By Jim Vallet and Robert Perea
Last weekend, last weekend, last weekend. What a great time to be a sports fan, and to be alive. The weather here is fantastic, although the weather in the fall is great in Northern Nevada, too. I guess the weather here just seems great because the summer is so miserable. So, why did we move here? Read on, and I’ll tell you.
The weekend ended OK. Although I was wrong on my Monday night Cowboys pick, I did pick up an unexpected fantasy win when Dak Prescott threw a last-second interception. Prescott’s desperation I.N.T. capped a huge comeback for me in which, at one time, ESPN said I only had a 5% chance to win. Although I now hate fantasy football, I am also back in the playoff picture. Yes!
Sunday was a good day for me, although not so for my Lions. I went 5-1 picking the Sunday games, only to drop the Monday game to finish 5-2 for the week. But, I went 2-0 on the games I bet, and would have gone 3-0 had I only stuck with what I predicted and bet the Buffalo Bills.
Saturday finished a World Series that I’ll remember for a while. I bet the Dodgers on a futures bet at 5-1 before the playoffs started. I thought at the time that I got a steal of a price, as the Dodgers have, in my opinion, the best roster in Baseball and only didn’t dominate the regular season because of injuries. But, the team appeared healthy to me heading into the playoffs and I couldn’t see anyone threatening their title defense.
But I was blind to the Toronto Blue Jays. As we all witnessed, Toronto has a great lineup that can make it very difficult for opposing pitchers. They also play exceptional defense even without star shortstop Bo Bichette, who was forced into a DH/2B role due to injury. Still, the Jays replaced Bichette with a competent shortstop that has eluded the Detroit Tigers the last several years. (Wanna feel old? I had Bo Bichette’s dad on my fantasy baseball team)
The Dodgers only lost one game in the 3 playoff rounds prior to the World Series, while the Blue Jays, after a first round bye, needed 5 and 7 games to defeat the Yankees and Seattle Mariners, respectively. The Dodgers had a healthy rotation of 4 pitchers that they had paid over 1.2 billion dollars to get opposing a Jays’ Game 1 starter that started the season in Class A ball. The top of the Dodgers’ batting order has three certain Hall of Famers. I was planning how to spend my winnings and would have quit my day job if I had one. It seemed too good to be true.
It was. The first 5 games it seemed no Dodger pitcher, except Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Will Klein (Mr. Coffee) could get the Blue Jays out. Toronto spoiled countless good pitches with foul balls until they got a good pitch to hit, and then they hit it in a spot where no Dodger could catch it. The Canadian team played flawless defense, and most of the time the Dodger lineup looked clueless.
I was disconsolate. It wasn’t so much the money, it was that I had been SO sure. So, after watching games 1 and 2, I covered my Dodger bet by putting a smaller amount on the Toronto Blue Jays. I gotta tell ya, that cover bet saved my sanity for a week as I watched the invincible LA Dodgers sink to inevitable defeat. While Mookie Betts, Teoscar Hernandez, Andy Pages and Max Muncy flailed like bad high school hitters, at least I knew I would get SOMETHING, and that knowledge saved me from searching out the tallest building in Greenville, NC to jump from. I was wrong on my original bet, but I was at least smart enough to recognize my mistakes.
Wrong again. The Dodgers, thanks to adequate pitching and a superhuman effort from Yamamoto, won games 6 and 7 in Toronto in (to me) thrilling fashion.
In spite of the harassment from my wife, I was ecstatic. A futures bet win, even if covered, is always good, right? I spent Saturday night celebrating “my” Los Angeles Dodgers victory. Ah, the sweet scent of success.
Kids, do as I say, not as I do. Betting is risky, and can result in financial harm. Bet only what you can afford to lose, but I wish I had bet more.
The World Series reinforced a belief that I have had for some time about winning championships. Especially in baseball, regular season wins come from depth and a lack of mistakes. In the Majors, you need enough pitching to cover over 1,400 regular season innings. Not every one of them could ever be Cy Young winning, but you do have to get through it. Hardly any position player plays all 162 games, but you have to have someone in each position for every game. Hockey requires 6 players on the ice for over 4,900 minutes in the regular season, and few players play every game. Actually, it is true in every professional sport that there are more innings and minutes in a regular season than there are stars to play all of those innings or minutes. So, you have to have depth.
That is not always the case in the playoffs. Sometimes good isn’t good enough, sometimes you need great. More often than not, it is a super performance that wins a championship. It’s Patrick Mahomes or Madison Bumgarner or Tom Brady or Mickey Lolich or Bob Gibson that is the difference between a championship or a runner-up. Sometimes, the player is not a great player, but a player who had a great championship like Nick Foles or David Tyree or Derek Fisher, but my point is that to win championships someone frequently has to go above and beyond.
This World Series it was Yoshinobu Yamamoto. If any major league pitcher is ever worth 300 million dollars, that pitcher this year is Yamamoto. After a Game 2 complete game (which he won) Yamamoto came back and threw 96 pitches in Game 6 (which he won again). He followed that up by pitching 2 ⅔ high stress innings the VERY NEXT DAY (which he won yet again). Like Grover Cleveland Alexander, the St. Louis Cardinal great who threw a complete game in Game 6 of the 1926 World Series and then came back the following day to record a 2+ innings save, Yamamoto did what the team needed, which had to be more than good. Unlike Alexander, Yamamoto was not so hung over from celebrating his Game 6 win that he was sleeping in the Dodger bullpen and actually volunteered to pitch the deciding innings.
Contrast Yamamoto with Tarik Skubal, who had 0 complete games last year, never threw more than 108 pitches, and exited an elimination game after 96 pitches, the same number Yamamoto threw in winning Game 6. Now, Skubal reportedly wants 350 million dollars, or 50 million dollars MORE than Yamamoto. If you’re the Tigers, do you do it?
I went backwards over the weekend because I wanted to save the best for last. Friday night, besides the night of Game 6 of this year’s World Series, was also Halloween. We live ⅓ mile away from 2 of our grandchildren, who happen to be of trick or treat age. While I stayed home and passed out candy, my wife went out with our grandchildren trick or treating. The first place they came was our house, and knowing that I watched my two year old granddaughter (as Elsa) and my six year old grandson (as Sven) run up to our door shouting, “Twick or Tweat!” as my granddaughter lost both her high heeled shoes on her way to the door, how can you not know the answer to the question I asked at the beginning of this article. THAT is why we moved cross-country, and it’s worth it.
As I write this, it is trade deadline day in the NFL. So far, it seems that the Cowboys have improved their defense, the Colts have improved their secondary, the Jaguars and Seahawks have improved in their receiver rooms, while the Jets and Bengals appear to be stashing away draft picks. It looks to me like the Colts and Seahawks are going all in this year, while the Cowboys are wasting their draft capital.
Last week was another good one, and I’ll try again. Lines are from espn.com on Tuesday Nov. 4.
Denver Broncos (-8 ½) vs LV Raiders This is more than just the visitor Thursday night disadvantage.
New England Patriots (+2 ½) at Tampa Bay Buccaneers I don’t know if the Bucs can keep it up, missing so many players on offense.
Carolina Panthers (-5 ½) vs New Orleans Saints Now, the Saints still don’t have anyone to throw or run the ball, and they only have Olave to catch it
Detroit Lions (-8 1/2 ) at Washington Commanders This game opened at Lions -3 ½, and had moved 5 points. That’s a lot, and normally I like to go against the “steam”, but the Commanders need nuclear, not steam power.
Seattle Seahawks (-6 ½) vs Arizona Cardinals Short week against a good team is a bad combination for the Cardinals
LA Rams (-3 ½) at SF 49ers I’m worried about giving that extra ½ point
Philadelphia Eagles (+2 ½) at Green Bay Packers Do you think the Panthers are the only team that can win at Lambeau Field? The wrong team is favored here.
Last week 5-2
Season 33-23
Robert’s picks
Note: Even though I wrote in my description of the game last week why I was picking the Bills over the Chiefs, I listed it backward so I’m taking the loss on my record. That, and a pick-6 with 38 seconds left in the game by Virginia against Cal turned a 3-3 weekend to 1-5.
Memphis (-3 ½) over Tulane: Tulane ruined a little bit of the value on this one with a terrible performance against UTSA last week, probably because they were looking ahead to this one. But a spot in the College Football Playoff now clearly is Memphis’ to lose, and I think they’re solidly better than Tulane, which is why I had been looking ahead to this one myself.
UNLV (-4 ½) at Colorado St.: If Colorado St. was going to put up a prideful showing after Jay Norvell got fired, you would think it would have been the week it happened. Instead, they lost 28-0 at Wyoming. Coming off two straight losses, this is a fork-in-the-road game for UNLV’s season, while I’m betting the Colorado St. assistant coaches spent more time networking for jobs for next season during their bye last week than preparing for this one. Colorado St. QB Brayden Fowler-Nicolosi left the program last week and whichever of his teammates have legitimate options won’t be far behind.
UCLA (-1 ½) over Nebraska: I was looking to bet UCLA as an underdog in this spot, then Nebraska QB Dylan Raiola broke his leg last week and his replacement, T.J. Lateef, completed 5 of 7 passes for 7 yards. Raiola’s passing accounts for two-thirds of Nebraska’s total offense this season, and if there’s a significant drop-off, then the Bruins can get the job done.
Jets (+2 ½) over Browns: This might seem counterintuitive, at best, after the Jets just traded their two best defensive players, and it’s also entirely possible that the feeble Jets offense just can’t do anything against the Browns' defense. But the Browns' offense is as bad or worse than the Jets and an NFL team that averages 15.8 points per game should not be favored on the road.
Buccaneers (-2 ½) over Patriots: On the road in a non-conference game with a home primetime game coming up on Thursday doesn’t seem like a great situational spot for the Patriots.
Eagles (+2 ½) over Packers: I don’t expect to need it, but I’ll hold off on this bet while I wait to see if it goes up to 3. I’m willing to wait and risk the line going down because I’ll take any points available. I know the Packers have played their best against the better teams and are coming off laying an egg last week, likely looking ahead to this one. But I expect a strong second half of the season by the Eagles, and that starts here coming off their bye.
Last week
College 1-2
NFL 0-3
Season
College 14-15-1
NFL 13-15
Comment
Comments