The Houston pitcher did not have the performance he wanted in Game 3 of the World Series on Tuesday night.
A day after inclement weather postponed Game 3 of the 2022 World Series, Lance McCullers was aiming to lead the Astros to another victory against the Phillies and move Houston one step closer to a World Series title.
However, the Astros pitcher put out a performance that he will likely want to forget, allowing five home runs in 4 1/3 innings of action on Tuesday. In doing so, he became the first pitcher in MLB history to allow five homers in a World Series game. Only one pitcher, Dick Hughes, has allowed four home runs in a World Series game in the last 83 years.
Philadelphia star Bryce Harper crushed a two-run home run over the right field wall on the first pitch he saw. Alec Bohm blasted a solo homer to left field on the first pitch of his at-bat before Brandon Marsh added another solo homer in the second inning.Three innings later, Kyle Schwarber launched a two-run homer before Rhys Hoskins smashed a solo bomb.
The Phillies’ five blasts tied for most in a World Series game with the 2017 Astros, the 1989 Athletics and the 1928 Yankees. The seven runs allowed by McCullers accounted for all of Philadelphia’s runs in the team’s 7–0 Game 3 victory, which puts them up 2–1 in the best-of-seven World Series heading into Wednesday’s Game 4 matchup.
Bryce Harper, Alec Bohm, Brandon Marsh, Kyle Schwarber and Rhys Hoskins each hit a home run to give the Philadelphia Phillies a 7-0 win over the Houston Astros in Game 3 of the World Series.
Several fascinating first-round matchups would highlight the soon-to-be-expanded playoff.
Can you imagine Lane Kiffin and his Ole Miss Rebels heading north for a playoff game in the chilly Big House? How about Willie Fritz and Tulane meeting Georgia in Athens? And a rematch of LSU-Alabama, but this time in Tuscaloosa?
An expanded 12-team playoff would give us all of these goodies. The CFP selection committee unveiled its first rankings of 2022, and while it’s fun to complain and bicker about your team’s placement, it’s much more fun to imagine that the expanded 12-team playoff adopted this summer would begin this week.
Don’t worry, we did the work for you! In the bracket below you’ll find a 12-team playoff using the CFP selection committee’s rankings. Remember, we are following the format that CFP presidents adopted on Sept. 1. The six highest-ranked conference champions get an automatic bid, and the next six highest-ranked teams get an at-large spot. The top four conference champions receive byes into the quarterfinals. First-round games are hosted by the better seed, and the quarterfinals and semifinals are hosted at bowl sites.
And please keep in mind that there will normally not be this many intra-conference matchups in the first round. Over the course of a full season, teams will play themselves out of the field.
1. Tennessee (SEC champion) Sugar Bowl
2. Ohio State (Big Ten champion) Rose Bowl
3. Clemson (ACC champion) Orange Bowl
4. TCU (Big 12 champion) Cotton Bowl
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Semifinals: Peach (No. 1 v No. 4) and Fiesta (No. 2 v No. 3)
Barkley: “I think the NBA dropped the ball … you can’t take my $40 million and insult my religion.”
As Kyrie Irving remained on the court for the Nets in the aftermath of his promotion of an antisemitic film and book on social media earlier this week, one prominent NBA voice was not pleased.
Speaking on the halftime broadcast of NBA on TNT, Charles Barkley lambasted the league for not suspending Irving, saying that the NBA “dropped the ball” in letting Irving’s actions go without, to this point, any consequences.
“I think he should have been suspended. I think Adam [Silver] should have suspended him,” Barkley said. “First of all, Adam’s Jewish. You can’t take my $40 million and insult my religion … I think the NBA made a mistake. We have suspended people and fined people who have made homophobic slurs, and that was the right thing to do.”
Following Irving’s post, the Nets condemned Irving’s decision to promote the film Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America with a statement, saying the team has “no tolerance for the promotion of any form of hate speech.” When asked about it during a postgame press conference, Irving became defensive and refused to apologize in a heated exchange with a reporter.
“Did I do anything illegal? Did I hurt anybody?” Irving asked reporters in regard to the tweet. “Did I harm anybody? Am I going out and saying that I hate one specific group of people?”
Barkley, who referred to Irving as an “idiot” during the segment, decried Irving’s promotion of the antisemitic texts and the impact it could have on his vast following. When Barkley’s colleague, Ernie Johnson, said that the league could still move forward with disciplinary action, Barkley insisted that it was already too late.
“The reason it’s too late—the NBA is giving in to peer pressure,” Barkley said. “If one of our players does something, the team or the league has to do something immediately. If you just give in to peer pressure, that’s the problem I have. This should have been handled already.”
The Cowboys owner toed the line between fun and criticism.
Jerry Jones was clearly excited to participate in Halloween festivities this year.
The Cowboys’ owner decided to dress up as a blind NFL official as his way of enjoying the spooky holiday. However, as the owner of one of the most highly scrutinized teams in the league, Jones’s decision to depict a referee may not have been the best idea.
Jones depicting himself as “blind” with the sunglasses and white cane could have been a not-so-subtle shot at the officiating.
“I’m being very careful here because I’m getting real close to a fine. It shows how much I love them to dress up as them … how much I respect their decision-making,” Jones said about his attire on Sunday. “I had the cane and everything. And I used it on some people, too.”
But Jones, who attempted to toe the line between fun and criticism, could potentially be fined by the NFL for his costume.
In 2019, the league sent a memo to teams about specific types of criticism toward officials that the NFL prohibits.
The NFL’s protocol forbids “comments regarding the quality of officiating, individual calls or missed calls, the league’s officiating department, an officiating crew or an individual game official accusing game officials of acting with bias or in any way questioning the integrity of NFL game officials; or posting negative or derogatory/demeaning content pertaining to officiating on social media.”
Jones’s costume could fall within the parameters of “derogatory or demeaning content.” So, what Jones likely felt was a light-hearted jab in the Halloween spirit could garner punishment from the league.
While the Volunteers got what they earned, a couple undefeated teams on the outside of the playoff looking in marked the year’s first rankings.
You know that feeling you got on Christmas morning as a child? You’re excited to leap from your bed, race down the hall, dive into a pile of presents and rip them apart.
The CFP selection committee released its first top 25 ranking on Tuesday, and no, it does not feel like Christmas morning. Don’t believe anyone who tells you so. But it isn’t completely meaningless either. Do not shove it aside as if it is a preseason AP poll.
Take for instance the three points made by data-crunching colleague Pat Forde this week: (1) there has never been a year in which all of the committee’s first top-four teams missed the CFP; (2) the national champion in seven of eight years was one of the top four teams in the first rankings; and (3) more than half of the 32 CFP participants—19—were in the top four of the first rankings.
Let’s dumb this down. If your team is inside this week’s top four—No. 1 Tennessee, No. 2 Ohio State, No. 3 Georgia, No. 4 Clemson—there’s a better than 50% chance that they will eventually be ranked in the top four of the final poll and, based on the eight-year history of the playoff, there’s around a 20% they’ll win the national championship.
So, congrats!
And now, with no further ado, let’s get to our weekly thoughts on the rankings, brought to you by Clint Eastwood (if you’re too young to understand, click here):
The Vols face another big test against Georgia this weekend.
Wade Payne/AP
The Good
Tennessee is No. 1, as it should be.
The Vols possess the nation’s best resume top to bottom (19th-ranked strength of schedule), have the country’s best win (Alabama) and are electric on offense (first in the country averaging 553 yards a game). The CFP selection committee, a group of 13 college football stakeholders, had a “lively” debate over the No. 1 team, says committee chair Boo Corrigan, the AD at NC State. In the end, the committee made the Vols the top-ranked team over Ohio State and Georgia mostly because of their two wins over top-10 teams—No. 6 Alabama, the highest ranked one-loss team, and No. 10 LSU, the highest-ranked two-loss team.
Those two victories separated them from the Buckeyes (52nd-ranked strength of schedule) and the Bulldogs (75-ranked strength of schedule). Of course, things will get further situated this weekend when Georgia hosts Tennessee in Athens, where the on-field results will determine their separation.
The Bad
TCU should get more respect.
You’re not young enough to have forgotten comedian Rodney Dangerfield, right? He got no respect, just like the Horned Frogs, who despite their undefeated record and two victories over current top-25 teams find themselves trailing the one-loss Crimson Tide.
Why? Corrigan served up this number when asked: “We are looking for a balanced team—offense and defense. They’ve (TCU) gotten behind in some games. They’ve been able to come back.”
Corrigan is basically saying that TCU has shown its weakness by falling behind several times. It’s a positive that Sonny Dykes’s team has rallied, sure, but it’s a pretty big negative that it had to rally.
Of course, there is one problem: Alabama had to also rally in a game at Texas, and then Alabama didn’t have enough juice to rally and beat Tennessee.
While these CFP chairman gigs are really no-win situations, this comment was a bit head scratching.
The Ugly
Michigan’s non-conference schedule.
There is some outrage in the No. 5 Wolverines being behind Clemson on the outside of the top four. Look no further than a strength of schedule that is 69th nationally. That SOS is weighed down by a non-conference schedule that featured Colorado State, Hawaii and UConn.
In 2019, Michigan canceled a non-conference game it was scheduled to play this year with UCLA, paid a handsome buyout and thus organized its schedule as if it was an NFL team playing a preseason. Its first three opponents combine for a record of 8–18.
