October Crossroads

 It's October--when big league baseball and the WNBA have their big finishes, NFL football starts defining itself and the NBA knocks off the rust and tests out team changes. 

The MLB playoffs are underway, but neither the San Francisco Giants nor the Pittsburgh Pirates made it that far.  Both had an insufficient second half, though both had moments of fun and promise.  The Pirates frustrated the Yankees at the end of the season, taking that series, and the Bucs won all the games they played against the Marlins.  Their young starting pitchers are more than promising, and they have punch in the lineup.  I imagine they're fun to watch at the ball park, and should be next season.

When the Giants again missed the playoffs last year they went after the two biggest free agents available in a big way, and whiffed on both of them.  Those two--Judge and Ohtani--just happened to dominate the season, and may well meet in this year's World Series.

But the Giants finished the year starting to look like a team that could bring people back to the ball park. The best news is that their new leader is Buster Posey.  That should at least solidify and further advance the Giants feeling like a team and not just associated statistics.

The WNBA playoffs have also started, and Caitlin Clark helped get her Indiana team into them, but they didn't win a game.  She had a great year nonetheless--especially considering that she played a long college season and those playoffs into the national championship game, then almost immediately on a new team at a new level.  Breaking records and earning Rookie of the Year, she also helped elevate awareness of women's basketball, while surviving all the attention and the ugliness that so-called fans and click-baiting posters unleashed.  Angel Reese also had an outstanding rookie year.There's tough and skilled basketball still being played in those playoffs.  Meanwhile Indiana looks forward to an even better year.  

The NFL season has started, with the San Francisco 49ers underperforming, due largely to injuries, and the Pittsburgh Steelers perhaps overperforming expectations,  but neither team has been consistent or appears to have much of an identity yet.  To me the team that looks really solid is Minnesota.

The NBA pre-season is just starting and the Golden State Warriors have going for them the excitement of uncertainty along with potential.   Klay Thompson's absence makes it a new group needing to become a team, adding new players and expecting veterans to add to their roles.  Could be fun.

At The Break

At the MLB All-Star break, the San Francisco Giants look forward to a better second half.  And why not?  They got through the first half with a big chunk of their starting pitching staff injured for significant amounts of time.  Now Blake Snell is back, with two stellar outings so far--including eight innings one bad call from being perfect.  With Logan Webb and Kyle Harrison, and some interesting young pitchers, there's progress to be made.

The Giants front office seems to be going with youth, which has the potential of streaks of excitement.  But with the team's leading hitter (Matt Chapman) at a dismal .235, there needs to be a lot of improvement with the bat.

Meanwhile the other team I follow, the Pittsburgh Pirates, ended their first half on a high note--with a four game win streak that sent them on the break with a 48-48 record.  Considering how little was expected of them, this is notably good.  Of course the highlight of their first half was the incredible debut of pitcher Paul Skenes, who has been in the league for a couple of months, and may well start the All-Star game. Super-fastball pitchers don't tend to last all that long, but in addition to his fastball he has a crafty set of pitches that can keep him going for a nice career.   But for sure, now is the time to enjoy watching him.  

Skenes now heads a pretty good young starting rotation.  Bryan Reynolds leads the team in batting, homers and RBIs, Oneil Cruz hits the ball hard and throws even harder across the infield, and Rowdy Tellez is always a threat at the plate.  Plus the Cutch has found a comfort zone with these young players.  The bullpen looked better as the season went on, and they will be a key to the second half.

As basketball eyes turn to the Olympics and the WNBA, the Golden State Warriors are talking up the team as currently constituted, while quietly working on at least one major trade.  But Steph at the Olympics is the upcoming excitement.  Reports are that he's eager to excel and lead.

In the WNBA, Caitlin Clark continues to draw big crowds on the road as well as at home, and she's set some personal records already, but it's the Indiana Fever team that is the most impressive.  Their come from behind win over the MN Lynx is just the latest indication that they're learning to play together better on offense, and their defense is relentless. Clark as point guard and assist leader is of course the key, but everything is jelling around her.

 I'd thought before that this would be a learning year for Clark, and it would take some off-season rest (which she has not had since the start of last year's college season) and work on getting stronger before she could take this team places.  But now it looks like the Fever could make some noise in this year's playoffs.

Meanwhile Angel Reese is having a high-impact season, setting the record for consecutive triple doubles.  She's right to say that she's lucky she wasn't drafted until the 8 spot--she got on a better team and hit the ground running.  Both Clark and Reese will play in their All-Star game.    

That Iowa Season, Warriors at the Wire

 I had just a semester in the Iowa Writers Workshop graduate program back in the prior century but enough for me to be an Iowa alum, and call Caitlin Clark's team my own.  I've been watching all season, learning the other members of the team as well as the amazing CC.  They sold out games everywhere they went and during the NCAA tournament kept breaking TV viewing records.  Their Final Four victory over UConn had the biggest audience on ESPN, not only of any women's game, but of any basketball game, period.  

Caitlin Clark was the chief reason.  A deep three point shooter in the mold of Steph Curry (Clark made "logo three" part of the language), she also has Curry's ethics and solid, smiling demeanor.  That she's a role model is a very good thing.  But she was also surrounded by good teammates, like the tenacious Gabbie Marshall, a great defensive player who could also reliably hit the three.  

Iowa played in the championship game two years in a row, and this year met the undefeated South Carolina team, possessed of a much deeper bench.  Iowa won the first quarter and lost the other three.  It can be argued that it wasn't quite a fair fight, since the four best teams in the tourney were Iowa, South Carolina, Louisiana and UConn.  To get to the title game, Iowa had to play two of them.  South Carolina played none. 

For all that Clark and Iowa and other breakout stars for other teams did this year to rocket attention to their sport, the upcoming WNBA draft tells a different story about college womens basketball.  While the NBA has 30 teams, drafting deep into college teams and recruiting high school players and even younger prospects, the WNBA has 12 teams, fewer than half as many.  So while Caitlin Clark will almost certainly be chosen with the first draft pick, her excellent teammate, fifth year senior Gabbie Marshall expects never to play another competitive basketball game in her life.  She plans to get some more education and a professional job in the health field.    

Also on Sunday, the Golden State Warriors defeated a Utah Jazz team of mostly young prospects.  Houston had already lost its game, meaning that the Warriors had clinched the 10th spot and a play-in opportunity.  They lost to a Luka-less Dallas by 2 points on Friday, but the Los Angeles Lakers also won one and lost one, so the Dubs are still a game and a half back of the ninth place Lakers, a less vulnerable play-in spot.  They will very likely need to defeat the Lakers on Tuesday to have a chance to move up.  After that, the Warriors play Portland, New Orleans and Utah, while the Lakers have only Memphis and New Orleans.  New Orleans is the wild card in both scenarios.

The Lakers were playing well but are now facing injury issues with their two stars, Le Bron James and Anthony Davis.  As of Sunday, it's not clear whether either will play against the Warriors.