Sport Nut Weekend - 31/Oct~01/Nov/2015

World Series Game 3

Amazingly, the Mets pulled one out of the hat behind Noah Syndegaard and won a game. That first pitch was quite the message. Up-and-in on Alcides Escobar. 98mph, right in to the back screen.
Just once, David Wright got to be the hero in the World Series. It's a feel good win for the Mets. David Wright's been around long enough that he's staring down at the last third of his career. This is the second time he's made it to the post-season. It's been a long 8years since 2007.

In between, there was the GFC, and Bernie Madoff thing which spectacularly put a whole in the plans and fortunes of the Mets. For a solid few years there, the Mets were in triage, bleeding good players like Jose Reyes. If the GFC had never come along, the Mets probably would have retained Reyes and made a few more post-seasons along the way. Instead they went on a seemingly endless carousel of rebuilding from within and hoping for the best.

If nothing else, David Wright deserved that moment.

Rugby World Cup Final

And so the Wallabies' campaign to lift the big golden jug came to a shuddering halt this morning. The lads played well but kind of got outclassed. I wish I had a better word for it, but that's really it. I'd have given All Blacks by 10 and they beat that margin well and good. For the Wallabies, it's back to the drawing board because they just don't have enough of the right pieces to beat the All Blacks. It's a shame because the better story is always when the Wallabies beat the All Blacks.

Lots of people are looking a tad foolish today having made brave predictions of a Wallaby win. I never bought into that hype, so I get to feel a modicum of smugness for being right, but in most part, the morning would have been much better had they won.

Jarryd Haynes Got Dropped

This is a weird one.
The 49ers essentially worked on turning a league player in to an NFL player and after 6 games, gave up. The Hayne-to-NFL story's not something I've followed closely, but you read the headlines and watch highlight reels. Clearly they put money down and placed bets on the guy. Now they're waiving him to bring up somebody more orthodox. It begs the question why they even tried the Hayne experiment in the first place.

Most times a player gets waived, it's a numbers game. But it wasn't like the 49ers couldn't predict that they might have this kind of situation before they signed him. If they were going to dabble, they probably shouldn't have dabbled in such a way as to lose a potential asset so early. Then again, it might be so glaringly obvious to insiders that he's not going to make it, in which case you can understand they would cut bait early.

World Series Game 4

Ugh. This was a utterly muttly loss for the motley Mets. Steven Matz was pitching well and handed a lead to the bullpen who coughed it up in the 8th. The Royals really are on a roll with their late inning offence, and the mets bullpen really had nothing when it counted. A Daniel Murphy error opened the door for a 3 run inning, but even so the bullpen just looked shaky all along.

The Royals looked good on both sides of the ball. There was a mental lapse by Alex Rios that allowed Wilmer Flores (that name again!) to score on a sac fly, but apart from that they were solid in pitching and defence as well as hitting late in the game. When you consider that Flores run came off a single, a wild pitch a bunt and sac fly, and another run was a flukey solo homer by the rookie Conforto, the Mets looked worse than the 3 runs they cobbled together.