Photo by Ashley Allen - CPL T20/Getty Images (DISCLAIMER: This game is for entertainment purposes only. No actual money is being wagered.) First, I have some unpleasant business to report; it seems some of you have found a little loophole in the website that lets you enter bets after the games have started. In most cases this was only by a few seconds, and/or the bets were for small amounts, so for the most part I chalk it up to the admittedly imperfect protectyouru.net website. However, there were a couple large, suspicious wins from earlier I had to cancel out because they were entered after the game had actually ended. I won’t name names. But please don’t do it again. I don’t want to have to get rough: Clint Black - Maverick25 years ago today since they threw me off the boat! Maverick was a fantastic break from my day job! I’d bet it all on a good run of bad luck.Posted by Clint Black on Wednesday, May 15, 2019 Now that that business is out of the way: the weeknight games were a good run of bad luck, but our players did a lot better on Saturday. Parlay wins include: undercoverbull Alabama -17.5 points over Mississippi State; Michigan -13.5 points over Michigan State; Memphis -10.0 points over Houston (WIN,WIN,WIN) Alabama 38-7; Michigan 44-10; Memphis 45-27 240.00 WIN 1440.00 Danj725 Alabama -17.5 points over Mississippi State; Michigan -13.5 points over Michigan State; Georgia -2.5 points over Auburn (WIN,WIN,WIN) Alabama 38-7; Michigan 44-10; Georgia 21-14 150.00 WIN 900.00 Defdans Georgia -2.5 points over Auburn; South Florida +14.0 points over Cincinnati (WIN,WIN) Georgia 21-14; Cincinnati 20-17 217.26 WIN 564.88 speruche Massachusetts +40.0 points over Northwestern; Rutgers +52.0 points over Ohio State; Under 69.5 points in the Hawaii-Nevada-Las Vegas game (WIN,WIN,WIN) Northwestern 45-6; Ohio State 56-21; Hawaii 21-7 80.00 WIN 480.00 speruche Michigan -13.0 points over Michigan State; Wisconsin -13.0 points over Nebraska; Notre Dame -9.0 points over Navy (WIN,WIN,WIN) Michigan 44-10; Wisconsin 37-21; Notre Dame 52-20 40.00 WIN 240.00 speruche Alabama State +40.5 points over Florida State; Under 68.0 points in the Kansas-Oklahoma State game; Rutgers +53.0 points over Ohio State (WIN,WIN,WIN) Florida State 49-12; Oklahoma State 31-13; Ohio State 56-21 40.00 WIN 240.00 HerdCountry941 Georgia -2.5 points over Auburn; Rutgers +53.0 points over Ohio State; Hawaii -6.5 points over Nevada-Las Vegas (WIN,WIN,WIN) Georgia 21-14; Ohio State 56-21; Hawaii 21-7 40.00 WIN 240.00 dsidwell31 Notre Dame -9.0 points over Navy; Georgia -2.5 points over Auburn; Kentucky -8.5 points over Vanderbilt (WIN,WIN,WIN) Notre Dame 52-20; Georgia 21-14; Kentucky 38-14 25.00 WIN 150.00 jrjs Wisconsin -13.0 points over Nebraska; Syracuse +12.0 points over Duke; Oregon -24.0 points over Arizona (WIN,WIN,WIN) Wisconsin 37-21; Syracuse 49-6; Oregon 34-6 23.00 WIN 138.00 jrjs Wisconsin -13.0 points over Nebraska; Over 69.5 points in the Memphis-Houston game; Wyoming +6.0 points over Utah State (WIN,WIN,WIN) Wisconsin 37-21; Memphis 45-27; Utah State 26-21 23.00 WIN 138.00 jrjs Oklahoma State -17.0 points over Kansas; Under 56.0 points in the Massachusetts-Northwestern game; Over 57.5 points in the Louisiana-Monroe-Georgia Southern game (WIN,WIN,WIN) Oklahoma State 31-13; Northwestern 45-6; Georgia Southern 51-29 23.00 WIN 138.00 jrjs Under 57.0 points in the Massachusetts-Northwestern game; Wyoming +6.0 points over Utah State; Air Force -10.0 points over Colorado State (WIN,WIN,WIN) Northwestern 45-6; Utah State 26-21; Air Force 38-21 23.00 WIN 138.00 jrjs Florida -6.5 points over Missouri; Temple +6.0 points over Tulane; Air Force -10.0 points over Colorado State (WIN,WIN,WIN) Florida 23-6; Temple 29-21; Air Force 38-21 22.46 WIN 134.76 Lrdnorman Under 50.5 points in the Wyoming-Utah State game; Under 54.0 points in the Southern Mississippi-Texas-San Antonio game (WIN,WIN) Utah State 26-21; Southern Mississippi 36-17 45.00 WIN 117.00 LrdNorman Alabama -17.5 points over Mississippi State; Wisconsin -14.0 points over Nebraska (WIN,WIN) Alabama 38-7; Wisconsin 37-21 40.00 WIN 104.00 Well, that will offset $500 fake dollars lost on weeknight games. Single bets lost a total of only -$64.72 total, while parlays won a net total of $3,426.18 this week. Did all that winning change the standings? Not much, because leader speruche continued to pile up winnings on parlays: USER GRAND_TOTAL WEEK_12 speruche 3503.20 510.50 undercoverbull 2181.57 1449.09 jrjs 1972.61 410.76 Danj725 1819.94 847.73 McIntyre2K7 1549.30 -70.00 HerdCountry941 1272.62 196.36 camweed12 1059.06 0.00 anthonyvito 1004.35 63.64 GaryStephen 980.63 57.00 briank19 961.57 -31.82 mmmmsnouts 938.83 0.00 mcgies852 874.02 0.00 carlzee 838.28 0.00 Defdans 775.14 564.88 ElliotMoore 741.77 -130.45 Snafu13 722.09 -100.00 Gibbsak 697.89 -73.50 dsidwell31 545.00 68.18 jjlovecub 544.00 0.00 BullsOnParade96* 0 500.00 LrdNorman 435.77 134.64 gym399 404.60 0.00 E-Dogg42 382.01 -250.00 andrewpina 330.65 40.00 BrianMartin 315.00 0.00 Oak1787 314.55 -20.91 Julmisteforheisman 216.78 -100.00 ULhothot 0.00 -141.74 Other games of note: The Cincinnati-USF game was our biggest loser this week, which is a little odd considering USF covered. The over, USF money line, and Cincinnati ATS were all popular bets. Rutgers was a 53-point underdog to Ohio State. Without looking, that has to be a record for an intra-conference game. But they covered, losing only 56-21. I wonder about the track record of point spreads that big; it’s almost impossible to cover, because such a big favorite empties the bench after about 35-42 points. We did well on that one; it was the third-most played (7 wagers), and second-biggest winner ($69.09, trailing Memphis-Houston) among single bets. Another weird line we did well on was Northwestern-Massachusetts. Northwestern was only 1-8 coming in, but favored by 41 points. They didn’t quite cover it, winning 45-6. BullsOnParade96 won his Sudden Death Bet, and gets another $500 to play with. He is still considered $1,000 down for the season, however. Defdans went all-in on Georgia and USF to cover, which they did. He’s back up to $564.88. ULhothot lost his last bet when Wake Forest failed to cover against Clemson, and can now make a Sudden Death Bet in Week 13. It must be an AAC game, and you must take a point spread that wins (no pushes, money lines, or over-unders). Next to go below $250 is julmisteforheisman, who has $216.78. He can bet all his remaining units on one bet if desired. USF is officially eliminated from the AAC championship, so all pre-season futures bets on winning the championship game will be set to losses. Week 13 is led by Penn State-Ohio State. Penn State can still win the Big Ten Whatever It’s Called Division, and cause national championship chaos, with a win here. Texas-Baylor and Texas A&M-Georgia are Top 25 matchups. The important games finally arrive in the AAC. SMU at Navy is an elimination game in the West Division. Both teams have already lost to Memphis, so whoever loses this one is out of the running. Cincinnati needs one more win to claim the East Division, but finishing with Temple this week and Memphis next week won’t make it easy. Temple can still finagle a tie for the East lead at 6-2. So can Central Florida, who plays at Tulane. Memphis is an early two-touchdown favorite at USF, who can throw a wrench in things with an upset. Houston-Tulsa will decide fifth place in the AAC West. And finally, Connecticut hosts East Carolina. Both teams are 0-6, so someone has to win. It’s also UConn’s last AAC home game, and last decent chance at a win since they close at Temple. If they don’t get either win, they’ll end their time in the American with a 17-game conference losing streak. Their last win was against Tulsa on October 21, 2017.

If Jake Cronenworth is added to the 40-man roster, he won’t be on Team USA next time it tries to qualify for the Olympics | Photo by Kiyoshi Ota/Getty Images With a loss to rival Mexico in the bronze medal game, Team USA squandered a chance to qualify for the 2020 Games. For the second straight week, no Ray took an at-bat or pitched in an offseason league, but the Premier12 — which featured some current and former Rays — just ended. Mexico finished higher than the U.S., giving it the Americas slot in the Olympics that was up for grabs in this tournament. Team USA will still have a couple more chances to qualify. Jake Cronenworth (USA)- 29 AB, .103/.133/.241Jhonleider Salinas (Venezuela)- 1 IP, 0.00 ERACristopher Sanchez (Dominican Republic)- 2 IP, 13.50 ERADarryl George (Australia)- 18 AB, .167/.211/.222Spencer Jones (USA)- 3 1?3 IP, 0.00 ERAErik Kratz (USA)- 21 AB, .381/.435/.714 (All-World Team)Juniel Querecuto (Venezuela)- 14 AB, .286/.286/.286Arturo Reyes (Mexico)- 13 1?3 IP, 0.68 ERAEnny Romero (Dominican Republic)- 4 1?3 IP, 8.31 ERA Hitters 2B Jonathan Aranda, Liga Mexicana del Pacífico This week: 0 ABOffseason: 2 AB, .000/.000/.000 SS Wander Franco, Liga de Béisbol Profesional de la República Dominicana This week: 0 ABOffseason: 26 AB, .192/.192/.308 C Michael Perez, LIDOM This week: 0 ABOffseason: 29 AB, .172/.219/.241 Pitchers LHP Cristopher Sanchez, LIDOM This week: 0 IPOffseason: 2 2?3 IP, 10.13 ERA, 2.25 WHIP Done for the offseason RHP Shane Baz, Arizona Fall League This week: 1 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 0 BB, 1 KOffseason: 11 IP, 8.18 ERA, 1.91 WHIP 2B Vidal Brujan, AFL This week: 10 AB, 1 R, 1 H, 1 RBI, 4 BB, 3 K, 0/1 SBOffseason: 82 AB, .256 BA/.380 OBP/.463 SLG C Ronaldo Hernandez, AFL This week: 4 AB, 3 H, 1 RBIOffseason: 39 AB, .359 BA/.381 OBP/.513 SLG OF Josh Lowe, AFL This week: 0 ABOffseason: 52 AB, .327 BA/.379 OBP/.558 SLG RHP Simon Rosenblum-Larson, AFL This week: 4 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 3 KOffseason: 12 2?3 IP, 2.13 ERA, 1.50 WHIP RHP Drew Strotman, AFL This week: 4 IP, 5 H, 1 ER, 2 BB, 6 KOffseason: 21 IP, 6.43 ERA, 1.52 WHIP RHP Alex Valverde, AFL This week: 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 KOffseason: 10 IP, 0.90 ERA, 0.70 WHIP All stats are through games of Nov. 16.

Dennis Schneidler-USA TODAY Sports Slow news day yesterday, so let’s think about goaltending! The Bolts A few days ago, ESPN’s Dimitri Filipovic raised one of the stickier questions in hockey: how much should teams play their starting goaltender in order to prolong his effectiveness during the regular season? [Article here.] The current fancy name for it is “load management,” but I’d like to think that Raw Charge was ahead of the curve by raising the issue about the Tampa Bay Lightning back in 2017. More about that in a moment. Dimitri’s article discusses the reason behind load management here: With the developments in sports science that have shown the links among fatigue, performance and injury, clubs are doing what they can to keep players productive and healthy for as long as possible. And then brings up the most effective ways in which teams have been juggling goalie workloads: Of the teams that won a playoff round last season, the Sharks (62) and Blue Jackets (61) were the only ones to start their No. 1 goalie more than 45 times over the course of the regular season. (....) At the moment, there are only seven goalies trending toward starting more than 60 games, based on their early-season usage, with the healthy majority of netminders (22 to be exact) sandwiched somewhere between 41 and 55 appearances. His article doesn’t touch upon Tampa, which shows up in the “poor tandem” portion of his chart, but what can we gather so far about Tampa’s goaltending? First, instead of giving Curtis McElhinney more starts than usual this season to follow the trend, he’s hovering at 30% (five) starts, with Vasilevskiy taking the bulk (12) of the starts so far. Is McBackup starting more than usual? No. Last season, Vasy started 53 games, and Louis Domingue and Eddie Pasquale started the remaining 26 and 3, respectively. This is 65% of starts, a little lower than this season so far. The 2016-17 season was the first one in which Vasilevskiy started the majority of games and officially took the baton from Ben Bishop as the team starter. That season he played 50 games, with Bishop, Peter Budaj, and Kristers Gudlevskis starting 32/7/1 respectively. Saima (I miss you!) wrote an article about Vasy’s workload that season, pointing out that exhaustion was a clear issue for him: The Lightning took on the Detroit Red Wings on December 20. Halfway through the first period, Ben Bishop was injured and Vasilevskiy took over. Since then, Vasy has started every game. He has played 10 games in 20 days including three back-to-backs. He was only pulled once, for the last ten minutes of a 4-0 loss to the Washington Capitals. Aside from that, he’s played every single minute since Bishop was injured. That’s a heavier workload than any other NHL goalie has faced this season. Vasilevskiy’s stats during this stretch were 4-5-1 with .882 SV%. We wrote a very similar article in 2017-18, when our beat writer Matt noticed that Vasy was starting a ridiculous number of games. Vasy ended up starting 65, with Domingue and Budaj starting 12/8 respectively. It prompted a lot of concern about Vasy’s workload, including an article from Joe Smith that quoted Vasy saying that fatigue was impacting his play. I highly recommend reading the second half of Matt’s article, because it discusses the impact of workload on goaltenders specifically. The conclusion Matt reached was a lot more conservative than the articles coming out this year, and Dimitri’s specifically: From what [Cat] Silverman and [Murat] Ates have researched we can safely assume that as long as Vasielvskiy does not break the 70 game threshold, then there should be little worry about his performance moving forward. However, given Vasilevskiy’s age, the Lightning would be wise to lock-in a strong backup to take 15-20 games (possibly more) to lighten the load on the young Russian. It never hurts to be too careful. This early in the 2019-20 season, I have nothing but questions: Considering the Bolts’ post-season performance in 2019 and the fact that Vasy started 53 of the games in the 2018-19 season, should he be starting even fewer this season? Is McElhinney good enough to start closer to 50% of games? How much does a strong defense impact goaltender stats, and how many well-thought-of goalies are just reflections of their D? Is a hot dog a very boring bao? Anyway. What do you guys think? The News Compared to how the Bolts did last season, we’re on pace to match 2015-16. That season’s team ended up in the ECF, right? Sounds fine to me. TBL's current pacing vs. the previous 5 seasons: pic.twitter.com/QcgnigQ9OM— John Maynard Canes (@mikegallimore) November 17, 2019 Crunch fans, this is a lovely thing to sponsor: The Military Appreciation Night jersey auction is still open.Get your bids in before it closes tomorrow at 5 p.m.Bid now: https://t.co/HaosUe8Mqt pic.twitter.com/gQjFfREhPz— Syracuse Crunch (@SyracuseCrunch) November 17, 2019 Have an excellent Monday!

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) – A vehicle burst into flames on Interstate 75 on Monday, snarling traffic for early morning commuters. Traffic cameras captured the vehicle as it caught fire in the southbound lanes, just before the Interstate 4 exit. There is no word on injuries, but WFLA Meredyth Censullo said it appeared the driver escaped. […]