Grading The Week: Locking Up Jamal Murray Says Nuggets Serious About Their Core. But If They’re Serious About A Dynasty, They’ll

Spoiler alert: Should the Diamondbacks fall out of the wild-card playoff race, they might point to this September series with the Rockies. Last year’s surprise National League pennant winner has owned the Rockies for the last two seasons. But these September Rockies aren’t those Rockies. They proved it again Tuesday night with an 8-2 romp over the D-backs at Coors Field.

Win and you could be in. For the first time since 2021, the Colorado Rapids are playing with a chance to clinch a playoff berth. With a win on the road against rival Sporting Kansas City, the Rapids could become the fifth team to secure a spot in the MLS Playoffs, joining Inter Miami, FC Cincinnati, Columbus Crew and L.

Charlie Condon hit 37 homers and batted .433 his junior season at Georgia, so of course he was excited to take batting practice at Coors Field on Tuesday afternoon. Alas, a pending thunderstorm meant that the tarp was down. No BP. No infield practice alongside major leaguers. No racing across the ballpark’s huge outfield. “It would have been cool to get to hit out there and see it fly,” the 21-year-old corner infielder/corner outfielder said. Still, the Rockies’ first-round choice in this summer’s draft (third overall) was able to soak up his first visit at Coors.

The Broncos were in desperation mode against the Pittsburgh Steelers when Sean Payton called Josh Reynolds’ number. Trailing 10-0 with 7:43 left in the third quarter at Empower Field on Sunday, Sean Payton dug deep into his bag of tricks, putting running back Javonte Williams behind the center in shotgun with quarterback Bo Nix lined up outside. Williams took the snap and handed the ball off to Courtland Sutton on a fly sweep before the veteran wideout pitched it back to Nix.

If the Colorado Avalanche ever has a full allotment of healthy forwards during the 2024-25 season, it could be the best group in the NHL. For now, the word “if” is doing a lot of work in that sentence. The Avs begin training camp Thursday, and the expectation is that captain Gabe Landeskog and jack-of-all-trades Artturi Lehkonen won’t be ready while they recover from injuries.

The Nuggets are hiring former Denver Post reporter Mike Singer as director of intelligence and strategy as they make a series of front office hires and promotions before the 2024-25 NBA season, a league source told The Denver Post. Singer served as the Nuggets beat writer at The Post for five seasons until he left the newspaper in 2023, two months after covering the franchise’s first championship.