Yahoo Sports AM: Three Wild Card sweeps
In today's edition: Three MLB sweeps, 55 straight days of football, meet women's hockey phenom Chloe Primerano, NFL mock draft, and more.
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🚨 Headlines
⚽️ Miami clinches best record: Inter Miami clinched its first MLS Supporters' Shield behind two goals from — who else — Lionel Messi, who has now won a record 46 trophies in his career.
🎾 Alcaraz tops Sinner: Carlos Alcaraz defeated Jannik Sinner to win the China Open in a battle of the world's top two players, snapping the Italian's 15-match win streak and improving to 3-0 against him this year.
⚾️ Marlins clean house: Days after firing manager Skip Schumaker, the Marlins are reportedly gutting staff — from coaches to clubhouse attendants — all throughout the organization.
🏀 Griner joins Unrivaled: Brittney Griner is now the 24th WNBA player to join Unrivaled Basketball, the new offseason 3v3 league that tips off in January.
🇺🇸 Pochettino's first roster: The USMNT revealed its first roster of the Mauricio Pochettino era for this month's friendlies, and it looks strikingly similar to Gregg Berhalter's squads.
⚾️ MLB Playoffs: Tigers, Royals, Padres sweep
Just one more Division Series spot is up for grabs after the Tigers, Royals and Padres completed sweeps on Wednesday.
Scoreboard:
Notes:
Get the brooms out: Since the Wild Card Round debuted in 2022, 10 of the 12 three-game series have been sweeps.
Home-field advantage? Seven of the 11 Wild Card Round series that have been completed were won by the road team.
KC loves the playoffs: The Royals are 27-9 in their last 36 postseason games and 9-1 in their last 10 postseason rounds dating back to 1985.
$18.8 million: That's the combined 2024 salaries of the Tigers' Wild Card roster, which is less money than 62 MLB players made this season.
O's are cursed: The Orioles have lost 10 straight postseason games dating back to 2014, which is the fourth-longest playoff losing streak in MLB history.
The streak is over… The last five World Series all ended in Texas (Houston in 2019, Arlington in 2020, Houston in 2021 and 2022, Arlington in 2023). The Astros' elimination brings that run to an end.
Good read: Orioles, Rutschman wilt in limelight, stumble out of playoffs again
🏈 Football heaven is upon us
Buckle up, football fans: Today is the first of 55 consecutive days with at least one NFL or college football game.
That's right: The next time you won't be able to sit down and enjoy a game is Wednesday, Nov. 27, the day before Thanksgiving.
🏒 Chloe Primerano, hockey phenom
Fans looking for another young women's phenom to follow now that Caitlin Clark's season has ended, look no further: It's Chloe Primerano's time to shine.
Meet Chloe: The left-handed defender from North Vancouver reclassified this past winter to enroll one year early at Minnesota, the No. 2 ranked program in the nation. At 17, she's the youngest player in the NCAA — though that shouldn't stop her from succeeding.
Just last season, BU's Macklin Celebrini — Primerano's former PeeWee teammate — won the Hobey Baker Award (hockey's Heisman) and was the NHL's No. 1 draft pick after he, too, was the NCAA's youngest player.
Primerano is already off to a hot start, scoring a goal in her debut last week and adding two assists in her second game for the 2-0 Gophers.
What they're saying: "There's players that are elite skaters, there's players that are elite puck handlers, there's players that have a really high hockey IQ or they're goal scorers or they set people up — Chloe is a culmination of all of it," Minnesota coach Brad Frost told The Athletic. "There's nothing that we don't like about Chloe Primerano."
Her record-breaking path: Chloe grew up playing with boys, which isn't uncommon. What is uncommon was that in 2022 she became the first female skater ever drafted to the men's Canadian Hockey League.
Rather than join the CHL, she joined an elite hockey academy and began playing against girls, leading to a dominant two years in which she won back-to-back prep league championships and set the single-season goals and points records.
She made her international debut this past January at the U18 World Championships, where she was named MVP and set the tournament record for points by a defender.
The big picture: In four years, Clark went from an unknown freshman to the college basketball GOAT and one of the nation's most famous athletes, lifting her sport and her league to a level of popularity heretofore unimagined. Could Primerano have a similar effect on women's hockey?
Clark had more of a head start given basketball's relative popularity, but women's hockey is bigger than you might realize: The Professional Women's Hockey League enjoyed a successful inaugural campaign this past spring, and the 2022 Olympic gold medal game between the U.S. and Canada drew more viewers (3.54M) than any NHL game that season.
For the sport to take the next leap, it could use a marketable and talented young star to attract new fans and excite existing ones. Enter, Chloe.
What to watch: A larger audience may soon get to know Chloe better: She attended Team Canada's training camp last month, potentially setting her up to play in the annual Rivalry Series against the USA, which begins in November.
📸 In photos: Cliff diving in Turkey
The world's best cliff divers descended on Antalya*, Turkey, this past weekend for the seventh stop on the 2024 Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.
Results: Australia's Rhiannan Iffland (pictured above) extended her reign atop the women's standings with her fifth victory of 2024, while Great Britain's Aidan Heslop dominated the men's field to earn his fourth win of the season.
The season: The competition began in Boston (June 8) before making stops in Italy (June 30), Northern Ireland (July 20), Norway (Aug. 10), Montreal (Aug. 25) and Turkey (Sept. 29). The season finale is next month in Sydney, Australia (Nov. 10).
By the numbers: Men dive from a 27-meter platform (88.5 feet) and women dive from a 21-meter platform (69 feet). They're in the air for about three seconds, reach speeds in excess of 50 mph and hit the water with two to three times the force of gravity.
*Did you know: Antalya surpassed Paris and New York City to become the fourth-most visited city in the world (16.5 million tourists) last year, trailing only Istanbul, London and Dubai.
📆 Oct. 3, 1951: The Shot Heard 'Round the World
73 years ago today, Bobby Thomson hit "The Shot Heard 'Round the World" — a three-run walk-off homer to beat the Brooklyn Dodgers and send the New York Giants to the World Series.
"The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant!"
— Giants announcer Russ Hodges
Fun fact: If Thomson hadn't come through with the clutch hit, the Giants still would have had one out left with a pretty good hitter coming to the plate: Standing in the on-deck circle was a 20-year-old rookie named Willie Mays.
What they're saying: "I remember kind of hyperventilating as I floated around the bases," Thomson recalled in a 2006 interview. "I knew what I had done, but it was just too amazing to believe. … It was so loud for so long. It was an incredible roar that just lasted and lasted."
"I was a good pitcher, but I was only known for throwing Thomson that home run pitch," Brooklyn's Ralph Branca said in 2014.
"All I could say was, 'Sink, sink, sink.' But I knew it was gone all the way. … People say I became famous, but I say I became infamous."
The aftermath: The Giants went on to lose the World Series to the Yankees in six games. Decades later, the Giants' late-season heroics were called into question when it was revealed they'd been stealing signs that year, but Thomson maintained until his death in 2010 that he didn't know what pitch was coming.
📺 Watchlist: Win or go home
The Brewers and Mets play a decisive Game 3 tonight (7pm ET, ESPN) to wrap up the Wild Card Round. The winner advances to play the Phillies in the NLDS.
More to watch:
🏈 NFL: Buccaneers at Falcons (8:15pm, Prime) … Atlanta is a 1.5-point favorite.
⛳️ Korn Ferry Tour: Championship* (1pm, Golf) … At French Lick Golf Resort.
🏈 NCAAF: Texas State at Troy (7pm, ESPNU); Sam Houston at UTEP (9pm, CBSSN)
🏒 NHL Preseason: Devils at Flyers (7pm, NHL); Avalanche at Golden Knights (10pm, NHL)
*PGA Tour cards on the line: The top 30 on the Korn Ferry points list at the end of the weekend will earn a PGA Tour card for 2025. 17 golfers have already clinched, leaving 13 cards still up for grabs.
🏈 NFL trivia
Patrick Mahomes is the current favorite to win his third MVP award, which is something only six other players have accomplished.
Question: Can you name those six players?
Hint: Five QBs (four of whom played this century) and one RB.
Answer at the bottom.
🏈 NFL Mock Draft 1.0
Colorado teammates Travis Hunter and Shedeur Sanders are both in the top five of our first NFL mock draft of the season, courtesy of Yahoo Sports' Nate Tice and Charles McDonald.
Top 10:
Jaguars: Will Campbell, OT (LSU)
Dolphins: Hunter, CB/WR (Colorado)
Patriots: Kelvin Banks Jr., OT (Texas)
Bengals: Mason Graham, DT (Michigan)
Browns: Sanders, QB (Colorado)
Titans: Will Johnson, CB (Michigan)
Panthers: Abdul Carter, Edge (Penn State)
Rams: Cam Ward, QB (Miami)
Cardinals: Deone Walker, DL (Kentucky)
Giants: Garrett Nussmeier, QB (LSU)
Full first round: Picks 11-32
Trivia answer: Peyton Manning (5x MVP), Aaron Rodgers (4x), Tom Brady (3x), Johnny Unitas (3x), Brett Favre (3x), Jim Brown (3x)
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