Way to go Cubs! I’ll be pulling for them.
What did he say now?
so glad Strop and Rondon didn’t blow it for the Cubs
Greinke vs deGrom both on full rest this should be a great game 5. My biggest concern is that Greinke hasn’t done a complete game yet this year so it’ll still come down to our dumpster fire of a bullpen.
Hanson looked pretty solid tonight; he’s about the only middle reliever I have any faith in. Jansen looked his very best in the 9th (even if his fastball was off 1-2 mph).
If the Doyers do win, I would say the Cubs have a great shot of getting to the Series. When would be the soonest they can throw Kershaw, Game 3? Scary.
I predict Mattingly & Puig both gone next year.
Donald Trump was live-tweeting during the Democratic debate (not that I was paying attention to what he had to say), but he asked, “Who is winning the debate?”, and Curt Schilling replied, “ISIS.”
As I’ve said in other threads, I’ve never forgiven Red Sox ownership for how Tito and Theo’s departures were handled four years ago. As such, since my primary team has been out of it for months, it warms that little “told you so” spot in my heart greatly to see Theo enjoying success elsewhere–you don’t know what you got 'til it’s gone. And the string of increasingly bad decisions since he left in '09 would suggest to me that Jed Hoyer was massively underappreciated as well. Good on them both. Go Cubs, for a little while anyway.
Oh. Hell. Yeah…
Kansas City is going nuts for todays game with the Astros.
Anyone know the mood in Houston after Mondays game? How about today?
Or it was a late slide causing Utley to miss on the back side, or as you say he just didn’t touch it due to lack of coordination, focus on breaking the double play or whatever. Regardless, if the runner doesn’t touch base while going off course, which he did, he never slid across the base like one normally does, then it’s interference. It should have been ruled interference per the interference rules, but this wouldn’t also involve a suspension unless the injury was ruled intentional. As I said, I’m not sure it was intentional as it happened spur-of-the-moment, Utley isn’t the most athletic base runner and was nearly injured himself.
I couldn’t care less about the Cardinals, but I will say that I think they should have been playing the Mets. It’s kind of BS that the team with the best record in baseball gets to play either the team with the 2nd or 3rd best record (Pirates or Cubs). Meanwhile, the - for all intents and purposes - 4 and 5 seed teams in the NL get to play each other in the division series.
It used to be that a division champ couldn’t play the wild card team if they were from the same division. That would have solved it this year, but really I think they should just seed teams after the 1 game series based on record.
Same here. I suspect most Red Sox fans have probably adopted the Cubs for this October. It would be great to see them enjoy their own 2004, even vicariously. There’s a lot pent up there, ready for release.
And we may hear more than we’d ever want to aboutBack to the Future II before it’s all over. 
Seeding based only on record, without regard to divisional standing, ignores that records amassed in different divisions are not directly comparable. I agree that teams from the same division should ideally not play each other before the LCS. In any case, reseeding at any point after the postseason begins opens the door to some real logistical headaches.
I initially said I don’t like the 1 game series to begin with, but that would have eliminated the Cubs from the postseason entirely this year. That would have been a real shame. But it just doesn’t seem right the Cardinals were actually hurt by having the best record and doing it in the toughest division.
I predict you’re half-right. Puig isn’t happy with the Dodgers since they traded all his friends, so I see him being traded during the off-season. Donny has a year left on his contract and has taken the Dodgers to winning the division 3 years in a row, something no other manager has done. So why would they fire him?
As for Thursday night - if Grienke can hold it together through 7 2/3 innings, we can turn it over to Jansen again.
Go, Blue!
This assumes the Dodgers have now figured out how to score runs off of deGrom, which is not an assumption I’m willing to make.
Why? Because they won a series and Chicago is excited? That could have happened if playoff teams had been drawn from a hat. Bob Costas posited this very scenario years ago, and the exemplar team was the Cubs. “Poets weep over the beauty of October baseball at Wrigley Field. Does this justify the Cubs’ inclusion?”
And then the Cardinals would have had to play Chicago in the NLCS or a Los Angeles team that was good enough to beat Chicago. One way or another the path to the World Series trophy takes you through the best of the best. If the Cardinals weren’t good enough to beat the Cubs they weren’t good enough.
I’d be okay with going back to the rule that wild card teams cannot play the champion of their own division just for the sake of it seeming weird.
I never really understood that former rule.
- The division winner has just finished proving themselves better than the second-place team all year long. Why should they have to immediately do it again in a short series?
- Shouldn’t the League Championship Series ideally be played between the two best teams of the league? This could be two teams from the same division; the way to know that is to see them face the winners of the other divisions.
Boy, was that ever a completely unrealistic hope! Even knowing the outcome I stayed up until 2 am watching and it was time so well spent.
OK, I withdraw the “have not” bit! Of course Yankees fans look down on everyone, but do Red Sox fans still care?
How can anyone hate the Cubs? 
What did they ever do to you? OK, there was the 2003 NLDS, but it’s not like there’s a short list of teams that have eliminated the Braves from the playoffs in recent years.
Feeling slightly conflicted here as my in-laws are big Mets fans. Hate to root against them, but it would certainly make for less complicated family dynamics if we got to play the Dodgers in the NLCS.