The Phillies have already advanced to the next round of the baseball playoffs. They will face the Atlanta Braves in the best of five National League Division Series. They were able to dispatch the Miami Marlins in two games. The Phillies played quite well, but they will have to continue that momentum if they want to beat the Braves since the Braves have been impressive the whole season.
They will have to contend with Max Fried and Spencer Strider in the pitching rotation, and also Ronald Acuña Jr., Matt Olson and Ozzie Albies of the Braves’ offense. In the course of the regular season, the Braves tied a major league record with 306 home runs, so the Phillies bats will have to stay alive if they want to advance. The series will start in Atlanta on Saturday, which just adds a bit more pressure.
The Eagles were able to stay undefeated by barely winning in overtime over the Washington Commanders. I was surprised the Eagles’ defense did not play near as well as it did last week against against Tampa Bay. It is already obvious that this year's Eagles’ team is not the 2007 New England Patriots who went undefeated for the regular season.
It is true what Jalen Hurts says in that the goal is to keep "the main thing the main thing." What does that mean? It means if you win the game, you should be happy and prepare for the next challenge.
The Eagles’ offense actually played pretty well in this game for the first time this season. There was actually no reason for this game to have to go into overtime, because the Eagles had the ball with just over two minutes left and could have easily wasted enough time to have Jake Elliott kick a game-winning field goal. For some unknown reason, the Eagles wanted to score another touchdown, which they were successful with, but it gave Washington another chance to tie the game. The good news is that this decision did not come back to bite the Eagles in the end.
The Europeans were able to win the Ryder Cup in surprisingly easy fashion at home in Rome. The Europeans got off to a great start on Friday morning when they were able to win all four matches in the first session, and the US was unable to recover from this early deficit.
The Europeans played great for the entire three-day event. I think they were tired of hearing everyone saying that the U.S. team was going to win and end the drought of winning on European soil. I think a huge part of the reason the U.S. team lost was the fact that for scheduling reasons with the PGA Tour, nine of the 12 players on the U.S. team did not play a competitive tournament for five weeks before the Ryder Cup began. That obviously did not play out well.
The final score of the tournament was 16.5 to 11.5. The score was never close. The Europeans definitely deserved the win. The next Ryder Cup is going to be in New York in 2025 at Bethpage Black. I would be surprised if Tiger Woods is not the next U.S. Ryder Cup captain since he’s not playing much and he won one of his U.S. Open’s there in 2002. There's a lot of time to see what happens with all of this.
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A 2002 Cape grad and 2007 UD grad, Lewes resident Sumner Spence is one of the Cape area's biggest sports fans. Although he’s used a wheelchair his entire life, he has lived vicariously through his sports-playing father, brother, and friends, who gave him his love of sports. He hopes to provide new and interesting perspectives on the sports stories and issues of the day. Email Sumner at sumspence@gmail.com.
