Stanzel’s Sports Takeout — BREAKING NEWS: 8.9.24
Off to Nashville in a few hours for a few days. Takeout will be Tuesday-Friday next week.
Vikings host the Raiders on Saturday in the pre-season lidlifter. They’ll get a good look at J.J. McCarthy, although with each day that goes by it looks like we’re looking at Sam Darnold as the starter for the foreseeable future.
U.S. Amateur at Hazeltine next week.
RIP Marty Sertich, former UMD hockey coach and Minnesota hockey legend.
Wolves get a Christmas Day game at Dallas in a playoff rematch.
Two Things I Loved Watching in Paris
I’m not a big basketball in the Olympics guy. But was I glued to the TV as the U.S., sporting maybe its most talented team since the original Dream Team, stormed back from a 17-point deficit to beat Serbia by five points and advance to the gold medal game? For sure.Joel Embiid scored 19 points and did a Herculean effort on Nikola Jokic. Serbia hit seemingly every 3-pointer in site for the first three quarters, but the U.S. stars led by Embiid, LeBron, Steph and KD came around. A tough matchup against France in the gold medal game awaits.
I haven’t watched enough water polo, and that’s not just because the great Kenny Albert is doing play-by-play. What a come from behind win for the Americans on Wednesday to beat Australia in a penalty shootout in the quarterfinals. Also - this is a game where teams regularly score double digit goals per game. Can we not give them 10 minutes of overtime? Five, even? They play Serbia in the semifinals today at 7:35 a.m., with a possible gold medal game Sunday at 7 a.m. against Croatia or Hungary.
The Gold Medal Games I Can’t Wait to Watch from Paris
Gold medal game matchups for Team USA: women’s soccer vs. Brazil Saturday at 10 a.m.; men’s basketball vs. France Saturday at 2:30 p.m.; assuming women’s basketball advances past Australia today, they’ll play France or Belgium Saturday at 8:30 a.m.; women’s volleyball vs. Brazil, Sunday at 6 a.m.
Twins Host Guardians for Four
Much of the Twins’ season will be decided in the next seven games. They host Cleveland for four games beginning with a day-night doubleheader today, followed by three at home against the Royals. Minnesota begins the weekend 3.5 games back of first-plcae Cleveland and just a half game up on third-place Kansas City. The Twins are only two games up on Boston for the final wild card spot.
Potentially devastating news for the Twins when Joe Ryan exited early at Wrigley Field on Wednesday with triceps tightness. The Twins are optimistic it’s not serious. Then again, we haven’t seen Byron Buxton since last week when they were optimistic he wasn’t injured too badly colliding into the fence.
This is why I threw around the term malpractice with the Twins not making a move for a pitcher at the deadline. Without Joe Ryan, this team can’t win a playoff series, and probably can’t make the post-season. The “pitcher” they did acquire, Trevor Richards, relieved Ryan and became the first reliever in team history to walk five batters in one inning.
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