This is For The Win’s daily newsletter, The Morning Win. Did a friend recommend or forward this to you? If so, subscribe here. Have feedback? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey! Now, here’s Mike Sykes.
Good morning, Winners! Thanks for taking some time and reading TMW today.
There’s been a lot of discussion surrounding rest versus rust in the MLB postseason so far. Now, with the Dodgers and Orioles both in 2-0 holes as the top seeds in the AL and NL, that conversation is heating up even more.
To be fair, what’s happening is very weird. In the first 118 MLB postseasons only three 100-win teams lost their first two postseason games at home, per ESPN. The Dodgers and Orioles have done it on consecutive nights here. That’s wild.
This strange phenomenon has led some people to question the league’s new playoff format. The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal even wrote a column on what changes could be made to improve the format.
But do we really need to go that far?
The biggest problem here the best teams in baseball just aren’t winning right now. That’s not a playoff format problem — that’s an individual team problem.
The Braves certainly had no trouble digging a tough one out against the Phillies on Monday night. It took a bit of superhero work from Michael Harris II in the end, sure, but Atlanta made it happen.
That’s just sports, man. It’s the playoffs. Find a way to win. If you can’t? Tough. Go home.
It might be news to some, but the best teams in baseball don’t always win. Check this out from USA Today’s Gabe Lacques from last year.
“The best team won’t win the World Series? Brother, that’s old news: Since divisional play began in 1969 through 2021, the team with the best record in baseball won the World Series just 14 times in 52 years – or 27% of the time. And since MLB split into a six-division format beginning with the 1995 playoffs, we’ve welcomed plenty of relatively middling champions.”
Sure, sometimes we get juggernauts like last year’s Astros or the 2020 Dodgers who are very clearly head and shoulders above the rest of the teams in the league. But other times, we get teams like 2021’s 88-win Braves who manage to climb the mountaintop.
The fact that we can have both is what makes the sport — and this journey as a whole — beautiful. It’s imperfect and that’s awesome.
The NBA’s future is alien
That’s the only way possible to describe what we saw from Victor Wembanyama and Chet Holmgren on Monday night. Those dudes just don’t make any sense. Literally.
The two rookies squared off in a preseason game and I felt like I might has well been watching a Kaiju flick. A 7-5 big guard versus a 7-1 big guard. Basketball has never looked like this before.
I’ll let Bryan Kalbrosky tell you how wild it was.
“Both of these players did so many things we’re simply not used to seeing on the confines of an actual basketball court.
Holmgren is 7-foot-1 but scored as the ball-handler in a pick-and-roll set and nailed a 3-pointer using an off-ball screen. He also scored in more traditional ways like a big man would, including putbacks and basket cuts and rim rolls.
Wembanyama also managed some absurd scoring possessions. Some of his most impressive moments came after off-ball screens, dribble handoffs and transition leak-outs.
His offensive rebound putback scores were exciting but the finesse that he displayed on his layup package was fully unbelievable.”
My favorite part of the game was when Wembanyama basically stole the ball from Cason Wallace from the 3-point line (!!!!). It was unreal, man.
Wemby with the swipe and SLAM 🔥 pic.twitter.com/Br4gcYAyCx
— NBA TV (@NBATV) October 10, 2023
The next 10 years are going to be so fun, man. Please stay healthy, fellas.
Can we turn off injuries? Please?
Obviously, we hate to see injuries happen to anyone. But it always stings a bit more when you see some of the best players in the NFL go down.
It feels like we’ve gotten so many of those major injuries in the last few days. Just today we saw big news on the injury front with:
— Justin Jefferson being placed on injured reserve for the next month with a hamstring injury.
— Rookie standout De’Von Achane is reportedly out for multiple weeks with a knee injury
It’s football. We know injuries are going to happen. It’s part of the game. You just absolutely hate to see it.
Football gods, let’s just turn off injuries like we do on Madden. Please? Just this once? I would like to watch Justin Jefferson play football.
Quick hits: It’s the 49ers then everyone else in the NFL … Micah Parsons talks too much … and more
— Wake up, babe. Robert Zeglinski and Christian D’Andrea just dropped their Week 6 NFL power rankings and the 49ers are at the top of the top.
— Micah Parsons keeps talking about the 49ers and it’s really weird. He’s mad at George Kittle now. Cory Woodruff has more.
— Tyler Nettuno has winners and losers for Week 6 in the college football world. Shoutout Brent Venables and Oklahoma.
— Charles Curtis has the 6 best moments from the ManningCast. This is the content I look forward to every week.
— Mary Clarke and Charles have their NHL predictions ready to go for you.
— Michael Harris II was so hyped after Austin Riley’s home run against the Phillies. This is the best.
That’s all for Tuesday, folks. Catch you again tomorrow! Thanks for reading. Have a fantastic day.