I mean, for a short guy anyway
While I realize the game isn’t over, how do you like the Cleveland Indians tonight? Our arguably third best pitcher starting and holding the Yankees through five innings to NO HITS. Our pitching will get us not only TO the WS, it will produce our first WS since 1948.
Edited- they just got one hit.
You are a man of infinite confidence. But since I like where your confidence is aimed, I shall ride it to the WS.
See? Don’t talk about the no-hitter.
I think Boston’s pitching woes versus Astros lineup is not going to work out well for Boston. The Indians are the faves against the Yanks but this could be a surprisingly competitive series. The Yanks are just a young, developing, scrappy team that might steal a win here, steal a win there.
The NL is harder for me to call. I think the Cubbies will find a way to beat the Nats in a tight 5-gamer. If the Nats just don’t come out and sweep the Cubs, Dusty will fuck it up somehow in the late innings. I was bullish on LA earlier in the year, but not now. I think the D-backs find a way to pull off a shocker and win 3-2 in LA. They will record a strikeout with the bases loaded to win the series 3-2.
I see a report stating that they’ll carry Blanton and Romero in the bullpen rather than A.J. Cole and Edwin Jackson, which leads me to believe you could well be right…
Aaron Judge strikes out four times. He’s a rookie. Cleveland makes mincemeat of rookies.
Game 1. Next up.
True, but the gap between ‘usually’ and 1/6 is pretty huge.
But if the edge over plain dumb luck that your favorite has in a playoff structure like MLB has is only an added .041666… chance of winning, that suggests that something’s radically wrong with the playoff structure. If every team’s chance of winning the whole thing is only slightly different from coin-flip odds, then it says that winning has a lot more to do with luck than skill. There’s always going to be a nontrivial element of luck, but you’d hope that skill would win out most of the time.
Boston just intentionally walked Jose Altuve in the fourth inning to pitch to an All-Star who hit a home run previously in this game. That’s not respect, it’s terror.
Skill always wins out. You do not win 11 or 12 playoff games by luck. The team that wins the World Series will invariably have outplayed all the other playoff teams in the playoffs. The team that wasn’t the best in the regular season outplaying the team that was is not “luck” the way a coin flip is. If at some point in the year a 5th place team sweeps a first place team in a 4-game series, that is not “luck” the way a roll of the dice is. They almost certainly played better in those four games.
And again in the 6th. Got away with it the first time, punished the second.
There’s SOME luck - does that long fly ball die at the warning track or carry an extra five feet, et cetera, but that’s very well put.
Umpires 2
Yankees 0
What a clusterfuck of bad officiating in Cleveland.
So by the 11th inning the strike zone appeared to be any area in front of the batter.
Jesus, rarely have I seen the ball bounce for one team the way it did for Cleveland. Every fucking close play went their way. I don’t know for sure if the fake hit by pitch would have been overturned, but it should have been reviewed. Bad day for the umpires, inconsistent strike zone, sloppy fielding. Positives: 2018 should be a good Yankee year, pending roster moves. Gotta make room for Clint Frazier, need Headley to solidify grip on third or sign Toddfather, maybe trade an excess reliever for a quality starter.
Look!
How does NYY give up an 8-2 lead? Seriously, is that on the umps, or is that on dumb shit managing and ineffective pitching? Cleveland gave the Yanks a chance to win this and they gave it right back to the Tribe. Sorry, lessons learned. Over.
Let’s get ready for Cleveland vs. Houston. This could be good.
p.s. Told you the Cubbies would beat the Nats.
Reddit Yankee fans are blaming their manager.
I’ll volunteer as an SDMB Yankee fan that blames Joe. He made several bad moves last night, the worst was pulling CC when he did. Made no sense at all. He was pitching great at that point and had only reached 77 pitches IRC.
The pinch-runner blunder is not Joe’s fault, but man did that hurt.
CC could have gone longer. Worst call was not challenging the phantom hit batter.
Fair enough, I thought that was the 2nd worst call.
Yankees’ management should get some blame.
The Yankees have been burned twice in two games by Jay Bruce home runs (he drove in three of the Indians’ four runs in the opener). Back when Bruce was on the trade/giveaway market, it was reported that the Mets had a potential deal with the Yankees, who balked at paying Bruce’s remaining salary for the season. So the Indians got him instead.
"The Indians’ Twitter account produced this gem: “Jay Bruce is on our team because our owner wrote a check that competitors for Jay wouldn’t.”
Whatever his faults (and they were considerable), I can’t imagine George Steinbrenner cheaping out on a Bruce deal over a relatively insignificant amount of money. It’d be ironic if that blunder costs N.Y. the series.
Wrong. It’s on the umpire. It should have been inning over, no grand slam. Girardi is an idiot for not challenging, but how does the umpire not notice that ball supposedly hit his hand painlessly. Duh, it hit the bat.
Everyone knows Cleveland is the better team. It’s not like they needed any help, which they most assuredly got.