The problem with the Ryder Cup is that I don’t remember how it works. I know I like it, but I don’t remember how it works. I think this is because it only happens every couple years, and because I’m usually caught off guard by its arrival. Why does it catch me off guard? Probably because it happens during football season and baseball’s playoff race, so I’m distracted. Also, I don’t remember it competing with football and baseball? I would’ve guessed it happened during the summer. Maybe I just never watch the Ryder Cup and have a lot of secondhand memories.
Regardless of my own Ryder Cup history, it would be helpful to learn how the Ryder Cup works. Here’s the rundown, from the Ryder Cup’s own website and from Wikipedia, because the Ryder Cup’s own website thought I would know a lot of things I didn’t know (update—actually, the Ryder Cup’s own website did a good job and I was just doing a bad job of scrolling):
14½ Points
To win the Ryder Cup, Europe needs to score 14½ points and the U.S. needs to score 14 points. There are 28 points up for grabs, and the U.S. won last time, so it retains the cup if there’s a tie.
There are 28 total matches, and each is worth one point, with ties resulting in half a point to each side.
3 Days
There are three days. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. On Friday and Saturday, there are two sessions apiece, with a total of eight matches on each day. On Sunday, there are twelve singles matches.
Foursomes
The morning sessions on Friday and Saturday consist of four foursomes matches. In foursomes, there are two teams of two golfers playing against one another, and each team is playing just one ball, with the two golfers alternating shots. For a par four, then, to use an example: One player tees off, the other player hits the approach, the first player putts, etc. Whichever team has the lower score on each hole wins that hole, and the match is won by winning more holes. Tied holes are halved—each team gets half a hole. At the end of the round, whichever team has more holes wins the match and earns a point for either the U.S. or Europe. If it’s a 9–9 tie, both the U.S. and Europe get half a point.
Four-Ball
The afternoon sessions on Friday and Saturday consist of four four-ball matches. In four-ball, again, two teams of two golfers play against one another. Each of the four golfers plays each hole, and whichever golfer has the lowest score on each hole wins the hole for his team. If golfers from opposite teams tie for the lowest score on each hole, the hole is halved—each team gets half a hole. Again, at the end of the round, whichever team has more holes wins the match and earns a point for either the U.S. or Europe. If it’s a 9–9 tie, both the U.S. and Europe get half a point.
Singles
This is straightforward. 1 on 1 golf, match play style. So, as with four-ball and foursomes, the goal is just to win more holes than your opponent.
Teams
There are twelve golfers each on the U.S. and European teams, so everybody plays on Sunday in the singles matches. On Friday and Saturday, each team’s captain—Zach Johnson for the U.S., Luke Donald for Europe—chooses which of their golfers will be teamed up with one another. What I’m unsure about is how it’s decided which teams play which. Johnson chose that Scottie Scheffler and Sam Burns would be on a team tomorrow morning, but did he choose that they’d play Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton, or did Donald choose that, or was it decided some third way? This is the biggest question about the Ryder Cup.
Golfers
For the U.S.: Scottie Scheffler, Wyndham Clark, Brian Harman, Patrick Cantlay, Max Homa, Xander Schauffele, Brooks Koepka, Jordan Spieth, Collin Morikawa, Sam Burns, Rickie Fowler, Justin Thomas
For Europe: Rory McIlroy, Jon Rahm, Viktor Hovland, Tyrrell Hatton, Matt Fitzpatrick, Robert MacIntyre, Tommy Fleetwood, Sepp Straka, Shane Lowry, Justin Rose, Nicolai Højgaard, Ludvig Åberg
Watching It, etc.
It’s going to be broadcast on USA Network, NBC, and Peacock. It starts at 1:35 AM ET on Friday and Saturday, and at 5:35 AM ET on Sunday. It should wrap up on Sunday right before the early afternoon NFL kickoffs.
David Bakhtiari: IR
In events happening on American soil: The Packers play the Lions tonight, and David Bakhtiari is onto injured reserve, meaning he won’t return until Week 8 at the earliest. Reports from NFL.com have made clear that Bakhtiari could miss the season, and rumors have been coming around out of Green Bay saying Bakhtiari might need another surgery. The Packers might not have Bakhtiari back this year.
Elgton Jenkins is also out again tonight, but per ESPN, he’s not expected to need an IR stint. In the absence of those two best linemen, Rasheed Walker has been an encouraging presence, and with Christian Watson and Aaron Jones both expected to play, the overall health of the Packers is on the upswing from where it stood a week ago. But, it could be better.
It’s unusual that Green Bay is an underdog at home against the Lions, and while what I’m about to say isn’t hard or fast, the simplest way to slice the situation is that if the Packers are going to win the NFC North, they probably need to beat the Lions at home. That’s the simplest way this works. We’re still measuring both teams, but this is a game where the Lions can establish themselves definitively as the favorites in the division, whereas the Packers’ best outcome is showing that they have a chance. Again, that’s an oversimplification, but that’s what the read is going to be coming out of this game.
At a very high level, the matchups work as follows: The Lions have had a lot of success moving the ball through the air (measured on a per-play basis and in total) but not a lot on the ground. The Packers have had similar ground results—though Jones’s return should help this—and medium numbers with the pass. Defensively, the teams are pretty similar in terms of results so far, but the Lions are better defending the run. This is a three-game sample, so it’s skewed by schedule (the teams have only one common opponent, the Falcons), but it also matches perceptions, or at least my perceptions: The Lions are a passing team and they’ve got a tough front seven. The Packers are fairly balanced, and we’re still kind of figuring out what they have.
Update: Ian Rapaport just reported that Bakhtiari had arthroscopic knee surgery yesterday, and that another surgery is planned soon. They hope he can play in 2024, but it does not sound like there is optimism about him playing in 2023.
How Special Is 70 Steals?
Ronald Acuña Jr. became the first player in baseball history to homer 40 times and steal 70 bases in a season, and the Braves made sure everybody in the world knew.
What Acuña did is impressive. Nobody is seriously arguing that it isn’t one of the greatest single seasons in history. Acuña hasn’t been as valuable a player as Mookie Betts this year, but what Acuña did is more eye-catching because it’s so unusual, a display of speed and strength unlike any we’ve seen.
The one caveat that’s out there is that Acuña did this during the first season after Major League Baseball made a lot of changes to encourage stolen bases, with all three of limited pickoff throws, bigger bases, and the pitch clock working to base-stealers’ advantage.
Acuña has still stolen 19 more bases than the next closest guy.
Overall, this season, there have been 3,416 stolen bases in Major League Baseball. That puts us on pace for roughly 3,500 at season’s end. Last year, there were 2,486 stolen bases, meaning stolen bases as a whole have jumped 40%. If you reduce Acuña’s steals accordingly, what Acuña has done this year is, in the context of the league, like someone hitting 40 home runs and stealing 50 bases last year. Even this has never been done. Back in 1982, when Rickey Henderson stole 130 bases, 3,176 bases were stolen, only about 9.3% fewer than this year’s expected total despite there being 13.3% fewer MLB teams. What Acuña did, in any context, is unthinkable.
Again, nobody is arguing that it wasn’t impressive, but I was curious just how impressive it was. Moving on to the Cubs:
There isn’t a whole lot to say. It sucks. It’s really sad. They didn’t build as good a bullpen this year as they did last year, and originally it looked like that was just going to lead to a lesser haul at the trade deadline, but now it’s turned into a unit unable to weather injuries to two or three of its four most heavily-used arms (Mark Leiter Jr. does not seem to be at full strength, but it is unclear or I’ve missed whether he has a specific injury or not). To be fair, that’s a high number of injuries, but that’s what the problem has been these last few weeks. The bullpen wasn’t great, and then it got hurt.
With that in mind, I was curious if we might see Kyle Hendricks piggyback with Marcus Stroman tonight, but Hendricks is officially listed as the probable starter tomorrow, so it would appear that David Ross and the front office aren’t going to try to get too cute. That’s just as justifiable a position as using him tonight would be or would have been. The Cubs need to get a win, and then they need some help. It’s them vs. the Marlins in this race until something changes, and at the moment, the Cubs need one more win over these final four than however many Miami gets.
Connor Bedard’s Debut(-ish)
The Blackhawks play their first preseason game tonight, hosting the Blues, and that means Connor Bedard will make his preseason debut. It’s only a preseason game, but honestly, I don’t get the idea there are high postseason hopes for the Blackhawks, which means the weight of the game isn’t the thing that matters too much here. It’s seeing what the guy can do in a live-game situation against NHL competition. Should be fun.
Our Bets Are Back Even…Kind Of
We’ve gotten back to a place with the Best Bets we publish on this site where we can round our average ROI to an even 0%, which is a big step forward after the college basketball and motorsports debacle of 2022. We’re going to dip back to something like –0.7% after the AL West and AL East wrap up, but for now, we’re enjoying a breath of break-even, and the real news here is that through MLB moneylines going so well, we’ve put ourselves well within reach of being back to actual profitability once all the postseason MLB futures come in. We shouldn’t even need any rounding tricks.
The Brickyard Is Back
In NASCAR news: It was announced today that the Indy Road Course will be no more and the Cup Series will again run on the full oval at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, bringing back a marquee race for the sport. Why did it leave? Some in Indiana will tell you it had to do with where the race was placed on the calendar at times, but the biggest reason is that the old Cup car made for exciting races on road courses and unexciting races on more conventional speedways, while the new Cup car makes for the opposite. At the end of the day, all any sport is doing as a business is trying to be exciting, but it’s very transparent and straightforward with NASCAR.
