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The Steelers' Defense comes up clutch in a brutal AFC North Showdown.
The five-team race for the final NL Wildcard spot comes down to the wire.
And an oft-injured quarterback is making a run at the Heisman in year 6 of his college career from
Wundery. I'm Matt Strow. And I'm Tifa Oshinsky. It's Tuesday, September 19th. And this is
Starting Five. Five Sports Stories to Start Your Day.
All right, we begin today's episode with Monday Night Football and on what was a two-game night,
we will start in Pittsburgh where the Steelers beat their AFC North rivals, the Cleveland Browns,
26 to 22. Yeah, this was quite a rollercoaster of a game, Matt. And it started off with
Alex Heisman and the Steelers' Defense coming up big on the very first play of the game.
What a start, but that was part of what ended up being a very ugly first quarter,
consisting of four turnovers, two from each team, and a missed field goal by the Browns.
But it was less than a minute into the second quarter when the game took a frightening turn.
On first and go at the eight, Browns running back Nick Chubbren up the middle before getting his
left knee crushed by Steelers' safety, Minka Fitzpatrick, and absolutely grew some looking injury.
And the 27-year-old was carted off and ruled out for the rest of the game immediately.
Absolutely devastating for Chubb and the Browns, and more on his status in a minute.
But as for how this game ended, it was pretty similar to how it started,
with the Browns up 22 to 19, with just under seven minutes to go.
Heismith Sack Deschanwasen, forcing a fumble, and TJ Watt did the rest.
Neil Schoenblitz, here he comes, pressure ball out, picked up, Watt touched down Steelers.
Heismith knocked it out, and TJ Watt took it in.
That ended up being the game-winning score, and amazingly, Matt, that was Watt's first defensive
touchdown in his seven-year career. By the way, Watt had another milestone earlier in the game
after sacking Watt's near the end of the first half. The five-time pro-buller became the Steelers
all-time franchise sack leader, with 81 and a half sacks. All in all, it was a big bounceback
win for Pittsburgh after being demolished last week by the 49ers. And now we'll have to wait
a while for these two teams to meet again, as round two of the division rivalry won't happen
until week 11. Yeah, and as for Nick Chubb, Browns head coach Kevin Stofanski said after the game,
that the four-time pro-buller is done for the year, just a crushing turn for one of the absolute
best-running backs in the NFL. We're staying with the NFL, where the other half of the Monday
night double-header took place in the NFC South, with the Saints beating the Panthers 20-17 to move
to 2-0, while Carolina drops to 0-2. Yeah, you know, if you didn't watch any of this game, you
might come across the box score and say, oh, 20-17 must have been a pretty interesting one,
but I have to say this game was pretty agonizing, especially from the Panthers side of things.
We'll come back to that in a second. But first, a bright spot in this game. Okay, that was the
second year Saints' wide receiver, Chris Olave, who had six catches for 86 yards, including
a phenomenal juggling 42-yard catch in tight coverage in the third quarter.
Car steps up and delivers down field, get to a 50-50 ball, what a catch by Olave!
Battling, Von Bell, all of it down the sidelines. It was Buckeye versus Buckeye, and the receiver
wins this one. Look at this grab. Wow. Electric stuff from Olave, and a game that was tied
6-6 at that point in the third quarter. I did mention that this was a thriller, right?
The Saints went on to score on that drive, and they would not trail the rest of the way,
so an important play, and route to a victory for the Saints. Now, as for the Panthers,
they did get a late touchdown and two-point conversion to make things look close on paper,
but it was mostly a struggle for Bryce Young and Carolina. The first overall pick
through for just 153 yards and took four sacks while getting just 4.6 yards per attempt,
and obviously it's way too soon to say how he might develop as a pro quarterback.
But either way, this Panthers offense is extremely limited in terms of the weapons on offense
around Bryce Young. They scored 10 points in his debut last week, and they were sitting on
9 points in this game until very late, so certainly give some credit to the Saints defense,
but it's been pretty rough for the Panthers so far, while New Orleans has now held their two
opponents to 15 and 17 points respectively, winning two games by a combined four points.
And just as we all predicted, the NFC South now has three teams sitting at 2-0,
the Falcons, Bucks, and Saints. And in other NFC news, the concern in Detroit,
according to NFL Network, is that safety C.J. Gardner Johnson may have suffered a torn
pictorial muscle in injury that could mean the end of a season.
All right, now let's head over to Major League Baseball, where the NL Wild Card Race is speeding
toward a very intense finish, and we added to that intrigue with the reds beating the twins
on Monday, 7-3 to inch that much closer to that final playoff spot.
Yeah, more like 3-10,000s of an inch mat. That's the deficit for the reds behind the cubs for
the final Wild Card birth in the NL. But they wouldn't be that close if not for the efforts of the
rookie pitcher Connor Phillips, who stepped up to record his first Major League win on Monday,
the 22-year-old threw seven strong innings, allowing just three hits, one walk in two runs
with seven strikeouts. They also got a big lift from right-fielder Will Benson, who picked up
three RBI's, including this two-run shot in the fourth. First pitch, launched the right center,
no doubt this time. He got it all, and that's number 11, a two-out two-run shot,
and padding for the red ones. The fun fact, Matt, Benson could have actually finished the game
with five RBI's, but was robbed of a home run in the second. Either way, Monday's win was since
an addy sixth of victory in their last eight games, and now with only 10 games remaining, the reds
will try to close that 3-10,000s gap behind the cubs and leapfrog them to that final Wild Card spot.
Of course, they're only a half-game back from the diamond backs, who are a second, and could still
potentially take that spot. God, I love September baseball, Matt.
Yeah, what an intense stretch run is shaping up here. You've got the diamond backs, cubs,
reds, marlins, and giants, essentially all fighting for two playoff spots, and it is extremely close,
just two and a half games separating those five teams.
Now let's check in on college football, and specifically, the number eight ranked Washington
Huskies, who are off to a three-and-oh start this season, thanks in large part to quarterback
Michael Penex Jr., who is piling up awards after a big-time performance this past weekend.
Yeah, Tiff Penex was named the Pac-12 offensive player of the week on Monday. One day after being
named the Walter Camp National Offensive Player of the Week, and that is the sort of thing that
comes your way when you throw for 473 yards and four touchdowns, with all four of those touchdowns
coming the first half of a 41 to seven win over Michigan State. And on Monday, Washington's
offensive coordinator Ryan Grubb talked about what the team expected from Penex after he transferred
from Indiana after four seasons there in late 2021. We believed in a skill set. We felt like the
only limitation for Mike has ever been, you know, some of his injuries and getting dinged up,
and felt like we're going to have a good opportunity to be able to showcase a lot of what he's done,
especially as you heard Grubb mentioned the injuries there. Saying getting dinged up is a wild
understatement for what has happened to this guy, Penex famously had four season-ending injuries
in a row during his time at Indiana. And that is all part of what makes his success at Washington
in Grubb's eyes that much more satisfying. Mike's demeanor on all those individual awards
makes it easy to root form. He's a humble kid and he's a guy that's kind of been to hell and back
a little bit. So to root for him and see the heights that he could get to is his special.
All right. I feel like we've gotten there with Helen back. That's a more appropriate way to put it
then dinged up in this case. But I want to be clear, this is not just a sentimental story either. Penex
is first in the nation in passing yards. You heard that they're eighth in the nation. He's also
tied for second in passing touchdowns while throwing just one interception as he has emerged as a
legitimate Heisman contender. Yeah. Penex is now the second betting favorite behind the
reigning Heisman winner Kayla Williams of USC to take home the award.
We're closing out this episode in Major League Baseball, the wild card leading Philly's
beat the brave 7-1 on Monday night on a night where they got a notable homerun from Kyle Schwarber.
Yeah. So Schwarber, the Philly's slugging leadoff hitter, continues to have one of the strangest
statistical seasons you could imagine and it included an absolutely monstrous homer in the top
of the sixth inning. That ball is crushed deep to right feel wow. My God. Holy cow.
The eyes are wide all around the ballpark and I don't know if you're going to see what hit any
farther than that here at this ballpark. A little perspective on that. That was a 483 foot blast
and according to Sarah Langs of MLB. That was the Philly's second longest homer of the stat cast
era. Second only to one hit by yes that's right Kyle Schwarber but that stat is really not the one
we're here to discuss right now. The reality is that was Schwarber's 45th homer of the season
and he's now hitting 197 on the year. This man has 45 homers, 45 singles, exactly 200 strikeouts
and zero stolen bases again as a very unconventional leadoff hitter. He's also the runaway
leader right now for most homerons in a season with a batting average below 200. He's seven ahead
of Joey Gallo with 38 homers while hitting sub 200 in 2021. Now this is all of course if he can just
keep that batting average under 200 and I'm not a Philly's fan but if I was I kind of think I'd
be rooting for the sub 200 season is just too weird of an achievement to let this go by the
wayside. We got to make this happen. Well Schwarber is hitting 270 so far in September raising his
average from 189 to 197 in the process so we may be headed for a photofinisher match.
It's not looking good. And that will do it for us from Wondry. I'm Tip Oshinsky.
And I am Matt Straub. Thanks for listening.
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