Not really, but ok.

That glove looked conspicuously undersized to me, like it was about to fall off.

Favorite sketch ever.

Why does he wear such a small glove?

Just think - if we’d started today’s 11 against Trinidad last week, we could have cap-tied Weah et al. and qualified for Russia.

I guess we’ll never know whether this is an earnest hot-take or a Ricky & Morty reference, but I’m okay with that.

So, in other words, we should only let teams compete for the World Cup if they come from countries that have historically been good at soccer, damn upsets, damn a changing of the guard, damn everything? That seems like an incredibly bizarre (and indefensible) vision for world football.

I agree with everything you’ve said. I still find it mystifying that this was the thrust of this article, contra every bit of baseball sportswriting ever in history before this moment.

That is not remotely analogous. Scherzer made good pitches, and guys got hits. No one is saying he made bad pitches, or missed his spots terribly - but he didn’t get the job done. The punter’s job is to get the ball inside the 20, or inside the 10, and in your example, he did it. He hits the ball at the right angle,…

Of course there is: make even better pitches. I’m not saying he didn’t pitch well. But I guarantee you this is the only time this season that anyone who came in to protect a 1-run lead and left an inning later down 3 was credited with having “done his job.” The fact that he’s “Max Scherzer” and offers up an…

When they put the ball in play, these things happen. Sometimes allowing weak contact isn’t the best possible result. The Diamondbacks won a WS against Mariano Rivera that way, iirc, and the Mets did it to the Red Sox in Game 6 in ‘86, too. The pitcher can’t entirely abdicate responsibility for anything that doesn’t…

I’m not sure whether you are agreeing with me or disagreeing with me.

Uhh, he’d already given up a single, single, and double (and the lead) with two outs before any of that started.

How are they “taking up a slot”? Either the tournament should be 8 teams fighting to the death, or there should be some greater number, as is the case. If one of those teams wins, then they’re deserving of it (more or less), and deserved to be there. QED.

This headline gives Scherzer way too much credit. The more accurate version is that Scherzer thinks he did his job. The objective perspective is that he gave up too many hits, of one sort or another, to people he is more talented than, so either he wasn’t throwing hard enough, or his command wasn’t as precise as it…

Man, the Swiss are not going to be neutral about this development.

So basically only Germany, Argentina, Belgium, Spain, Brazil, France, Portugal, and Italy should bother showing up ?

I know.

I like the way you formatted your post to make it as obnoxiously long to read as possible, which really made the complete lack of payoff at the end that much less rewarding.

What does #2 even mean?