Digital Sports Desk

Online Destination for the Best in Boston Sports

Wild Card

Sunday Night: Cincinnati Bengals Have QB Edge Over Injured Baltimore Ravens

by

CINCINNATI – (Staff report by Field Level Media) – With the oft-injured injured Lamar Jackson out, the Baltimore Ravens reportedly plan to use both backup quarterbacks during Sunday night’s AFC wild-card game against the host Cincinnati Bengals.

Multiple reports said the Ravens will deploy the unusual strategy with Tyler Huntley and Anthony Brown, despite challenges with each.

Embed from Getty Images

Huntley, 24, is dealing with tendinitis in his right shoulder as well as a wrist injury. He was listed as questionable on the official injury report.

As a starter in his career, Huntley is 3-5. His injured shoulder hampered his performance this season, with Huntley completing just three passes of at least 20 yards in four starts.

When asked at Friday’s practice if he’s ready to return to the field, Huntley reported he has “no nerves.”

Just excited to get back out there after missing one week,” Huntley said. “It’s a privilege to go out there and play football and I appreciate it.”

Meanwhile, the Ravens’ other backup quarterback, Brown, 24, is an undrafted rookie who’s made only one career start, last Sunday’s 27-16 loss to the Bengals. In that game, he threw for 286 yards with two interceptions and a fumble.

The two QBs have different strengths, with Brown the better passer while Huntley is more proficient at using the same run-oriented offense as Jackson.

Ravens coach John Harbaugh has been tight-lipped about the situation, declining to name a starter after Friday’s practice.

“We’ll see when the time comes,” Harbaugh said.

Jackson, who was ruled out for a sixth straight game with a left knee injury, “suffered a PCL Grade 2 sprain, on the borderline of a strain 3” and his knee “remains unstable,” according to Jackson’s own tweet on Thursday.

The Ravens enter Sunday night’s matchup against the defending AFC champion Bengals as a heavy underdog.

–Field Level Media

Wild Card Could’ve Been an Ace

by

Red Sox Host Yankees in AL “One & Done”

By TERRY LYONS

BOSTON – Oh what a difference eight games has made. Fresh in their minds, the Red Sox have the recent series loss of blowing two-of-three to Baltimore from September 28-30, but do you remember those three straight games lost to those same Orioles to start the season? Then there was the other recent would’a, could’a, should’a – the devastating three-game sweep at the hands of the New York Yankees September 24-28. That’s eight games in the loss column right there.

The 2021 Boston Red Sox rarely lost three games in a row during the season, but when they did, they were clinkers, for sure.

Three losses to the rival Yanks (August 17-18) cost them dearly, as did dropping 12-of-15 in a mid-summer swoon from July 28 to August 10th. That midseason debacle included five losses in six games against the 100-win Tampa Bay Rays, the champions of the American League East.

In Major League Baseball, it’s the price you pay for losing important games during the season while still managing to win an impressive 92 games. Both the Sox and the Yanks finished 92-70 and earned the right to play a single-elimination game on Bill James‘ birthday.

The 92 wins bounced the powerful Toronto Blue Jays (91-71) and the September red-hot Seattle Mariners (90-72) from wild card contention. Those two teams will be looking back at the 162-game schedule and lamenting opportunities lost and saves blown. It is not the last we will hear from the young, talented and offensive juggernaut Blue Jays, that is for sure.

It could be worse, as the Los Angeles Dodgers find themselves in this one-and-done Fall Foolishness after winning 106 regular season games, one shy of the 107-55 San Francisco Giants, the surprise team of this year of COVID-19+2. Can you imagine? winning 106 games, second-most in the majors and being subject to the one-game boot, depending on the performances of LA’s Max Scherzer and St. Louis Cardinals starter Adam Wainwright.

While contemplating all the ‘game of inches’ aspects of Baseball, a thought made famous by Hyman Roth in The Godfather, Part II, and said to myself, “This is the business we’ve chosen.” The rules were written in plain English before the start of the season and the results are clear.

Playing in a Major League Baseball wild card game could be replaced by dozens of other mechanisms to determine a true postseason participant. “Spin-the-Bottle” might be appropriate and quite easy to orchestrate if you had 18 players stand in a circle, the starting nine for each team alternating one by one. A sponsor, such as Bud Light, would eat it up, if MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred chugged a beer, put down the long neck and gave it a spin to decide if the Red Sox or Yanks would advance to a “real series.” Winner plays on Thursday night on FS-1, if you can find it on your dial.

Maybe the Bruins and Rangers could settle the wild card, competing in an NHL-style shoot-out on behalf of their brethren. After all, one-on-one breakaways to settle a hockey game is even more ridiculous than spin-the-bottle or a one-game elimination after 162 game season, isn’t it?

How about jump shots from the top of the key? Boston would pick Larry Bird to represent the Red Sox and the Knicks? Well, Charles Oakley, or even better, Ken “The Animal” Bannister, might do well for Go New York, Go New York, Go!

The fact of the matter is that these “One-and-done-tobers” might go the way of the “No Pepper” signs, as MLB is contemplating a 16-team postseason to be enacted as early as 2022. The future first round would be best-of-three series which seems a bit more reasonable, although not great. The problem at hand for MLB, the season can’t begin any earlier in March nor end any later into November, unless Canada Goose becomes the official uniform supplier.

The club owners and the television networks want more programming. The players want more money. The fans will get what MLB serves up, and chances are, they’ll like it. After all, it can all boil down to one pitch, one blown save, one Baltimore chop single, or one Steve Bartman fan-interference fiasco.

Baseball. It’s a game of inches and first pitch is 8:09pm (EDT) tonight.