Russ's Sports Review

Baseball is back after the all-star break and yes, nothing has changed for the Braves. They are hitting homeruns, getting good starting pitching and the bullpen scares you to death but somehow hangs on to win. All of the above were on full display in San Diego.
The Braves hit six homeruns, which is hard to do in the three-game sweep. Donaldson hit three homeruns and Acuna had two over the weekend. All-star pitcher Mike Soroka was great on Sunday afternoon as he got his tenth win and Dallas Kuechel continues to get better as he looked really good in Friday night’s win.
Then there is the bullpen. Yes, everyone’s cardiac kids made everything interesting. The pen allowed five earned runs compared to just three for the starters over the weekend.
Remember the old saying that good pitching gets out good hitting? Sooner or later the bullpen will have to step it up. That brings things to the July 31 trade deadline. Okay I am not going to change the everyday eight or the bench. Here is where I have questions. For the starting pitching, I like Kuechel and Soroka.
What about the third starter? Since you can make it with three in the playoffs, do you really like Fried or Teheran? I just don’t, sorry! How about that bullpen? Do you like Luke Jackson having to get out the Cubs, Brewers or Dodgers with a one run lead? Better have plenty of Tums on hand. The Braves have some good trade chips in the system and as much as I wouldn’t want to move him, Drew Waters may have to be available.
I like Pache a little more and it looks like he will make it to the majors a little sooner. I think the kid would bring back a nice return but I wouldn’t just let him go for a rental. The lead is seven games going into Milwaukee on Monday night. It will not be easy!
Monday was a big afternoon for the Falcons. It was the deadline for the team to come to terms with star defense tackle Grady Jarrett. He was playing under the franchise tag if a deal couldn’t be reached by 4:00 p.m. on Monday.
The Falcons got under the deadline with just over an hour to spare as they agreed to a four-year deal worth 68 million with 42.5 guaranteed. The deal is probably about right so all should be good in Falcons land. The next deals will probably go to Julio and Deion Jones. The birds go to camp next week.
Let’s wrap things up over seas as Wimbledon played the men’s finals on Sunday with top seeds Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic. It was an epic battle but finally Djokovic won, 7-6, 1-6, 7-6, 4-6 and 13-12. The fifth set was decided by the tiebreaker for the first time in the history of the tournament.
Personally, I do not like a final set tiebreaker. This year was the first year that the final set tiebreaker was in place. It was played at 12 games all instead of the traditional six games all. I still think they should play the final set out.