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Brief Add-on up top, Tues. AM….
PGA Tour Quiz: The FedEx Cup playoffs and championship commenced in 2007. Name the six foreign winners of the title. Answer below.
MLB
–The Blue Jays beat the Yankees Friday night in Toronto, 3-1, though Gerrit Cole allowed just one earned in six innings for New York, only to take the loss. He’s 6-6, 3.22.
Tyler Kepner had a tidbit in The Athletic, though, that’s kind of fascinating. Cole, 159-86 in his sterling career, is just three wins away from having more wins than any other No. 1 overall draft pick in history. Mike Moore, 161-176 in a 14-year career with Seattle, Oakland and Detroit, is first on the list.
New York (68-55) then lost Saturday to Toronto (61-64) 4-1, Cam Schlittler going 5 1/3, one run, in a no-decision for the Yanks, as the bullpen lost the game late…and the Yanks only had four hits, after five on Friday.
The Blue Jays are now just a ½-game out of the third wild-card slot held by Texas. There are five teams within one game of Texas! [Baltimore, Detroit, Minnesota and Cleveland the others.]
But the Yankees got the win Sunday, 4-3 in 10 innings on Ben Rice’s game-winning 2-run homer in the top of the tenth, his 33rd of the season.
—Milwaukee was in Los Angeles this weekend for an attractive 4-game series against the Dodgers, a potential NLCS matchup in two months.
But in the first game, Thursday, Dodger closer Edwin Diaz imploded once again, Diaz suffering his third blown save in four outings in a 5-4 loss to the Brew Crew, giving up 3 runs on four hits.
Diaz then picked up a save with a scoreless ninth inning in L.A.’s 3-1 win Friday night.
In 15 games (with a nearly 3-month absence due to arthroscopic elbow surgery in between), he has a 10.66 ERA with four blown saves.
Saturday night, the Brewers won it 4-1, as Jacob Misiorowski went six innings, one run, six strikeouts. At first, you might be surprised Milwaukee let The Miz (12-5, 1.75) throw 98 pitches, but this was an important game for both teams.
At the end of Saturday’s play, in the race to be among the top two teams in the league to avoid a wild-card playoff round, we now have….
Milwaukee 76-48
Los Angeles 74-50
Atlanta 73-50
—Friday at Wrigley Field, the Cubs shutout the Cardinals 3-0, as former Met Clay Holmes, in his second start with the Cubs, went 6 2/3, giving up one hit.
Saturday, we then had an historic moment. The Cardinals’ Joshua Baez hit home runs his first three times up in the majors! The tape of the reaction in the Cardinals’ dugout to each homer is priceless.
Three home runs, first three major-league at-bats…no rookie had ever hit three homers in their debut, let alone first three times up. Amazing. Baez finished with five RBIs, St. Louis (62-61) winning 8-4 and moving to 3 ½ back in the wild-card race.
Baez’s power surge is hardly a fluke. This season, he had hit 34 home runs for AAA Memphis, including four in one game.
[As I go to post, the Cards are winning Sunday, 11-2, but Baez is 0-for-5.]
–The Mets (55-69) have been playing much better ball since the trade deadline and this weekend at Citi Field in New York, beat the Nationals in the first two, 4-1, 5-4, Francisco Lindor with a walk-off single for the Metsies in the bottom of the ninth Saturday.
Met rookie right fielder Carson Benge (14 home runs, 49 RBIs, .275 BA), plus quality defensive play, is rapidly emerging as a star.
And the Mets (now 56-69), completed the sweep Sunday, 4-3, as Kodai Senga picked up his third save in three attempts. The team has found a new closer.
–Going back to Tuesday, the Pirates fell to the Marlins 2-0, as Paul Skenes went 5 innings, one earned, but just 65 pitches, as he fell to 9-11, 3.88. Skenes swore after the game there was nothing wrong with him, but the stats said otherwise.
For good reason I have covered Skenes extensively, going back to his days at LSU. He was a generational talent. Someone the sport needed.
Skenes, in his first two seasons, made 55 starts and had a 1.97 ERA. It was an historically great beginning to a surefire Hall of Fame career.
And in his first nine starts this season his ERA was 1.98, even including a disastrous Opening Day start against the Mets.
But he has a 5.00 ERA in 16 starts since. He’s a pitcher, and they suffer injuries…or it’s something else.
Skenes’ average fastball velocity has gone from 98.8 (2024) to 98.2 (2025) and was all the way down to 96.5 in July. So far in August, it has crept back up to 97.1.
In the Marlins game, however, his fastest pitch of the night was just 96.5.
In 2024, Skenes hit 100 mph in all but five of his 23 starts. An even 100 pitches hit triple digits.
In 2025, he hit 100 mph just 13 times, but still hit at least 99 mph in all but two starts.
This season, Skenes has only hit 99 mph on three pitches.
Skenes insists the velo dip is intentional, and that there’s no injury.
He is costing the Pirates, who are just 9-16 in his starts this year. It seems hard to believe, considering this was someone to build the franchise around.
Everyone was writing an article on Skenes this week. I read them all, including a piece in this weekend’s edition of the Wall Street Journal. Not a single article brought up his college experience.
So, I take you back to something I wrote in the 6/26/23 edition of Bar Chat, during the College World Series when I was out in Omaha cheering on Wake Forest.
“There has been a lot of talk during the NCAA Championships, writ large, however, about pitch count. I wrote of the concern MLB scouts were having over Skenes throwing 127 pitches in a regional contest, and then he threw 123 and 120 pitches in his two CWS appearances, the 120 against the Deacs.* That’s three outings of 120+ in the tournament overall. No major leaguer has thrown 120 pitches in a game all season.”
*Skenes and Wake’s Rhett Lowder hooked up in an all-time classic, won by LSU 2-0 in 11 innings, Lowder going the first seven innings for the Deacs on 88 pitches. Skenes threw the first eight, 120 pitches.
Wake Forest’s coaches were very careful about pitch count. These are young kids after all. Looking back, I have a lot of respect for how the likes of Lowder were handled. LSU, on the other hand, wanted a championship and letting Skenes do his thing was a prime way to obtain the title.
Lowder is in the majors with the Reds, taken No. 8 overall in the draft when Skenes was No. 1.
It will be sad if Lowder outlasts Skenes in the big leagues, unless we’re talking something like 12 years for both.
It’s like a running back who was overused in his first few seasons and then suddenly the production drops.
I hope Skenes is fine and returns to form. The Game needs him.
The Pirates then decided Saturday to push Skenes’ scheduled start Sunday to next Wednesday. Skenes told reporters he didn’t disagree with the move.
–Cincinnati lost young gun Hunter Greene to his second Tommy John surgery, which will keep him out all of 2027. This is a shame…another talent the sport needed.
In 2024-25, over 45 starts, Greene had a 2.75 ERA, 258 innings, 301 strikeouts. The Reds signed him a six-year, $53 million contract early on that runs through 2028, with a $21 million club option for 2029.
So, Chase Burns becomes the ace for Cincy, and he’s played the part this season. Friday night, Burns went seven innings, no walks, 8 strikeouts, outdueling the Marlins’ Sandy Alcantara on the way to a 1-0 win, Burns now 14-2, 2.47. Go Deacs!
–Former New York Met Butch Huskey died at the all-too-early age of 54. No cause of death given.
Huskey came up as a Met and would play seven seasons in the big leagues, appearing in 414 games for the Mets – before moving on to Seattle, Minnesota, Boston and Colorado.
He had an outstanding season in 1997, hitting 24 home runs and driving in 81 with an .822 OPS.
For his career, which was over at age 28, he had 86 homers, drove in 336, and batted .267.
Huskey was a good guy.
–And one week after penning a farewell letter, published for the Yankees’ Old-Timers’ Day at the Stadium, Tommy John passed away. He was 83 and had been in hospice care at his home in Bradenton, Florida.
John spent 26 seasons in the majors and finished 288-231 for his career. A 4-time All-Star (twice runner-up for Cy Young), he won 20 games three times and had extraordinary consistency.
Starting his career, briefly, in Cleveland, John was 82-80, 2.95 ERA with the White Sox, then was traded to the Dodgers (for Dick Allen), where he was 87-42, 2.97, and then was signed as a free agent by the Yankees where he was 91-60, 3.59. He also pitched a little with California and Oakland, before finishing his career with the Yanks. He made his final start in May 1989, when he had just turned 46.
John started 700 games in his career, the eighth-most in MLB history.
Of course, TJ is known for an injury, when in 1974 he tore his ulnar collateral ligament in his left elbow during the season, and Dodgers team physician Dr. Frank Jobe, replaced the ligament in the first surgery of its kind.
After missing all of 1975, John returned with Los Angeles and quicky returned to top form.
In his farewell published online Aug. 8, John thanked Jobe, whom John said “saved my arm and made it possible for me to continue pitching. That surgery has since gone to save the careers of countless pitchers, including many of the very best in the game today.”
As for his vote in Hall of Fame balloting, John peaked at 31.7% in his final year on the Baseball Writers’ ballot, and kind of shockingly, never received a single vote with the Veterans Committee in five attempts.
He’ll long be thought of as a Hall of Famer, however. Not only was he good, and for a long time, but someone had to have the guts to be first with the surgery, and it was him, and he was the perfect person to then set the example; that it was OK to do it. Miss a year, and then hopefully move on with your career.
—Bayonne, New Jersey, is headed to the Little League World Series. The gritty city next to Newark Airport has had a little league since 1951, but this is the first in the peninsula city’s history it has advanced this far. I have someone to root for…this could be a neat little story.
Golf Balls
We had the first leg of the FedEx Cup Playoffs this week at the FedEx St. Jude Championship, TPC Southwind, Memphis, Tenn., as the field will get winnowed down from 70 to 50.
This event has a bit of a melancholy feeling around it because it’s the 69th annual stop in Memphis, with next year’s edition the last.
Memphis won’t be part of the Championship Series commencing in 2028. Whether it is part of the lesser Challenger Series remains to be seen, but is likely.
Jordan Spieth was among the first-round leaders….
Spieth -5
Kurt Kitiyama -5
Jake Knapp -5
Michael Kim -5
Michael Thorbjornsen -5
Scottie Scheffler -2
Rory McIlroy +4
But in the second round, Scheffler blitzed the course with a 61 and a 3-shot lead after 36 holes….
Scheffler -11
Sungjae Im -8
Viktor Hovland -8
Ludvig Aberg -7
Spieth among those at -6
Rory T60 at +4
And after 54 holes, Scottie Scheffler, after a poor start to Saturday’s round, got his act together and maintains a 2-shot lead heading into Sunday’s finale….
Scheffler -13
Sam Burns -11…after a 62 on ‘moving day’…
Im -11
Tommy Fleetwood -8
Jake Knapp -8
This is not about just making it into the Top 50 for the field next week at the BMW Championship, but those who finish in the Top 50 in the points standings automatically qualify for all of next year’s Signature events, which is huge. It allows a golfer to make their schedule well ahead of time.
Maverick McNealy entered the final round No. 50.
And Scheffler romped for career win No. 21, by eight shots over Si Woo Kim, Burns a disappointing T3 with Alex Noren.
After what has been viewed as a disappointing season, given his standards, it was actually a phenomenal year that might even get better.
He won his opening event, the American Express, and then had 10 Top Tens…but not just top 10s, ten top 4s…including second at The Masters, and T4s at the U.S. Open and The Open championships.
—LIV Golf players were apparently told on Wednesday that the season finale, scheduled for end of the month outside Detroit, was canceled. Yet LIV itself made no official announcement, and tickets remained on sale. All of this comes as it claims to have secured a lead investor to keep it afloat without identifying the investor and, as Golf Digest’s Joel Beall notes, “amid reports that the supposed investment may actually be a loan.”
As Beall continues: “LIV has rarely taken a step forward without tripping over itself. That dysfunction has only deepened since Saudi Arabia stopped underwriting its soft-power experiment. Enjoy the show while it lasts. There may be only one week left.”
The last tournament starts in Indianapolis next Thursday.
Stuff
—Joey Logano won Saturday night’s NASCAR Cup Series race at Richmond, continuing his hot streak that has moved him to ninth in the season-long points standings. He recently picked up his first win of the year at North Wilkesboro and finished third at the Brickyard.
It was his 39th career win as he now chases a fourth Cup Series championship.
I’m pissed…I totally forgot this was on, but then I was watching other stuff.
–Only 14 months after agreeing to purchase the Lakers at a record-setting $10 billion valuation, Mark Walter is selling the team to an investment group led by former Disney CEO Bob Iger and Joshua Kushner (Jared’s brother) at a valuation of $12.5 billion.
The sale would need to be approved by the NBA’s board of governors.
Kushner, who has a minority stake in the Miami Heat, and previously owned a share of the Memphis Grizzlies, is a central figure in the ongoing global soccer controversy around FIFA president Gianni Infantino’s plan to sell a stake in FIFA’s competitions to private investors, including Kushner’s Thrive Capital, for $4.2 billion. The plan imploded, but UEFA sent a letter dated July 31 to Kushner stating it is considering legal action, arbitration and/or regulatory complaints in connection with the proposals.
Walter, the 66-year-old CEO of Guggenheim Partners, who is also the owner of the Dodgers and a part owner in the Chelsea football club in the Premier League, is in the crosshairs of a federal investigation examining the inner workings of his financial empire. The investigation is looking into whether private-credit deals involving his companies constituted fraud; specifically at insurance and annuities companies owned by Walter.
The probe is examining whether the insurance firms (Delaware Life Insurance Co. and Clear Spring Life and Annuity Co.) failed to disclose that billions of dollars of their private credit holdings backed other parts of Walter’s business ventures.
Jeanie Buss, a daughter of legendary owner Jerry Buss, would remain the team’s controlling governor for at least five years.
Iger, 75, is a prominent basketball fan who has been a frequent courtside regular at both Lakers and Clippers games. As the CEO of Disney, the league’s broadcast partner, he worked closely with NBA commissioner Adam Silver.
–I half follow the NFL’s exhibition season, especially Week One, but I did watch a fair amount of the Giants-Vikings game Saturday because I wanted to see Wake Forest’s Demond Claiborne of the Vikes, and he is clearly their kick returner for this season, while he carried it 12 times for 34 yards.
The latter doesn’t look impressive, but he had two nice runs exhibiting his potential, his speed, and it was good to hear the Giants announcers talk about how much the coaching staff appreciates what he brings to the team…so Clairborne will stick and it gives me a reason to follow the Vikings.
I might comment on my Jets in Week Two. As for the Giants, they are so fortunate to have Jameis Winston as Jaxson Dart’s backup. Jameis is absolutely perfect for the role. Every team should want him.
—Russell Westbrook called it quits after an 18-year NBA career. He sits fifth on the all-time assists list, and he is the league’s all-time leader in triple-doubles with 209 and has averaged a triple-double in four different seasons.
He also led the league in points per game twice, and in assists per game three times.
Westbrook averaged 15.2 points and 6.7 assists for the Sacramento Kings last season, but the team went 22-60.
—Jim Nantz finally addressed the situation with Tony Romo following his OWI arrest in July, saying he was a “great friend” and “always will be” despite the fact that the two may no longer be partners in the booth again at the network.
“No, I really was just laying low,” Nantz said in an interview when asked if he has been kept in the loop by CBS. “I had golf events to do and I knew they had a lot to, you know, look at, sort out. But, you know, I made my mind up because we have this late flurry of golf events on the schedule.”
Romo has yet to comment on the incident, while CBS is no doubt exploring how it can get out of the remaining years on Romo’s mammoth contract.
Top 3 songs for the week 8/14/65: #1 “I Got You Babe” (Sonny & Cher) #2 “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction)” (The Rolling Stones…was #1 for four weeks prior…) #3 “Save Your Heart For Me” (Gary Lewis and The Playboys)…and…#4 “I’m Henry VIII, I Am” (Herman’s Hermits) #5 “What’s New Pussycat?” (Tom Jones) #6 “Unchained Melody” (The Righteous Brothers) #7 “It’s The Same Old Song” (Four Tops) #8 “Don’t Just Stand There” (Patty Duke) #9 “California Girls” (The Beach Boys) #10 “Down In The Boondocks” (Billy Joe Royal…A- week…)
PGA Tour Quiz Answer: The six foreign winners of the FedEx Cup title are….
2025…England – Tommy Fleetwood
2023…Norway – Viktor Hovland
2022, 2019, 2016…Northern Ireland – Rory McIlroy
2018…England – Justin Rose
2013…Sweden – Henrik Stenson
2008…Fiji – Vijay Singh
Rory is the only 3-time winner, Tiger winning it twice.
Bazooka Joe says: ‘Wake Forest’s Bill Haas won in 2011!’
Brief Add-on up top Tues. AM…the definitive AP Preseason Football Poll comes out Monday….
