toronto Page 7 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Can the Mets still compete with deGrom sidelined?
Jacob deGrom is the best pitcher in baseball when healthy. That’s indisputable at this point. Since the start of 2018, deGrom has posted a 1.94 ERA, 205 ERA+, 12.0 K/9 rate, and 0.881 WHIP across 581 innings pitched. No one else even comes close to those figures. The problem has been deGrom’s inabil...
Evan Mobley has been great all season, but he’s been outplayed by Scottie Barnes for Rookie of the Year
The NBA Rookie of the Year vote has gotten even more complicated. Yesterday, ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported that Evan Mobley sprained his left ankle and is out for the next three games. This comes at an especially difficult time for the Cleveland Cavaliers, who have lost four of their last five ...
No, Toronto isn’t getting a ‘competitive advantage’ due to Canada’s vaccine mandate
Brandon Nimmo wants everyone to know that he’s “thankful” for New York mayor Eric Adams’ decision to cave in to Kyrie Irving and other giant babies who don’t care if you live or die, so long as they don’t have to get a shot, and lift the city’s vaccine mandate for athletes and performers....
Familia latest Phillies’ free agent folly
The Phillies had a 4.60 bullpen ERA last season, sixth-worst in the major leagues. Philadelphia relievers’ 2.36 strikeout-to-walk ratio ranked 19th in the majors in 2021. And the Phillies’ bullpen corps served up 89 homers last year, tied for seventh-most in baseball....
Baseball is back, but the DH is everywhere, and that’s awful
There’s only one bad thing about the MLB lockout being over: The game is changing forever....
It’s happening to the Maple Leafs again
Even though we Chicagoans don’t get a spring — it’s winter until one day somewhere in May when it’s just suddenly summer and we’re all instantly drunk outside — that doesn’t mean we can’t recognize the signs of spring approaching elsewhere. Sure, we’ve been robbed of one of them in spring training. ...
Oh, damn, MLS started this weekend
Part of it was due to still being on vacation, and the other part was my general obliviousness. But I only realized at the last minute that MLS started its season this weekend, about 12 minutes after the last one ended with NYCFC’s manager in his undies in the rain in Portland, thanks to having to w...
Goran Dragić could fall right into the laps of a contender following his buyout from San Antonio
Every year in the NBA, there’s at least one highly sought-after role player traded away at the deadline that has no intention of suiting up for their new team. And many times, that feeling is mutual. This year that guy is Goran Dragić. He was traded from the Toronto Raptors to the San Antonio Spurs,...
Shohei Ohtani is on the cover of MLB the Show 22, much to the chagrin of Stephen A. Smith
When you talk about an audience gravitating to the tube, or to the ballpark, to actually watch you, I don’t think it helps that the number one face is a dude that needs an interpreter so you can understand what the hell he’s saying....
Give DeMar DeRozan his flowers for putting the Bulls in first place
What a three-game stretch for the fifth-leading scorer in the NBA, DeMar DeRozan. Mr. Anti-analytics has been letting his mid-range shot fly all season, propelling him to a scoring average of 26.9 points per game. With 28 points and six assists on Monday DeRozan was the Chicago Bulls’ leader in poin...
The Cooperstown case for Roger Clemens and Barry Bonds, once and for all
Call me naive, an optimist....
IDIOT OF THE YEAR 2021: Party rolls on with Gerrit Cole, John Stockton, and Mark Davis
Happy holidays, you filthy animals, and welcome to Deadspin’s annual IDIOT OF THE YEAR extravaganza. Within these hallowed slides are 50 of the year’s least bearable dorks, whose transgressions range from “just kinda silly,” to “dangerously stupid,” to “Trevor Bauer.”...
The hockey men were at it again last night
A few times throughout the season, randomly, there’s a night where it feels like hockey players across the league lose their mind. It’s like a hive mentality, perhaps when the banality of the regular season sinks in or becomes too much to deal with and they have to break out in the only way they kno...
Tampering so egregious the NBA couldn’t ignore it
It appears that the going rate for tampering punishments in the NBA is a second round draft pick. ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski is reporting that the NBA has concluded its tampering investigations into the Chicago Bulls and Miami Heat for sign and trades during the 2021 offseason. Both teams were punish...
Rangers are spending big, Blue Jays are playing smart
We knew Hot Stove season was going to come earlier than usual, given the ongoing MLB CBA dispute, but holy smokes! This got nuts real quick! Over the weekend, a myriad of moves were made involving the biggest free agents on the market. ...
Dallas Stars coach benches rookie before homecoming game in front of friends and family
Twenty-three-year-old Riley Tufte got called up to the Dallas Stars’ roster last week to play for their fourth line. He saw a few minutes of playing time in victories against the Flyers and the Red Wings, but the big game for him was going to be his homecoming to face the Minnesota Wild in his home ...
The Rays keep on winning due to their financial situation, not despite it
The most fascinating aspect about the Tampa Bay Rays competing and winning in the AL East — Kevin Cash repeated as AL manager of the year, and Randy Arozarena took home rookie of the year honors this week — is how they do it not despite their financial shortfalls but almost with the help of them....
Will the knuckleball ever make a comeback?
The knuckleball might not be dead, but it’s certainly on life support. There are only two active players who’ve primarily used a knuckleball at the Major League level: Steven Wright, who is currently a free agent and hasn’t pitched in the Majors since 2019 and Mickey Jannis, who is also a free agent...
Marcus Stroman cuts the Yankees instead of his hair
The Yankees’ policy on personal appearance has long been worthy of mockery, and mockery it has received, for decades, going back to Don Mattingly’s appearance on The Simpsons, when Montgomery Burns kept telling the first baseman to cut his sideburns....
The NBA future is... WOWZA!
The NBA has never felt younger and more reliant on up-and-coming stars than it does today. Teams are beginning to utilize the draft more and more. We’ve seen plenty of tank-a-thons by teams in the last five years, and these efforts have panned out to varying degrees. For some, it has materialized in...