"The Stack" 10-10-17
The Houston Astros took the series from the Boston Red Sox and celebrated in style. They will take on the winner of Indians-Yankees series in the ALCS.
The Stack is back on this Tuesday relieved that the Vikings didn’t lose to a rookie quarterback last night. Reaction to that, baseball playoffs and more so let’s get right to “the stack” for today, Tuesday, October 10th:
Vikings kick late field goal to take down Bears
If you watched all the way to the end of Monday night’s football game between the Minnesota Vikings and Chicago Bears, good for you. It was a pitcher’s duel in the first half with the Vikings holding a 3-2 lead at the half. Terribly boring. Sam Bradford started for the Vikings, but was clearly not himself. His knee was clearly hobbling him and looked rusty and out of sorts. In came Case Keenum and the Vikings offense got going. They took advantage of the depleted Bears defense, especially to the linebackers by throwing screens and getting tight end Kyle Rudolph involved. Instead of Latavius Murray being the difference maker, it was Jerick McKinnon. His 58-yard touchdown run put the Vikings up 17-9. The Bears offense struggled. Their first touchdown of the game came on a fake punt that the Bears punter O’Donnell threw to Bennie Cunningham for a 40-yard touchdown. Trubisky didn’t play terrible. Most of his throws were right where they needed to be. He just doesn’t have a lot of weapons. His first career touchdown pass to tight end Zach Miller almost didn’t happen as Vikings safety Andrew Sendejo tipped it, but Miller was right there to have it drop in his hands . Trubisky though lost the game when he was picked off by Harrison Smith which set up the game-winning field goal for the Vikings. They won 20-17. Huge win for the Vikings. There will be better days ahead for the Bears.
The day that was in the MLB playoffs
What a day of baseball playoff action. It all started in Boston where the Houston Astros and Boston Red Sox played one of the more entertaining games you will see in the playoffs this season. Red Sox manager John Ferrell got ejected trying to protect Dustin Pedroia. The Astros tied the game and then took the lead in the bottom of the eight on an RBI double. Justin Verlander came in relief in the bottom of the fifth for the Astros which was really surprising. The Astros tallied another run in the ninth to take a 5-3 lead, but the Red Sox got an inside-the-park homerun to cut the lead to 5-4. The Astros would seal the deal then and win 5-4 and take the series 3-1. It was the first game in the series that was decided by under five runs.
The Astros will await the winner of the Cleveland Indians and New York Yankees. The Yankees staved off elimination Sunday night 1-0 and they did it again Monday with 7-3 win. A four-run second inning was enough for the Yankees to fend off the Indians. Trevor Bauer on three days rest didn’t even last two innings. The Indians used eight pitchers. With game five in two days, the Indians need to figure out what to do. I imagine Kluber will pitch game five. They have some issues against this Yankees lineup.
In the NL, it was a pitchers duel in Chicago where Max Scherzer of the Washington Nationals and Jose Quintana of the Chicago Cubs pitched a phenomenal game. Scherzer allowed one run in 6 1/3 innings and didn’t allow a hit through six innings. The Nationals would lose the game though as former Minnesota Twins closer Brandon Kintzler gave up a bloop hit by Anthony Rizzo which turned out to be the go-ahead run and the Cubs would win 2-1. They have a 2-1 series lead. The Nationals choking in a playoff series. What a surprise. We’ll see if they can stave off elimination today.
And the team I thought would make it to the World Series has been eliminated. The Arizona Diamondbacks were swept by the Los Angeles Dodgers 3-0 following a 3-1 loss Monday night. The Diamondbacks had no answer for Yu Darvish who pitched outstanding for the Dodgers allowing just one solo homerun and the bullpen allowed just one hit in four innings. Cody Bellinger hit a homerun for the Dodgers. I thought that the Diamondbacks would be able to score a few more runs than what they did and that the Dodgers would have more playoff woes. Evidently the Dodgers have figured things out again and/or the Diamondbacks exerted so much energy in beating the Colorado Rockies in the NL Wild Card that they didn’t have much left.
College football weekend recap
The weekend’s slate of games didn’t appear to have very many games that would pose significant upsets. That’s the beauty of college football though. Things happen and things happened on Saturday where two top ten teams fell. #3 Oklahoma inexplicably lost at home to Iowa State, a team they were favored to beat by 30 points, 38-31. Iowa State also was starting a backup quarterback. That was truly an Oklahoma game and an Oklahoma loss.
They weren’t the only team to lose at home though. #7 Michigan fell behind 14-3 to in-state rival Michigan State and then the monsoon came and neither offense could do much of anything. Michigan lost 14-10. The Paul Bunyan Trophy is back in East Lansing.
The only game featuring ranked teams was a pretty good one with #8 TCU outlasting #23 West Virginia 31-24. And what a finish between #13 Miami (FL) and Florida State. The Hurricanes were trailing 20-17, but Malik Rosier threw the game-winning touchdown to Braxton Berrios with seconds to go and Miami (FL) escaped with a 24-20 victory.
And we have to finish with the bananas game in Buffalo where Western Michigan and Buffalo went seven overtimes to determine a winner. It would be Western Michigan who won 71-68. One of Western Michigan’s players scored a touchdown and his sister came running onto the field. The game was not over at that point. She was escorted out. I will go on a limb and say that when these two teams play in basketball this year that the game(s) will not be that high scoring. Get you MACtion on!
Dolphins offensive line coach resigns
Crazy thing that happened late Sunday night when a video featuring Miami Dolphins offensive line coach Chris Foerster surfaced showing the coach snorting a white powder before saying he had to go to a meeting which was believed to be at the Dolphins facilities. We don’t know what the powder was, but we can only assume the obvious. Hopefully he gets some professional help. This is such a strange story and it would have been absolutely stunning if he hadn’t either submitted his resignation Monday or been fired by the Dolphins. Seems like crazy stuff like this happens with the Dolphins frequently. Crazy stuff down there in South Beach.
Coming up Thursday: TNF preview, college football weekend forecast and more playoff baseball reaction.
