Sports this 'n' that

 The eyes of the baseball world will be fixated on two places this weekend. 

In the Atlanta suburb of Marietta, the Braves will try to claim 1st place in the National League East all to themselves against the Mets, who have won 9 of 16 from the defending champions. Max Fried will face off with Chris Bassitt tonight, while the Mets' twin aces, Max Scherzer & Jacob deGrom, have the weekend games. Mets partisans will say they'll be happy to take 2 of 3, but a sweep would wrap up the division, snapping the Braves' string of four straight division titles.

Think back to 2006. Atlanta's string of 14 straight division titles was broken by----wait for it----the Mets, who took the eventual World Champion St. Louis Cardinals to six games before falling in the NLCS.

Mets GM Billy Eppler is bringing in prized catching prospect Francisco Alvarez for his first taste of the majors this weekend, and give veterans Tomas Nido & James McCann a break. Alvarez may be an x-factor the Braves won't be ready for.

In the Bronx, the AL East champion Yankees open a series with Baltimore, but the main attraction is whether or not Aaron Judge can climb that last step and break Roger Maris' team & AL record of 61 homers, set in 1961. Judge tied the mark Wednesday at Toronto. The Orioles, though, are not the same patsies the Yankees are used to seeing, as they were contenders until about a month ago.

Roger Maris, Jr. has gone on record stating that Judge, in his eyes, would be the rightful single season homer champ if he does get to 62+ with six games remaining. He ain't alone in that argument.

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They say when you play with fire, you're bound to get burned.

Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross played with fire, if you will, particularly with QB Tua Tagovailoa, twice in the space of five days.

On Sunday, in a win over Buffalo, Tua was briefly knocked from the game, and the team claimed a back issue, but it was clear from what viewers saw that it was more than that, and that Tua should've been held out for the rest of the game. Instead, he was sent back out by coach Mike McDaniel, a 1st year coach, and Miami claimed 1st place in the AFC East all by themselves.

Fast forward four nights later at Cincinnati. Tagovailoa is knocked from the game again, this time carted off the field on a stretcher after sustaining neck & back injuries vs. the defending AFC champs.

Photo courtesy Yahoo!/Amazon Prime/ NFL.

Journeyman backup Teddy Bridgewater finished the game, a 27-15 Bengals win. NFL Players Association head DeMaurice Smith has initiated an investigation into what happened on Sunday, feeling that certain of Dolphin management failed Tagovailoa by letting him finish the Buffalo game.

At the end of the day, far as Ross and other owners are concerned, it's more about the dolla-dolla bill, y'all, than player safety. Miami's next game is October 9, but don't count on Tua being back by then.

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The Tampa Bay Buccaneers announced that yes, their Sunday home game vs. Kansas City will go on as planned, as Hurricane Ian will be in South Carolina by then. Postponing the game wouldn't really hurt NBC/Peacock all that much, but South Carolina moved up a tomato can game set for tomorrow to last night as a precaution, something that might've been considered by Tampa Bay management until the storm hit.

It'll be interesting to see the ratings on Sunday, though, as Mets-Braves gets a nearly 90 minute headstart on ESPN.