Quite possibly, yeah. Washington might actually have had the worst bullpen of any postseason team in the history of baseball. My eyeball estimate is that the Nats bullpen cost them at least fifty runs as opposed to an average bullpen. It’s 95% likely that with an average bullpen, they win the division.
Jeez. If you’re playing the Cards, no lead is safe. As a Cubs fan, I can certainly feel for the Braves. You just can’t EVER relax against those fuckers.
On the flip side, if you’re a Cardinals fan, no lead is safe, either. You just can’t EVER relax, even when they go into the bottom of the 9th with a four-run lead and a rested closer.
And the good news is…it is a best of five series.
We hear a lot about the playoff struggles of the Nationals and (recently) the Twins, but before the Oakland-Tampa Bay game recedes too far into the darkness let us pause to reflect on the utterly abysmal playoff record of the Oakland A’s during the last couple of decades.
Beginning in 2000, the A’s have made the playoffs ten of twenty seasons, which is impressive. They have advanced through the first round of whatever playoffs they’ve made once in those ten seasons, which isn’t. Their record in playoff series, counting wild card games as a “series,” is 1-10.
They have played nine winner-take-all games during this span–three wild card games and ALDS Game 5s in 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2012, and 2013. They’ve lost all nine.
They have played 16 games in which they would have moved on to the next round with a victory: the three wild card games and 13 games in which they already had two ALDS wins and just needed one more to advance. They won…one of these games, in 2006 against Minnesota. That record is 1-15. That’s the one that I find most jaw-dropping. 1-15!
Just brutal. Gotta feel for their fans. At least they had that run of success from '88 to '90 and especially in the early seventies, for those old enough to recall…
I can barely remember those great 70s teams of the A’s.
Rollie Fingers
Vida Blue
Joe Rudi
Bert Campaneris
Reggie Jackson
I must be older than you as I remember them, very well! They were a thorn in my side as a National league partisan.
Also I couldn’t stand Charlie Finley and the way he mistreated his team’s players…the firing of Mike Andrews was a particularly egregious example, but there were others.
The Finley-era A’s obviously got all of Oakland’s “good” postseason karma, leaving very little for the Moneyball-era teams.
Catfish Hunter
Blue Moon Odom
Mudcat something (a reliever with a nickname)
Dobson
Sal Bando
Rick Monday
and not that I remember him playing, but those teams had a young soon to be done Tony La Russa IRC.
It’s the worst playoff record in baseball history. Of course prior to 1995 I guess no team would have had the chance to amass such a dismal record, but still.
Hello??? (Knocking on tv) Dodgers? Hello? Clayton, ya need a Red Bull or something.
Dodgers, what the fuck are you doing? What. The. Fuck. Are. You. Doing.
Game 1 in the books for the Yanks. 11 straight vs. the Twins in the postseason.
Scherzer is badass. Always coveted that guy.
The Twins have actually now lost 12 straight playoff games, the all time record.
Make that 12 straight to the Yanks and now 13 overall!
I followed the Twins all summer. They were never built for a playoff run. They lucked into some great hitting but their pitching has been atrocious all year. Everybody here knew once they playoffs started they were done.
Just glad we nabbed the season team home run record away from the Yanks this year.
Gerrit Cole is just ridiculous. 7.2, 4 H, 1 BB, 15 K, 0 ER. Still got interesting towards the end, because the Astros’ bullpen isn’t super-solid. (Though I won’t complain, after seeing Atlanta and Milwaukee screw things up.)
Maybe baseball’s 1st 35 million a year pitcher?
I’ve been a fan of Cole’s since he was at UCLA. I’m pretty happy to see him find himself in Houston after never being really great in Pittsburgh. Good, sure but not at this level.
Last night I bet on the Astros to win.
By 3.
FUCK!