NERDS AROUND TOWN
Nerds Around Town: Realmz, Disney+ and the Dallas Cowboys
Aug 7, 2019, 6:52 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!
It's Wednesday, how are you doing? Don't let this week get away.
GOOD DEED OF THE DAY
The Regional Gulf Coast Blood Center is for us. It's here to save our lives when we are in a crisis and need blood and they get that blood by donations from us when we're not in such a bad place. This weekend hit home for many and reminded the country that bad things can happen anywhere and everywhere, so donate blood. It may be your own life you save. Also they're giving away Blue Bell Ice Cream this month, so get out there.
AN ALL AROUND GREAT GUY
As I've started into this Indy world of comic books I've already encountered some genuinely good dudes and Anthony Moore is one of them. He's been supportive and he's a worker and he has been grinding on his own projects for a long time. Last night he launched a Kickstarter for one of his big projects called Realmz. It sounds pretty awesome and I've already personally put my money where my mouth is and donated. It's a cool story about Gods and Kings and Monsters having to swallow their pride and work together to save the universe, how does that not sound AMAZING? Anyway, great art, cool ideas and awesome characters, check it out!!
DISNEY MAKES THEIR MOVE
Disney has fired their shot across the bow, on an investor call today the price point and initial offer for the Disney+ service was announced. You can get the ESPN+, Disney+ and Hulu together for $12.99. As a package price that's aimed right at Netflix who also is priced around that number, which means, it's your move Netflix. The Disney+ is set to come out in November and currently will have all the Star Wars stuff and four Marvel movies by the time it debuts and eight by the next year. They're aiming for 90 million subscribers by 2024, so they have some work to do.
NOW, IN THINGS THAT ARE RIDICULOUS
Cowboys RB Elliot has said he's prepared to sit out all season if he doesn't get a new contract. The fact of the matter is running back is the disposable position in the NFL, but only if your quarterback is any good and honestly Dallas doesn't have that luxury. On Around the Horn the other day, one of the pundits said Dax's QB Rating is 30 points higher out of play action when Zeke is on the field and his completion percentage is 15% higher when Zeke is on the field. That's 1 in 6, so if he's already a 60% QB, then Zeke is off the field because he's holding out, that goes from 4 in 6 to 3 in 6, so while that's a lot of numbers what it really means is more than likely, you're punting on a lot more fourth downs because of incompletes on third down when defenses expect pass and aren't respecting the run, cause Zeke is you know, absent. I'm not a Cowboys fan but even I see his value for this team.
NOT THAT YOU ASKED
Antonio Brown sitting out with blisters is hilarious to me, because the Raiders are one week into camp and already a complete mess. It's beautiful.
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.
It’s been an excellent weeklong stretch of games for the Astros tempered by the news of yet another season-ending injury to a starting pitcher. To get the bad news out of the way, it comes as no surprise that Ronel Blanco needs Tommy John surgery and is done until at least the middle of next season. While Blanco had not been nearly as good through nine 2025 starts as he was last season, he was still taking his regular return and on average getting into the sixth inning. Blanco turns 32 years old at the end of August. He’s not even salary arbitration-eligible until 2027. That last fact may be good news for him. The Astros will likely keep Blanco next year in hopes he can contribute in the second half of the season, since they will pay him barely the Major League minimum salary ($780,000 next year) That’s in contrast to Jose Urquidy, who in the midst of his salary arbitration years would have cost about three and a half million dollars to keep, so the Astros non-tendered him.
With Blanco joining Hayden Wesneski in the “See you next year! Hopefully.” club, it struck me as interesting that the Astros let Lance McCullers throw 102 pitches in his Wednesday outing vs. the Athletics. That’s eleven more than he had thrown in any of his prior four starts. McCullers holding up physically would be a huge boost, but the new essentials in the Astros’ rotation are Framber Valdez and Hunter Brown. Framber has settled in to the tune of a 1.93 earned run average over his last four starts. Brown’s season ERA is 2.00. Brown has had five days of rest before all eleven of his starts this season. This Sunday is Brown’s presently next scheduled outing. He would work on four days of rest if on the mound Sunday against the Rays.
Taking the last two games from the Mariners was huge (for the second half of May anyway). Keeping the good times rolling by sweeping the two-game miniseries from the A’s was less significant but still nice. Maybe not quite nice enough to have Frank “The Tank” from the movie Old School belting out “We’re going streaking!!!” but it did give the Astros their first four game winning streak of the season. They still have not lost more than three straight.
On a heater!
Speaking of streaking, time for annual mention of one of my all-time favorite baseball factoids. The 1916 New York Giants hold the MLB record for the longest win streak with an incredible 26 in a row. Earlier in the season the Giants ripped off 17 in a row. Combine the two streaks and that’s 43-0! The 1916 New York Giants finished in fourth place. In all their other games the Giants went 43-66. The American League’s longest ever winning streak is of fairly recent vintage. The 2007 Cleveland Indians won 22 straight. There have been only two other winning streaks since 1900 of at least 20 games. The 1935 Chicago Cubs won 21 straight. The Art Howe-managed 2002 Oakland A’s won 20 in a row, and were the inspiration for the movie Moneyball. The Astros have three 12 game winning streaks as the longest in their history.
Expect the unexpected
Tuesday’s win over the A’s brought the Astros to the one-third completed point of the regular season. Isaac Paredes was definitely their best offensive player to that milepost. His “on pace for” numbers were the best on the ballclub 33 home runs and 93 runs batted in. Paredes also led in runs scored with 29. The last Astro to lead the team in all three of those categories was Alex Bregman who did it in both 2018 and 2019. That Bregman was clearly a better player than this Paredes, but Isaac healthy and making “only” 6.625 million dollars this season is a heck of a lot better value than Bregman at 40 mil for the Red Sox, especially given that while Bregman was off to a sensational start for Boston, he’s now out for at least a month with a quad injury.
Hunter Brown is on pace to win 20 games. The last Astro to get there was Gerrit Cole on the last day of the 2019 regular season. The day before that Justin Verlander won his 21st game.
The Cleveland Guardians’ bullpen was awesome last season, by far the best in the league with four relievers who each pitched in at least 74 games posting ERAs of 1.92 or lower, headlined by closer Emmanuel Clase’s microscopic 0.61. One-third of the way through this season for the Astros: Bryan Abreu sat at 1.90, Steven Okert 1.82, Josh Hader 1.57, Bryan King 1.52.
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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