1st Down: Aaron Judge is now just two behind Roger Maris’ record of 61 AL home runs slugged in a single season having hit a pair of blasts on Sunday as the New York Yankees overcame the Brewers 12-8 in Milwaukee on the afternoon. In addition to those two four-baggers, Judge had two more hits and racked up a total of four RBI’s in the victory. He now has 16 games left in the season to track down Maris, and he is ninth on the all-time list for homers in a single season as well. The 30 year-old is still in contention to win the Triple Crown, too, making it even more impressive and historic.
2nd Down: The Las Vegas Aces have their first title in franchise history, knocking off the Sun in Connecticut in Game 4 by a 78-71 score. Chelsea Gray led the way with scoring, coming up with 20 points while Riquna Williams came off the bench to provide 17 points over 22 minutes of play. A’Ja Wilson was a little quiet, scoring ‘just’ 11, but she recorded a double-double thanks to also grabbing 14 rebounds. Gray was named, unsurprisingly, as the MVP of the Finals while head coach Becky Hammon became the first coach in league history to win the championship in her first season on the bench. The Aces lost in the Finals a year ago, too, making it all the sweeter this time around.
3rd Down: Cameron Smith is off and running on the LIV Tour, taking home the title on Sunday in his second event in Chicago by holding off Dustin Johnson and Peter Uihlein fairly comfortably when the dust had settled. Smith came into the third and final round with a lead, and a -3 69 saw the defending Open champion keep his foot on the gas by not allowing the chasing pack to mount much pressure on him. With the win, he took $4 million while Johnson won in the team competition for the fourth consecutive time, bringing his winnings thus far to $12.5 million. Phil Mickelson carded his first top-ten, coming home in eighth spot.
4th Down: The San Francisco 49ers’ front office staff are looking like geniuses at the moment. Jimmy Garoppolo was a major talking point for much of the offseason, with his status being questioned. Would he go or would he stay to be Trey Lance’s backup was a big question mark. He ultimately stayed, and the team are going to be thankful for that after Lance went down to a season-ending injury on Sunday as the Niners won 27-7 over the Seattle Seahawks. Lance broke his ankle in the first quarter on a running play, meaning ‘Jimmy G’ had to step in. Garoppolo ended up going 13-21 for 154 and two TD’s in the lopsided result.
