SU congratulates the Mets on wrapping up the Eastern Division in fine style.  Clearly, there was no reason to be nervous about another late season collapse.  The offense is once again clicking (games against the Reds and Phillies are very good for that) and they should now look to get home field advantage in that first round series with the Dodgers.  SU says that is huge.  Having the extra game at Citifield could be the difference in winning the first round of the playoffs.  They should not adopt the Joe Torre approach of resting half your regulars every game but rather keep the foot on the gas and get the better record.

Meanwhile, SU was was very, very disappointed to learn that the reason Stephen Drew was being held out of the line-up the last 2 weeks was because he’s been feeling dizzy, not because he was benched.  Now, Girardi/Cashman may still put him on the post-season roster.  How can this be?  I was positive they had finally seen the light and at a minimum would play Ackley ahead of him and maybe even Refsnyder over Brendan Ryan.  It’s time to sacrifice a little defense to get some more offense.  How can they not see that?

SU subscriber Mark N. is wating for more NFL commentary.  The Jets fell back to earth against a very pedestrian Eagles team yesterday.  Chip Kelly may think he is the smartest guy in the room but last time I looked, his play calling is not a whole lot different from any other team.  I like the Jets’ new coach – guy keeps it cool and has a plan.  But 6-10 still feels about right for them this year.

SU asks: how do the so-called NFL experts feel when their preseason predictions are so wrong after just 3 games?  SI’s choice to win the Super Bowl, Baltimore, is 0-3.  It just goes to show that the average fan is not that far behind the people that do this for a living.

Interesting article in the New York Times yesterday about DraftKings:

They advertise so much today on many sports events. Somehow this is not considered to be gambling.  But an interesting read on how the experts play it and make money.

Finally, this headline on espn.com should make all Knick fans nervous:

Carmelo Anthony offers to be ‘big brother’ to Kristaps Porzingis

Met fans are nervous but SU has seen this before.  Think back to the Yankees in 2000.  They had a big lead and Joe Torre took his foot off the gas pedal.  He started resting guys, putting out the Clay Bellinger line-up and getting his starting pitchers lined up for the playoffs.  A huge lead got down to as little as 1.5 games before they made it to the finish line.  However, the playoffs were tough in that first series against Oakland before they got rolling to win yet another world championship.

Terry Collins has not done that with the Mets but the Matt Harvey innings limit has produced the same situation.  Harvey has become a distraction and going to the 6-man rotation is not helping anyone as of yet.  The offense had been smoking hot but in baseball, those things come and go.  They are now limping home but the Nationals just aren’t good enough to mount a challenge.  They will ease in just fine and be ready  for a spirited first round with the Dodgers.  SU says no way is Washington making a charge here.

The Yankees lost the season series to Toronto 13-6 and that is the difference in the Eastern Division race.  The Blue Jays are a better offensive team plain and simple.  SU says you can’t blame the Texeiria injury – Greg Bird has put up more than comparable offensive numbers and is good in the field as well.  The killer injury for the Yankees was having to shut down Eovoldi and putting Warren in the rotation.  That has left the Yankees one reliever short in the bullpen to pitch the 6th inning and now Girardi has been forced to pitch many of the youngsters in high pressure situations.  And to be honest, none of the youngsters has stepped up and differentiated themselves.  No doubt great experience for future years but they are not ready for prime time as of now.  To cap it off, you had to rely on Andrew Bailey last night in a key situation.  None of the relievers that pitched last night would have even appeared in a game in August.

Wild card games are a crapshoot.  SU would not be overly confident but I suppose it’s better to make that game than not.  As long as Stephen Drew is left off the playoff roster.

The Yankees surprised SU by taking 2 of 3 from the Mets and all of a sudden, there is real nervousness in Flushing.  SU can understand it as there is a recent history of blowing late season leads but come on, 6 game lead with 16 to go?  SU says in the bag and get ready for October.

Finally, Stephen Drew is out of the line up.  How is that possible?  Thank goodness for Dustin Ackley.  It’s about time that Drew has to earn his at bats.  His comments all year about just putting his work in and doing his thing as if on-field performance is irrelevant.  Well, now you can be a 9th inning replacement and we will see if he even makes the post-season roster.  CC is all of a sudden the go-to ace on the staff.  Apparently, the new knee brace lets him pitch inside to righties on the follow through.  Hey, whatever it takes.  On the other hand, SU has been down this road before only to see the Yankees revert to their non-offensive ways.  But with Bird and Ackley, at least there is some new blood in the line up.  Now if they can just find a way to replace Chase Headley…

The NY Giants are just too painful to watch right now.  At best, they are a mediocre team in a terrible division.  What makes it worse is that 9-7 will probably win the division and they have blown 2 winnable games.  No lead will feel safe now for the rest of the season.

Long-time SU subscriber A. Grossman posted this comment today in response to a blog posting from several weeks ago but we were able to track it down for your enjoyment:

“Distractions can lead to disaster.
Let the Met’s have a good portion of the back page. It’s always fresh for the public to see something fresh… not the same ole news. The manager’s job right now is to keep the team focused on the task at hand. This is new for all of them. The Yanks, however have enough veterans and a very conscious manager to keep things just moving along. The Yanks have already matched what Las Vegas gave them back in April in the win column. It appears they will most likely exceed that number by at least 5 which means they need to play 500 ball the rest of the way. Besides the Toronto series I expect the other opposing teams which are out of the race will experiment now with pitchers coming up from Triple A. Unfortunately we will need to keep our pedal to the metal. This coming series against the Bluejays will determine how far down on the pedal we will need to go.

PS   I do not want to stain this reply so no talk about how the NY Giants set an NFL record by opening up a season with two 10 point leads going into the 4th quarter and losing both games. Congrats “Pale” Blue”

Met fans: care to weigh in?  Are you feeling the pressure or can you acknowledge that it’s just the ways of baseball and that even the hottest teams cool for a few games?

First off, SU thanks relatively new subscriber and frequent commenter Mark N. for sharing this article on how the Mets have taken over the back pages in NY as predicted by SU long, long ago.  SU is always happy to share stories that validates its greatness;

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2568675-its-now-the-new-york-mets-city-as-crucial-subway-series-begins

There is definitely a buzz about this series and SU is not feeling confident.  The Yankee offense is running on fumes and the list of “trusted” relievers is ever shrinking.  If the Yankees can take one of the three games that will be a moral victory.

OK, every now and again, SU is asked to put out a trivia question to the masses.  My problem is that with the internet, many people cheat and just look it up.  We all know: THAT IS LAME.  Anyway, it’s a beautiful Friday afternoon in New York and what better way to start the weekend than exercising your brain cells in a productive way.  See if you can get this one the honest way:

There are 7 current Yankee and Met players who have played for both teams.  Can you name them?

SU got 6 of the 7 but I should have gotten them all.  Ready?  Have at it.

For many weeks now, SU has been talking about how the Mets will soon be owning New York given their push to the playoffs and the Eastern Division title.  Many of you have “pooh-poohed” the idea but if you check out this story from today’s New York Times, clearly others agree with SU and they even have statistics to back it up (vs. making things up the old fashioned way).  Take a look at this story by Richard Sandomir:

They are a much more compelling story and exciting team.  The Yankees had a rare exciting moment in the 9th inning last night but those are few and far between.  The Mets have become the must see tv show in New York.

From the “hide your eyes” category, we bring you the NY Giants.  The revelation that Coughlin didn’t know how many timeouts Dallas had left on Sunday night (nor did Eli) and that Eli was telling Jennings to fall down before the goal line is incredibly hard to believe.  The only saving grace is that team is probably headed to a 5-11 record and another loss won’t make a difference.  But it will certainly make John Mara’s job easier at the end of the season to part ways with Tom Coughlin who is a good guy but has probably reached the end of the line here.

SU thoroughly enjoyed the men’s finals last night in Flushing Meadow.  It was like a Davis Cup environment with about 97% of the crowd enthusiastically behind Federer to the point that they were cheering service faults by Djokovic.  I must admit I have never seen that before in any tournament other than Davis Cup ties.  To Djokovic’s credit, he just dealt with it.  Even in the post-match press conference, he didn’t make the crowd into an issue.  He basically said that Federer deserved to have the crowd behind him for his long career and behavior on and off the court, and that Djokovic could only hope to work on getting that type of support later on his career.  SU loves that no excuses mentality.  And the truth is, when he is 34 and competing with the next generation players, the crowd will give him his due.  This guy is just a class act.

Federer is still performing at an incredibly high level at 34 years of age and clearly keeps himself in great shape.  Quite a contrast to someone like Andy Roddick who retired at a relatively early age.  As I have said before, for men’s tennis, this is a golden age with a stable of so many top, top players that we won’t ever see again.

SU read that Djokovic watched the movie “300” the night before the finals which stars Gerard Butler.  Butler was in Djokovic’s friends’ box for the match and they had this brief reaction after the match.  Djokovic is not your robot player and has a lot of personality.  SU got a kick out of this:

http://thebiglead.com/2015/09/14/novak-djokovic-and-gerard-butler-shouted-this-is-sparta-after-the-us-open/

Meanwhile, the Giants tortured its fans with questionable end-of-game clock management and gave new meaning to the term “prevent defense” in the last 90 seconds.  Eli of all people who is always credited with being cerebral just made a dumb play by not taking the sack on 3rd down.  The reality is that it won’t matter long term as their defense is not good but you have to be smarter than that.

SU wishes a happy and healthy new year to all of its Jewish subscribers in the intergalactic base.  Before we get to our NFL predictions for the season, a couple of comments:

• Painful weekend for the Yankee fans although no surprise to SU.  The loss of Teixeria is huge but Eovaldi being shut down is equally painful.  They are running on fumes now and are closer to not making the playoffs than they are to being in first place.  As Joe Girardi likes to say, “it’s not what you want.”
• How bad is Jacoby Ellsbury?  For $22 million a year, he has been terrible and not able to stay on the field (which was his MO even on the Red Sox).
• SU is looking forward to today’s US Open finals.  Very even match up but SU believes somewhat cooler temperatures come this evening will greatly benefit Djokovic who is not as good in the hot weather.  I will stick with my pre-tournament prediction (of course) of Djokovic coming away with the trophy.

OK, here is what will happen in this year’s NFL season.  SU is feeling Green Bay in the NFC.  Even though they have lost Jordy Nelson for the year, Aaron Rodgers is one of those system type QBs and he can slot in other receivers and be just as effective.  He is not reliant on the superstar receiver.  They were that close to beating Seattle last year in the playoffs and SU sees them making it to the Super Bowl this year from the NFC.  Dallas will win the East, and will have a strong playoff run.  But ultimately beating Green Bay in Green Bay in January will be too much to overcome.

In the AFC, New England will be very motivated to repeat given all the Brady nonsense.  But history says it’s very hard to do it again in this day and age, and SU will look elsewhere.  Sports Illustrated is predicting the Baltimore Ravens will win it all but that seems like a long shot to me.  SU will go with Denver as Peyton Manning manages to keep his arm strong enough to be effective in the cold weather in the playoffs.  Green Bay over Denver in the Super Bowl.

Do you agree?  Disagree?  Not care?  Can’t be bothered?  That’s cool.  But weigh in with a prediction if you’d like to and of course, SU will give props to you come February if you are right.

And there it is.  It was not to be.  The only people more unhappy than Serena Williams are the announcers on ESPN.  It’s like someone just died.  SU caught the Serena press conference.  It was what you would expect: she dictated which questions she would take and she cut it short when she wanted to.  SU admires the athletes who win with grace and lose with grace.  She ain’t one of them.

Some of you may be wondering what SU predicted here?  Glad you asked.  See the post from August 31st:

“On the women’s side, SU is not a Serena fan.  It’s always all about her and she has never been gracious to her opponents when she loses.  She also berated that lineswoman here in NY several years back and never fully apologized for that either.  While I can’t actually identify any player who can beat her, I will take the rest of the field and say she will come up short of winning the Grand Slam.  I actually think she will go out before the semi-finals as the pressure gets to her.  It’s hard to actually identify any player who can beat her but I think it will be someone not in the top 10.”

Once again, SU with its finger on the pulse of major sports.

So, for Yankee fans, it’s come down to this.  The Mets are going to win the NL East – it’s now a foregone conclusion.  In fact, the 2nd Subway Series coming up in a couple of weeks will be much more important to the Yankees than the Mets by that point.  Last night’s rainout really hurts the Yankees as they will be limited tomorrow on how much Betances and Miller can pitch.  We already know their starters can’t go much more than 6 innings and then it’s a crapshoot with the youngsters pitching key late innings.

RA Dickey, the Yankees’ kryptonite, is pitching on Sunday vs. Tanaka.  The Yankees cannot touch his knuckleball.  SU’s prediction for the series: Toronto wins 3 of 4.  Of course, SU has been accused of being too much gloom and doom when it comes to anything Yankees and they always seem to rise to the occasion.  No doubt Stephen Drew will go 12 for 18 with 3 homeruns.  But the ship is taking on water now.

Big men’s tennis day at the Open.  Federer gets an advantage playing at night – no shadows and cooler weather.  He seems to be the experts’ choice now to win it all.  SU still has confidence in Djokovic who has not played particularly well so far but has a way of raising his game as he nears the finish line.  Part of my theory is that he plays it safer against guys he is supposed to beat and will take chances against the better players, i.e., go for more lines.  Warwinka plays well in the majors now and that will be a great match tonight.

NFL season is upon us and SU will come out with its fearless predictions later in this weekend.  Too funny last night that the Steelers coaches were picking up the Patriots’ home radio broadcast of the game on their headsets.  Of course, it’s just a coincidence.  Of course it is.

Finally, there is a story out there that the Knicks will entertain Melo trade offers.  Given that he has a veto over any trades, you wonder if that is a good use of anyone’s time.  And they couldn’t have figured this out a year ago before re-signing him?

SU caught the end of the Mets’ game with the Nationals last night.  Their 6-run rally to tie the game with 2 outs and 1 man on was impressive.  As long-time SU subscriber A. Grossman likes to say, they have the “karma” this year.  Their dugout is alive, guys are coming through over and over again, and they are just a likeable bunch.  Even the 4 days of Scott Boras and Matt Harvey were not enough to put a damper on their drive for the division title.  SU says they will be selling out Citifield come the next homestand.

Contrast that with the Yankees who are in the middle of a tight division race with the Blue Jays but are only drawing around 30,000 now on this homestand.  The reason is that it’s not an exciting team and the fans are just not 100% invested.  As the pitching staff breaks down in September, it’s becoming more likely that CC Sabathia might end up pitching a playoff game (perish the thought).  SU has been predicting that the Mets will become the focal point in NY and it’s happening.  Good for them.

Don’t know if you caught any of the ESPN story on Spygate with the Patriots and just what went on there.  New England is denying it all but consider this from the ESPN story:

“According to ESPN, the Patriots secretly filmed 40 games between 2001 and 2007 and built a library of their opponents’ signals. They then stole those signals during games and called plays to take advantage of what was coming. The program was carried out in secret, with the employees disguising themselves as NFL or “Kraft Production” cameramen to film opposing coaches.

Here are the most damning allegations:

• The Patriots would send an employee into the visiting locker room to steal their play sheets during pre-game warmups.
• They would have someone “rummage through the visiting team hotel for playbooks or scouting reports.”
• They made their employees wear disguises, like shirts that said Kraft Productions, while they secretly filmed opposing coaches. They were also “provided with excuses for what to tell NFL security if asked what they were doing.”
• Sources with three different teams that lost to the Patriots in the Super Bowl (the Eagles, Panthers, and Rams) think they spied on them and knew what plays were coming during the Super Bowl.
• Former Rams coach Mike Martz claims a Pats assistant coach told him he knew which plays St. Louis were going to run in the red zone in the 2001 Super Bowl, and that, “A little birdie told us.”
• The Patriots had “a library of scouting material containing videotapes” in a secret room that only Bill Belichick could access.
• They had a practice of “scrambling and jamming” their opponents’ radio equipment so the coaches couldn’t communicate with the quarterbacks.
• A former Patriots assistant coach told ESPN, “It got out of control.”

According to Van Natta Jr. and Wickersham, the feeling around the league is that the Patriots got off easy on Spygate, with the NFL brushing the details of the scandal under the rug. The league’s recent attempt to hammer the Pats for Deflategate, many believe, was a direct response to the impression from other teams that New England got away with a robust cheating program in 2007.”

Clearly, this was a much more serious situation than deflating some footballs.  It’s also why former Hall of Fame Coach Don Shula call Bellichek “Belli-cheat.”