Lohensports

Alright! I have a busy one at work today but wanted to pump out some quick comments on the games that I got glimpses of last night. While I was mostly locked in to the Leafs game, there were a lot of highlights across the leagues that I have quick thoughts on, perfect for this quick smaller post. Have I emphasized enough the smallness of this post? Lets get into it Leafs - Uh Oh I watched this entire game and I have to say, feels like the Leafs got really unlucky. They had a crazy amount of scoring opportunities but were hitting posts or getting robbed. That happens in hockey, luckily they built up the 3-0 lead as a cushion. I will say now though, the pressure is ON. This big 4 of Matthews, Marner, Tavares and Nylander are 1-13 in games where they have a chance to close out a series. 1-13 almost feels fake. Everyone in the hockey universe now is expecting them to choke this series, Leafs fans included. They need to go out on Thursday and set the tone because if this gets to game 7 it w...

 The NBA first round has been awesome. I am partially annoyed that the best series are in the west coast and I can't keep myself awake to watch a lot of these late games. I also more or less lost a weekend of basketball to hockey, but that was super fun so no regrets there. Either way, I am still kinda locked in to a few series and thought today would be a good day to check in on how some of these are going.  Honorable Mentions  I could probably write a bunch about these teams, but why, I didn't even watch their series' The Cavs smoked the Heat and did exactly what they needed to do in the first round, took care of business. I can't stress enough how little respect they'd get if they struggled even a bit in this series, so respect to them for showing up The Magic are making it tough on the Celtics, but everyone knows who's winning that series barring disaster The Thunder, like the Cavs, took care of business. Both the Thunder and Cavs now get to watch on as the ...

 Welcome back! This one will be a little different, less about analyzing the game that I saw and more about the fan experience in Ottawa for a Senators game. This post is selfishly for me to look back on in a few years to remember my trip to the Canadian Tire Center. It was an awesome experience to sit so close to the ice and the game itself was electric. I have seen my fair share of Leafs games in Toronto, and I have to say although there are some cons to watching a game in Ottawa, at least for this game it was more exciting in Ottawa than it ever would've been in Toronto. Unfortunate that the Leafs lost, but at least I got a post out of it:  The Day Leading Up  The day leading up to the game was lovely! I won't go into detail about what we did, it was a wholesome day of exploring the nations capital. I will say though that the city was buzzing with hockey fans and that was cool to see. When there's a Leafs game in Toronto, you do see jerseys out and about, but it felt l...

 Today I am starting a new continuous series that I'll add to whenever I don't feel like talking about the million games that were on last night. I barely watched Warriors Rockets, after Jimmy went down it ended up a blow out. Heat vs Cavs and Magic vs Celtics just doesn't interest me at all, baring a miracle we all know who's winning each of those series. The Jays are particularly depressing to talk about right now and I don't feel like doing a big rant post today. I will say quickly though, the Astros had 13 hits last night, the Jays managed 9 hits the entire series. Really rough one, need the big bats to get going ASAP. Anyway, lets go over every Raptor that's likely to return next season and discuss 1 thing they can add to their bag to make the team better:  Scottie Barnes - 3 Point Shooting Starting with the most obvious returning player (unless of course the Raptors are in on a Jokic or Giannis trade, then anything goes). In 2023-2024 when Scottie made his...

 Ok maybe not more. The Jays seem to be coming back down to earth here as the weather warms and other teams can actually hit the long ball now, it's glaringly obvious that the Jays cannot. The Jays have 13 homeruns this season so far, surprisingly that's only the second fewest in the league. The Yankees have 41. We used to be a team with pop man, how times have changed. Anyway I did lock in to the Leafs game from the second period onward and flipped to the important parts of the Bucks game then took in the first half of the Lakers game before finally needing to sleep, so we will relay my thoughts on all of them here! Leafs Feel Different I don't know who I do these disclaimers for, everyone who reads this knows I am a super casual hockey fan, but for anyone wondering, these takes are from the perspective of someone who maybe knows 10 Leafs. I was actually surprised, in game 2 of the playoffs, that the Leafs had Chris Tanev and Oliver Ekman-Larsson. Anyway, now they're m...

 What a couple of bangers last night in the NBA, this is what the playoffs is all about. I don't have much time today so just doing quick recaps. Since I've committed to being a Pistons hater, expect to see victory laps when they lose and me bashing their wins when they pull them off. Lets get to it, I have work to do! Knicks Pistons The Knicks lost this one but I came away encouraged that they might even take this thing in 5 games. The Pistons played tough and physical game for all 4 quarters yesterday, resulting in a lot of fouls and a lot of Pistons fans whining that the whistle was biased. The thing is when you play in a way that dares the officials to call fouls on every play, you might get called for a foul on every play. Cade was awesome scoring the ball in the first 3 quarters, but then totally disappeared in the 4th when the Knicks started to aggressively double team him, a strategy I expect to see more often. When the Knicks went to this, credit to their role players ...

 We are officially in one of the golden periods for sports where the NBA and NHL playoffs are in full swing just as the baseball season gets started. I am almost stressed with all of the stuff I can watch! Oddly enough, since it totally overlapped with the family Easter Dinner, Leafs Senators game 1 was not one of the games that I saw this weekend and so I can't reasonably talk much about it here. I will say though, lets go! It's only game 1 and we've seen this movie before, but definitely doesn't hurt to give some confidence to the fanbase early, I am cautiously optimistic as an absolute casual who can name probably 10 players. Anyway, I did see some of the NBA game 1s and I saw some Jays so why not just do a big mixed bag post and talk about all of it.  If You Don't Love Me at My Worstbrook, You Don't Deserve Me at My Bestbrook    What a game 1 between the Nuggets and Clippers on Saturday. I was able to lock in to the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter and over...

 I love day Jays games during the work week, so easy to stealthily watch in the background at work and it makes the day go so much faster! The Jays are still looking great too. The bullpen, which I think I gave an F or D to in the preseason, has been a big strength of the team so far and Vladdy finally hit his first homerun of the season. Big bats are getting going, weather is warming up a bit, summer is coming! Anyway, NBA. I didn't watch either of the play-in games last night, but it looks like they were both over by halftime anyway. Congrats to the Heat and Mavericks who now get 1 more chance to get themselves into a series where they get swept. The Western conference playoffs are going to be awesome with multiple matchups that I could see going 7 games. The NBA for all the slack I've given it has gotten a lot more competitive at the top and it's made for much more fun first rounds than what we got historically. The West will be a bloodbath and I cannot wait.  1 vs 8: Th...

 Ok I know I said that I'd do day 2 of the play-in preview but I have to be honest, neither of the Bulls vs Heat or Mavericks vs Kings excites me even a little bit so I am just going to brush past them. What a night in sports last night! The Jays power bats finally came alive and I got to see them have a big inning for once! Santander with a clutch 3 run home run is something we need to see more of. Also shout out to Jackie Robinson day, that man was a hero and I hate that the way the world is now makes the league just brush past that fact. The first black man to play in the MLB, paving the way for so many athletes in the US and facing conditions that would break me in 2 seconds, Lohensports recognizes you Jackie! I caught a bit of the Magic smoking the Hawks too and it got me thinking that the Celtics are probably winning that series against the Magic, but it isn't going to be fun. I can picture a classic 5-6 game series where the favorite comes away limping a bit which could ...

 We are just going to ignore the fact that I hyped up Easton Lucas yesterday as a guy to believe in only to have him give up 8 runs in less than 5 innings last night in a game I attended! Quickly though, I am not sure if it was just a Monday night against the Braves with the roof closed thing, but the Rogers Center was pretty dead throughout the game last night. I will be going to a bunch more games this year so I'll have a better idea as the season goes on, but I was surprised at how quiet it was in there for sure. Hard to expect fans to go crazy when you get down 8-0 I guess. Anyway, the play-in tournament starts today with the Hawks at Magic then Grizzles at Warriors. I am kinda of the mind that the play-in tournament should be abolished at this point, but it isn't and so we're going to preview the games tonight today and I'll save tomorrow's games for tomorrow.  Hawks at Magic These are certainly two play-inish teams and almost polar opposite play styles. Starti...

Am I a fake fan? I barely watched the Raptors final game of the season yesterday, something I rarely miss, once I saw Jamison Battle had 22 first half points I knew nothing that was happening was real, shout out Jamison Battle though. Anyway, the Jays are 16 games in, about 1/10th of the season, and at a perfect place to overreact (or underreact) to some early season performances. We won't be going over every player on the roster, just some of the guys that are outperforming or underperforming expectations so far. I'm either going to be buying that this is who the player will be all season, or selling which is to say this player is not going to perform this way all year. As a nice side note, I'll be at the game tonight for the first time this year so maybe tomorrow I'll report back with sights and sounds at Rogers center 2025. Although tomorrow is also the first of the play-in games and the content writes itself at this point, so who knows. Only way to find out is to tu...

 I think I am going to do one of these every week, at least during this period of a bunch of sports overlapping. There's many days where I have some small thoughts so why not just combine them all into one big post. I flipped and flopped through 3 games last night, and even though the Raptors were playing the freaking Charlotte Hornets in game 80, it was one of the 3 and I actually have a takeaway from it. We got some Jays and a little bit of NBA soap opera content as well, lets get into it.  Pitching and Defense I am not sure why this year's Jays team feels different to me, it's a similar formula to last season where they rely heavily on pitching and defense to support a below average offense. This year though, I feel like they might have an ever so slightly better offense which might just be enough considering their pitching and defense got even better. Last night Kevin Gausman completed 8 innings of 1 run baseball, which was awesome. Unfortunately the Jays could only mus...

 We back! Today is mercifully the final home game for the Raptors of the season. They announced most of their players won't be playing including second round rookie Jamal Shead who's out for "rest." Don't get me started, of course it's a good idea to rest a rookie! He needs his energy for Cancun! Anyway, ignoring all of that I thought I could look back on some of the memorable Raptors games this year as a time capsule. I am sure once the good times start rolling again this 30 win team will be long forgotten, so lets immortalize some of its better moments here today. I am going off memory for all of these cause why not, so if I am inaccurate with some stuff it's only because my brain remembered it that way, don't judge me.  Ja'Kobe Walter Wins it at the Buzzer Raptors Beat the Magic 114-113  The beginning of the embarrassing part of the tank! This game was really fun to watch and probably the game of the year for the 2024-2025 Raptors. The Raptors w...

 We are coming in hot the day after Vlad's 14 year extension. Now that it is done and it looks like Vlad will be in Toronto until I am 40 (crazy), I'm going to do a total 180 and support our guy. Vlad isn't a perfect player, but as the broadcast pointed out during the game last night, he's only just entering his prime and that should give us a lot to be excited about. Today lets compare Vlad's first 6 MLB seasons to some other greats who peaked in their late 20s and early 30s.  Comp #1: Miguel Cabrera This is where I admit that I got the idea for this post from the broadcast yesterday. During the game they talked about an interview with Max Scherzer where he compared Vlad Jr to his former teammate Miguel Cabrera. He went on to say that Miggy was great in his early career, but he kept improving as time went on even after winning awards. I think this is my favorite comp for Vladdy ever, another larger first baseman who came into the league young with every tool you...