NIAGARA FALLS, NY – Happy Monday. and Inhope everyone enjoyed their week. As for me, I got my weed whacker and lawn mower fix, so I had the joy of mowing my lawn. My backyard grass is like two and a half feet high, so that was thrilling. Anyway, let’s get to it. We’re going to talk about the New York Mets, the World Cup, and the WNBA.
New York Mets’ Week
The Mets started the week out well, winning the final game of their four-game set with Atlanta to split the series. Then they lost to the Royals and won the last two, so they were already 3-1, and it looked like they could have a strong week. And then it kind of fell apart.
They ran into the buzzsaw that is the Boston Red Sox, who are on fire. Boston came in on a five-game win streak and left on an eight-game win streak as they swept the Mets. With that streak, the Red Sox are slowly clawing themselves into Wild Card contention in the American League after having a terrible season. Could the Mets do the same? Possibly. I mean, there’s still 16 games—wait, there’s still time. They’re six games out of the Wild Card. But they’ve shown nothing that makes it look like they know how to get more than three wins in a row.
Our very own Jacob Sternberg, in his article yesterday, said that the Mets need to be sellers and look toward the future. It’s sad to say, but I don’t see any other option. Unless some sort of 10-game win streak comes out of the All-Star break and heading into the deadline that shows them maybe within five games of the Wild Card, I don’t see any other thing but selling for the Mets’ future. And then David Stearns will once again try some fancy rebuild, and I am really starting to be unimpressed with this guy. I may be joining the angry “Ward Calhoun” group of the anti-Stearns association.
Well, at least the Mets get a couple of days off for the All-Star break. We’ll see how they come out for the second half of the season. It was a terrible game Sunday, but—let’s say the better.
World Cup Update
The World Cup is down to its final week and its final four.
England has played extremely well, coming back against the Congo, holding out against Mexico when down a man, and then coming back against Norway for the win.
Argentina have been mockingly called “Fifagentina” because they keep getting breaks. Besides an easy pool, they struggled against Cape Verde. The refs called back a goal—and I’m talking about using replay to go back to a foul 40 seconds before and 80 meters back to deny Egypt a goal, which later became important as Argentina was able to come back and win 3-2. Then they struggled to get by Switzerland to make the semifinals. This team has been getting by on individual brilliance and has not looked good, and I think England have to be the favorites.
In the other semifinal, Spain has been incredibly productive, grinding out wins. They haven’t played in the usual Spanish style of beautiful possession, but they’ve been able to score late. Against Portugal they did it, and against Belgium they got really lucky—Belgium was missing one key player, had another one get injured before the game, and then Belgium’s goalkeeper went down in the game injured. That ended up being a big deal, as the backup struggled with a shot that allowed Spain to get a late goal to win.
The last team is France, who have looked dominant. The only times they’ve struggled is when the refs haven’t protected their players, as they’ve been getting chopped down consistently. But they are a handful offensively.
WNBA
I’m going to make an attempt since it’s summer to cover all these summer sports that have returned to the attention. Let’s go to the WNBA. The Minnesota Lynx have been a problem, and what’s scary is they don’t even have their top player, Napheesa Collier, back yet. Rookie sensation Olivia Miles is now the go-to shooter, and everything is clicking with the rest of this team. They were a playoff team last year, they got Miles helping fire things up, and if they get Collier back, they’re going to be real favorites. Remember, the WNBA playoffs combine both the Eastern and Western Conferences into just the top eight teams. The two and three seeds are both in the West, with A’ja Wilson’s Las Vegas Aces still a problem—you can’t sleep on them come playoff time because nobody’s more clutch than Wilson. As a surprise, the Golden State Valkyries, playing a lot of quality team ball, are in the three slot. In the East, you’ve got the Indiana Fever leading the conference in the overall fifth spot, followed by number six Atlanta and number seven New York. I follow the New York Liberty more closely than everybody else because I’m a New Yorker. They just seem to be having stops and starts. Part of it is injury, and part of it is I don’t think they’ve figured out the rotation quite right. They got Jonquel Jones and Breanna Stewart as the center and power forward, and they picked up Satou Sabally to play the three, but I don’t think she brings enough as a starter—she should really be on the bench as the bench leader. Johannes, Fiebich, and Sabrina Ionescu should round out the five, with Sabally and Astier leading off the bench with Han. I’m really comfortable with an eight-man rotation; I don’t think they’re deep enough, but maybe somebody else can step up and give them a ninth man, because playoff success is built on being able to use those extra two people to get a little bit more rest. We will see how it all shakes out, but it’s very likely that it could be the Lynx and the Aces in the championship. Come back tomorrow for The Big Aristotle.
Come back tomorrow for The Big Aristotle.
