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The Rangers keep a win streak going but lose an ace in the midst of a tight race for the
AL West.
The Connecticut Sun make a statement to start the playoffs behind another strong performance
from their MVP candidate.
And two minor league baseball teams are interrupted yet again by a skunk related delay again from
Wondry.
I'm Sarah Cazell.
And I am Matt Straup.
It's Thursday, September 14th.
This is starting five five sports stories to start your day.
We start things off in Major League Baseball where the Texas Rangers got an important
win.
They're fifth in a row as they fight for a playoff birth.
But Matt, they also got some pretty bad news about Max Scherzer on Wednesday.
Yes, Sarah.
We'll start with the win for Texas going to procrastinate the injury news here for a
second.
Sure.
They appreciate that.
So the Rangers beat the Jays, another team right behind them in the playoff chase, tend
to nothing on Wednesday with Nathaniel Low, mashing a timely homer in the fourth inning.
This ball in the air center field, far show going back to the wall.
Come on, Nathaniel Low with a three run homer and the Rangers make it a four run fourth
inning.
That is a big shot.
That was Low's 16th homer the season, but it actually broke a 22 game homer.
Let's drought for him.
The Rangers also got seven well times scoreless innings from the recently scuffling Jordan
Montgomery.
But that is the end of the good Texas pitching news and the good Texas news period because
we learn on Wednesday that Max Scherzer is done for the rest of the regular season.
And according to GM Chris Young, he is unlikely to pitch in the playoffs due to a strained
terrorist major muscle that he sustained on Tuesday.
Now the terrorist major, as I'm sure we all know, is an arm muscle that goes from the
scapula to the humorous Sarah.
I don't think I needed to tell you that, but Scherzer is not expected to need surgery.
But this is a major loss for the Rangers.
The 39 year old had a 320 year A with just 28 hits allowed and 53 strikeouts in 45 innings
since joining the team.
And as for the playoff picture at large, the Astros who had a bid for a combined no hit
on Wednesday, but lost it late, lead this division by game over the Rangers with the
Mariners one and a half games back.
And if the playoffs started today, all three of those AL West teams would make the postseason,
but the blue jays are just one game back themselves.
Wow.
And in other playoff news, the Atlanta Braves became the first team in baseball to officially
lock in their division crown as they clinched their sixth consecutive NLE's title with
a four one win over the Phillies.
Speaking of post seasons, the WNBA playoffs got started on Wednesday and the three seed
Connecticut Sun had no problem putting away the six seed Minnesota links in the first
game of their best of three series Wednesday night with a 90 to 60 game one win 90 to 60.
It did not take Connecticut long at all to put this one in the bag, Matt.
The Sun held a 14 point lead at the half and then more than double that with the 30 point
win.
The franchise's biggest margin of victory in a playoff game.
The Sun's superstar duo of Alyssa Thomas and Awana Bonner came through with double doubles,
17 points, 15 rebounds and six assists for Bonner and 15 points, 10 assists and five
steals on the night for Thomas.
Here is Alyssa Thomas, bowling through her defender to score her final points early
in the fourth quarter and to put Connecticut up by 21.
Thomas turns the corner, yeah, just too strong for Ariel Powers and lets her know afterwards.
She's too strong for every player in the WNBA just about.
I mean, she just ran Ariel Powers over.
She really did and that's the voice of ESPN analyst Rebecca Lobo there.
She also compared Alyssa Thomas to a monster truck going through a mini Cooper.
Just a poem that she wrote there.
The Sun, by the way, also shot 53% from three in this game scoring 48 of their 90 points
from beyond the arc and when talking about Connecticut's success from deep after the
game, Dewana Bonner pointed right back to her fiance, Alyssa Thomas, for setting up those
shots.
I think we got a credit that's the A.T.
She finds us in open spots.
We owe her a lot, especially me when the three pointers she should have had more assists
in that.
So just her being able to find us and know where we are on the court and now open office
is amazing.
Thomas averaged a career high 7.9 assists per game this season, which is second best
in the WNBA and shooting 53% from three while holding Minnesota to 35% shooting from
the field.
Seems like a pretty easy recipe for success for the Sun, Matt, this game two of this
series on Sunday in Connecticut.
And in the other playoff game from Wednesday night, the Las Vegas aces cruised past the
Chicago sky in game one of that best of three series as the aces tried to chase down
back to back titles.
Okay, now we're moving over to the NFL where the Bengals are looking to bounce back from
a rough opening loss against the Browns in their quarterback Joe burrow after a brutal
first game has gone with one tried and true method of changing things up.
He got a haircut.
Yeah, a centuries old remedy.
And obviously some of the most important news we're going to cover here today on this
show.
Joe burrow arrived at practice on Wednesday, clearly sporting less hair and he was asked
about it by a reporter, which led to this exchange.
Joe, people are talking about the haircut for all the kids out there that want to get
a Joe burrow haircut.
So watch out.
Help their parents out.
What is a Joe burrow?
I got you looking at it.
I don't even know what to tell people.
Just make it happen.
I know it's time to get a haircut.
And you have a game like that on Sunday.
We're all laughing.
It's good that we've reached a point where we can laugh about this because the opener for
burrow and the Bengals was absolute agony.
Their quarterback went 14 for 31 for a career low 82 yards.
As Cincinnati lost 24 to three in the rain in Cleveland and beyond the rain, burrow also
missed extended time with a calf injury leading up to the opener.
So the Russ is certainly understandable.
And it's also worth noting that burrow was one of many big name quarterbacks who posted
a stat line that they'd probably like to throw in the trash can during week one.
That is also true of his quarterback counterpart in week two Lamar Jackson who got a win over
the Texans last weekend, but through for just 169 yards while taking four sacks and turning
it over twice.
So now it is a big early season AFC North clash with Lamar and the Ravens trying to get
to 2 and 0 and burrow and the Bengals new haircut in hand, looking to get on track and
avoid and only to start as they say if you want to change your life, change your hair
first.
Good advice here on starting 5 and another AFC quarterback news from Wednesday Aaron Rogers
who we know is out for the season with a torn Achilles that he sustained on Monday night.
He went on Instagram on Wednesday to thank everyone who has reached out to him.
And he really didn't sound like a guy who's planning to retire when he concluded his
comments by saying quote, the night is darkest before dawn.
And I shall rise yet again proud of my guys want to know right now to the NBA.
The league is cracking down on load management Sarah or at least they're trying to the board
of governors approved a new policy on Wednesday that is meant to have the league stars on the
court more consistently throughout the regular season.
We hope right.
We hope is really the key there now with the new policy that starts this year teams are
not allowed to sit more than one star player for a game.
The NBA in this case is defining a star as a player that has made the all star team
or all NBA team over the past three seasons on top of that star players must be available
for nationally televised games and in season tournament games.
That's another new addition this year.
So say there's a back to back and the second game is on national television.
The star players in that game cannot take that night off simply for rest purposes.
Of course there are a few exceptions for players 35 and older and for players who have played
a certain number of minutes in their career.
But get this if teams break the rules, Matt, it'll cost them $100,000 for their first
violation.
Okay.
$250,000 for the second violation and then each violation from there will go up by one
million dollars.
Goodness.
Oh, thanks.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver very clearly means business here and here he is on Wednesday
speaking about the importance of the new guidelines.
I think there's an acknowledgement across the league that we need to return to that principle
that this is an 82 game league and that of course doesn't mean that we're turning the
clock back that players are expected to play through injuries.
But I think there's a statement of a principle that if you're a healthy player in this league
that the expectation is that you're going to play.
Okay.
So this goes hand in hand with an announcement from the league earlier this year that players
will have to play a minimum of 65 games to be considered for the NBA's major awards.
So could this result in more injuries with players going harder than they've had to in recent
years?
Adam Silver says he doesn't think so.
Even with players who participate in summer competitions like World Cups and Olympics,
they are not more likely to get injured in that season.
We don't see any statistical data suggesting that players increase their likelihood of getting
injured as they go further along in the season or even in back to backs which may surprise
people.
Part of the commitment.
So now the big question is how will the league actually enforce this policy?
Will teams be honest about the status of their star players or are we just going to see
them get more creative with the injury reports they put out?
Yeah, hard to imagine there won't be some creativity in play with these new not-at-all
convoluted rules.
And we will see if any of this has any impact whatsoever slowing down the load management
machine once the season gets underway.
All right.
We are closing things out with a return to baseball this time.
It's the minor leagues and a very strange and stinky coincidence involving a skunk.
Right.
So we have to rewind to Tuesday for what transpired.
The Bowie Bay socks and Harrisburg Senators, double A affiliates of the Orioles and Nationals
respectively had a skunk come on the field and break up a match-up between these same
two teams for the second time this season.
Now the first time it happened back in May and during this latest skunk infiltration,
it did not take long for the whole incident to escalate in a manner that you might imagine.
Oh, he lifted his tail.
Oh my goodness gracious.
Get away.
Oh, gosh.
Oh, he went in the bullpen.
And he's off the field of play.
It's off to the kid zone.
Kids look out.
Somewhere down there near a bouncy house.
I have to imagine there are a few sites more jarring in a baseball stadium than a skunk
walking into a bouncy house, Sarah.
And this is where we do have to chime in with a quick geographic note here via MLB.com.
The Harrisburg Stadium is located on City Island, which is situated on the Susquehanna
River.
And one of the announcers said on Tuesday during this whole fracus that there are in fact
a lot of skunks on the island.
So I actually don't know if this was the same skunk as we saw in May, but we do know that
skunks apparently roam the area frequently.
And I thought we couldn't talk about anything less important than Joe Burrow's haircut on
this episode, but I do think we have topped it.
No, I think this is an opportunity to innovate in Minor League Baseball, Matt.
What do we think?
Keep a skunk on hand if you go over from the plate on the night.
The tale goes up.
What do you think?
Oh, all right.
I can see it.
I can work.
He loves the idea.
Great.
On that very successful note, we'll wrap up this episode.
How does that sound?
For Wondery, I'm Sarah Cazell.
And I'm Matt Strop.
I just needed more time to digest the idea.
Thanks for listening.
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