It seems like just yesterday that baseball even got going and now there are only two weeks left in the regular season. The Phillies are now on the brink of missing the playoffs, even with the expanded playoff format this year. In 2020, all three of the second-place teams will make it into the postseason and then two third-place teams get in as well. The reason this is not a sure thing for the Phillies is because of how well the Miami Marlins have played for most of the season, even with the significant problems they had with coronavirus at the beginning. If the Phillies can squeeze into the playoffs, I think they can advance past the three-game Wild Card series because of their two very good pitchers, Aaron Nola and Zack Wheeler. I think that would be as far as they can go though because the rest of the pitching staff is not very deep. I hope to still be talking about Phillies baseball two weeks from now.
I won’t have a long discussion about the Eagles this week because they don’t deserve to be talked about given their terrible second-half performance on Sunday against Washington. The Eagles got off to a great start for the first quarter and a half of the game. They had a 17-0 lead deep into the second quarter, and then everything fell apart! It was one of the worst second half performances in the tenure of Doug Pederson as coach. The offensive line was the worst. They gave up 9 sacks. That's go to change in short order because they play the Los Angeles Rams this week. And they also have one of the best defensive ends in the league in Aaron Donald. So Carson better watch out. The only thing good about this past week was both the Cowboys and Giants also lost. So much for the vaunted NFC East division.
The U.S. Open golf tournament has begun In New York at Winged Foot Golf Club. Justin Thomas has the lead at five-under par. He shot a U.S. Open course record 65 in the first round. I think if he can do it again in the second round, he will probably go on to win. The course is going to get harder to score on as the weather is supposed to be a lot colder for the rest of the tournament. It’s already a tough par 70 golf course since there are only two par five holes. Tiger Woods has probably already put himself out of contention by shooting a 73 while playing with the leader Justin Thomas. I think he will still make the cut, because it will probably be five or six over par depending on the weather and conditions on Friday.
The U.S. Open Tennis tournament has concluded with Naomi Osaka of Japan and Dominic Thiem of Austria winning the championships. Both matches went the distance, with Thiem winning a four hour marathon in a fifth set tiebreaker over Alexander Zverev of Germany. I bet both players are happy there was a tiebreaker at the end because they were both cramping and could barely move. Thiem could theoretically win two straight majors because the delayed French Open starts soon. He will be the favorite to win even though Rafael Nadal (who holds 12, yes 12, French Open titles) is supposed to play. I’m happy for Naomi Osaka, because she needed to back up her first grand slam victory in the U.S. Open two years ago. I was cheering for Victoria Azarenka to win because she, a former world number 1, was coming back from having a child.
Serena Williams lost another chance to get the all time record for Grand Slam wins in a career. I don’t know if she is going to be able to win one more to get this record since she’s almost 40 years old. Come on Serena, you can do it!
Everyone have a good weekend and enjoy the end of summer.
