team. With Bryce Harper back in the lineup and as he gets more acclimated to either returning to the outfield or playing 1st base it will give Philadelphia some flexibility with their lineup.

Let me know if there’s a team that you’re either surprised by the way they’ve played so far or if there’s a team that you’re disappointing in. Obviously, it’s just coming up and June and there’s still a lot of baseball to play but remember with the now even scheduling teams won’t have those extra games against the other teams in their division to help them make up games.

Now we’ve seen some players move though either being released or just signed as a free agent, but you have to wonder when will really start hearing those trade market rumors. There are always some kind of trade rumors out there, but generally really early in the season it’s just sportswriters looking to fill column space. As we get closer to June and then of course into July the trade market should really heat up and some of those teams that we talked about as being disappointing might have to decide if they’ll be sellers on the trade market.

Of course, the one name that’s going to be talked about over and over and over again is going to be Shohei Ohtani of the Los Angeles Angels. Ohtani is in the last year of his contract with the Angels, and it seems as though he’d like to try his luck on the free agent market after the season were people think he could get up to $500 million dollars.

The Angels have played well this season and are currently 28-24 which puts them in 3rd place in the A.L. West 5 games behind the division leading Rangers. The Angels wouldn’t make the wild card round either as they are two games behind the Yankees who currently hold that last wild card spot.

The Angels will have a difficult decision to make if they don’t stay in the playoff race. Do they trade Ohtani to a contender and get however many prospects they can or do they ride it out with him and possibly watch him walk away as a free agent and get nothing for him in return.

August 1st is the trade deadline in baseball, so the Angels have two months to find out if they’re contenders or not. Don’t forget that August 1st is a hard trade deadline and there is no longer a waiver process for teams to make trades after that. Of course, there are still ways for players to change teams as there are loopholes to that trade deadline, but a player like Ohtani wouldn’t slip through like that.

So, what do you see the Angels doing with Ohtani. Will he be traded? Or will they hang onto him and take their chances trying to re-sign him?

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

Last night the Boston Celtics were able to avoid being swept out of the NBA playoffs as they beat the Miami Heat 116-99. Now the Celtics still have a long way to go in that series as they trail Miami three games to one.

Now the Los Angeles Lakers weren’t as lucky as they blew a 15-point lead on Monday night and were swept out of the playoffs by the Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets beat the Lakers 113-111 in Game 4 on Monday night.

Lebron James had a chance to tie the game for the Lakers, but his last second shot was blocked by the Nuggets Aaron Gordon to seal the game and the series for Denver.

After the game James mentioned that he’d need to take some time to decide if he’d be returning next season. Sadly, the first thing I thought about when I read this comment was that James is going to pull an Aaron Rodgers and use a possible retirement to keep himself relevant through the remainder of the NBA playoffs and the off season.

James has two years left on his contract with the Lakers and has mentioned time and time again that he’d like to play with his oldest son Bronny before he retires. Bronny has signed to play with USC next season, but there’s always the chance that he’s a one and done college basketball player and be in next year’s NBA draft.

That would put Bronny into the NBA in the final season of his father’s contract, so they could play together for that one year before the older James walks away and straight into the Hall of Fame.

Unfortunately, with James being not committal about his plans for next season the media will more or less follow him around until he makes a decision and that’s going to take away from the NBA finals match up as well as whichever team ends up winning the NBA title.

Now James may no longer be the best player in the NBA, but he’s still in the Top 10 or maybe even Top 5 of the league and to see him kind of look to draw attention to himself with a retirement tease is just really sad.

Let’s hope that James doesn’t drag this out and his statement was just from his team being swept out of the playoffs and the frustration that comes along with that situation. Unfortunately, like I said I have a feeling that this is going to drag out and detract from the other things going on in the NBA.

The Tampa Bay Rays have the best record in Major League Baseball at 35-15, but even good teams have rough games and last night the rays really had a rough game.

Coming into last night’s game Tampa Bat was 22-4 at home, but they took one on the chin last night as they lost 20-1 to the Toronto Blue Jays.

It was such a rough night for the Rays that not one, but two position players took the mound last night. Luke Raley was the first position player to pitch going 1 2/3rd innings. Raley gave up 7 runs on 8 hits two of which were home runs. After Raley Christian Bethancourt took the mound and pitched just 1/3rd of an inning. Bethancourt gave up 3 runs on 3 hits one of which was a home run.

Obviously, it’s just one game and when the teams play today last night’s game won’t mean anything. It’s just another one of those cases that show how odd of a game baseball can be. Even the best teams have off nights and any team can beat any other team at any time.

Tampa bay will send Shane McClanahan to the mound to start today’s game and help them bounce back from last night’s dubbing. Toronto is starting Yusei Kikuchi in today’s game as they try to win back-to-back games against the Rays.

Remember to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

The Denver Nuggets took a 3 games to none lead in their series with the Los Angeles Lakers last night. The Nuggets easily won Game 3 119-108 on the road. The Nuggets will have a chance to sweep the Lakers out of the Western conference finals Monday night in Los Angeles.

Jamal Murray led the way for the Nuggets last night scoring 37 points. Nikola Jokic added 24 points and led the Nuggets with 8 assists. It’s to the point where it almost seems like an off night for Jokic when he doesn’t post a triple double. Former Laker Kentavious Caldwell-Pope scored 17 points while Michael Porter Jr. posted a double double with 14 points and team high 10 rebounds. Bruce Brown came off the Nuggets bench to contribute 15 points in the win.

Anthony Davis led the Lakers in scoring with 28 points and he also grabbed a game high 18 rebounds. Austin Reaves and Lebron James each scored 23 points for the Lakers while James also added a game high 12 assists. Even though eight Lakers saw game action off of the bench only Rui Hachimura reached double figures in scoring as he went for 13 points in the loss.

Of course, the reaction to the Nuggets winning the first three games in this series seems to be one of surprise, but should it be. Denver is the #1 seed in the Western conference while the Lakers had to win their way through the play-in portion of the NBA playoffs. The Nuggets had a regular season record of 53-29 while the Lakers posted a regular season record of 43-39.

I’m under the impression that the reaction to Denver more or less dominating this series is the fact that the Nuggets don’t see a lot of media coverage. Even though Jokic came into this season winning back-to-back Most valuable Player awards the Nuggets weren’t exactly a team that was featured in the NBA’s television coverage. I’m not even sure if winning an NBA title would increase the amount of media coverage the Nuggets would get. Instead, they’d just be referred to as defending NBA champions.

Of course, the Nuggets will still have another series to win after the eliminate the Lakers in the Western conference finals. I understand that since the Lakers are involved in this series it’s featured like it’s for the championship, but it’s not. Denver will still have to beat the winner of the Boston Celtics/Miami Heat Eastern conference finals series to win the NBA championship.

In a series that’s been a real surprise the Miami Heat have found a way to win the first two games of their Eastern conference finals series against the Boston Celtics, in Boston. This gives the Heat a huge advantage heading into Game 3 today.

I don’t think that there was anyone out there that thought the Heat would go into Boston and take the first two games of this playoff series, but they did.

Boston has had issues down the stretch in the first two games of this series. In the 4th quarter of Game 1 the Celtics went scoreless for over four minutes and turned the basketball over three times two of which were traveling calls on Jayson Tatum. In Game 2 the Celtics got a dunk from Grant Williams with 3 minutes and 52 seconds left in the game. That dunk ended up being the last field goal the Celtics would make in Game 2 as they missed their final four field goal attempts and again turned the basketball over multiple times.

Since Boston came into this series as the favorite their struggles have been looked at them choking but is it just possible that the Heat are a good defensive team and they’ve been able to shut down the Celtics at crucial moments of the first two games. In know that defense is a foreign word in the NBA, but this is the playoffs and defense does usually surface this time of the year.

Since it takes four wins for a team to win a series today’s Game 3 isn’t a must win for the Celtics but going down 3 games to none with the fourth game being on the road might be too much to overcome. If Boston wants to make a return trip to the NBA finals, they’ll have to find a way to win four of the next five games and three of those games will be played on the Heat’s home court.

So what’s your opinion on these two series. Will we be seeing a Nuggets/Heat NBA finals match up or will we see either the Lakers or the Celtics comeback and win one of or both of these series.

The Lakers are in a little bigger hole than the Celtics are as the Nuggets are looked at as a better team than the Heat, but coming back in any series from being down multiple games isn’t easy.

Of course, you know that the NBA would prefer a Lakers vs. Celtics NBA finals match up than any other one. I’m not sure how exciting the league would find a Nuggets vs. Heat match up for the NBA championship.

We’ve been over this multiple times here before, but as you know I’m not a fan of the NBA’s style of play. I actually haven’t watched much of the playoffs except checking in on a game here and there to get a score. I am interested to know how much of the NBA playoffs you’re watching. Do you actually sit down and watch full games? Or do watch just parts of the game like a half or a quarter? I’m interested to see if and how your viewing habitats are different from mine.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

The San Antonie Spurs won the National Basketball Association’s draft lottery last night, so they’ll have the #1 pick in the draft, and everything points to them selecting Victor Wembanyama.

Wembanyama is the 7-foot 3-inch 19-year-old who’s been playing in the LNB Pro A league in France. Wembanyama has played the last two seasons for the Metropolitans 92.

It’s kind of interesting that not only Wembanyama, but the apparent 1st pick in the National Hockey League draft Connor Bedard are looked at as franchise changing players.

The Chicago Blackhawks won the NHL’s draft lottery and they’re expected to draft Bedard as they try to rebuild their franchise after the departure of players like Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews.

The Spurs were 22-60 last season while the Blackhawks were 26-49-7 last season. Even with the drafting of Wembanyama and Bedard how far away are these two franchises from not only contending to winning a championship, but actually winning a championship.

Now we’ve seen one star player help start to turn a team around, but it’s going to take more than just one young star player to get a team to a championship. Remember Lebron James was drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2003, but he didn’t win an NBA championship with the Cavaliers until 2016. James actually won two NBA championships with the Miami Heat before returning to Cleveland and winning a championship.

Obviously, it won’t be a surprise at all if Wembanyama and Bedard end up winning the Rookie of the Year awards in their leagues as a matter of fact it will probably be expected of them. Will just have to wait and see how long it gets them to help their respective teams return to the playoffs and then will have to continue to wait and see if they can help those teams win a championship.

We’re into the conference finals in both the NBA and the NHL.

In Game 1 of the Western conference finals the Denver Nuggets defeated the Los Angeles Lakers 132-126, Nikola Jokic posted a triple-double scoring 34 points grabbing 21 rebounds and handing out 14 assists. Game 1 of the Eastern conference finals is tonight as the Boston Celtics host the Miami Heat.

Over in the NHL Game 1 of the Eastern conference finals is tonight with the Carolina Hurricanes hosting the Florida Panthers. The Western conference finals starts on Thursday as the Dallas Stars take on the Vegas Golden Knights in Las Vegas.

There’s been a lot of talk about where Aaron Judge was looking during Monday’s game against the Toronto Blue Jays. There were a number of people who thought that Judge was looking into the Yankees dugout to steal signs. Other people thought that Judge was just looking at his base coaches. To no one’s surprise the Blue Jays took offense to this and there’s been some words exchanged between the two teams.

I can understand one team not being happy with another team stealing their signs if that’s what actually happened, but if the Yankees did find a way to steal the Blue Jays signs, if they did it without breaking any of Major League Baseball’s rules.

Stealing signs is not necessarily a violation of Major League Baseball‘s (MLB) rulebook; it depends how the signs are stolen. At the December 1961 Winter Meetings, the National League banned the use of a “mechanical device” to steal signs. The use of electronic equipment is not specifically forbidden by MLB rules, but in 2001, Sandy Alderson, while serving as executive vice president for baseball operations of MLB, issued a memorandum stating that teams cannot use electronic equipment to communicate with each other during games, especially for the purpose of stealing signs. Before the 2019 season, in an effort to reduce illegal sign stealing, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred instituted specific prohibitions on where teams could position cameras and how instant replay officials can communicate with managers.

Do you have any issues with the Yankees stealing signs if they did?

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

When Major League Baseball announced that they were dropping their unbalanced schedule I wasn’t a fan. Now looking at things I can see why it made sense for MLB to do that.

Just imagine if your favorite team played in the American League East or maybe it does. By playing an unbalanced schedule you’d have to face very good teams more times than other teams would have to face average and below average teams. Of course, a schedule like that would hurt A.L. East team’s chances of making the playoffs.

At this point early in the season the A.L. East is showing why it’s probably the best division in MLB. Every team in the division is currently over .500. It’s the only division in baseball where every team is over the .500 mark, but the A.L. West is close as four of the five teams in that division are over .500.

Obviously, there’s still a long way to go in the baseball season, but with the way the A.L. East has played all three of the wild card slots would be filled by teams from that division. Is it possible that we could actually see that happen come October?

Now when we’re talking about teams in the A.L. East being over .500 it’s not like they’re just a game over .500 and it moves back and forth from game to game. The Boston Red Sox are currently in the cellar of the A.L. East right now and they’re four games over .500 at 22-18. If the Red Sox were in any other division, they’d be in 1st place in two of them and 2nd place in the other three.

You have to wonder if the new schedule will benefit these A.L. East teams as the season heads down the stretch. Instead of having extra games against teams in their division they’ll probably have some games against teams that they would be favorite to beat. It might also help an A.L. East team in the playoffs because they might have had to play as many high stress games coming down the stretch.

It’s just May, so there’s quite a few games left to be played and health is always so important for teams, but barring anything odd happening will we see four of the five A.L. East teams in the playoffs?

The Atlanta Braves are in 1st place in the National League East. They Braves have a 5 1/2 game lead over the 2nd place Philadelphia Phillies, but you have to wonder if they’ll be able to hold onto their division lead.

Atlanta came into this season down a starting pitcher as Mike Soroka started the season still recovering from the injury that’s kept him from pitching since 2020. Soroka has made six starts in Triple-A as he tries to work his way back. In April the Braves lost Ian Anderson to Tommy John surgery, so that put them down a second starter. Then just this week the Braves put Max Fried and Kyle Wright on the IL. Both Fried and Wright are expected to miss at least two months. If you’re counting that’s four starting pitchers that the Braves are missing.

So right now, the Braves have Spencer Strider, Bryce Elder and Charlie Morton in their rotation, but who will fill the other two spots. We’ve seen both Dylan Dodd and Jared Schuster make starts for the Braves this season, so they might be the two logical choices to fill those rotation spots.

Is it possible that the Braves could go another route and try to make a trade to fill one or both of the spots in their rotation? It’s still very early in the season for teams to make trades, but there are rebuilding teams out there that would probably be willing to part with a veteran starting pitcher if they have one. The question then becomes which teams and which pitchers could the Braves go after.

Now it’s possible that the Braves might just sit tight and see how their young starters do and they have a little bit of a lead in the division to work with. Atlanta did drop their third game in a row this afternoon, but it’s probably too early for them to panic.

What do you think the Braves will do. Will they stick with their young starting pitchers, or will they go out and look for a veteran starter or two? Let me know what you think the Braves will do.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

There’s almost so much focus being placed on the series between the Golden State Warriors and the Los Angeles Lakers that I’m not sure that everyone realizes it’s not for the NBA championship.

Stephen Curry and Lebron James are probably the two biggest names left in the playoffs, but Curry is 35 years old while James is older at 38 years old. While they’re both definitely Hall of Famers when they decide to hang it up you have to wonder how long before the NBA realizes that they’re going to need new stars to replace these two and this is the time to try and build them.

Joel Embiid just won his first MVP award and is just 29 years old. Maybe instead of spending the majority of the time reporting on Game 5 between the Lakers and the Warriors maybe someone should be talking about the performance Embiid had last night.

In Game 5 of the Philadelphia 76ers series with the Boston Celtics Embiid scored 33 points grabbed 7 rebounds and blocked 4 shots as he led the 76ers to a 115-103 victory over the Celtics. Philadelphia now has three games to two lead in the series and they’ll have a chance to close the series out and advance to the Eastern conference finals tomorrow night at home.

Boston was the #2 seed in the Eastern conference, so it would be considered a slight upset if they lost this series to the 76ers who were the 3rd seed.

Embiid did have some help in Game 5 from his teammates. Tyrese Maxey scored 30 points while17 points and 10 assists while Harris had James Harden and Tobias Harris each had a double-double in the game. Harden had 16 points and 11 rebounds.

Can the 76ers get one more big effort out of the MVP Embiid and send the Celtics home? Or will Boston be able to bounce back and find a way to win both games 6 and 7 to take the series?

In the other Western conference series, the Denver Nuggets won Game 5 118-102 over the Phoenix Suns. The win gives Denver a three to two lead in the series, and they’ll have a chance to close out the Suns Thursday night in Phoenix.

Tonight, the Miami Heat have a chance to wrap up their series against the New York Knicks. Miami leads this series three games to one and they’ll try to end the Knicks season tonight in New York.

After the Heat/Knicks game will get the game, everybody wants to talk about as the Warriors try to keep their season alive as they host the Lakers in Game 5 of that series.

So what do you think happens tonight. Can the Knicks and the warriors keep their seasons alive? Or will the Heat and the Lakers be able to wrap up those series tonight?

Another thing that we haven’t heard much about is how well the Heat are doing. They entered the playoffs as the 8th seed in the Eastern conference because of a loss in the play-in tournament. Miami then sent the #1 seeded Milwaukee Bucks home in five games and probably cost now former Bucks head coach Mike Budenholzer his job. Budenholzer was fired after the Bucks lost their series to the Heat.

Don’t forget that Miami is making this run without Tyler Herro who played in just one playoff game before breaking his wrist. Miami is also missing Victir Oladipo who appeared in just two playoff games before injuring his knee. Neither player will return for the remainder of the Heat’s playoff run. Jimmy Butler also missed a game with a ankle sprain.

Butler has really stepped up his game in the playoffs. Butler is averaging 33.5 points per game in the eight games he played in. Butler is also leading the team in assists per game at 5.1. Bam Adebayo has added 17.6 points per game and is the team’s leading rebounder averaging 9.3 rebounds per game.

Miami is also getting contribution from some players whose names you might not know. Gabe Vincent, Caleb Martin and Max Strus have appeared in all nine of Miami’s playoffs games and are all averaging double figures in scoring. All three are playing close to 30 minutes a game for the Heat.

Well, that wraps it up for the day. Don’t forget to look me up on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

We’re about 35 games into the Major League Baseball season and where I live the majority of the talk is how disappointing the Chicago White Sox have been. The White Sox are off to a 11-23 start this season and find themselves already eight games behind the Minnesota Twins in the American League Central. You can definitely say they’ve been disappointing, but they’re not the only team that was expected to be better than they are right now.

In all honesty the most disappointing team in baseball right now might be the St, Louis Cardinals. After yesterday’s 6-5 loss to the Detroit Tigers the Cardinals find themselves in last place in the National League Central with a record of 10-24. The Cardinals are 10 games behind the 1st place Pittsburgh Pirates and are currently on the longest losing streak in Major League Baseball at eight games.

It appears as though the first thing that the Cardinals are going to try to get themselves back on track is make a change at the catching position.

Yesterday the Cardinals called up catcher Tres Barrera from Triple-A. It’s being reported that Andrew Kizner will be the Cardinals #1 catcher and their big off season free agent signing Willson Contreras will be used in the corner outfield position and at designated hitter.

St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol told reporters he was not blaming Contreras for the Cardinals’ struggles and noted that the decision was made following a meeting with president of baseball operations John Mozeliak, pitching coach Dusty Blake and Contreras.

While Marmol mentioned that Contreras isn’t to blame for the Cardinals slow start this move makes it look as though they are, but Contreras is off to a solid start this season. In 32 games Contreras is hitting .277 with 9 doubles, 2 home runs and 14 RBI’s.

Overall, it doesn’t appear as though the Cardinals offense is the issue for these early season struggles. It looks as though the pitching has been letting the team down. St. Louis did get Adam Wainwright back from the IL yesterday and that should help the starting rotation. Without Wainwright Jordan Montgomery was the Cardinals only starting pitcher with an ERA under 5.40. In the bullpen with the exception of Jordan Hicks the relievers have good numbers. They’re just giving up runs at the wrong times and it’s costing the team games.

The NL Central is the weakest division in the National League and I don’t think that anyone is expecting the Pirates to stay in 1st place throughout the season, so it won’t be a surprise if the Cardinals find their way back into the division race.

The Cardinals haven’t had a losing record in a season since 2007. Is it possible that this is the year that the Cardinals find themselves under .500 and out of the playoffs?

Another team that you could say is struggling even though they have a winning record is the New York Yankees. The Yankees are actually two games over .500 at 18-16, but in the American League East a record like that puts them in last place. In any other division the Yankees would be no worse than 3rd place, but in their division they’re in last place.

The Yankees haven’t won more than two games in a row this season while their longest losing streak is four games. The Yankees have had seven two game winning streak this season and they have a chance to get their eighth two game winning streak today if they can beat the Tampa Bay Rays for the second time in a row this afternoon.

The Yankees are another one of those teams that seem to be injury prone. They signed Carlos Rodon to a 6-year $162 million dollar deal this past off season and Rodon has yet to pitch this season due to injury. At this point in his career, I don’t think that anyone is surprise when Giancarlo Stanton ends up on the IL and sure enough, he’s out. Stanton hasn’t played since April 15th, and I haven’t seen a timetable for his return yet. Even a bigger blow for the Yankees is the fact that Aaron Judge got injured and ended up on the IL. Judge has been out since April 27th, but it’s being reported that he’ll be returning to the Yankees lineup this Tuesday.

Even though he doesn’t appear to be the same player that won the American League Most Valuable Player award in 2015 Josh Donaldson is still a solid player and the fact that he’s only played in 5 games for the Yankees this season due to injury also is oart of the reason for New York being where they are in the standings.

Do you think that once the Yankees get healthy or maybe just healthier if they’ll be able to get themselves back into the rcae in the AL East? The Yankees are currently 9 games behind 1st place Tampa Bay.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

I was a little surprised that there wasn’t more made of the Florida Panthers upsetting the Boston Bruins in the first round of the National Hockey League playoffs.

The Bruins set records for wins (65) and points (135) in a season, but ended up losing in seven games to the Panthers.

The Panthers were the very last team to make it into the playoffs in the Eastern conference, but they’re into the second round of the playoffs. The Panthers won their first game in their second round series last night against the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2.

Maybe there wasn’t such a overwhelming reaction to the Bruins being eliminated because we’ve seen 8th seeded teams go all the way and win the Stanley Cup, but I thought it was a pretty big deal that a team that set records in wins and points went out in the first round of the playoffs.

What was your reaction to the Bruins being eliminated by the Panthers in the first round?

So the National Football League draft is in the books and I heard something really interesting or maybe humorous depending on how you look at it.

There are quite a few people who do multiple mock draft before the NFL draft. Now two of the best-known people who do these mock drafts are Mel Kiper and Todd McShay who both work for ESPN. They’re both well known for their reports on the draft and all of the players eligible to be draft not just the top names.

I don’t know the exact number of mock drafts that Kiper and McShay released before the draft, but they both had multiple mock drafts out there. Out of the 32 1st round draft picks Kiper got 1 right while McShay didn’t do much better hitting on just 4 of his 32 projections.

Now I’m one of those people who like to read mock drafts, but after looking at how well they actually predicted the draft I’m not going to be putting very much stock into what anyone has to say about which team will draft which player.

Are you a mock draft reader? How do you feel about two of the top guys getting so few of their picks right? Even better maybe next year we should put our own mock draft together and see how we do.

Now the ratings in the National Basketball Association have been down for a few years not only during the regular season, but for the playoffs as well. I haven’t heard any reports on how they’re doing this year ratings wise, but I’d like to know if the NBA has done anything to draw your attention to the playoffs.

Now the NBA did get a match up they wanted with the Los Angeles Lakers facing the Golden State Warriors, but I’m sure they would’ve rather had them meet up in the Western conference finals. Of course, they’ll take what they can get, and this series will get more publicity than any other conference semi-final series.

The Lakers were able to win Game 1 of the series last night 117-112, so will see if Golden State can bounce back in Game 2 on Thursday.

Don’t forget to look for me on Twitter, I’m @Burketime.

There are a lot of sports on at this time of the year. There’s Major League Baseball as well as the playoffs in the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association. The National Football League just had it’s annual draft while the startup XFL is headed for it’s championship game and the other start up football league the USFL is just a few weeks into its season. There’s also sports like NASCAR as well as the PGA and LPGA tour’s going on and I’m sure there is plenty of soccer to watch as well.

That’s a lot of sports to try and watch and what I’m wondering is how do you do it? I’m sure there are sports that you prefer to watch live and I’d like to know what they are, but what about the other ones. I’ve tried recording different sports, but I always end up finding out the final score and then I don’t watch what I’ve recorded.

As for me I prefer to watch baseball live and I’ll watch as much of it as I can no matter what teams are playing. I also watch the NASCAR races live, but they’re once a week and it’s not to difficult to work those into my TV viewing schedule.

I’ve been really enjoying the NHL playoffs and that’s where I seem to run into an issue. With my work schedule I generally start right around 4:00 a.m. That’s makes it difficult to watch the end of some of the NHL playoff games and I don’t get to see the ones that are in the Western conference do to their later start times. I thought I’d just try to record them onto my DVR, but I work with someone who’s a huge hockey fan and even though he doesn’t mean to do it he ends up telling who won what game.

I’m interested to know what you’ve been interested in watching and how you go about doing it. Are you able to watch everything you enjoy live? Or do you have to try and record other events and watch them that way. Maybe you’re just not into too many sports and can get by watching just a few sports.

In the NBA playoffs there were a couple of upsets in the 1st round, but I’m not sure they were as big of a deal as they would’ve been a few years ago.

The #8 seeded Miami Heat eliminated the #1 seeded Milwaukee Bucks in the Eastern conference while the 7th seeded Los Angeles Lakers knocked the #2 seed Memphis Grizzlies out of the playoffs.

It is a bit of a surprise that the 58-win Bucks were knocked out of the playoffs, but once Giannis Antetokounmpo was injured the entire series changed. Don’t forget that the Heat were actually the 7th seed coming into the playoffs, but they lost the first play-in game and the best seeding they could get after that loss was the 8th seed.

With Memphis between Dillion Brooks mouth and everything going on in Ja Morant’s life it’s no surprise at all that a veteran team like the Lakers was able to beat them in a playoff series. It always seems to take a young team a few playoff series before they can advance past a veteran team for some reason.

There is still one series still going on, but that will wrap up this afternoon. The Sacramento Kings host the Golden State Warriors in Game 7 of their opening round series this afternoon. The Kings won the first two game before Golden State ran off three straight wins. Sacramento won Game 6 to force this game seven and with them being at home they should be the favorite to advance in this series.

Last night the Denver Nuggets won Game 1 of their semi-final series against the Phoenix Suns 125-107. The Eastern conference series between the New York Knicks and the Heat starts this afternoon. The other Eastern conference semi-final series starts tomorrow night with the Boston Celtics hosting the Philadelphia 76ers.

As I’ve mentioned many times here, I’m not a big fan of the NBA, but I will check in on a game from time to time to get a score. I wish that the NBA would find a way to streamline the end of their games to make them more watchable, but with all of the timeouts and stoppages in play it makes it very difficult to watch.

I’d like to see the NBA limit the number of timeouts a team can use at the game of games, and I’d like to see the length of the timeouts shorten, but sadly I don’t think that will happen. Like everything now games are based around television, and they need that time to get the commercials in, so it’s doubtful any changes will be made. The NBA playoff ratings have been going down for quite a few years now and the only change they’ve made is the play-in tournament, so I don’t see them changing the way the games end.

Would you like to see the NBA make changes to the end of their game? If so let me know what you think they should do. Or maybe you like the set up the way it is.

Don’t forget to look me up on Twitter, I’m at Burketime.