Maybe someday I’ll be more together Stretched by fewer thoughts that leave me Chasing after my dreams, disown me, loaded with danger So maybe I’ll win … Saved by zero Maybe I’ll win … Saved by zero
— “Saved by Zero,” The Fixx
Here at Bottom 10 Headquarters, located behind the Pixar character rental office where they loaned out that red Anger face from “Inside Out” that Nick Saban borrowed for the Alabama–Tennessee game, we are wondering what the heck happened to our numerical BFF. You know, our old pal zero? Cero? Nula? Zewo?
When the final buzzer blared over the last late-night games on Saturday night/Sunday morning and the cigar smoke from Knoxville had finally cleared, we realized that … wait … could it be true?! We’re not even into November yet and there are now no zero-win teams remaining? Nil. Nada. Zilch. It’s the truth, thanks to Colorado’s overtime win over Cal.
It’s weird, right? I mean, sure, we’re used to seeing plenty of 0’s on scoreboards when the clock reads 00:00. We’re accustomed to knowing that zero of our teams will receive bowl berths. We’re plenty familiar with the feeling of knowing the answer when someone asks, “Hey, how many votes did your teams receive in the preseason media polls?” or “How many Bottom 10 teams are playing in prime time on ABC this weekend?” Scratch. Goose egg. Diddly squat.
But then, just as we have given up hope when it comes to ever seeing another zero sum in front of the hyphen and all those losses, a hero rises. A new No. 1 Bottom 10 team. And though it may no longer have a “0-” at the front of its record, its very name steps in to fill the sudden volumeless void.
The Zips.
With apologies to George Plimpton, Damian Lillard and Steve Harvey, here’s the post-Week 7 Bottom 10 rankings.
1. Akronmonious (1-5)
And there was one, as in one remaining #MACtion team with one win. Just three weeks ago, most of the conference fit that description. And then the Zips played Not Eastern Or Western But Central Michigan in the Pillow Fight of the Week Episode VI: The MACtion Menace. And then they were tied with 2:01 to go, with the ball and driving. And then this happened.
The Minutemen got Buffaloed by the Bulls Not Bills 34-7 and now face the Fightin’ Byes of Open Date U., who have been installed as a six-touchdown favorite.
3. North by Northworstern (1-5)
Speaking of off weeks, the Mildcats spent theirs licking their post-Wisconsin wounds while Wisconsin spent its weekend making Northwestern’s 42-7 loss to the coachless Badgers even Northworstern as they lost to then-2-4 Bottom 10 Wait Listers Michigan State in double overtime. Now NU travels east for the kind of classic regional rivalry that is quickly becoming the trademark of the Big Ten, a visit to Maryland.
4. Nevada Oof Pack (2-5)
Wait, where did these guys come from? They weren’t even on the Waiting List two weeks ago, but now they jump/fall all the way to No. 4. How? A Week 6 loss to then-No. 1 Colorado State, followed by a Week 7 defeat at the hands of then-No. 2 Hawai’i. It’s the worst week for Nevadans since the government triggered a bunch of atomic bombs outside of Las Vegas and sold it as a tourist attraction. This time the mushroom cloud is coming from Reno.
5. Kansas Nayhawks (5-2)
As my dad told us when Santa brought us a huge new Death Star toy and we immediately blew it up with firecrackers, “You can’t have nice things!” The latest example: Kansas, which went 5-0, was ranked 19th in that other poll and hosted College GameDay … then went and lost two in a row. If we’re being honest, perhaps the Nayhawks are back here simply because we missed them. An itch we couldn’t scratch. A spot of rash that can only be smoothed by slathering of the ointment that is the Coveted Fifth Spot.
6. FI(not A)U (2-4)
The second-worst team named Panthers (behind the NFLers from Carolina) have run a Bottom 10 gauntlet — and by gauntlet we mean a rubber kitchen glove — with a win over Whew Mexico State but a 21-point loss to UCan’t. We don’t really know who they are, but will when they travel north to the home of those other Panthers for the Pillow Fight of the Week against …
7. Charlotte 1-and-6ers (1-6)
Remember way back to Week 4 when Charlotte beat Georgia State Not Southern? Since then, the 1-and-6ers haven’t won again, but Georgia State beat Georgia Southern, which beat Nebraska and just beat No. 25 James Madison, which beat Appalachian State, which beat then-No. 6 Texas A&M, which beat then-No. 10 Arkansas, which just beat BYU, which beat Stanford, which was on the Bottom 10 Waiting List last week but is there no longer because it just beat Notre Dame, which lost to Cal, which just lost to Colorado, which was the top/bottom-ranked Bottom 10 team. This is like that movie “Inception,” but if Leo DiCaprio had spent the entire movie slipping on banana peels.
8. US(notC)F (1-6)
The Bulls have mostly hovered around this list all season because if one watches them closely enough, they know that this team has been competitive in a lot of games against much more talented teams. But when you get into the second half of October and you are one of only seven FBS teams with one win, then you become like Glenn Close in “Fatal Attraction,” screaming from the pirate ship at Raymond James Stadium, “I won’t be IGNORED, DAN!” Dan being me, wondering where my rabbit went.
9. Colora-duh State (1-5)
The Rams made a statement in Week 6 when they defeated No-vada for their first win of the season. Then they made a follow-up statement by losing to Utah State, which had its third-string quarterback under center. The Rams game this weekend against Hawai’i was going to be a candidate for Pillow Fight of the Week of the Year of the Century, but then the Rainbow Warriors beat Nevada too. Why do you hate us, Nevada?
10. Whew Mexico (2-5)
Speaking of teams which keep tossing our worst-laid plans in the shredder, Whew Mexico State was looking at an epic Bottom 10 autumn with a Halloween visit to UMess and a pre-Turkey Day wobble to 2-4 Mizz-lose. But then it went and won the Battle of I-25 against Whew Mexico, now renamed the Battle of I-2-and-5.
Waiting List: Colora-duh, Whew Mexico State, ULM (pronounced “Uhlm”), Temple of Doom, Living on Tulsa Time, Huh-why-yuh, Arkan-saw State, Mizz-lose, Western not Eastern or Central Michigan, Lose-iana Tech, pretty much every team in Virginia, throwing the most awesome post-win souvenir into a river.
MILWAUKEE — The Cincinnati Reds lost 1-0 to the Milwaukee Brewers on Thursday night to become only the second team in the live-ball era (since 1920) to lose three consecutive 1-0 games.
The Reds joined the Philadelphia Phillies, who lost three straight in the same fashion in 1960, according to ESPN Research.
“Nobody’s happy with what’s happened the last three games,” Reds manager Terry Francona said after the string of 1-0 losses continued in the opener of a four-game series at Milwaukee. “We’ll figure it out together. I feel strongly about that.”
Cincinnati’s lineup showcased its potential Monday in a 14-3 victory over the Texas Rangers, but the Reds haven’t scored since.
Milwaukee’s Nestor Cortes shut down Cincinnati on Thursday, allowing one hit, striking out six and walking two over six innings.
Cincinnati’s Nick Lodolo gave up four hits and one unearned run in 6⅔ innings Thursday, but he took the loss because the Reds mustered just two hits.
“It’s part of the game, you know?” Lodolo said. “I’ll be honest with you. Obviously I want us to score, but I’m not really thinking about it. I’ve got to do my job at the end of the day, regardless. We’ll turn it around. I guarantee that.”
That’s the attitude Francona wants to see from his pitchers as Cincinnati’s hitters try to break out of their slump.
“We’re not going to have a situation where it’s ‘us’ when we win and it’s ‘they’ when we lose,” Francona said. “We’ll do this together.”
Francona said there’s no common thread between the games that explains his lineup’s struggles. The Reds have faced different styles of pitchers each time.
Eovaldi is a veteran right-hander who went the distance while allowing four hits and no walks. Leiter’s a hard-throwing rookie right-hander. Cortes, a veteran left-hander, doesn’t have the velocity of Eovaldi or Leiter but effectively mixed his cutter and changeup with his fastball.
Cincinnati’s struggles Thursday may have been particularly frustrating because Cortes looked so awful in his last start, a 20-9 loss to the New York Yankees. Cortes allowed homers on each of his first three pitches that day and ended up yielding eight hits and five walks in two innings of a game that drew attention to the Yankees’ use of “torpedo bats.”
The Reds made Cortes look like an entirely different pitcher.
“It was embarrassing, what happened to me last time,” Cortes said. “I think, as a starter, you’ve got 30 or 32 of these. There’s going to be a lot of bad ones throughout the way. You’ve just got to learn how to brush them off and go to the next one. That’s what I did.”
The Reds’ lone hit off Cortes came from Jose Trevino, who delivered a one-out double in the third off his former Yankees teammate. Cincinnati’s only other hit Thursday was a single by Jeimer Candelario off Elvis Peguero in the seventh.
Cincinnati has a combined nine hits, three walks and 27 strikeouts during the skid.
“To be totally honest, you see this all the time throughout a baseball season,” Trevino said. “Pitchers will pick up the hitters and the hitters will pick up the pitchers. It will all switch at some point. We’re going to need them. They’re going to need us. And at some point, we’re all going to be together. That’s just how the baseball season goes.
“Right now, our pitchers are doing really well and our hitters, we’re grinding. It’s not like we’re out there trying to give outs away. We’re out there putting some good at-bats together. We’re going to turn this thing around. I have full confidence in this team.”
The move is retroactive to Monday. He hasn’t played since Saturday and is 3-for-12 this season with two home runs and four RBIs.
The incident happened at home during the Dodgers’ off day. Freeman’s wife had to drive him to Dodger Stadium on Sunday for a three-hour treatment session. By the time it was over, he was able to drive himself home. An X-ray showed no serious damage.
Freeman sprained his right ankle on a play at first base in late September and struggled in the first two rounds of the postseason, but it was hardly evident during the World Series. He homered in the first four games and had 12 RBIs, earning the World Series MVP award as the Dodgers beat the New York Yankees in five games.
He had debridement surgery in December to remove loose bodies in the ankle.
“We all tell him every day: ‘Hey, we want to be you when we grow up,'” Chisholm said after Judge became the third-fastest New York Yankees player to reach 500 extra-base hits with a three-run homer in the first inning of Thursday night’s 9-7 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks.
And the two players who reached the mark in fewer games than Judge? Joe DiMaggio and Lou Gehrig.
“When I’m an old man coming to Old-Timers Day, I can look back and we can joke about it and laugh about it,” Judge said.
Coming off his second American League MVP award, Judge fell a triple short of the cycle and is hitting .417 with five homers and 15 RBIs in the first six games this season. He has 320 homers, 175 doubles and five triples in 999 games, and only DiMaggio (853) and Gehrig (869) reached 500 extra-base hits in fewer games among Yankees.
“I feel like he’s still getting there, which is remarkable,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “It’s that part of me that takes him for granted a little bit. I just feel like he should get an extra-base hit every time. I kind of say it out loud just to try and remind myself what we’re watching every day.”
Judge lined a 1-1 fastball from Merrill Kelly at 112.1 mph to the opposite field and into the Yankees’ bullpen for a 3-0 lead. He added a run-scoring single in the fourth inning as the Yankees moved ahead 7-3 and hit a 111.3 mph double in the sixth. He also flied out and hit a 109.5 mph groundout.
“I’m like, did you miss that one?” Boone recalled, laughing. “I catch myself having these ridiculous conversations with him sometimes, just because he keeps setting the bar so darn high.”
Judge knows he’s in for ribbing when he singles or doubles.
“He gives me a little smirk when I get on base like that,” he said.
Judge also stole his first base of the season, as did Chisholm. Judge swiped 10 last year to Chisholm’s 40.
“I told him I was going to catch him in stolen bases this year,” Judge said playfully.
“He’s starting to steal bags now. It’s just getting ridiculous out of him, man,” Chisholm said.
Chisholm and Trent Grisham hit two-run homers off Kelly (1-1), who allowed a career-high nine runs, nine hits and three walks in 3 2/3 innings. Chisholm is hitting .292 with four homers and eight RBIs.
“I’m OK compared to him. I’m trying to get to his level right now,” Chisholm said of Judge. “I told him I’m not going to try to fall behind him too far. I got to keep up with him.”
New York had 22 homers on a 4-2 opening homestand, five more than any other team ever hit in its first six games. Even though it was game No. 6, the Yankees felt an urgency after losing the Tuesday and Wednesday.
“Big G said a couple words before the game, just about this was our home turf. We got to go out there and we don’t get swept at home,” he said of Giancarlo Stanton. “Guys took that to heart.”
Carlos Carrasco (1-0) got his first Yankees win, giving up three runs and five hits in 5 1/3 innings. After New York opened a 9-3 lead, Geraldo Perdomo hit a seventh-inning grand slam off Ryan Yarbrough. Luke Weaver got four outs for his first save this season, ending Arizona’s three-game winning streak.
Judge repeatedly refers to last year’s World Series loss to the Los Angeles Dodgers. It weighs on him far more than historical accomplishments.
“Especially after last season where we weren’t able to finish the job, guys are motivated to go out and do something special,” he said. “It starts every game you play.”