Six words.
Big white flag. Big blue W.
(I now return myself to my previously scheduled happy dance!)
Does Arrieta know it’s ok to give up a run occasionally? Jesus, this might be the best sustained pitching effort in MLB history, including Gibson 68.
And he is still so young, with plenty of time to continue developing. Pinch me. We could actually be good for a sustained period of time.
It’s just getting sad. After the heartbreak of 90-92 that ended with the 9th-inning game 7 loss to Atlanta in the NLCS, we had 20 years of sad. Bad signings, very, very bad draft picks, bad trades, and when we did get a good player (Aramis Ramirez), bad payroll management meant we had to trade him for a bucket of batting-practice balls. We once made a mid-season trade for a sad, replacement-level player who retired rather than play for us. “Want to continue playing Major League baseball and make more money than you could possibly make in your fallback career?” “Nah, I think I’ll retire instead.” Just. . .sad.
Then we got good. Good-to-great drafting, good-to-great trades (if you disregard the Jason Bay trade). . .things looked up. But in it’s own way, it was sad too. Every time you read or listened to sports media or message boards, it was, “Oh, and the Pirates are doing pretty good too”. Maybe they’d talk about how we turned things around, but when it came down to important games, the analysts all too frequently said we wouldn’t win. Then the Bucs would prove them right. When given the chance to prove that the Bucs weren’t just a MLB afterthought, they proved they were. Two shutout one-and-done wildcard games in two years, and they were gone before half of the baseball-watching public knew or cared they were in the playoffs. 98 wins and no one thought they had a chance to win the wild-card. Worse, they were right. Again.
Now I look at the pitchers that were supposed to come up this year to bolster the rotation and see that injuries, development, and monetary concerns will keep them down until after the super-2 deadline next year - then they’ll need a few years seasoning before they really hit their stride. I wonder if we can get enough good players together at once to do anything more than tease us. I wonder if there’s any way, EVER, that we can get an ace of the sort that keeps shutting us down in wild card games. We can’t afford to sign one, we can’t (or won’t) trade the farm for a rental, and even when we were among the worst teams in baseball and had very high draft picks, we always seemed to be one pick behind the player we REALLY wanted.
I guess that’s baseball though. If one could just go out and get anything they wanted, then everyone would have a packed roster and a true, shutdown kind of #1 in their rotation. It would be nice to finally get that 1992 monkey off our back though, and really, that’s what I think bugs me the most. I felt (and still feel) absolutely cheated and robbed by that game. If we could win the WS and, in my mind, erase the universe’s cold injustice of that day on 1992, I could go back to enjoying the game and it’s many enjoyable aspects: a great day/evening spent in a beautiful park. Strategies. Pitcher vs batter duels. Double-switches. Sometimes, perhaps most of all, just plain old random, dumb luck. I could maybe stop worrying about winning it all, and just enjoy the game.
Elsewhere, Mark Buehrle, the most valuable active pitcher (by career WAR), is probably going to retire. If he does, his career is basically “Andy Pettitte with worse teammates.”
Not as young as you might think. He’ll be 30 next season. He actually kind of sucked for Baltimore. Not sure what happened in Chicago, but he’s been incredible. He’s pretty much at Pedro 99-00 level where you just know he’s shutting down whoever he faces.
And I did not see the HBPs, but I heard both of Arrieta’s were on off-speed pitches. If so, that’s hardly head hunting.
Almost exactly two years older than Kershaw.
He finished 1.1 innings away from 200IP this season. Had he made it, that would have been the 15th consecutive season that he reached 200IP. Unfortunately he just wore out down the stretch for the Jays and wasn’t able to go deep into the later innings any more.
I agree Buehrle was statistically a lot like Pettite without the ability to win 18 games with an ERA in the high 3’s. Too bad he’s retiring, I love watching pitchers who top out in the mid 80s. They’ve got to be spot on.
Has Theo yelled “Fuck you, Lucchino!” in public yet?
Srsly, it would be *great *to see a banner raised over Wrigley, something no one alive today has ever witnessed. I like that team and will be pulling for them.
I truly hope the Cubs make it past the Cards for a couple of reasons: The Dodgers have a much better record against the Cubs in the last 20 years than they do the Cards, I’d like to see a match-up between Arrieta and Kershaw or Grienke, and I’d like the Dodgers to be the team that puts the nail into another year’s coffin for the Cubs. 
You can only be so good. Arrieta can’t be better than this; there is a theoretical limit. Dwight Gooden couldn’t be better than he was in 1985.
That’s “Cy Young-winning piece of headhunting trash to you”, Mr. Whiny.
The second hit batter was the guy hitting in front of Andrew McCutcheon. Don’t you think if he was going to hit someone, he would rather hit McCutcheon with two outs than give McCutcheon a baserunner?
That place looked like the ninth circle of fratboy Hell.
Don’t count your Greinkes before they hatch.
Despite their classless behavior last night, I feel for the Pirates. I actually grew up rooting for them and remember the '79 Series like it was…well, less than 36 years ago, anyway. Then we moved to the other side of the country, the Bucs moved to the other end of the standings, and I lost touch. Losing this game three years in a row has to be about the suckiest feeling possible. I hope they win it next year (with the Cubs, of course, winning the division).
Now five games against the Cardinals. Damn. I may not sleep for the next week.
Yanno, you could become a Cubs fan with just a little more effort.
20 years of losing? That’s nothing. Who do you think coined the phrase “Anyone can have a bad century”? A Cubs fan that’s who. And in spirit of Ernie Banks, “Why not make it two?”.
True, but “One of three Cy Young contending piece of headhunting trash” just doesn’t have the same ring.
The Pirates won the WCG in 2013 (beat the Reds, 6-2), then won two against the Cardinals, and if they’d scored two more runs on Oct. 7, they’d have been in the NLCS. Not a bad show.