Hello darkness my old friend, I've come to streak with you again. After five long months, the revolving door of failure known as Streaking In Public returns! How I missed broadcasting to the world my inability to proper prognosticate the outcomes of sporting events. It may take a while for me to get my legs under me so give me a bit of leeway with my picks until the end of April at least.
If you watched any action from Opening Day, you probably saw the highlights of Hanley Ramirez taking Phillies' pitching behind the woodshed. If he can pound the likes of Cole Hamels, I don't like David Buchanan's chances against the former Dodger. Get your hit out of the way early HanRam, it is still far too cold outside to combine nerves with shivering.
Over at the Worldwide Leader in Heartbreak, I am making two selections of overwhelming favorites this evening. Firstly, I have the Providence Friars triumphing over teh Omaha Mavericks in the NCAA Frozen Four. Full disclosure: I haven't watched a second of college hockey this year. The only exposure I've had was eight minutes of SiriusXM College Sports coverage. Of those eight minutes, about three of them were me trying to figure out who was on the floor in such a low scoring basketball game. "Geez, Kaminsky must be in foul trouble. It's two minutes in and I haven't heard his name once." It was quite ambiguous until the announcer bellowed "Spectacular body check!". At that point I realized I am quite the idiot. I was also in a driving rain storm with massive 18 wheel death machines around me so changing the station was low on my to-do list. Nevertheless, I am taking the local Friars to beat what sounds like the D-League affiliate of the Dallas Mavericks.
My other selection on Streak for the Cash is the last game available tonight. Portland travels to Golden State in a battle of two of the Western Conference's best. Golden State has sewn up home court throughout the playoffs with four games remaining. It may be time for Steve Kerr to start giving his big guns, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson primarily, a lighter workload. While this may be severely detrimental to my fantasy basketball championship aspirations, it would behoove the Dubs to make sure their stars get to the first round in one piece. With that being said, I think Portland will be going all out in this game while Golden State may be operating at half capacity. The Blazers are still jockeying for seeding in the middle of the Western Conference with Memphis and Houston. Portland wins outright on the road, or at least loses by single digits. HAPPY STREAKING EVERYBODY!!
Image Credits: Hanley Ramirez BTS (mlb.com), Streak picks (espn.com)