☀️ Good morning and welcome back to The Nosebleeds.

⚾️ The final battle for baseball glory begins tonight as the Arizona Diamondbacks are in Arlington, Texas to take on the Rangers in Game 1 of the World Series!

🔬 Let’s take a closer look into the match-up.

🐍 World Series Preview

Only two years ago, both the Arizona Diamondbacks and Texas Rangers were 100-loss teams. Now? These two franchises have flipped the script and will face off in the 2023 World Series.

This year’s Fall Classic matchup will feature two teams with the lowest combined win total ever—90 and 84—for the Rangers and Diamondbacks, respectively.

But if we’ve learned anything from this postseason, it’s that regular season records don’t mean sh*t in October. 8/10 of this year’s playoff series were won by the team with less regular season wins. Three of those series won by the “underdogs,” were won by none other than the 84-win Arizona Diamondbacks. But make no mistake, the DBacks are forreal. They swept the Milwaukee Brewers, then they swept the Los Angeles Dodgers, and then they overcame both a 2-0 and 3-2 deficit to the Philadelphia Phillies to reach their first World Series since 2001. But the DBacks have one more opponent to take on if they want to be crowned champions—the Texas Rangers. Let’s dive into this interesting, yet intriguing, matchup.

I think this is going to be an extremely close series, and FanGraphs thinks so too, as they have Texas at 51.8% and Arizona at 48.2%. But DraftKings is a little more confident in the Rangers winning their first World Series in franchise history, as they give the Diamondbacks an implied win probability of 40.8% (anyone else see a nice value betting opportunity 👀).

The starting pitching for these teams are fairly even, and the Rangers have an edge at the plate, even though the DBacks have some very underrated hitters on their roster. But the biggest advantage for any team in this series is Arizona’s bullpen—led by the likes of Paul Sewald, Kevin Ginkel, and Ryan Thompson. I believe the bullpen will be the difference in this series, just like it was for the DBacks in their series against the Phillies. Which brings me to prediction time.

The 2023 World Series Champion will be the…

Arizona Diamondbacks (in 6 games)

SNAKES ALIVE, indeed. I am fully aboard the bandwagon.

First pitch of Game 1 is tonight @ 8:03 EST.

💰️ Bet on yourself (wait, not actually)

Unsigned Ottawa Senator RFA Shane Pinto has been suspended 41 games (!) for a sports betting violation.

That’s right, a 22 year old kid who is pictured above, rocking a BET99 logo on his helmet, has been suspended for half of an NHL season for sports betting. And he didn’t even bet on hockey.

It is pretty ironic how the NHL promotes sports betting on games non-stop during broadcasts, then some poor kid losses critical development time in his career for betting on an entirely different sport.

I think all sports betting suspensions are an abomination if there is no same-sport or match fixing involved with the bet. Hopefully Pinto’s suspension gets reduced and he signs a new contract so he can get back on the ice ASAP, but, unfortunately, I don’t expect that to be the case.

🤔 MLB Trivia

Diamondbacks vs. Rangers is the first World Series match-up since 2016 to not feature either the Houston Astros or the Los Angeles Dodgers.

• Question: what two teams faced-off in the last World Series where the Astros or Dodgers didn’t take part?

Answer at the bottom.

🩸 Bloody Good Play of the Week

Paul Cotter (?) of all people scored the goal of the NHL season so far with this smooth move and finish against the Philadelphia Flyers on Tuesday evening.

🙏 Thank you for reading! Follow us on Twitter for more (@nbleedsports, @younggun001) or you can subscribe below!

• Trivia Answer: In 2016, the Chicago Cubs defeated the Cleveland Indians (now Guardians) in seven games to win one of the greatest World Series of all time.