We’re now sitting here in the month of August and the Marlins have been leading the NL East since day 1 of the season. Prior to this year, the Marlins had never held a lead in the month of August and in fact have never won the division despite being a 2x World Series champ. You know they say third time’s a charm and as crazy as 2020 has become, it’s not unreasonable proclaim this as the year Miami finally gets a division crown to along with World Series banner #3.
Last week, we swept the Orioles in a four game series on the way to a 7-1 start. Some might say “well yeah that’s just the Orioles”, but Baltimore is actually 8-3 outside of that series. They had just swept the Rays beforehand and have not lost any of their games since. The Orioles are sucking a lot less this year, except against Miami that is.
Haters often malign the Marlins as a ‘lucky’ team for winning fluke titles, but you should call us anything but lucky this year. Not only did that covid outbreak leave all our players in solitary confinement for over a week, but our two most important players (ace pitchers José Ureña and Sandy Alcántara) are still inactive because of it.
Without those pocket aces in hand, Don Mattingly has masterfully managed a pitch-by-committee system to hold things down. He’s used five or more pitchers in 6 out of 8 games since covid restart. He used four pitchers in those other two games. The most valiant effort came from prospect Humberto Mejia, who had never pitched above Class A before starting Friday night at the Mets. He struck out a cool six over 2.1 innings.
Unfortunately we’re on a slight losing streak now. We got Degrom’d on Sunday, which is fine. Last night, we got unlucky as hell after a go ahead homer in the 10th got called back for being inches too foul. Again luck is not on our side this year… But we’re still in first place and things are going to turn. We’ll start getting those breaks and we’ll get our two aces back, and then we’ll be in first by way more.
One of the best parts of the glory years was our annual first round trip up to Edmonton to send a bunch of has been hockey fanatics packing. This time in 2020, there won’t be any fans and it won’t be the Oilers, but it will still be in Edmonton and it will still be a shitty west Canadian team.
Oddsmakers disagree apparently, putting us at -115 for the series which is basically a pick em and absolutely disrespectful. It’s the most preposterous line I’ve ever seen and absolutely worth hammering.
First of all, we should be the 1 seed. Vegas is the 1 seed instead of us, but we played them in the first round robin and dominated the game. The reason we lost? Just like last year, screwed by the refs. This was called goalie interference and OVERTURNED…
In my eyes that was the last playoff game we’ve played because the other two have been meaningless. In fact, I kind of wish we lost on Sunday to get the Canucks/Knights matchups instead of Avs in second round. But that’s neither here nor there.
So the last game we played was a hack job that cost us the 1 seed. The previous playoff game to that? Last year in Game 7 against the eventual champs where we were robbed of this game winning tap in with no freaking call…
I don’t wanna be one of those guys that always complains about the refs, but I keep seeing Stars games and I keep seeing them get screwed. That can’t continue forever. Once this nonsense stops, everyone will remember that this team is really damn good.
We are certainly better than the trash ass Flames – that’s for sure. They have one cool player, Johnny Goudreau, who’s really only cool because his nickname Johnny Hockey has Manziel vibes. That’s about it.
Just like in the glory year, the first step to partying like it’s 1999 is demolishing some Canadians in Edmonton. This year, the first step to paying for our Stanley Cup parties is hammering that joke of a line. -115… Bet everything on it.
After sweeping those sad sack Angels over the weekend, look what we have here…
We had the worst start to the season imaginable and yet are sitting in playoff position with the Mariners at home on deck. The lottery ticket futures are still alive. We have some meaningful Rangers baseball in August ladies and gentlemen!
Our grittiest win came on Saturday – two run shot by GodGallo to win a 2-0 shutout. Our boy Kolby Allard went 5 innings for two hits, one walk, and six strikeouts. He’s at a 1.00 ERA through two starts now. Once again it’s looking more like we won a prettyyy pretty decent trade rape.
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On the other side of the token we have the Angels. Wooooof.
Anthony Rendon, their new seven year $245M man, is on a hitless streak of 28 plate appearances and counting. He’s holding a steady .103 average overall. So glad we didn’t sign him.
Joe Maddon is as overrated as ever. Pujols is still on the payroll. Mike Trout seems to be handling his new fatherhood the same way Serena handled new motherhood – just kidding he’s actually still good. Everyone else around him though? Trash like always and it’s awesome.
The best/worst part of this dumpster fire is none other than our little friend, that traitorous scumbag Shohei Ohtani. He’s done pitching this year after racking up a 37.80 ERA over two starts. Those two starts lasted 1.2 innings total. He couldn’t hit 90 with his fastball because his elbow is permanently damaged, so he might actually be done pitching for good.
As for hitting, Ohtani has a .171 batting average and is striking out on 36.5% of his at bats. Sick.
God it must suck to be an Angels fan. They will never recover from that Hamilton contract. Ever.
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However, yes I will admit this one thing about the Angels… Since divisional realignment in 1994, they are the only team from the AL West to win a World Series. 2002 – what a wack ass year for sports with the Angels and the Bucs both getting those anomaly titles. But nonetheless that is more than any other team in our division can say. Respect.
The Rangers lost 2 of 3 in San Francisco, bringing our record to 3-5 against three trash teams. We have division games coming up that could turn our season around because division games are way more important, but that would require a complete 180 in our play. The season looks pretty hopeless right now.
However, the future is never hopeless with Jon Daniels at the helm, and one example why came in our lone win of the series on Sunday. 22 year old prospect Kolby Allard got his first start of the season was prettyyy pretty decent! Four innings (had a hard count of 80 pitches), two hits, two walks, and one run from a sac fly. It’s not great, but also not bad.
Allard was also pretty decent for us last year. In his first seven starts after arriving on deadline day, he went 7-1 and had four quality stars (two of those QS’s were one out short but I count them anyway). Also not bad!
It may not sound exciting and he’s no burgeoning star or anything like that, but he’s surely an early success story in the rebuild considering the trade that got him here. All it took was one spare reliever named Chris Martin. Dude had pitched for us for two years after rehabbing his career in Japan, and he was as spare as a spare 33 year old veteran could get.
Martin did have a solid stretch of not sucking too much for us last year, so for some reason the Braves thought he could be a setup man. Sure enough, in game 1 of the NLDS when they called him in to protect a 3-1 lead in the 8th, he had a season ending oblique injury in warmups and the Braves season went up in flames. Just a truly worthless asset.
Jon Jon Daniels being able to flip that for what is so far a respectable 22 year old starter is very commendable. We also got Nick Solak from the Rays for another spare reliever Peter Fairbanks last year. Nick Solak is not a spare though; he’s hitting .281 in his career so far and could end up rookie of the year if he goes on a hot streak. Two solid trade rapes for our boy JD.
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Until very recently, it had been almost ten years since we’ve seen JD trading for prospects. He was mostly unloading them for guys like Cole Hamels so we could rack up a bunch of one seeds from 2010-2016. We almost forgot just how damn shrewd he was in stockpiling those prospects in the first place. As long as Jon Daniels is around, the rebuild won’t last long.
2020 might be the worst year in modern history for partying, but Stars fans could still yet party like it’s 1999. Even if we have to celebrate alone, getting our first Cup since that glorious year will be just as sweet.
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Besides Manchester United and all the back room bribing they pulled off during lockdown, no team in sports benefited more from covid shakeups than the Dallas Stars. First off, we finished normalcy era in an absolute funk with a six game losing streak and we’ve had months to shake those jitters off. Most importantly, the new format will give us a fairer seed and make our playoff matchups MUCH easier than expected.
Normally, schedules are weighted by division and then the playoff bracket is set up to make division matchups in the first two rounds. For us, that meant despite being a consensus top three team in the conference, we would’ve had to beat both St Louis and Colorado (the other two of the consensus top three) in the first two rounds just to make the conference finals. It’s dumb and annoying as hell, but the NHL needs to do it for ratings because the simps are still too obsessed with watching shitty basketball games.
This year, however, the league is resetting the top four seeds after a quick round robin series. From there on, the bracket will be reseeded each round. We now have a shot at jumping to the 1 seed over three games and getting an easy as fuck path to the conference finals. Awesome!
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Can we capitalize? Maybe. Hopefully. We certainly have the talent to do it and go all the way, but we also have the potential to fuck up. You can get a feeling as to why when reviewing the topsy turvy path we took to get here…
Last year, we took the cup champion Blues to Game 7 overtime and got screwed over by the refs by not having a single power play. It wasn’t the only game in that series we got screwed in, but it was the one that hurt the most.
Wide open tap in to clinch the series. Zucc gets interfered out of desperation. No goal. No call. Stars end up losing. Fucking ridiculous. We should have been champions last year, but the future still looked bright after getting that far with phenom 1st year coach Jim Montgomery.
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We entered the year with a ton of hype. Apparently things were looking gooood in training camp. But we started the season 1-7-1 and major panic ensued. Montgomery, the phenom we were so giddy about having just one month prior, was one period away from getting fired before a five goal 3rd period kickstarted a 12 game point streak to save his ass.
Unfortunately, Monty still ended up fired in December. Not because of our play on the ice, which was rolling at full tilt again, but rather because he couldn’t control his alcoholism. It’s alleged around the internet that he got drunk and banged an ice girl at the holiday party a few days prior. Fucking crazy!
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Monty’s replacement, Rick Bowness, is a bit of an enigma in the NHL. He started coaching pro hockey as a player-coach for the Jets in 1982. That’s 38 total years! Nobody has coached more games than Bowness. He’s served most of them as an assistant because his HC record is among the worst all time. However, most of those losses came with really shitty expansion teams where he couldn’t do much.
On the ice, the Stars haven’t looked different at all under Bowness as they did under Monty. Mostly it’s been awesome, but that six game losing streak to end the season was as worrying as the 1-7-1 streak to start it.
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Goaltending is incredible. Defense is pretty good. Offense has talent, but its inconsistency has been the weak link. We can get to the nitty gritty in later blogs because we’re running out of room here, but I’ll leave you this great Sports Sturm breakdown of the offensive woes back in October. Not much has changed since then.
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We have the potential to do it all this year. We basically proved it last year, and we’ve shown it in bits and pieces this year. Can we put it all together and lift the cup this year? Sure! Why not? All of those playoffs runs in the glory years started with beatdowns in Edmonton. That’s where all our games will be this year. We dominate in that building.
The journey starts tonight against Vegas. When it ends, we’ll be partying like it’s 1999. Let’s get after it.
I’ve said all along the only playoff matchup I’m scared of is the Clippers, and unfortunately that means a one-and-done for the Mavs this year because we are locked in as the 7 seed to play them. Climbing the standings was an uphill battle to start with because we had already played three extra games and our win percentage was inelastic relative to everyone else’s. We had a reasonable shot to overcome that but were undone by the same problems that kept knocking us down pre-covid.
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Friday night vs houston was about as must win as these games can get and we looked to be cruising for most of it. 85 points in the first half! We had a surefire 7 point lead with 45 seconds left, but ended up choking in a manner all too familiar with our woes from normalcy era.
Trash defense and trash rebounding (ultimately lost because we couldn’t rebound a missed free throw with 3 seconds left) are the obvious culprits for our clutch time issues, but the offense is surprisingly a major issue too. We have the #1 ranked offense in the league, possibly in league history stats-wise, but in clutch time that rating plummets to #29 (out of 30). How is that even possible?
The first is an over reliance on threes – over 50% of our shots come from behind the arc in clutch time. We hit 21.4% of those, down from 36.8% normally. We don’t have another ball handler to take pressure off of Luka, and he’s way overconfident in his step back when trying to overcome that extra attention. When we do get open looks, we’re not as confident in hitting them. Most concerning though is the free throw issues…
Brutal. Luka definitely needs to improve before he graduates from just goat-in-training status. Seth Curry is also perplexing because he’s the second best three point shooter of all time. He missed one that would’ve iced the game on Friday and now probably won’t be able to make up for it until next year.
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Last night against the trash ass Suns, we looked to be cruising to a laugher again until deciding to take the third quarter off. The same thing happened vs Phoenix earlier this year and it was another all too common problem from the normalcy era.
Because these issues are mostly mental, and considering we didn’t have these problems two years ago with a lesser roster, I thought the happiest team on earth could’ve used all these bubble factors to make some noise and kickstart the dynasty talk up a year. Alas, we will have to wait.
Later this century when Inter Miami is the most famous soccer team in the world, an interesting footnote in our history will be the record setting futility in our start to MLS. We’ve tallied five losses in five matches with three total goals scored. Not good, but also not as bad as it seems.
Our first loss was about as heroic as a franchise opener could be given the circumstances. In the second match vs DC United, we looked to be up 2-0, but our second goal was disallowed and then turned into a red card because of a handball minutes earlier (highlights of that bullshit if you care). In the MLS is Back Tourney, we were plagued by dirty play, trash refs, and a slight lack of talent. All three games were one goal losses with the first two happening in the final 30 minutes.
It’s not so bad. We played well, but we need more players to start winning. Expansion teams always have to write off their first seasons, but this was a write off season for every team. Good timing if you ask me!
Our big preseason transfer, Rodolfo Pizarro, was pretty decent in the #10 (attacking midfielder) role. He was previously a big star down in Mexico, including on the Pachuca team that broke FC Dallas’s heart in 2018. He also has a badass Joker pose for celebrating goals…
Pizarro alone isn’t enough to make us good, but someone with an even more famous mouth is just a year away from joining us for free.
Inter Miami 'make move to sign Luis Suarez on free transfer next summer' https://t.co/aGLbxCUjWI
Holy. Fucking. Shit. Get your hate in now before Inter Miami starts dominating the world. There’s not much time left.
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FC Dallas Update – my other team, FC Dallas, did not play in the MLS is Back tournament because the state of Texas was covid-hoaxing the entire state of June. It’s too bad, because the way it’s played out we would probably still be in this thing. Oh well.
What a player. What a competitor. You can tell by the way he licks his lips while killing that ‘Feed Me’ is more than a football mantra – it’s a life mantra.
I’m certain I’ve played this game more than Zeke and I feel alright about my skills, but he’s still as better than me at Warzone as he is at NFL football. The C4 throws. The confidence in the final circles. The swagger to assassinate that motherfucker with a finishing move. It’s a classic example of how most great athletes aren’t just great at the sport they play; they’re great at anything remotely resembling a competition.
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Partying is a competitive sport for most bros and Zeke has been no exception throughout all his prior offseasons. This year however, he’s been forced to channel that energy into video games and has had the quietest summer since he’s been drafted. That hasn’t stopped scumbag outlets like SI from continuing to slander his name, so we’re getting used to the fact that people will be after his character for the rest of his career.
By all public accounts over the past four years, Zeke has shown nothing but class. Interviews, All or Nothing footage, streams, mic’d up segments – they’ve always portrayed a calm, chill, happy-go-lucky beacon of utter confidence. He doesn’t want trouble, but haters are bringing it to him anyways because they’re convinced he’s a monster whenever we can’t see. At this point, there’s nothing we can do about until the haters have to kiss our rings.
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What is worth getting riled up over is the other kind of slander Zeke’s faced this summer – that of his play on the football field. The most egregious culprit is Next Gen Stats, which is owned by washing r-word fan Jeff Bezos. They had a competition to come up with a new stat, and they awarded it some fucking nerds in Austria who have never watched a down of football in their lives. Their new stat, ‘expected rushing yards’, doesn’t even rank Zeke in the top 10. Dumb fucking nerds.
Ahead of Zeke in their rankings is Carlos Hyde, Mark Ingram, Leonard Fournette, and Chris Carson. Utterly ridiculous. Clearly analytics has a long ass way to go to be as meaningful in football as it is in other sports, and until then we should let these euro nerds stick to soccer. I’m with Zeke’s mom on this one…
There’s been a lot of magic at Disney World over the years, but nothing like the Luka Magic we’re all about to witness. I was confident pre-covid and I’m even more so now – the only team that can keep us out of the finals is the Clippers. Here’s all the reasons why:
Luka – anyone who’s seen Luka play so far knows he’s the goat-in-training. LeBron may be the perfect genetic masterpiece for basketball, but Luka is pretty close himself and he’s been groomed in an academy all his life to have the perfect basketball brain.
He’s also a gamer that will assuredly step it up a level in the playoffs just like he already has for every nationally televised game he’s played. We all know that Dak’s clutch gene was developed in playing huge ass SEC games as an 18yo starter. Well Luka started dominating huge ass Euro basketball championship games as an even younger teenager. He’s made for these moments and it’s obvious.
One worry I did have on Luka pre-covid is just how beaten up he was getting. He loves going hard to the rim and the refs were giving him the Cam Newton treatment every time. On top of that was tons of extracurricular treatment. There was the Draymond Green game as well as a bunch of bullshit like this on a regular basis.
Luka Doncic takes a flying knee against the Pacers…when MMA meets NBA it usually goes wrong…pic.twitter.com/5oMJle91tL
He was noticeably breaking down from transcendent to just plain superstar level, which at the time was fine for me because he just turned 21. Now he’s fresh and the rest of the league (except maybe the Clippers) are fucked.
KP – Knicks fans will fight you on this til the day they die but they’re idiots. KP is awesome. He’s one of the best rim protectors in the game and that’s something we’ve never been competent at without Tyson Chandler. He was looking fully healthy right before covid stoppage, averaging a cool 22-10 and 2 blocks a game over the last two months.
He racked up all these points without utilizing the post game, which was his bread and butter in New York. Post play wasn’t in our offense in the regular season because it’s inefficient and more taxing on a players knees. The playoffs are a different game though, and I think we’ll see that activated more.
KP was able to spend his lockdown in Latvia, which was a sane country compared to the US so he had full access to facilities for basketball workouts (same with Luka). He came back ripped, rested, and fully healthy. The Unicorn may end up being the best Robin in NBA history.
Seth – Steph Curry is a better player than his brother I’ll admit, but Seth is low key the better three point shooter. He’s second all time at 44.3%. In the last two months of play, he was shooting 57.9% from the field and the same average from three. With Luka dishing him so many wide open looks, he is insanely deadly.
Depth – Tim Hardaway, Maxi Kleber, Delon Wright, Dorian Finney-Smith, JJ Barea, and shit maybe even Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. Not stars by any means, but a ton of role players capable of getting hot. We’re a deep team.
Coaching – Carlisle is the best coach in the league.
Road Record – the Mavs were 21-12 on the road pre-covid, significantly better than they were at home. In a tournament where every single game is a road game for both teams, that’s advantage Mavs for sure. Also, because half our team is international players, they’re used to playing in tournament environments like this. If any team has a ‘home court advantage’ this year, it’s definitely us.
Chemistry – in a tournament where many veterans will be looking forward to getting the fuck back home, the Mavs are having a blast as a team. They are fresh, hungry, and set up better than anyone to thrive in these unique conditions. The cultural foundation that Dirk built is still alive and well.
One of those teams that doesn’t want to be there is definitely houston, and that’s why I’m laying max bet on Mavs tonight.
I’ll end this with the #1 quote from the bubble so far, said by JJ Barea. “I’m not a gamer, I only really play video games with my son. However, I do play video games with Luka when he asks me, because he is my other son.” JJ Barea has made babies with two Miss Universes. Here’s a collage of them:
7th Floor Krewe 
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