Ohh, misread the question. So I obviously know my team’s single-season strikeout record holder is Gerrit Cole with 316+. I would not have known J. R. Richard (314) had held it previously, but was not surprised to read it.
Your head is really going to explode when you see the pitch that C.B. Bucknor decided was strike three.
Also, the Rangers is the easiest. C’mon, the guy is Mr. Strikeout.
I"m not offended by it, but Minor should be embarrassed. 200 strikeouts? That’s what we’re celebrating here? Congrats - you’re 23rd on the season with 200 Ks, and 116 behind the leader. It’s a nice round number I guess.
Yes, it is a minor accomplishment.
Playoff teams are now set, although Tampa and Oakland are still playing to see who hosts the wild-card game and Milwaukee could still catch St. Louis for the NL Central. Cleveland is the best team to be eliminated without some kind of playoff since 1993. Minnesota makes the fourth and final 100-win team, as Atlanta now can’t reach 100. Teams in the AL playoffs will average more than 100 wins.
Oakland holds the tiebreaker over Tampa Bay, so the Rays need to make up a game.
Houston has the home field for the entire playoffs unless they lose their last two games and LA wins theirs.
The Tigers will fail to win fifty games. Baltimore failed to win 50 last year; even counting strike seasons, this is the first time in the expansion era that, for two straight years, there is a less-than-50-wins team.
200 Ks is rather less of an accomplishment than it used to be.
Pete Alonso just hit home run #53, setting the rookie record. It’s too bad his spectacular season didn’t include a postseason game.
Day the last, and the only undecided thing is which NL Central team has to go to Washington for the wild card. The Cubs have been doing their best to screw up the end of the Cardinals’ season, but Milwaukee hasn’t been able to take advantage. If Milwaukee wins and St. Louis loses, they have to play a one-game playoff to see who has to play another one-game playoff. In the records department, Verlander got his 300th strikeout of the season and 3,000th career strikeout yesterday. I think I still have him as my CY pick but it’s close.
And, the Brewers blew a huge chance last night. The Cubs were beating the Cardinals, and Milwaukee was up 2-0 going into the bottom of the 8th. They gave up a run in the 8, then another one the 9th which tied things up…and then gave up another in the bottom of the 10th to lose the game. :smack:
Really close. Gerrit Cole: Gerrit Cole Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More | Baseball-Reference.com. Justin Verlander: Justin Verlander Stats, Height, Weight, Position, Rookie Status & More | Baseball-Reference.com
We’re agreed it’s between those two, right?
Honestly, I give Cole the nod here, even with higher WHIP and fewer wins. His FIP is half a run better than Verlander’s. Better ERA by a skosh, too. Let’s see how he does today.
Shame one of them has to lose.
Joe Maddon gets fired 2 hours before the final game (with a press conference, no less!), Cubs sleepwalk through nine innings, Cards win 9-0 to clinch.
Maddon’s contract was over. He wasn’t fired. He was just allowed to become a free agent.
As a Cub fan, I’m torn. I like Maddon, and apart of me wants him to be manager for life (assuming he agrees). He did something that most other managers couldn’t do. But I also understand the need to move on.
As if the Pirates couldn’t sink even farther:
Pittsburgh Pirates fire manager Clint Hurdle
There’s only one person who needs to be fired, and it ain’t Hurdle.
Hurdle has managed there nine years so, honestly, it was time.
As smarter people than me have pointed out, managers are disproportionately successful in their first years on the job. After nine years it’s unlikely Hurdle would help the Pirates.
So now that their full seasons are in the books (though at the time I’m writing, bbref hasn’t updated for Cole’s last start), we have
Verlander 21-6, 2.58 ERA, 223 IP, 300 K
Cole 20-5, 2.50 ERA, 212.1 IP, 326 K
Looking further, Verlander gave up 64 ER in 223 IP while Cole gave up 59 ER in 212.1 IP - meaning Verlander gave up 5 more earned runs in 10 2/3 innings pitched, which is about a 4.22 ERA - that’s not great, but good enough for a pitcher to easily stay on a major league roster. To me, that says Verlander’s extra innings pitched make up for Cole’s slightly better ERA.
Against that, you can weigh that Cole had a truly historic season in terms of dominance - a strikeouts/nine innings that we’ve only seen before from guys who only pitch one inning at a time. I would not blame anyone for weighing this dominance more heavily than Verlander’s very slight edge in value.
One further data point is that Verlander only allowed 2 unearned runs, while Cole allowed seven; that’s the kind of thing that I don’t usually weigh very heavily, but when it’s this close, it gives Verlander an edge. I would also be curious to know how the two of them were supported by their bullpen. I’m pretty sure that info is out there, but I don’t know where to look.
My gut, ex rectum feeling is that JV got hung out to dry more often by the sometimes-shaky Astros bullpen, more often than Cole. I also remember Cole having a pretty meh April. Lately, he’s been utterly dominant, more consistently than JV, IMHO. I think Cole’s FIP being significantly lower than JV’s, despite the greater number of unearned runs, is a significant difference. If JV could just not give up as many HRs, I’d vote for him, but he gave up a surprising amount for a pitcher as otherwise dominant as he was.
I don’t think you could go wrong voting for either guy.
The Cubs (i.e. Epstein) essentially are saying “We don’t want Joe Maddon to be managing the Cubs any more, which is why he wasn’t offered a contract extension. But he wasn’t fired. We’re just going separate ways.”
It was almost handled semi-gracefully, except for someone’s need to announce it before the end of the season.
Ask anyone here in Pittsburgh though – Nutting hasn’t done jackshit for the fans, or given him anything to work with. When Gerrit Cole left, he basically said as much, although without naming any names.
The guy should sell the team to someone who actually CARES.
(My mother knows the guy personally, and the way they went about it was disgraceful)
And St. Louis is the scene of yet another legendary sports departure.
During the second half of the football Cardinals final game of the 1985 season, Cardinals owner Bill Bidwill changed the locks on coach Jim Hanifan’s office door - locking Hanifan out while he was still on the field.
After the baseball Cardinals miraculously won the 1964 World series, owner, brewer, and sportsman Gussie Busch called a press conference to announce he was signing Card’s manager Johnny Keane to a new contract.Fed up with the backstabbing by the front office during the season, Keane had handed Busch his resignation, but Busch didn’t bother to read the letter until moments before the conference started.
Enos Slaughter famouslycried when the Cardinals traded him. Stasn Musial said when he ran into Slaughter in the parking lot, Musial cried, too.