The Browns Finally Did it, and at the Expense of Jets Fans

Posted on by Patrick Whalen

By Patrick Whalen

Guess who’s back, back again, Browns are back, tell a friend. Yes, the most anticipated losing streak ending has finally happened the Cleveland Browns have won a football game. America’s loveable losers won their first football game in 635 days ending the teams 19 game winless streak. Since the Browns last win, they’ve had 8 different quarterbacks in that 19 game span including Robert Griffin III, Josh McCown, Kevin Hogan, Cody Kessler, Brock Osweiler, DeShone Kizer, Tyrod Talyor, and lastly Baker Mayfield.

Mayfield came in during the second quarter after Taylor left with a concussion. Mayfield then preceded to go 17/23 for 201 yards and led the Browns on 4 scoring drives which included a touchdown drive with a two-point conversion to tie the game after trailing by 14. Despite coach Hue Jackson said he won’t name a week 4 starter yet, I can’t see him going away from Baker who played with great poise and showed the Cleveland faithful why he was the number 1 pick and could be the future of the franchise. Plus he got the city of Cleveland a ton of free bud light so he is pretty much on God status for the rest of the week at least.

But of course, with the good, there is the better. Who did the Browns end their 19 game winless streak against? That’s right, the God damn New York Jets. New York fans took a big hit last night, the Red Sox clinching in the Bronx and about 20 minutes later the Jets losing to the Cleveland Browns. Now all of New England doesn’t have to listen to these asinine Jet fans say that Sam Turnover Darnold and the boys are coming for Brady and the Pats this year. Listen Jet fans, before you start saying that your coming for that Patriot ass maybe stick to trying to beat the Browns or maybe the Bills because you are  not any closer to the Pats this year maybe in like 7 years you could compete with the Pats but right now just shut your mouths and go back to your mediocre lives rooting for a horrible run football team. The Jets S-U-C-K Suck Suck Suck!

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The Red Sox End Their 3 Game Series in the Bronx by Officially Clinching the A.L. East Title

Posted on by Patrick Whalen

By Patrick Whalen

Ladies and Gentleman the wait is finally over. The Red Sox are officially your 2018 American League East Division Champs! They couldn’t have done it in a better setting in the Bronx against the Yankees, finally putting the dagger in all Yankee fans hearts. The game was classic Red Sox. They jumped on the Yankees early, the Yankees then took the lead and for a while, it was not looking good but then the Red Sox ran the ole start hitting bombs and retake the lead play and finished the job winning 11-6 and champagne popping ensued. The Sox got some damage done early via the smoking hot bat of Brock Holt who hit a solo shot off Tanaka in the third to give the Sox an early 4-2 lead.

Eduardo Rodriguez struggled mightily earlier on in the game going 3.2 innings giving up 5 and walking 7. Heath Hembree then had to come in to try and clean up E-Rods mess, bases loaded, 2 outs and Giancarlo Stanton hit a classic Yankee Stadium pop fly grand slam that probably went about 250 feet. Steven Wright then came in and proceeded to throw 3 innings of shutout ball to quite the Yankees and give the Sox a chance. With the Sox down 1 in the seventh Jackie Bradley Jr came up and hit a game-tying bomb into the second deck off Chad Green.

Later that inning with the bases loaded Xander Bogarets hit a sac fly to center that would score 1 run and then Miguel Andujar couldn’t handle Aaron Hicks throw and it skipped into the stands and allowed Benintendi to score as well which made it 8-6. Then in the 8th inning, Mookie Betts might have just locked up his A.L. MVP with a 3 run dinger to left off Aroldis Chapman to make it 11-6 and pretty much seal the game.

The Sox just had to get 6 out to finally officially claim the A.L. East crown. Braiser came in and pitched a perfect 8th and then Kimbrel came in and shut the door in the 9th to end it and how appropriate that the last out be a strikeout of Giancarlo Stanton. Especially after the Sox lost out on getting him in the offseason and losing Stanton let them sign J.D. Martinez, who is a much better hitter and in any other season is probably the MVP over his teammate Mookie Betts, for a lot less than 300 million dollars.

After this, the gold bottle popping ensued in the visitors locker room in Yankees Stadium. The Red Sox got to clinch in their arch rival’s stadium in front of the enemy’s fans and that was one of the sweetest sights to watch. Plus with that loss now the Yankees are only 1.5 games up on the A’s for home field in the wild card game and also watch out for the Rays 8 back of the Yankees, but the Yankees have 3 with Baltimore, who the struggle with, 4 in Tampa, and 3 in Boston. Its a slim chance but very possible if the Rays can sweep that the Red Sox not only could clinch the division in New York but also knock the Yankees out of the playoffs. Oh, how sweet the next two weeks could be.

Looking ahead to the playoffs now the Red Sox pretty much have home field advantage locked up, just not officially but they lead Houston by 9.5 in that category so it will be clinched very soon. This, of course, means the Sox will be getting the wild card game winner which right now is the Yankees and A’s and potentially if all hell breaks loose the Rays could get in. I would easily prefer to get the Yankees out of that matchup. The Sox have played very well against their rivals this year and have pretty much owned them at Fenway. Granted both series were early in the season and both teams have changed and grown since then but the Sox struggled against Oakland. Also, the Oakland A’s are on fire as of late and everyone knows that some teams can catch fire going into October and make a deep run into the postseason. The Yankees do not scare me especially over the last month and a half since they’ve been playing .500 ball. Plus who can forget that 4 game sweep of the Yankees in Fenway in the first week of August. That series solidified, at least in my opinion, that the Sox can easily knock out the Yankees in October because the Yankees came in looking to try and shrink the Sox division lead and get back into the division chase and instead left Fenway losing 4 straight 9.5 games gout of first place and that pretty much sealed up the division for the Sox with 2 months to go. The Sox are not afraid of the Yankees and A’s are just a straight up better ball club right now. Can the Sox still beat the A’s, yes, but I believe that series will be harder for the Sox to win. The easiest way for the Sox to get to at least the ALCS is through the Yankees.

The FedEx Cup Playoffs New System is Pure Insanity for Real Golf Fans

Posted on by Patrick Whalen

By Patrick Whalen

The PGA Tour has announced more changes, this time to the FedEx Cup and playoff format. The previously announced schedule changes were all about shuffling tournament dates including moving the PGA Championship from august to may and moving The Players Championship from may to march. The schedule changes also included cutting one of the four FedEx Cup playoffs stops which just happened to be the Dell Technologies Championship hosted by TPC Boston. It was a real shame to see the tour cut out a tournament like the Dell Technologies especially seeing how the only other tournament that comes to the New England area is the Travelers Championship in Connecticut. People from all over New England would mark their calendars for labor day weekend to make their way to TPC Boston to see their favorite PGA stars play one of the best golf courses on tour. The crowds were always large and loud for their favorite stars especially on the weekend but to see this stop on the PGA tour removed from the annual rotation is just a travesty.

The new announcement from the PGA was concerning the playoffs themselves and the format. Obviously, with only three events rather than four, the tour was obviously going to adjust the FedEx cup points but the did much more than that. The basis of these changes was to eliminate the awkward scenario at the Tour Championship that occurred last year where Xander Schauffele won the tournament but Justin Thomas was crowned the FedEx Cup champion. These changes have been made to supposedly avoid that happening, the tour wants the tour champion being the FedEx Cup champion. So they chose to now take the FedEx Cup standings and translate them into starting at a certain amount under par to start the tournament. So the points leader going into the week will now start the tournament at 10 under par before they even tee off, second place will then start at 8 under, third place at 7 under, fourth place at 6 under, and fifth place at 5 under. Places 6-10 then start at 4 under, 11-15 start at 3 under, 16-20 at 2 under, 21-25 at 1 under and finally 26-30 at even par.

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These changes are absolutely ludacris for anyone who is actually a real fan of golf or has played in a tournament golf setting. The tour has now opened up a can of worms they haven’t considered, if a player that starts at 2 under then shoots lights out and ends up shooting 15 under without his predetermined strokes. So that player could be at 17 under for the tournament but the leader who starts at 10 under would only have to actually shoot 8 under for the weekend. Any other week on tour player a would have player b beat by 7 shots but now player b will somehow win the tournament.

Giving the strokes as an advantage would be acceptable if the FedEx Cup was still a reward for an entire seasons performance but the tour has now created the Wyndham rewards top 10 that is a money bonus for the top 10 players regular season performance. So the FedEx Cup is now more of just a playoff champion trophy rather than a season total champion. So if a player gets hot much like how Bryson DeChambeau did in this postseason and wins the first two tournaments he now gains a 10 stroke advantage before he even tees off. You could now have players who have done absolutely nothing this year when it comes to top 10s and actually winning tournaments get hot for two weeks and walk into the Tour Championship with a ten shot advantage. Just imagine being a player like Justin Rose or Dustin Johnson this year playing great golf for most of the year and walking into the Tour Championship with the FedEx Cup on the line and being 2 or 3 strokes down before you even tee off just because one player got hot for two weeks.

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The tour may think this solves problems like having a different Tour Championship winner and FedEx Cup winner or fans not being able to understand the points rankings and how they are determined but they’ve now opened up a new can of worms that I don’t think they’ve considered. The FedEx also became even a bigger deal to players wallets as the money pool is increasing from $35 million to $60 million with the cup winner receiving $15 million and if a player misses out on that kind of payday because of a stroke a play received before even teeing off. The tour has probably created more problems than it has actually solved with all these new format changes.

 

I Just Tip My Cap, and Call the Yankees my Daddy

Posted on by Patrick Whalen

By Patrick Whalen

Well with another chance to officially clinch the A.L. East tonight the Red Sox blew it again. This time in embarrassing fashion against the Yankee by a score of 10-1. David Price got another chance to silence his doubters in Yankees stadium but they were loud and clear tonight as Price gave up 5 hits 6 runs and 4 earned over 5.1 innings. What killed Price tonight was that 3 of the 5 hits were home runs and he also walked 4 men. After this performance tonight which is one of many horrid outings in the Bronx for Price maybe it’s about time he utters the famous quote that Pedro did back in 2004, “I just tip my cap, and call the Yankees my daddy” because after that Pedro could actually pitch successfully in the Bronx. Now despite Price giving up 3 homers they were a complete product of the ballpark. Of the three home runs given up the longest was 343 ft (via Rob Bradford) which is only a home run in Yankees stadium.

Its even shown in this Fenway graphic from Red Sox Stats that all three homers would be at least 20 feet short of the wall in Fenway and end up being routine fly outs.

Yes, Price did still give them up but its hard to pitch in a place where a routine fly ends up in the third row. Price now falls to 15-7 on the season and his ERA is back up to 3.53. He’s been brilliant in the second half of the season but the Yankees are still his daddy, mostly because of the home run ball. He’s given up 8 in 14.1 innings against the Yankees while giving up 14 in 155.1 innings to all other teams.

But Price was not the only one to blame, the offense was poor again scoring only 1 run tonight off the bat of Sandy Leon who broke his 0-30 streak. Yet the rest of the offense seemed to forget how to hit and made Severino look dominate. It was the same story as last night as the Sox left 9 men on and went 1-5 with men in scoring position. The bullpen also didn’t help the cause as Joe Kelly and William Cuevas each gave up 2 runs in a combined 1.1 innings of work.

I believe Price will be fine in the postseason, he was due for a bad start after going on such a tear lately. My real concerns are the sputtering offense that is going cold at the completely wrong time of the year and more importantly the issue of who can actually get outs and get the ball to Kimbrel at the end of the game seeing how no one has stepped up over the last 2-3 weeks. Hopefully when Matt Barnes returns he could be that guy or if Joe Kelly or Ryan Braiser could find their dominate stuff again or if Workman can just regain his consistency but someone, I do not care who it is, needs to step up and be that 8th inning guy for a potential postseason run to the world series.

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So don’t overreact to the first bad Price outing in a month, especially because he’ll probably be pitching at Fenway in game 2 if the Yankees are our opponent and in that case, Price would have given up maybe 1-2 runs tonight and given the Sox a chance to win. Cora knows Price doesn’t pitch well in the Bronx so he’s not gonna put him in that position where that Yankees can look like his daddy. But if the bullpen doesn’t clean itself up real soon it doesn’t matter how Price or Sale or any of the starters do because at this rate the bullpen won’t be able to hold a lead smaller than 3.

As for game 3 tomorrow the Sox are gonna look to avoid the sweep and start popping some gold bottles to celebrate clinching the division. The Sox are gonna send out the 12-4 Eduardo Rodriguez while the Yankees are going with 12-5 Masahiro Tanaka. But also just to remind Yankees fans that win has cut the Red Sox lead in the division to 9.5 games.

Jimmy Butler Requested a Trade Today and It’s Not to the Celtics But it Still Affects the Celtics

Posted on by Patrick Whalen

By Patrick Whalen

The day that most NBA fans had been anticipating over the last month has finally happened, Jimmy Butler has requested a trade from the Timberwolves. Now before the Boston media restarts, all the Butler to the Celtics rumors he has put out a list of three teams he wants to be traded to and the Celtics are not featured on the list. The 3 teams Butler named were the Clippers, Nets, and Knicks. According Woj Butler would prefer to go to the Clippers and join a second star in the offseason.

If the Celtics were even on the list it would still take probably at least Jaylen Brown and a high first-round pick at the minimum to acquire Butler if not more. In my opinion, it probably would take the Kings 2019 first round pick, Jaylen Brown, and either Terry Rozier or Marcus Smart which many can agree is too much for the Celtics to give up. Besides shaking up the team chemistry the Celtics would also have a big decision at seasons end to make by either giving Butler or Kyrie Irving a new max deal. Also, any deal that features multiple Celtics players would weaken a very strong bench unit for the Celtics, especially if the deal features a Marcus Smart, Terry Rozier, or Marcus Morris.

But how does this affect the Celtics if Butler isn’t coming to Boston? Well, if Woj’s report is correct and Butler would prefer going to the Clippers than the supposed rumors of a potential Kyrie and Butler teaming up on the Knicks would be dead. If Butler gets dealt to the Clippers the Knicks would not have the resources to attract Irving away from Boston unless they were able to sign another star from the loaded 2019 free agent class. But the Knicks are a very young team that is not ready to compete with the Celtics, Sixers, and Raptors in the east this year and could only become competitive with the addition of multiple stars and a healthy Kristaps Porzingis. So now if Butler goes west a Kyrie departure to the Knicks is much less likely.

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Now a departure to the Clippers is not out of the picture for Kyrie if he is seriously considering teaming up with Butler but if he sadly leaves for the western conference at least the Celtics would not have to deal with a new young team improving in the east. I still believe that Irving will ultimately return to the Celtics seeing how they’ll have a full year out of Gordon Hayward this year and a more mature Tatum, Brown, and Rozier to help show what this team’s full potential really is. I think as long as the Celtics make the finals Irving returns no questions asked and getting to the finals is very possible seeing how they were 5 minutes away last year without Irving or Hayward. Also, another factor in Irving returning could be if Kawhi Lenord chooses to leave Toronto in free agency for a Los Angles team like he had originally requested for in a trade. If Kawhi does jump ship to the western conference Irving should see that the Celtics only legitimate threat in the east would be the Sixers and see that the Celtics could go on a streak like the Cavs did making it to four straight finals out of a weak eastern conference. Plus if the Celtics are able to get the Kings 2019 first round pick, which they receive as long as the Kings pick isn’t 1st overall, they could add another young star to a roster that already features Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Terry Rozier, Marcus Smart, and Robert Williams.

Pats Resign Cyrus Jones to Return Punts Even Thought He Can’t Return Punts

Posted on by Patrick Whalen

By Patrick Whalen

We’ve got another roster move by the Patriots this morning and its an old friend of the organization. Well, not really an old friend more of a failed second-round pick that could hardly find snaps on the field. Yes ladies and gentleman Cyrus Jones is back. The Pats resigned the defensive back/ punt returner to a two-year deal signing him off of the Ravens practice squad (via Mike Reiss). Reiss also is reporting that Jones will likely top the punt returner depth chart this week.

Jones had his struggles in 2016 as he was primarily used as a returner having 5 fumbles and only 180 return yards. Jones, a highly talented college player out of Alabama, was pinned to be one of the next starting corners for the Pats but he only had 7 total tackles in 2016 and was inactive for the Super Bowl. He was going to gain a larger role and more playing time on special teams in 2017 with the season-ending injury to Julian Edelman in week 3 of the preseason. But Jones would suffer a similar season-ending injury in week 4 of the preseason. Jones was cut on September 1 this year by the Patriots.

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If the Patriots can at least gain a solid return man out of Jones at this point its a win for the team. Whether or not he develops into a starting quality corner is still left to be seen but right now all the Patriots need out of him is to be a solid and reliable returner. If in the coming years he can develop into a starting corner or even become one this year would be great because teams are ripping the Pats secondary apart. Stephon Gilmore is still a solid number 1 corner who can play effective man to man defense but Eric Rowe has been absolutely terrible. Rowe’s poor play was highlighted by a second-half benching against the Jags in week 2. So, if Jones can magically remake himself into the kind of corner he was at Alabama who on tape looked like a late first round pick he could find himself finally playing meaningful defensive snaps. As long as Jones can stay healthy and cure his fumbling issues he should be able to make a meaningful contribution on the field this year at least on special teams for the Pats.

The Red Sox Could Have Clinched the A.L. East but Just Did Not Feel like it

Posted on by Patrick Whalen

By Patrick Whalen

The opening game of a 3 game series in the Bronx for the Sox was not a good one. The Red Sox came into tonight needing a win to officially clinch the A.L. East title but they weren’t in a champagne mood tonight. It was just an overall bad day for the Sox because the game was originally scheduled for a 1:05 first pitch but was then moved back to a 7:05 first pitch but, as the news of the rescheduling broke the Red Sox bus was already on the way over to the stadium (via NESN). It was just a long rough day in New York for the Red Sox and they figured lots of champagne to end the night wasn’t the best idea.

As for the actual game, it was a starters duel for the first 6 innings with the only run coming on a J.D. Martinez sac fly in the third. Both starters were dealing, J.A. Happ going 6 innings giving up 4 hits and 1 run and Nate Eovaldi showing that work with Pedro has paid off going 6 innings giving up just 2 hits and striking out 5.

Workman then came in for the seventh and walked two men and then with one out Ryan Braiser came in and gave up a three-run home run to Neil Walker, (reminder Yankees stadium right field is about as deep as your local little league field).

After taking the lead the Yankees the trotted out Zach Britton who almost handed the Rex Sox a win and the division (officially) but, Ian Kinsler grounded into a game-ending double play after the Yankees had errors on the first two tries because Glyber Torres is too lazy to come an inch off the bag. Plus if the Sox could do a little better than 8 runners left on and 1 for 10 with runners in scoring position they could have easily won this game but, as mentioned earlier the Yankees messed with their whole schedule so all their celebration plans were messed up.

All in all not a horrible game a 3-2 loss to the Yankees on the road with Mookie, Benny, Mitch, and Devers all getting nights off is just Alex Cora trying to make the product on the field more competitive. A 1 run loss with all those guys sitting just shows how good this team still is. Besides the fact with that loss, the Yankees cut the division lead to 10.5 games so yeah the Red Sox are already A.L. East champs they’re just waiting till everyone is mathematically eliminated to celebrate. So the Yankees can celebrate tonight but the Sox will be back in this little league park tomorrow for win 104 and the official title of A.L. East champs.

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As for tomorrows game, we’re gonna get to see David Price, 15-6 3.42 ERA, go up against Luis Severino, 17-8 3.46 ERA as the Sox will look to officially clinch the A.L. East crown.

Josh Gordon gets Traded to the Patriots

Posted on by Patrick Whalen

By Patrick Whalen

Everyone and their mother last week could tell the lack of depth and elite talent at the wide receiver position for the Patriots was one of the main reasons for their struggles against the Jaguars. Right now Brady’s top 3 receivers are Chris Hogan, Phillip Dorsett, and Cordarrelle Patterson, a major step down in talent compared to last years trio of Brandin Cooks, Danny Amendola, and of course Chris Hogan. Out of those 3, only Dorsett has over 100 yards receiving and over 10 catches for the season. These guys couldn’t find consistent separation from the Jags secondary which led to the Patriots offense stuttering for most of the game.

With Edelman still having 2 games remaining in his 4 game suspension the Pats needed to make a move to improve the wide receiver play and overall offensive performance. Insert Josh Gordon. Going and trading for Josh Gordon was an absolutely genius move by Bill Belichick, especially for the price. The Pats only had to give Cleveland a 5th round pick for Gordon and if Gordon is not active for at least 10 games Cleveland has to give the Pats a 7th round pick back. It’s a low-risk high reward deal that Belichick loves to make. To make room for Gordon on the roster the Pats cut last weeks signing Corey Coleman.

At this point, everyone knows about Josh Gordon’s struggle with addiction but, also his elite level talent. In 2013 at just 22 years old and only playing 14 games, Gordon led the league with 1,646 receiving yards with Jason Campbell and Brandon Weeden as his quarterbacks (via Pro Football Reference). But between 2014 and 2017 was when we saw his issues with drug abuse caused him to miss games as he only played in a total of 10 games over that 4-year span.

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What Gordon can bring to this team is a guy who can stretch the field with his speed and can be that 50-50 ball type receiver for Tom Brady. The Patriots only downfield threat so far this year has been Gronk and teams have mostly been doubling him down the field to force Brady to look elsewhere. The 6′ 3″ Gordon can provide another deep ball threat on the outside that can be a big play threat while also giving Gronk more single cover looks that he can win one on one. Once Edelman returns in week 5 if Gordon is learning the offense and performing well on the field this offense could become scary for other teams to defend between Gordon, Edelman, Dorsett, Hogan, Gronk, James White, Rex Burkhead, and rookie Sony Michel.

Some Patriots, including safety Duron Harmon, still remember the performance Gordon had against the Pats defense back in 2013. In that game, Gordon went for 7 receptions on 10 targets for 151 yards and 1 TD (via Pro Football Reference). In that game, the Browns were able to bring the Pats down to the wire at the Pats won 27-26. Also, in the two weeks before the Browns faced the Pats Gordon went for 24 receptions 498 yards and 3 TD’s against the Steelers and the Jags (via Pro Football Reference).

The Patriots are hoping that if they can get something even remotely close to that performance from 2013 that they will be finding a gem that most of the NFL was ready to give up on. Most people are saying that in New England he could be a Randy Moss-like player if he can stay healthy and away from his off the field issues. I don’t want to proclaim that he’s gonna be the next receiver to break records with Brady but, I do think he can develop into the Patriots best outside receiver since Randy Moss. My season predictions for Gordon are 14 games played 11 games started 60+ reception 1100+ yards and 8 TDs.

Also for those that forgot what an absolute monster this man is on the football field peep this highlight video to witness what a physical beast the Patriots just acquired.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QAiLZKL5hI