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Baseball was just fine when there were two divisions in each league and two teams from each league made the post-season. There were actually pennant races.
You can thank that wretched swine Bud Selig for what a mess baseball has become.
I think they were just fine with 8 total teams making it. The Wild Card has produced multiple World Series Champions over the last several years. Not to mention it keeps a lot more teams in contention of making the playoffs. Baseball needs all the help it can get to keep fans interested and keep them coming to games. It's bad enough you have a city like Tampa that cannot even sellout its playoff games. Imagine how bad their attendance would be if they were 10 games out in August?
Why isn't Cabrera DHing? He's a liability at 3B and risking more serious injury. Victor Martinez, the DH, has played 160 games at 1B, and presumably could handle 3B as well as the currently hobbled Cabrera, with exactly the same batting order.
Why isn't Cabrera DHing? He's a liability at 3B and risking more serious injury. Victor Martinez, the DH, has played 160 games at 1B, and presumably could handle 3B as well as the currently hobbled Cabrera, with exactly the same batting order.
Victor Martinez, who has mainly been a DH the last few seasons because he was a bad defensive first baseman and who had been moved there because he had been a bad defensive catcher, has never played a single inning at thirdbase in his career.
You want a poor fielding firstbaseman to take over third for the first time in his life....in the post season?
His 163 games as a first sacker are mostly way in the past.
Games at first since 2010:
2010 14
2011 6
2012 0 (injured, did not play)
2013 11
Last day of the season... Braves need a win and a Cardinals loss to get home field advantage...
I'm comfortable with whatever happens. If the Braves miss out on HFA they'll get the Dodgers. The Cardinals can battle it out with the PIT/CIN winner like they've been doing all season.
Braves won the season series against all the NL playoff teams so I'm confident.
After seeing the Dodger beat the Braves in 4 games (I think they should've/could've easily swept them), I saw the batting averages of the Braves, I wonder how they won so many games. After game one, I knew the Dodgers would beat the Braves in the NLDS.
After seeing the Dodger beat the Braves in 4 games (I think they should've/could've easily swept them), I saw the batting averages of the Braves, I wonder how they won so many games. After game one, I knew the Dodgers would beat the Braves in the NLDS.
Typical Atlanta Braves baseball in October.
Lead the league in HR's
Lead the league in bullpen ERA
NLDS 1 HR in 4 games
NLDS bullpen fails miserably
The entire season was riding on the bottom of the 8th in game 4 with a 3-2 lead... So what does Gonzalez do? He brings in Carpenter to hang a curveball rather than bring in Kimbrel with the 100 mph heat to force a game 5 in Atlanta.
These "instant replay" calls get worse and worse. At this point it's no longer worth getting upset; it's apparent the umps watching replays are merely a formality for them to uphold a decision already made, with no accountability to keep them in check.
I predict a Boston - St Louis world series, based on their having outscored other teams by the most runs:
- Boston with a surplus of 185 runs
- St Louis with a surplus of 166 runs
So far my predictions are holding up; both teams won their respective Division Series and now head to their league's Championship Series.
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So far my predictions are holding up; both teams won their respective Division Series and now head to their league's Championship Series.
Those are not bad bets, but those are also season-long totals. Playoffs are more about which team can bring it in a five or seven game head-to-head series, and those dynamics change once the post-season begins. I'd probably say that the Boston prediction is a safer one than St. Louis at this point. The Sox can toss out strong starters and they've got good relief; the lineup is arguably the most productive in baseball. The Cardinals are a good lineup, but they were stifled for most of the series against Pittsburgh. L.A.'s lineup is better than Pitt's, and Kershaw is just a straight-up stud. Will be interesting to see where Wainright falls in the rotation. He might be game two but it could end up being a game three start. If LA only sees him once, it's hard to imagine them losing this series.
After seeing the Dodger beat the Braves in 4 games (I think they should've/could've easily swept them), I saw the batting averages of the Braves, I wonder how they won so many games. After game one, I knew the Dodgers would beat the Braves in the NLDS.
Yeah, that just screamed mismatch. The Braves got hot right after the All-Star break, and they were hitting the covers of the balls at that time, but they settled back down and became pretty pedestrian again. They've got some lumber but they don't make contact and strikeout. Cardinals, with their post-season experience, will be a tougher test for L.A. Still, good pitchers will make the Cardinals work for their runs, and L.A.'s lineup is fierce.
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So Far, So Good
