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Todd: In the spirit of Halloween, some fun-sized thoughts before looking ahead to the big football game on Sunday…

Amazing that it only took one year for a pitcher to out-Lester Jon Lester in the World Series.

Madison Bumgarner literally carried the San Francisco Giants to their third championship in the last five years by allowing just nine hits and one run over 21 innings (0.43 ERA) of the Fall Classic.

The 25-year old southpaw went 2-0 with a five-inning save in Game 7 to win MVP honors in a walk (he only allowed one of those while striking out 17). His Game 7 heroics reminded me of Pedro’s six shutout innings of relief to beat Cleveland in Game 5 of the 1999 ALDS.

Bumgarner’s career World Series ERA now stands at 0.24, which also bests Lester (0.43) for best career WS ERA by a starting pitcher. Even more remarkable was that he faced 74 Kansas City batters in the Series and did not allow any of them reach base consecutively.

Will be curious to see if the 270 innings logged by Bumgarner this year will have any effect on him in 2015. Of course, since it’s an odd year on the calendar the Giants will fail to win it all anyway.

For the record, my prediction of Royals-in-six would have happened if they had won Game 4. I totally expected Bumgarner to win both his games and KC to win the rest. In hindsight, if you’re Ned Yost and the Royals you certainly wish you could have avoided a Game 7.

Instead, the Giants are champs yet again. They would have been an easy pick back in early June when they started 43-21 and led the Dodgers by 9-1/2 games. But they only went 45-53 the rest of the year and had to sneak into the postseason as the second wild card.

By the way, how often does a team win a seven-game World Series with their closer not earning a save and pitching to only two batters? Congrats on earning a ring the easy way, Santiago Casilla.

Speaking of closers, Red Sox have already locked up 40-year old Koji Uehara for the next two years at $18 million. Assuming Ben Cherington builds a stud bullpen around Koji, this is a good signing. A solid starting rotation wouldn’t hurt either.

On to basketball, where the Celtics surprised the league and most of their fans with a dominant opening night win over the Brooklyn Nets. I guess Rajon Rondo’s hand is feeling just fine, as he scored 13 points and dished out a dozen assists in thirty minutes of play.

If Rondo’s not traded, I think the C’s could win 35-40 games and conceivably compete for the eighth playoff spot in a weak Eastern Conference.

If you enjoy watching the Celts, keep an eye on swingman Evan Turner, who could fill a valuable role coming off the bench. And it should be fun to see the continued development of big men Jared Sullinger and Kelly Olynyk.

One other quick NBA note from Cleveland last night, where the Knicks stunned the Cavaliers in LeBron James’ much-hyped return to Ohio. The ‘King’ wanted to come home, now he best deliver or before long the townspeople will be storming the castle.

As if the Bruins weren’t down enough defensemen, now Torey Krug breaks his finger and will miss about a month. Thankfully the B’s are in a relatively soft stretch of their schedule, and if you didn’t know who Zach Trotman, Joe Morrow and David Warsofsky were, you will now.

Now how about some football talk? Can’t ask the Patriots to play much better than they did in burying the Bears last week, although it takes two to tango and it was pretty apparent that Jay Cutler and company didn’t feel much like dancing. For a team that came into that game dysfunctional, Chicago remained in that state, as their play the last two minutes of the first half was nothing but dysfunction.

In case you’re keeping score at home (and why wouldn’t you be?) Tom Brady earned AFC Offensive Player of the Month honors for the seventh time in his career, but the first time since 2011. I suppose a 14/0 TD-to-INT ratio for October clinched it for TB12.

Brady’s improved play over the last four games can be attributed to an offensive line that’s starting to come together as a unit (now if they can just stay healthy) and the right knee of Rob Gronkowski that is also starting to come together as…a knee. Kidding aside, Gronk is looking more like Gronk with each passing week – had to love that stiff arm he gave on his third touchdown last week!

No doubt that Brady has to continue playing well this week if he’s going to keep pace with Peyton Manning (who is averaging 300 yards passing in his first seven games, to go with 22 touchdowns and just 3 interceptions), as the two great quarterbacks square off for the sixteenth time.

Although Brady has a 10-5 edge on Manning, Peyton has won five of the last nine games between the two, including last year’s AFC Championship game. But in nine of the previous fifteen games that have been played in Foxboro, Manning is only 2-7 and hasn’t won since 2006.

However (have I made your head twist around exorcist-style yet?), right now the 6-1 Broncos looked like a well-oiled machine. And while the Pats defense has improved in recent weeks, Brady has the tougher defensive assignment going against a physical and much healthier group that features AFC Defensive Player of the Month (and perennial Pats killer) Von Miller.

I’m guessing Bill Belichick will try and coach Sunday’s game similar to the game at Gillette last year, using many nickel and dime defensive packages and daring Peyton to hand the ball off. In that contest the Broncos wound up running for 280 yards, but the Pats managed to get the win.

This game should be an offensive clinic, and despite how well the Pats have played of late, the defense has undergone much change out of necessity. Perhaps colder weather will play a factor, but Denver hasn’t played in ten days and are just one overtime loss from being undefeated. They’re the better team right now, and reverse psychology never hurts. Broncos 34, Patriots 27.

Let’s see if I can stay hot with my other game picks (3-0 last week, 13-7-1 season): Browns over the Buccaneers, Seahawks over the Raiders and the Steelers over the Ravens.

Mike: Wow. I just don't have all that much to add, so I'm just going to toss my picks in here!

As much as I am nervous about the Patriots this weekend, I can't pick against them at home. I think it's going to be a close, high-scoring game, with the Pats coming out on top 31-30.

For my other picks (1-2 last week, 16-5 season): I'll take the Bengals over the Jags, San Diego over Miami and San Francisco over St. Louis.

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