In the late game the Dodgers won one they had pretty easily. Despite a relatively ugly ERA Kershaw pitched well and he was certainly provided coverage for his 4 bad pitches by the offense.
By all the local reporting, it wasn’t cash it was prospects. That and Yanks were expecting Holliday back anyway. It is not as if the Yanks didn’t move at the trade deadline. They brought in some good pieces, silly to kill them for not picking up a questionable player like Bruce, who sure as shit is killing us but who knew?
*Outstanding *performances by Sale, Kluber, and Kershaw. :rolleyes:
Amidst all that excellent pitching, that Cubs - Nats game was just filled with awfulness. 
If the L.A. lineup that we saw in July and August returns, then Kershaw doesn’t have to be great, he can just be okay. In years past, the Dodgers leaned a lot on Kershaw to have big, big games. It would good if Kershaw could enter a game confident of getting some good run support. The reason I’ve been betting against L.A. is I thought that their lineup had lost its swagger and was not scoring against good teams. Last night was a really good sign for Dodger Blue nation.
Well sure, but even mediocre teams can have dazzling hot streaks during the season.
What you’re saying is that ‘skill winning out’ = being a team in the top 1/3 in the first 162 games that has its hot streak at just the right time, during those last 20 games or fewer.
But I come back to my original point: you’re the one who’s saying that the differences in skill levels of the eight teams that are left after the wild-card games are so minute that the team that you regard as the best of the bunch, going in, has only a slightly better chance of winning by playing baseball than they would by flipping coins.
So are the Final Eight really that close to tit-for-tat, talentwise, or is it the structure of the playoffs?
And Jacques Jones, either the hitting coach or assistant hitting coach for the Nats, has been suspended for a legal issue. That happened right before game one.
Coincidentally, Jones was an outfielder for the Cubs when Dusty Baker managed the team. I haven’t crunched the numbers (so to speak), but I wonder how many ex-Cubs are now on Major League coaching staffs.
Nats continued to look dead in the water til they broke out for 5 runs in the 8th, on a mammoth blast by Bryce, then Zimmerman followed with a 3-run shot.
Dusty seemed to make all the right moves tonight as well.
Hope lives on…
Not to pee on your parade, but there were really no special moves for Dusty to make. Gio pitched just well enough to hand it over to mid-relief, and the pen did its job. But more importantly, Harp versus Edwards Jr. was the nightmare match-up for the Cubs. The Cubs won’t win any series easily – they’ll only win if it goes to a fifth and decisive game. But I think they’ll find a way to stretch it to five and win in the final innings of that decisive game.
I thought he did pretty well. I cringed when he put in Solis but he pitched ok. (I would have left Albers in.) Same with Perez.
Dammit. Two nights in a row. Right before I was going to go to bed last night, comfortable with the Dodger lead, Kershaw gives up back-to-backs. Tonight, same situation, Morrow gives up a three-run shot.
Of course, it worked out last night, but…
You must have turned the game on after the first inning. The call on Encarnacion was certainly a close play and was overturned. I don’t know on what grounds the Yankees challenged, but the announcers kept saying he was off the base before calling time-out which was not true, and the glove wasn’t even on him at the time. It’s possible he was off the base between his feet being on it, but you can’t really tell that either and the announcers never even mentioned that.
The pickoff challenge was definitely correct. That one was easy to tell on one of the angles.
And how are you sure enough to call it a “fake hit by pitch” but not know if it would be overturned? I’ve looked at it in super slow motion and the ball probably does hit the bat, but it might well have hit the hand or both. You just can’t tell.
The ball hit the knob of the bat and it would have been overturned on review. It couldn’t have been any clearer; the ball hit the knob and dropped a few inches into Sanchez’s glove. Had a 97mph fastball hit the batter’s hand with enough force to change it’s trajectory, he would have been in obvious pain. It’s absurd to pretend otherwise.
ETA: You might be right on the Encarnacion play. I certainly didn’t see him come off the bag when the tag was applied. It’s possible that the review team had a different angle, but it’s hard to believe it would be enough to overturn the call.
Whoops, scratch that. I thought he was called out for being off the base after he fell over and called time. You can clearly see in the replay that his right foot is off the base and his left steps on Gregorius’s glove before coming back on the bag. Out.
Allegedly he posted revenge porn photos of his ex. Not cool, dude.
Ya, for having major leads the games have been more stress-inducing then the should be.I think it’s because during the losing streak the Dodgers have me programmed to think the worst of them and the D-bags are really good. I’d really like this series to end tomorrow night but beating Grenkie in Arizona is going to be a tough one.
I wound up staying up to watch the end of last night’s game. I am not very good at post-midnight baseball, but I’ll get used to it if it means the Dodgers going all the way.
My guess is that both Greinke and Darvish are on their games tomorrow, and that it winds up being a relatively low-scoring affair that comes down to a bullpen mistake. May it work in our favor.
Won’t the Red Sox ever learn?
Have anyone else pitch the first inning, then bring Fister in. He’s great (well, generally OK) from the second inning* on.
*or maybe the third inning.
Holy shit! More Yankees baseball. Yay!
Whew! That was a squeaker to be sure.