Yesterday's picks: how the model did (September 25)

Verdexed's graded line for Friday, September 25, is zero picks, zero correct, zero incorrect. Major League Baseball opened the final weekend of its regular season, and it was the only league on the board whose games belong on a model record. Not one of them produced a scored prediction here, because the model's per-game probabilities were not published. By this column's running count that is the fiftieth consecutive slate that opens with the same number. Friday's picks column claimed no edge and stated no side, so nothing that happened belongs to the model, in either direction.

The scorecard

Picks made: zero. Correct: zero. Incorrect: zero. Accuracy on the day is undefined, because the denominator is zero.

No accuracy percentage and no Brier score is cited for Friday. A public search returns the Verdexed methodology page, which describes logging every prediction before a game starts and scoring it afterward on win accuracy and on Brier score, where lower is better. It does not return the dated ledger underneath that description, and the site is blocked from this publishing environment. Site-level accuracy figures do surface in search, but they come back attached to different leagues depending on how the question is asked, which is not a graded record. The 65 percent and 70 percent confidence tiers went unpopulated for a fiftieth straight day, so whether high-confidence chalk held is a question Friday cannot answer.

The hand-kept ledger of stated sides holds at 13-10 across 23 decisions, unchanged, because no side was stated.

Best call / worst miss

Nothing was picked, so the model has no sharpest call and no worst miss. What follows grades the column's own market read, which is a borrowed scoreboard rather than a record. Four Friday games carried a quoted price. Those four favorites went 1-3.

**The worst miss: Philadelphia.** The column named the Phillies the largest favorite surfaced for the slate, near minus 166, with Cristopher Sanchez projected to start. Result at Citizens Bank Park: **Rays 2, Phillies 0**. Freddy Peralta shut down a punchless Philadelphia lineup, and Sanchez struck out 10 while walking one over seven innings and lost anyway. It was the third straight game in which Philadelphia could have clinched and did not.

**The second miss: Chicago at Boston.** The Cubs were quoted from minus 116 to minus 125 in what the column called the board's most consequential game. Rain turned it into a doubleheader and Boston swept it. **Red Sox 4, Cubs 3** in the opener, Connor Wong doubling home the tiebreaking run in the seventh after Boston came back from three down. **Red Sox 2, Cubs 0** in the nightcap, on Wilyer Abreu's two-run double in the eighth behind Brayan Bello and Jedixson Paez. Boston clinched the American League's fifth seed and a wild card series in the Bronx against the Yankees.

**The third miss: Texas.** Near minus 110 against Minnesota near minus 108, which the column read as the market having no opinion. It was not close. Result at Target Field: **Twins 10, Rangers 2**. Jacob deGrom matched a career high by allowing eight earned runs, six of them in the second inning. Luke Keaschall had four hits and three runs driven in, Kody Clemens hit his team-leading 27th home run, and Joe Ryan gave up two runs over six innings with eight strikeouts.

**The one that held: Toronto.** Near minus 136 at home. Result at Rogers Centre: **Blue Jays 6, Reds 5**, Toronto scoring four in the seventh against the Cincinnati bullpen after trailing by three.

The two games the column listed without a price both went to the home side: **White Sox 6, Rockies 1** and **Guardians 12, Royals 9**. The caveat the column led with, that clinched and eliminated clubs distort a final-weekend number, then showed up in the game it declined to price at all. Result in West Sacramento: **Athletics 6, Astros 5**, the A's scoring six in the sixth after a Jose Altuve error, with Michael Stefanic and Henry Bolte each driving in two. Houston and Texas finished the night tied at 79-81 in the American League West, with Houston holding the tiebreaker on a 9-4 season series.

What it means

One of four quoted favorites winning is not the model's losing day, in the same way that four of six winning on Thursday was not its winning day. Neither scoreboard is its own. The result is the zero, and it is the fiftieth of its kind.

The durable read has not moved. The hand-kept 13-10 across 23 stated sides remains the only graded figure this desk can point to, and at 23 decisions the distance between 13-10 and 10-13 is a few coin flips, which is reason to hold it loosely rather than quote it as a track record. Fifty consecutive slates without a graded pick is a publishing failure, not a modeling result, and the calendar is closing the easiest window to fix it, because baseball's regular season ends Sunday. Friday's NHL games were preseason and the NBA was at media day rather than in games, so neither is graded here. Football is the board that remains, weekly, which takes the schedule away as an excuse.

Responsible play

**This is a record of past model output, not betting advice.** Verdexed grades its model in public for transparency and entertainment. Past results do not predict future outcomes, nothing here is a recommendation to place a wager, and no pick is ever a guarantee, even a strong model loses regularly.

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