Baseball 2021

Don’t the Giants lead the NL in home runs?

 

Now up to 17 and a wild card spot. Thanks didn’t see the playoffs in their future this season either. We went to two games at Busch on 9/10 and 11 vs. the Reds. As it turned out, we saw the last loss and the first em of this now club record streak. Who’d of thunk it?

 

Welp, it ended at 17. But that’s fine, because we clinched the NL wild card playoff spot, and we weren’t gonna catch the Brewers. Shildt (the manager) gave several of the regular starters the night off, and Milwaukee shut ‘em out 4-0. They’ll likely play the Dodgers in LA next Wednesday, October 6th. Max Scherzer, who’s been lights out since they acquired him from the Nationals at the trade deadline (July 30th), will start for the Dodgers. Adam Wainwright was announced today as the starter for the Redbirds. On paper…(yeah, I know)…this is no contest. Scherzer beat us Sept. 6 at Busch with 8 innings of 6 hit, 1 run, 13 strikeout ball.
They’ve got us right where we want them.

 

So what I’m hearing is trap series.

 

@jumpkutz You pulling a reverse psychology-jedi mind trick? The Dodgers have to be favored, but the Cards in the playoffs are never heavy underdogs. The Dodgers even being in a 1-gamer is shocking. To win 106 games (2nd best in mlb) and finding themselves on the brink of elimination in game 163 is crazy. @nevzter Thank you to your Giants for winning 107. During my HS years in the 80’s I spent many a summer day at Wrigley, so I’m no Cards fan (not a hater tho), but I despise the Dodgers and will be pulling hard for St. Louis.

AL: Was really hoping for chaos on the last day and have 4 teams tie for the 2 spots, but alas it’s the Sox v Yanks from Fenway tonight. Gareth Cole was paid a boatload of $$$ for nights like this, let’s see what happens.

@HatterDon, Only thing I can remember comparable to Cards is the A’s of 2002 (Halos won WS that year so it’s engrained) when they lost a bunch of great players to free agency then won 20 in a row the following year. Which of course led to the book/movement/movie Moneyball.

 

@SoCalJoe. Yes! That's it! It's a reverse psychology-Jedi mind trick! Of course, the Dodgers have to be favored, rightly so. As for a 106 win team being in a one and done Game 163, I this'll be the last time we'll see this. A new playoff/wild card format will supposedly be instituted next year that eliminates the sudden death scenario. It will probably look something like last year's expanded pandemic post season: more teams, no one game playoff.
As for Tuesday and Wednesday nights, well..... The Yankees have to be favored over Boston. The key to that one will be for the Red Sox pitchers to keep Judge, Stanton, et. al., in the ballpark. No mean feat in the bandbox that is Fenway Park, but somewhat easier in a single 9 inning contest. Dodger Stadium, on the other hand, has always been spacious. That should help Adam Wainwright, whose fastball, never great, is more hittable than ever. He's compensated by spotting it and his other pitches, primarily the curveball, more selectively. There's less room for error, making his arsenal more susceptible to long balls. But he's mitigated that occurrence tremendously, especially the second half of this season. And which Cardinal team is going to show up Wednesday night, the one that stumbled through the first four months of the season, or the bunch that tore up September? Max Scherzer is a shut down, winning streak stopping starter. But, he had two rough starts before shutting out the Reds for seven innings last time out. I would suggest that the starts against San Diego and Colorado (in Denver) were anomalies. We'll see vintage Scherzer Wednesday night, I'm sure. I don't put a lot of stake in a baseball team's regular season form coming into the post season. Everybody starts over at nil-nil, and it's just different.
The playoff rosters usually have a few surprises, adding to the different vibe. I do believe post season managerial experience is important. Skippers tend to play it close to the vest, very conservatively, almost to a fault. The boss that takes a chance on a heretofore unheralded player off the bench or pitcher from the bullpen, or puts on an unexpected play at a key juncture in a game sometimes makes the difference between elimination and advancement. A hit and run with an unlikely batter/runner combo. A bunt when none is expected. Or who the DH on an NL team is gonna be, and where in the lineup they'll hit. In other words, a manager like Tony LaRussa. Don't get me wrong, I'll be rooting for the Cardinals to go all the way. But don't be surprised if the White Sox win the World Series at the end of October.

 

How many times over would George Steinbrenner had fired GM Brian Cashman and Aaron Boone during their time there??

 

Welp, the Cardinals failed on multiple attempts to drive in runners in scoring position. In a do or die baseball game, that’ll kill ya.’ The Dodgers are clearly the better team, so props to them for advancing to meet the Giants. Only one win separated them, so it ought to be a very competitive series. I’m looking hard at the White Sox to win it all. They’re solid from top to bottom, and have that “X” factor going for them. But any of the remaining teams are legit threats to win it all.

 

1-1 going into bottom of the 9th, and the Cards soft tossing lefty looked like a gopher ball waiting to happen, two rocket outs to dead center and he looks like he’s gonna get out of it, but walks the struggling left-handed Bellinger...sigh.

Stat of the night: Cards left 11 men on base @stlouisbrad @jumpkutz I’m just a Dodger hater, you guys as fans had to be pulling your hair looking for that one key hit.

 

Yep. As the innings and opportunities went by and the chances to drive in RISP became less and less, I had a haunting feeling that it would come back to bite us. And it did. During the 17 game September winning streak, somebody stepped up every night, usually a different guy, in those situations and got it done. It's a lot harder in a win or go home scenario. We walked too many batters last night, more than we normally did during the streak. In fact, that's one of the facets of the game we turned around from most of the season...too many free passes, especially by the 'pen. Jumped back up and reared it's ugly head when it hurt the most. Even Waino walked more guys than he normally does, but he managed to get around them, for the most part. The trouble with relying on a curveball pitcher as your ace starter is the inevitable fact that, sooner or later, you're going to throw a hanger. And big league hitters are big league hitters for a number of reasons, not the least of which is they don't miss hanging breaking balls as often as minor leaguers. You can get away with more mistakes with a 100 mph fastball. Reyes and McFarland pitched well during the streak, McFarland especially at getting ground balls in double play situations. But Reyes had lost the closers role after making the All Star team, presumably due to the league catching up to his stuff. He went from being lights out to what you saw last night, too many balls in the middle of the plate. But...we've still got the core of a nice mix of veterans who can still play and youngsters with speed, talent and potential, so I'm already looking forward to next season. If John Mozeliak can shore up the pitching staff, we should be consistently better next season. It'll be the swan song for Yadi and, probably, Waino, so it would be nice to send them off with a deep post season run.

 

Welp, Tony’s Pale Hose didn’t last long against the ‘Stros, did they? I’ve not seen a LaRussa managed team fold as easily as Chicago did in Game 4, at home, no less. And Boston made relatively short work of the Rays, to some surprise. They did make it to the World Series last season ya’ know. I really thought Milwaukee would stretch the Braves to five, but Josh Hader hung a slider to Freddie Freeman and boom goes the dynamite. Ancient rivals the Giants and Dodgers are going five. I like San Francisco. The starting pitchers are a wash for me, so it boils down to execution. San Francisco seems to have the edge, but watch out for a guy named Pujols off of the LA bench.

 

There is a buzz out here over this game tonight. The Dodgers played a 1 game elimination game vs Cards, now will play their last elimination game of the postseason, cause if they win none of the 3 teams left can take it past 6 vs The Blue Poo. The big issue is why are the 2 best teams (record wise) playing a Best of 5 Divisional Series???? MLB needs to look at the way they seed teams. If they want to say Wildcard teams can’t have homefield fine, but no way the Giants & Dodgers should’ve met at this stage.

 

This is the same for nearly every major (American) sports league. Exhibit A: the 7-9 Washington Football Team hosting the 11-5 Tampa Bay Buccaneers in last year’s wild card round. As long as they continue to divide the teams into super small divisions in order to create somewhat meaningless accolades (NFC East Division Champs!), you’re going to have irregular playoff matchups.

But back to the subject at hand, I’m surprised that only one series is going the distance. The Red Sox are peaking at the right time though while the two central teams struggled at the wrong time. I disagree that we should have over the title to the Dodgers if they win tonight. There’s plenty of talent in those other three ball clubs to make the Dodgers (or Giants for that matter) work.

 

The Cardinals fired Mike Shildt.
“Philosophical differences.”
Yeah, right…
The only thing that makes sense to me is an irreconcilable difference over roster decisions. Still, seems very short sighted, which could be a prelude to a wage bill reduction, which could be a prelude to the club being sold. Mike Shannon put it out there during his last week on the job, but the management denied it. But they’ve been in since ‘96, so….. Mike might be right.

https://www.stltoday.com/sports/bas...cle_d216fba3-1621-517a-909e-f27c2e81e152.html

 

This firing was bizarre. The how, why, when make no sense unless something big happened or is happening behind the scenes. This doesn't seem like the cardinal way.

 

I think “The Cardinal Way” is a bit of a farce. Something weird’s going on behind the scenes at 700 Clark St.