In today’s SportSense Entertainment Newsletter…

There were plenty of predictions to go around yesterday across the NHL and MLB, with our model focusing in on one of those predictions and making it a 3-star play. That prediction went 1-0 overall, and you can see how each of the models performed below.

Money Line Predictions: 1-0

Over/Under Predictions: 0-1

Puck Line Predictions: 1-0

3-star Predictions: 0-0

Money Line Predictions: 7-1

Over/Under Predictions: 3-3-2

Run Line Predictions: 1-7

3-star Predictions: 1-0

🦖 Raptors hire Darko Rajakovic to be team’s head coach. Memphis Grizzlies assistant Darko Rajakovic will be taking his coaching expertise to Toronto, reportedly coming to terms with the Raptors to be the team’s next head coach, per Adrian Wojnarowski. Rajakovic will replace Nick Nurse, who the Raptors dismissed in April and is now the bench boss of the Philadelphia 76ers. This will be Rajakovic’s first head coaching gig in the NBA, and he will also become the second NBA head coach to be born and raised outside of North America.

🥊 Miami Heat mascot gets knocked out by Conor McGregor. Yes, you read that correctly. The Miami Heat mascot, known as Burnie, was sent to the emergency room following an incident where he was punched by UFC champion Conor McGregor during a skit in the third quarter of Game 4. McGregor was promoting a pain relief spray when the incident occurred, knocking Burnie to the ground and giving one more punch for good measure before using the spray on him. Burnie has since been released from the hospital, but we’re guessing it’ll take a few more days until he is back to 100%.

🏒 Vegas wins Game 4, heads back home with 3-1 series lead. The Las Vegas Golden Knights are heading back home for Game 5 with a 3-1 series lead in the Stanley Cup Finals. Vegas went up 3-0 in the first 31 minutes, led by Chandler Stephenson’s two goals, and held off a late charge from Florida to secure a 3-2 victory. Things were very chippy throughout the contest, ending with a massive brawl in front of the net and fans throwing trash on the ice after the final horn. The 3-1 series leads means that the Stanley Cup will be in the building for Game 5, which is set to take place on Tuesday night, with Vegas hoping to avenge its Stanley Cup loss in 2018 during its inaugural season.

There are 15 MLB games scheduled to take place throughout this afternoon and evening. However, due to the Dodgers/Phillies matchup not being available when the model was run, our model has predictions for 14 of today’s matchups.

Cincinnati Reds @ St. Louis Cardinals

Model Predicts- Reds ML, OVER 8.5, Reds +1.5

The Cincinnati Reds and St. Louis Cardinals will finish off a three-game series on Sunday afternoon in St. Louis.

This NL Central battle has seen both teams find the win column the last two days. St. Louis won Game 1 7-4, while Cincinnati won Game 2 by a score of 8-4.

Both the Reds and Cardinals enter today below .500, but our model gives the Reds the advantage despite being a road underdog. Will we see Cincinnati back up that prediction with a win this afternoon, or can a struggling Cardinals team begin its ascent from the basement of the NL Central with a win?

Cincinnati Reds

The Cincinnati Reds finished the 2022 season with just 62 wins, putting the Reds 31.0 games back of first place in the NL Central.

However, Cincinnati enters today with a 30-35 record, nearly halfway to last season’s win total only 40% into the season. We’re not saying the record is impressive, but it does show some major signs of improvement.

For starters, the Reds have become a far more consistent team at the plate. According to TeamRankings, Cincinnati enters today ranked 14th in OPS at .726, up from .676 in 2022. More Reds hitters are getting on base this season, leading to the ninth most runs per game (4.65).

Cincinnati is doing a majority of its damage against left-handed pitchers, posting a .271 batting average and .747 OPS, per ESPN. However, the Reds have had comparable success against righties, hitting .249 overall with a .717 OPS. Cincinnati can do damage from both sides of the plate, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see the Reds competing more often this season.

The Reds have gotten slightly worse in the pitching department though. However, Hunter Greene (1-4 record, 3.92 ERA) will get the start today for the Reds, a guy who has made some improvements this season.

Don’t let the 1-4 record fool you, because Hunter Greene is a tremendous pitching talent. Green doesn’t have a wide arsenal of pitches (4-seam fastball, slider, and changeup), but his fastball is one of the more lethal pitches in all of baseball. Per Baseball Savant, Greene has an average velocity of 98.6 mph with his 4-seamer, putting him in the top 2% of the majors. He throws that pitch 54.8% of the time, but it hasn’t appeared to matter much as he owns a 33.0% strikeout rate, up from 30.9% in 2022.

St. Louis Cardinals

Adam Wainwright (2-1 record, 5.97 ERA) will get the start for St. Louis this afternoon, putting an already struggling Cardinals team in a tough position.

Wainwright is 41-years-old, and when he is on the mound it is easy to tell he is the oldest man on the field. Wainwright doesn’t have a single pitch in his wide arsenal that reaches 90.0 mph, with the fastest being his sinker at 87.1 mph. That is his most thrown pitch, with his curveball (71.2 mph) and cutter (82.9 mph) coming in just behind it to pretty much round out what he throws.

The slow velocity has become an issue for Wainwright this season. Per Baseball Savant, his sinker, curveball, and cutter all have an xBA (expected batting average) above .320, a sign that opposing hitters are having no problems seeing the ball out of Wainwright’s hand.

Additionally, Wainwright is only striking out 12.7% of the hitters that he faces. That puts him in the bottom 4% of the MLB, and it is down from an already poor 17.8% a season ago.

Father Time has clearly caught up to Wainwright, and it will likely put St. Louis in a tough spot early on.

What’s the Play?

Both of today’s starting pitchers have their flaws. Greene has an incredible strikeout rate, but he struggles with his control and walks 9.4% of batters he faces. Meanwhile, Wainwright can’t punch out anyone, often leading to contact and several baserunners.

However, Greene puts the Reds in a far better position today than Wainwright does for the Cardinals, so we agree with our model that the Reds can win again on the road.

Greene’s 3.92 ERA is slightly high, but not too concerning. His xERA comes in at 3.50, showing that he has been on the wrong end of luck this season and we should see things start to balance out.

Meanwhile, Wainwright’s xERA comes in at 6.61, well above his 5.97 ERA.

Greene is almost half of Wainwright’s age, and that alone will go a long way in adding another win to the Reds’ record. Our model thinks the Reds should be favored with odds around -140, so we will gladly take Cincinnati at +115 today.

3-star play: Reds ML (+115)

Money Line Trends💰

• Arizona Diamondbacks- 39-25 overall this season, 19-11 as the away team

• Tampa Bay Rays- 47-20 overall this season, 30-7 as the home team

• Baltimore Orioles- 40-24 overall this season, 19-12 as the home team and winners of three straight games

Over/Under Trends⬆️⬇️

• Cleveland Guardians- Under is 38-24-2 this season, 21-10-1 as the home team

• Tampa Bay Rays- Over is 37-27-3 this season, 23-13-1 as the home team

• Cincinnati Reds- Over is 37-28 this season, 18-12 as the away team

Run Line Trends➕➖

• Arizona Diamondbacks- Run line is 39-25 overall, 9-5 as a road favorite

• Atlanta Braves- Run line is 15-7 against NL East opponents (play NL East rival Washington today)

Various injuries around the league. See full injury report at MLB.com.

📈 Are the Oakland Athletics finally finding a rhythm? The 2023 season has been one to forget for the Oakland Athletics. The A’s currently own a 16-50 record, the fewest wins in the majors this season and a record that puts the team 26.5 games back of first place in its own division. However, Oakland has now won four straight games after defeating Milwaukee 2-1 in extra innings yesterday, posting a +17 run differential in that span of time. It’s nearly impossible for Oakland to turn its season around, but the win streak does give the A’s and their fans something to cheer about.

🔥 Bobby Miller stays red hot on the mound. The month of June has not been kind to the Dodgers. LA went just 2-5 through the first seven games of the month, but picked up a win yesterday in a 9-0 victory over the Philadelphia Phillies. Rookie pitcher Bobby Miller was perhaps the biggest reason why, allowing three hits and striking out seven batters in 6.0 innings. Yesterday’s start was the fourth of Miller’s young career, but the rookie’s 0.78 ERA shows that he is already among the MLB’s best.

🙌 Mets end seven-game losing streak with win over Pittsburgh. The New York Mets swept the Philadelphia Phillies at the end of May/beginning of June, but proceeded to lose seven straight games in what was the team’s longest losing streak since 2019. However, the Mets ended the drought with a 5-1 win over the Pirates on Sunday, getting the Mets back in the win column for only the second time this month. Kodai Senga allowed just one run on two hits in 7.0 innings, and Mark Canha led the way at the plate with three RBIs. New York is now 31-34 this season and in fourth in the NL East.

⚽️ Manchester City wins Champions League. Manchester City won its first Champions League title in a 1-0 victory over Inter Milan. Rodri scored the only goal of the match in a the 68th minute, his first since April 11th. Manchester City won the Premier League and FA Cup earlier this season, and with Saturday’s win become the tenth different team to claim a continental treble.

🐎 Arcangelo wins the 155th Belmont Stakes. Arcangelo left the Belmont Stakes victorious, pulling away form the rest of the field down the home-stretch. The win gave jockey Javier Castellano his second Triple Crown victory of the season after he rode Mage to the win at the Kentucky Derby, and it also made trainer Jena M. Antonucci the first female trainer to win a Triple Crown race. Arcangelo had 8-1 odds before the race.

🇨🇦 Cheng-Tsung Pan sits atop crowded leaderboard at Canadian Open. A 6-under par round on Saturday propelled Cheng-Tsung Pan to the top of the leaderboard at the Canadian Open. Pan now sits at 14-under par for the tournament, two strokes ahead of the rest of the field. However, six golfers, Andrew Novak, Harry Higgs, Justin Rose, Mark Hubbard, Rory McIlroy, and Tommy Fleetwood, all sit at 12-under par, setting up a terrific Sunday of golf. Carl Yuan, a PGA Tour rookie, went into the weekend in first place, but shot 2-over par on Saturday and is now tied for 16th at 7-under.

Today’s trivia requires you to dig into multiple pockets of your brain, testing your knowledge of recent events as well as those that happened decades ago.

See how many of the below questions you can get correct. Answers are provided at the end of the newsletter.

Question #1- The Villanova Wildcats have won three NCAA Basketball Championships in their history, including in 1985 when the Wildcats became the lowest seed (8) to win the national title. However, the most memorable came in 2016, when Villanova beat North Carolina 77-74 on a buzzer beating three-pointer. Who made the shot that crowned Villanova as National Champions in 2016?

Question #2- Greg Popovich has had two coaching stints with the San Antonio Spurs. The first stretched from 1988-1992 as an assistant, and the second began in 1996 and is still going to this day. However, Popovich was on the coaching staff of one other franchise from 1992-1994. What team was that?

Question #3- Seven duos in NFL history have rushed for 1,000 yards in a single season, with the most recent coming in 2019 with two players from the Baltimore Ravens. Lamar Jackson was one of those players, but what other Ravens player surpassed the 1,000 yard mark that season?

Anyone know what has happened on June 11th throughout history? We didn’t have a clue either, but it appears that it has been a busy day.

On June 11th…

1913- Legendary NFL head coach Vince Lombardi is born in Brooklyn, New York. Lombardi is considered to be one of the greatest head coaches the NFL has ever seen, posting a 96-34-6 record across ten seasons in the league. He is mostly known for his time as the coach of the Green Bay Packers, the team he would lead to five NFL Championships in seven years, including the first two Super Bowls in 1966 and 1967. Lombardi passed away from cancer in 1970, and was immediately placed in the Hall of Fame and had the Super Bowl trophy named after him.

1990- Nolan Ryan throws his sixth career no-hitter in a 5-0 victory over the Oakland Athletics. The Hall of Famer was 43 years old at the time, but still struck out 14 and only walked two in the victory. The no-hitter also made Ryan the only player in MLB history to throw a no-hitter for three different teams in three different decades. It took an absurd 130 pitches to reach the 27 outs necessary, but nothing was going to take Ryan off the mound that day.

2012- The Los Angeles Kings defeat the New Jersey Devils by a score of 6-1 in Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals. The Kings came out of the gates red hot, going up 3-0 in the first 20 minutes. The win was also Los Angeles’ fourth of the series, marking the first Stanley Cup in the Kings’ 45-year history. Long-time NHL goalie Jonathan Quick, who was recently traded from the Kings in 2023, was crowned the MVP.

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