NERDS AROUND TOWN
Nerds Around Town: MNF sucks, South Park and Star Wars
Oct 22, 2019, 5:19 am
ART BY JESUS RODRIGUEZ
Born with a comic book in one hand and a remote control in the other, Cory DLG is the talent of Conroe's very own Nerd Thug Radio and Sports. Check out the podcast replay of the FM radio show at www.nerdthugradio.com!
GOOD DEED OF THE DAY
We're inching closer to Extra Life's big event on Nov. 2. I'm super pumped about this and will be at Adventure Begins gaming for charity for 24 hours. It of course benefits The Children's Miracle Network and I am super excited for this. Let's do it.
THE TRAILER
So in the middle of one of the worst Monday Night Football's in recent history the final Star Wars Episode 9 trailer was debuted. Honestly it looked GREAT. I am not a fan of the Skywalker family story that the nine main episodes of Star Wars tells. I like the universe and the idea of Jedis and Bounty Hunters and space and all of this crazy stuff but the truth is I am so tired of hearing about the same six people in this MASSIVE universe. Show me something new and this movie looks like it does that at least a little bit. Even though this trilogy has been about the four new characters Poe, Rey, Kylo Ren and Finn it's also been about the same people of the last three movies who were all hinted at in the previous trilogy and ugh, just tell new stories already!
MONDAY NIGHT TRAINWRECK
Can we talk about Monday Night Football? This is some of the worst programming all week and I love football. How is it that ESPN/Disney is going to spend ALL OF THIS MONEY to get Monday Night Football and then put some truly awful television talent on it and then even worse, air games like Patriots vs Jets? Is there no flex schedule option? Was someone projecting the Jets under a first-year head coach to be any good? Who screwed this up? Also, the Hyundai Genesis halftime performances have been an assault in both music and visual arts. The black and white thing EVERY WEEK isn't special if it's EVERY WEEK, and the musical acts are all pop acts of minor importance, I say that knowing full well Charlie Puth is a big deal on the charts and Blink 182 is still one of my favorite bands, but come on, move the needle. Get someone. DO something. And seriously, fire the announcers, they are two of the worst. They need to get two guys who aren't traditional, forget former athlete and broadcast journalist. Give me an X's and O's guy fine, but then get me Bill Burr or something. Somebody who is going to use the four hours of television time to try and entertain the audience. I'm not just saying this because the game was awful, I'm also saying this because even when the game is good, the announcers are still awful.
KINGS OF ANIMATED COMEDY
For a long time I would have said that Seth Macfarlane was the king of animated comedy with an incredible nine figure deal with Fox which was also partly a development and first look deal that made him the highest paid writer in television. Suddenly there's some very real competition from the unlikeliest of sources, the South Park Guys. Trey Parker and Matt Stone are looking to sign a massive deal, alongside their partner Viacom, for control of the entire 300 episode library of South Park. Four years ago Hulu paid almost $200 million for streaming rights to the catalog, but this new deal is also television rights so the asking price is rumored to be around $500 million dollars. That is a big, round number. That is "F You" Money if I've ever seen it, it also means in the span of five years the rights to South Park have been bought twice totaling almost $700 million dollars. All for four kids in jackets cursing. Does anyone remember the outrage this show caused in the early days of it's release basically 20 years ago? My how far we've come.
NOT THAT YOU ASKED
I'm trying to get all my ducks in a row for a move next week, nowhere far just across my area of town but honestly, it is always such a pain in the ass to move. I just hate getting everything settled and messed with and now with me doing all of this extra stuff and using the mail system so much, it's even more of a pain in the ass.
Feel free to check out my brand new comic book Another Day at the Office or buy a shirt from Side Hustle Ts where some proceeds help people struggling with cancer or listen to Nerd Thug Radio. Thoughts, complaints, events and comments can be sent to corydlg@gmail.com.
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Astros lose tight one despite brilliant outing from Hunter Brown
May 15, 2025, 10:29 pm
It’s a fun series between the Astros and Rangers through the weekend in Arlington, but by no means is it a critical series. It would be nice for the Astros to not lose three out of the four games (or obviously all four) to their upstate rivals. The Astros have lost their last five road series, dropping two out of three games in each of them. As with the Astros, pitching has been the strength of the team for the Rangers thus far. After the humdinger Hunter Brown-Jacob deGrom mound matchup Thursday night, the Rangers give the ball Friday to Nathan Eovaldi with his earned run average at 1.78, then Saturday it’s Tyler Mahle with his even more sparkling 1.47 ERA. Heading into Thursday play, the Mariners having lost five of their last six games meant just a game and a half separate first from fourth place in the American League West. The Astros, Rangers, and Athletics are all right there. Only the Angels are inconsequential.
Star power!
There is an asterisk to attach but Jeremy Pena is making a real charge at becoming a first-time All-Star game selection. Among American League shortstops, the Royals’ Bobby Witt Jr. is clearly the best. The clear number two in the pecking order coming into this season was the Orioles’ Gunnar Henderson, who is on fire after a slow start that began with him missing seven games on the injured list. Athletics’ rookie Jacob Wilson goes into the weekend batting .350 and amazingly has struck out just nine times in 164 at bats. Rangers’ stud Corey Seager being on the injured list with a balky hamstring for the second time this season helps the Astros this weekend and likely frees up an All-Star spot.
Now to that aforementioned asterisk. Pena has been sensational so far, indisputably the Astros’ best everyday player. We just need to see more staying power of performance before fully slotting Pena in the top tier of shortstops. Pena’s four-hit game Wednesday night hiked his batting average to .315, his OPS to .840. Well, last year Pena put head to pillow the night of May 15 with his batting average at .333, his OPS at .830. The rest of the season Pena hit .240 with a meager .653 OPS. That Pena drew a paltry 18 walks over his last 114 games. 2025 Pena has showed markedly better plate discipline. He’ll never be a high walks-drawn guy but incremental improvement matters, and can bear fruit in other ways.
Fruitless continues to describe an awfully high percentage of Christian Walker’s plate appearances. 2023 Jose Abreu was better (2024 Abreu was not). Plenty of season still remains for a turnaround, but more than a quarter of the season is gone and it’s not as if Walker is trending in the right direction. In three games against the Royals he went zero for 12 with seven strikeouts. With his final whiff, Walker reached the 50 strikeout “milestone” for the season in his 154th at bat. Feeble and lousy are fair characterizations of a .208 batting average and .625 OPS, magnified for someone batting clean-up most nights. Starting play Thursday 13 big leaguers actually had struck out more than Walker so far this season, among them only the Pirates’ Bryan Reynolds carries a lower OPS. Walker has been even worse with runners in scoring position, batting just .171, with a sub-abysmal 20 strikeouts in 41 at bats.
Using Baseball-Reference's Wins Above Replacement statistic, the Astros’ three worst non-pitchers this season are Walker, Yordan Alvarez, and Jose Altuve. Those are the three highest paid players on the team. Altuve’s extended funk has him hitting .202 over his last 27 games with a .538 OPS. Altuve was dropped to second in the batting order basically at his request. It has not sparked him. If Altuve doesn’t pick it up, manager Joe Espada will have to consider dropping Altuve several more spots down the lineup. Alvarez is at 11 games and counting missed with a muscle strain in his right hand. He will not be approaching the career-high 147 games played last season.
Relief pitcher Tayler Scott was a revelation last season. Before joining the Astros at age 31 Scott had a big-league ERA of 9.00 in 46 innings scattered over three seasons. So it was pretty much out of nowhere that the only South African pitcher in MLB history posted a scintillating 1.36 ERA into early August before fading and winding up with a still stellar 2.23 mark. The clock struck midnight on his Cinderella story this year though, and with the Astros needing to open a roster spot this week, Scott was designated for assignment.
Book it!
Longtime Astros’ broadcasting stalwart Bill Brown has authored several books. His latest is Wartime Athletes, which tells the stories of athletes across a number of sports who served in the U.S. military during various wars. If you know anything about Bill Brown, you know each story was meticulously researched and makes for an interesting read. I’m no Oprah when it comes to the power of suggestion for reading material, but Wartime Athletes is worth your time and/or is a worthy gift for someone else.
For Astro-centric conversation, join Brandon Strange, Josh Jordan, and me for the Stone Cold ‘Stros podcast which drops each Monday afternoon, with an additional episode now on Thursday. Click here to catch!
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