Random Thoughts Wednesday

 You know the drill by now! I've got a few things I want to talk about but nothing worthy enough of its own post. The Chris Boucher one comes close, but I've written pretty extensively about Chris Boucher on this blog so I don't feel the need to go too crazy here lol. Without delaying any further, here's some random thoughts!

Chris Boucher Signs with the Celtics

In my last random thoughts Tuesday I had a whole section pleading with the league to get Chris Boucher signed. Obviously the monkey's paw curled because Chris Boucher ended up getting signed by the Boston Celtics on a 1 year $3.3m deal. I had a lot of thoughts all at once. The first one was damn it, the last member of the 2019 championship team is now on the Raptors fans most hated rival, the Celtics. My next thought was damn, only $3.3m, the Raptors really did Chris Boucher dirty! I really believe if he was able to showcase his skills at the end of last season that he'd have better offers on the table for this one, but maybe that's naive. He's been in the league a while now and teams know who he is. Even at his best I can acknowledge that he's probably a 9th or 10th man on a good team. I guess that is worth a minimum. After I got over all of that sadness, I came to the conclusion that this is a really good situation for Chris! With Jayson Tatum injured, here are the healthy front court players the Celtics have on their roster for next season: Xavier Tillman, Neemias Queta, Luka Garza, Josh Minott, Miles Norris and now Chris Boucher. If you are asking yourself who are these guys then you are amongst many of us. Chris Boucher might legitimately be the best Celtics front court player next season, which probably should spark alarm bells about the quality of that team going into next season. Never the less, Chris Boucher is going to get a chance to play big minutes and hopefully prove that he's worth more than the vet minimum. 

The final thought I had about all of this is what a Raptors legend! Boucher worked himself up from literally being homeless to being in the NBA. He won the G-League MVP and DPOY in one season but still could barely crack the rotation in the NBA. Ne never complained and always worked as hard as he could when he got his opportunities on the floor. It felt like there were countless games that the Raptors started out slow until Chris Boucher came in and changed the energy on the floor. In game announcer Herbie Kuhn would always introduce him as "numero vint cinq Chris Boucher!" Which always got me going. Then there was legendary colour commentator Jack Armstrong who would always shout "HELLO" whenever a player dunked. When Boucher dunked though he would shout "BONJOUR" which was hilarious and fun. Boucher got the Raptors through some dark seasons, often times being the only bright spot on the team, I'm looking at you Tampa season. Now that it's all said and done, Chris Boucher finished his Raptors career as the off the bench leader in: points, rebounds, blocks, 3s, games and minutes. Very sneakily Chris Boucher can be called the greatest Raptors 6th man of all time.

Coors Field is Fun

I am just a stupid American League fan who stays inside my Blue Jays bubble and doesn't really pay much attention to the rest of the league. Because of that, national league teams and their ballparks tend to slip my mind. I always knew the air was thin in Denver and that made baseballs travel further, which is already cool, more home runs! What I didn't know is that to try and compensate for that, Coors Field is a massive park. The left field foul pole is 347 feet away from home plate vs 328 at Rogers center. Center field is 415 vs 400 and right field is 350 vs 328. This makes for really fun dynamics, despite the park being bigger than most, it's still easier to hit home runs there. This means that with a massive outfield not only is it easier to hit homeruns, it's also easier to hit in general since there's so much field to cover. I gotta say, this ballpark plays into what the Jays do beautifully. The Jays have probably the best outfield defense in the MLB and it's been on display against the Rockies with all that extra space giving our guys room to make awesome plays. The Jays put the ball in play a ton and all that extra space has lead to extra bases. The Jays also aren't a massive power hitting team, but in Denver everyone's a power hitting team so we've gotten to see more home runs to go along with it! It certainly helps that the Rockies pitchers are terrible (relatively speaking, I know I can't even throw 50mph, shut up), but it's really made for some fun baseball. Wish we could play all 162 at Coors Field, definitely a stadium on my bucket list. 

The Yankees Suck

Dude man, the Yankees suck they just really suck. This team was supposed to be a contender? So they've just lost 5 straight games which is bad enough, but I didn't even get a chance to react to the first loss in this losing streak which was some of the most brutal baseball I've ever seen. I feel like every time I watch a Yankees game I come away thinking that was the most brutal baseball I've ever seen. Against the Marlins, the Yankees get off to a 6-0 lead. The Marlins put up 4 in the bottom of the 5th and got back into it. But the Yankees are a juggernaut on offense right? So they put up another 3 to make it 9-4 in the 7th. The Marlins in the bottom of the 7th put up a massive 6 runs to take the lead 10-9 in what's already a wild game. Never fear though, Volpe hommers in the 8th to tie the game then doubles in 2 runs in the 9th to take the lead 12-10. The bottom of the 9th was embarrassing, borderline disrespectful to the fans. I was angry and I hate the Yankees! With a runner on first and second Xavier Edwards hits a soft ground ball that finds a hole through the infield into left field. The Yankees left fielder has the ball go under his glove as he tries to field it, something that you only ever see happen in kids games at the park. This allows both runners to score to tie the game on what should've been just a single, and even more brutal Edwards ends up at 3rd base. The next batter hits a dribbler in front of the plate that went far enough to allow Edwards to score the walk off run. I have never witnessed a team so talented with the bats but so brutally bad with the gloves before. I gotta say, as a hater it makes for some really entertaining baseball, the Yankees suck man. 

That's all today! Some good thoughts I think? What do you think?