1st Down: The Cleveland Guardians will head home with the opportunity to win the ALDS without returning to New York. Having beaten the Yankees 4-2 in ten innings on Friday, a day after rain washed out the planned Game 2, they now have the chance to put it away without going back to the Big Apple. Giancarlo Stanton hit a two-run homer in the bottom of the first to give the Bronx Bombers a 2-0 edge before the Guardians fought back. Amed Rosario hit a solo blast in the fifth that tied the game, and it would stay knotted up at two apiece until the top of the tenth when the Guardians found the breakthrough via a single from Oscar Gonzalez and an RBI double from Josh Naylor. Emmanuel Clase went two and a third to pick up the ‘W,’ and Cleveland have home-field advantage now.
2nd Down: The status of Bryce Young is very much up in the air ahead of the Alabama Crimson Tide’s trip to take on Tennessee on Saturday afternoon. The #3 team will be facing a rejuvenated Volunteers in Knoxville, and the play of their quarterback will have a profound effect on the outcome in many people’s estimations. Head coach Nick Saban, though, has said that the QB is ‘on track’ to take on the Vols having practiced ‘some’ this past week. Despite that, it remains a game-time decision as the status of his shoulder remains unknown.
3rd Down: Russell Westbrook’s second-string debut wasn’t a very good one on Friday night, with the veteran point guard coming off the bench with the ‘second five’ and playing just five minutes before departing the contest with an injured hamstring. Westbrook has been the subject of high-profile trade rumors and is coming off a poor 2021-22 season. The idea behind Westbrook playing with the second group is to let him run the offense while LeBron James is sitting. We’ll see how that pans out as the season progresses.
4th Down: The SMU Mustangs came from behind on Friday evening to down Navy on the gridiron, running their record up to 3-3 on the season in the process. Quarterback Tanner Mordecai was a major reason for the victory as he threw for 336 yards and rushed for 74 while scoring four total touchdowns. He led a charge in the third quarter in which his team put up 20 unanswered points, too, guiding them to the ‘W.’ Elsewhere, Texas San Antonio won 30-10 over Florida International as Frank Harris (303 yards and two TD’s through the air) and Kevorian Barnes (128 yards and two TD’s on the ground) dominated. The Roadrunners are 5-2 on the year and remain perfect at 3-0 in Conference USA.
