This past week provide all kinds of UPSETS & EXCITING GAMES! Let’s start close to home—with Mizzou!      

…The Mizzou game was a very, very tight EXCITING game.  The Tigers fell to Alabama 27-24 in a game that went right down to the final minute of the game and snapped the Tigers 15 home game winning streak. Please keep in mind the soft nonconference games that MU opened the season during that streak. Bama flipped the switch on Mizzou…instead of MU playing ball control football, Alabama kept the ball for 38:33 in the game, including a 9-minute drive in the 3rd quarter. Bama Scored with just 3:16 left in the game to push the lead to 27-17 when Daniel Hill extended Alabama’s lead to 10 points after a 1-yard touchdown reception, capping off an 8-play, 40-yard drive while twice converting 4^th down plays into 1^st downs. MU scored with 1:39 remaining in the game but ran out of time.  While this wasn’t an upset, it was a very, very EXCITING game. Nonetheless, it was a game that MU, from my view, really needed to make themselves into a top-notch, Top 10 team. In the mighta, coulda, shoulda world, there probably is tons of talk about Mizzou staying close, making it a “good game” or maybe even winning. But, in the real world of sports…it’s a LOSS, plain & simple.  Alabama held the Tigers top running back, Ahmad Hardy, to a very modest 52 yards rushing. It’s hard to be have only a 1-dimensional offense against the strongest teams and win.

…  Now after hosting 6 straight home games, Mizzou “hits” the road next week for the first of its 4 road games of the year. Maybe, in 2026, the MU hierarchy will flip the switch and schedule at least 1 road pre-conference game to help prepare their team for the conference road games. One of the major goals is to win the conference, not establish an unbeaten record in the first month of the season against very modest (I’m in a very kind mood today) competition, all on your home field, prior to SEC play beginning its action.

…The Biggest UPSET of the week was probably Indiana toppling #3 Oregon 30-20! This abrupt turn-around @ Indiana is due to HC Curt Cignetti Cignitti climbed his way up the coaching ladder with stops IUP, Elon, James Madison-establishing winning programs. He has some simple (to understand, not always to enforce) ideas to build a program. Yet, Cignetti had to wait until he was 62 years old to get his shot at a Power 4 job (and at Indiana–a basketball school, no less). Does that make you wonder…are colleges looking for the wrong things when choosing a Head Football Coach? It sure makes me wonder!!!

….Cignetti  establishes a culture that build confidence (self & team)—creating a new identify & demanding (without exception) accountability. All the time with high energy. His “production over potential” approach is a wonderful tool for team building. Several times  those approaches have led to unknown, unproven players getting on the field prior to highly touted recruits or returning players. Soo…for the first time in a long, long time, in his 2^nd year, Indiana sports fans aren’t talking basketball, but football, in mid-October 😊

…In another UPSET, this time between 2 long-time rivals, Texas upset previously unbeaten (5-0) Oklahoma 23-6.  Texas used a dominant defensive performance that forced 3 interceptions and allowed a modest total of 258 yards. Texas also got some key plays from the offense at appropriate times as the go-ahead TD pass from Arch Manning sealed the game after an EXCITING 75 yard TD punt return from Ryan Niblett. The Longhorns’ defense limited the Sooners to just 258 total yards.

…switching sports for a moment…yes, MLB season ended a long, long time ago in the Lou but the MLB really IS still in action… And…very EXCITING action!! In the NL, the Dodgers swept the Cincy Reds 2-0 in the series.  Heck… Cincinnati was the 3^rd  best National League Central team and yet was still in the 2025 playoffs!! Who still says, the NL Central is the weakest division?

….Then, the Dodgers continued it’s winning ways with an UPSET win over #2 seed- Philadelphia. It was a very EXCITING come-back win for LA. The Dodgers 2-1 win in Game 4 of the NLDS in the 11th inning was due to a walk-off error by Phillies reliever Orion Kerkering. With the bases loaded and two outs, Kerkering mishandled a grounder and made a wild throw home, allowing the winning run to score. Boy…that almost sounds like “Little League”to me 😊 Ugh..the EXCITEMENT of the game, probably caused  the hurried throw and the UPSET win for LA.

…Meanwhile, on the other wild-card series, the Cubs beat San Diego 2 games to 1.  In the divisional series the Cubs took the Brewers to the limit—5 games—before they fell to Milwaukee 3 games to 2. It seemed only right since Milwaukee was clearly the best NL team throughout 2025. But…it DID have its  EXCITEMENT & EMOTION. Post-season itself brings EMOTION to ALL the games. In addition, the two cities a scant 90 miles apart have a natural geographical rivalry. To top it off, Milwaukee’s manager, Craig Counsel, had jumped ship and now wore a Cub hat. But…emotions aside…you can’t blame him for changing hats. Milwaukee paid him $3m/year to manage.  The Cubs signed him to a 5 year, $40M contract. Would any of you have said ,”NO”? Footnote here…the Cubs signing symbolizes what a team does that is really wanting to contend for championships.  Just like when the Cardinals signed Tony LaRussa prior to the 1996 season. That’s NOT the case any longer in St. Louis.

….in the other League, even though the shunning shock of the NY Yankees entering the post-season as a Wild-Card team seemed to elude most sports fans (it did for me) because they had tied Toronto for the best record on non-divisional championship teams with a 94-68 mark. Since the Bluejays held an 8-5 winning record against the Yanks in 2025, thus Toronto held the home-team advantage for the Wild Card series. Then adding insult to injury, Toronto edge the Bronx Bombers 3-1 in the series. Their recipe for success was simple—swing only at strikes and don’t take strikes, swing and make contact!! It worked … Toronto swung at  The Blue Jays make a ton of contact. They put the ball in play. It’s what they do. No team had a lower strikeout rate this season. No team has a lower strikeout rate this postseason. That wasn’t anything new…Toronto had the 5^th lowest strikeout rate in the MLB in 2025. They scored the fourth-most runs in the regular season, and so far have the most in the postseason. It’s a good offense. In the post-season, Toronto struck out only just 15% of the time. That was by far the best of any team in the Divisional Series. That was clearly the best of any team in the post-season and significantly below the 23%  strikeout average. And…it make for much more EXCITING baseball!

…The Jays, in the Division Series, struck out just 15% of the time. That’s easily the best of any team in the DS and below the average of 23%, though no team struck out more than the Dodgers did, and they’re still alive, too. Yet it isn’t the lowest of any DS in history or really anywhere near it, simply because strikeout rates today are considerably higher than they were years ago. (You may have noticed that the average four-seam fastball or sinker this October is 95.7 mph.)

…Given that, the only way you can really look at the historical context of strikeout rate is to compare it to the average for that year, which gives you a nice moving baseline. Now we’re going to get somewhere. Dating back to 1913, when this data is first available, the current Jays postseason run features the second-best strikeout rate, compared to the average of that season. The way to read this: The Blue Jays struck out 66% as much as the average postseason team this year.

…Lowest era-adjusted postseason strikeout rate (100 is average, lower is better)

63%– 2006 Twins    66%–2025 Blue Jays   72%–1976 Phillies 73%–1976 Yankees  74 %–1980 Astros

It’s worth noting that we’re comparing “one series” to “entire postseasons” there, so on a per-series basis, the Jays striking out this little in the ALDS was the seventh-best individual series of all time. It’s also worth noting that the 2006 Twins, who made the most era-adjusted contact of any postseason ever, scored seven runs in three games while being swept by the A’s.

…But for the Jays, this follows up on exactly the same thing that happened over the course of the regular season. Toronto struck out 18% of the time, lowest in baseball, and ever-so-slightly better than the Royals. Again: That’s not a number that works throughout time, because the 1998 Blue Jays struck out at an identical rate … and that was the sixth-highest that year.

…So we’ll do the same thing, compare the team’s strikeout rate to the league average for that year, and here’s what we find: The 2025 Jays were tied for the seventh-lowest (year-adjusted) team strikeout rate of any team in modern baseball history.  Lowest era-adjusted regular season strikeout rate (100 is average, lower is better)

75%– 1986 Red Sox;   77%–1969 Braves   78%– 2024 Padres, 2002 Angels, 1982 Cleveland

…So yes, they put the ball in play, and given the historical context here, it’s even more impressive than you might think. The data backs up the eye test. But contact alone doesn’t win playoff games, despite the myth that seems to persist; if it did, then San Diego and Cleveland might have advanced further. That’s why you keep seeing versions of this stat floating around — because it’s meaningful. (Figures here since 2015, postseason only.)

…SOME OTHER EXCITING Baseball stats on HOW TO WIN BASEBALL GAMES

–Teams that hit more homers than their opponent in a game have an .823 win%.

–Teams that strike out fewer times than their opponent have a .640 win%.

–Teams that do both? That’s a .900 win percentage. It IS possible to lose a game where you hit more homers and strike out fewer times, but it’s really hard, and any combination of anything you can do that will have you winning nine of 10 times you’ll take in a heartbeat. But…You have to do both.

…“We’re going to put the ball in play,” said manager John Schneider 0during the ALDS. “We’ve done that over the course of the year. I think the home runs are a by-product of a really good approach against specific pitchers and that we’re really focused at this time of year.”

…So, about that “really good approach.” Can we find anything from the Division Series that may be applicable during the ALCS or, perhaps, the World Series? Checking out a stat in this years post season-For one thing, the Jays were anxious to swing at strikes. Lots of them. More than 7 out of every 10 pitches in the zone – 71.1%, to be exact – resulted in swings. Who won that series?  The Jays! Why take a strike & permit the pitcher to “get ahead” in the count. When that happens, the pitcher has the door opened to a wider range of pitches which, seemingly, makes it tougher for batter to get hits.

…It was an EXCITING WEEK of Sports. Let’s hope for more of the same this week.  Thanks for taking your time to read the Buzz. YOUR thoughts are always invited on any of the topics. There are couple ways to do it: post on my Facebook page (Bob Ryan); send to me through email or Messenger & I’ll post for you. Have a good week! Bob