Baseball is a very human game. People are calling for robot-umpires, but those could take the weirdness out of baseball. Things would be considerably more consistent and fair, but they would make Sunday Shenanigans a lot more difficult. This week is a perfect example of that. In a game between the Detroit Tigers and New York Yankees, Detroit pitcher Kyle Funkhouser received a bad break.
The Pittsburgh Penguins have won the Stanley Cup three times in the Sidney Crosby-Evgeni Malkin era, which is a lot. The last few years, though, are starting to make Penguins fans wonder if some of their years are being wasted.
We knew the Canadian division would be chaotic, so of course, the division finals would be between two teams without much to look into. Both teams embarrassed others in the first round.
The American League East division saw a wild change of expectations in April, leading us to expect a coming together in May. As the month concludes, we saw teams play more like what we expected, but the Red Sox remained good. With the Yankees on a wild roller coaster ride and the Orioles looking like the Orioles we know and love, June will be another interesting one in the AL East.
The idea for Sunday Shenanigans was to cover the weirdest play of the week. Covering possibly the dumbest play in Major League Baseball history was not expected, but instead welcomed. We knew the Pittsburgh Pirates would be bad, but this Thursday brought them to a whole new level.
You could have stuck the Ottawa Senators in any division and they still would have been awful. But, put them in the league’s weakest, and they could have some fun with it. Attempting to play spoiler with their Canadian rivals, Ottawa had another progress year in their rebuild.
After a few of being simply a below-average team, the Buffalo Sabres returned to being the league laughingstock. With new general manager Kevyn Adams and a big new acquisition in Taylor Hall, the Sabres were absolutely terrible.
When the White Sox hired Hall of Fame manager Tony La Russa in late October, the reactions were mixed, to say it nicely. It had been 10 years since La Russa last managed the St. Louis Cardinals, and the game had evolved massively in his time off.
The top three in bWAR right now are all tied at 2.7. They are Byron Buxton, Brandon Woodruff, and Shohei Ohtani. But when you go down the list, the next two are John Means and Isiah Kiner-Falefa. How did Kiner-Falefa get to fifth in the league in bWAR?
When looking at the first-round matchups this year, the Blues versus the Avs appears to be the most lopsided. The regular season series was relatively even, with Colorado taking five of the eight games.
To follow up the most contested Sunday Shenanigans last week, this week gave us the least contested one. This means that we will have to go with a broad, more outside-the-box approach. It’s fitting, considering that this is a wacky series on its own.
It’s the same story for the New York Islanders but in a different year. The playoffs are starting, and the team is being doubted by everyone. It also feels more warranted this year. A post-trade deadline slump saw them lose to the Sabres and the Devils, as they dropped four of their last five games to end the season.
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