SmoreSports

Guys… Guys!! Baseball starts back in a week!! Spring Training is coming to a close, and the World Baseball Classic has ended its glorious run, but the Major League Baseball season starts in exactly 7 days. Knowing at this time next week, I’ll be watching some meaningful baseball has me pumped! We were blessed with an amazing season in 2016 capped off by the Chicago Cubs breaking a 108 year old championship drought. 2017 is poised for more of the same, if the WBC is any prediction for what is to come. To take some of the fun out of it, I’m going to give my predictions for how the season will play out that will most likely be terribly wrong, but here goes nothing for the National League. NL EAST The Washington Nationals won the NL East last season, and that was with a down year from Bryce Harper. They did so behind the 2nd best ERA in the Majors, and 4th most runs. Scoring a lot while not giving up many runs is usually good strategy across any level of baseball. Their starti...

The 2016 baseball regular season is over, and just like every season, it was awesome. None of the wild card positions were locked up until the last games of the season, meaning even though it’s a long season, all 162 games were needed for the Blue Jays, Orioles, Giants and Mets to get into the playoffs. Not only were the wild card races crazy, but so are the award races, with many of them up for grabs. If you’re reading this, you likely have read someone’s article on who they think should get each award, and this probably won’t veer any differently than their opinions, but I hope to give a little more insight on some players that they might not have mentioned. Or maybe you really don’t care about baseball and you’re reading to boost my ego, in which case, thank you very much. AL MVP Who could win:   Jose Altuve, Mookie Betts, Josh Donaldson, David Ortiz, Mike Trout Who will win: Betts Here’s the deal… Mike Trout is the best hitter in baseball and it’s lau...

I interrupt your regularly scheduled madness now that March is over, even though there is still some left, to give you this very important message... We did it! We survived another offseason and Opening Day is right around the corner! Every team is in first place and undefeated (Enjoy it while it lasts Philidelphia). The Kansas City Royals are the defending champions looking to be the first team to win back to back championships since the Yankees won three in a row from 1998-2000. Let's get right into it! There are many storylines headlining the National League leading into this season. The Cubs broke the bank in free agency in order to build a dream team. The Mets have arguably the best young starting pitching rotation ever and look to defend their NL championship. It's an even year, so the Giants are a lock to win the World Series, right? On the flip side to all the winning, the Phillies, Braves, Padres, Reds, and Brewers could challenge the 2013 Astros as the worst ...

The 2015 season was an eventful one for the Houston Texans to say the least. Expectations were low considering the offense seemed to be in shambles. No one really knew who the quarterback would be, Arian Foster was hurt and did not have a time table on his return, and nobody knew what to expect from the wide receiving corp after losing Andre Johnson (could Deandre Hopkins carry the load all by himself?). The beginning of the season seemed to match those expectations after a 2-5 start with blowout losses to Atlanta and Miami. Then the defense came alive and carried the team to a 7-2 finish, an AFC South Championship and a playoff spot. In fact, for the first time ever, all three major sports teams made the playoffs in the same year. That high feeling was quickly shattered in yesterday's 30-0 demolishing by the Kansas City Chiefs in the wild card round. It became very apparent that the Texans would never compete amongst the upper echelon of NFL teams without a solid quarterback, rega...