Good weekend for the Orioles. After losing four in a row to Boston, Baltimore managed to sweep Arizona in a three-game series. The Tigers were also beaten by Kansas City. The O’s now have a 1.5 game lead over Detroit in the wild-card.
I’d be excited to see a wild-card game between Baltimore and Toronto. That way, even if the Orioles lose, I’d have the benefit of seeing my backup team in the playoffs.
Boston is on fire at the end of the season. They’ve now won 11 games in a row.
Culberson deserves multiple blowjobs from starlets, and Seager just locked Rookie of the Year.
If the Dodgers are smart, they’ll start every game from here on with a recorded Vin declaring “It’s time for Dodger baseball!”
Forget RoY. Seager for MVP.
Seager would be a worthy MVP choice. They’ll give it to Kris Bryant, though, which is fine, too.
The argument will be in the AL, where, again, Mike Trout is statistically the best player in the league, but plays for a team so abysmal that there will be every impetus to give the award to someone from a team that actually wins games.
In case you missed it yesterday, Boston got 11 straight strikeouts against the Rays, for a new record. You would never guess Eduardo Rodriguez and Heath Hembree were the culprits, though. Tampa Bay went over two hours without putting the ball into play, and ended the game with 23 K’s total. It still went into 10 innings, with the Sox winning because the Rays catcher dropped the ball on his third tag attempt on Pedroia at the plate.
Kluber left the Indians-Tigers game with “right groin tightness.”
Not good. Gah.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such futility in the pursuit of a wild-card playoff spot as that exhibited by the pitiful wrecks in the NL.
The Cards got embarrassed yesterday by the Reds, the Mets keep finding ways to lose pitchers (next up for Noah Syndergaard - a middle ear infection?) and S.F. continues to grind out losses.
The Cubs won their 100th game last night, their first 100-win season since 1935 (almost exactly two lifetimes ago for me).
And the Sox magic number dropped to 1 thanks to the Yankees top of the ninth rally.
SHITFUCK! Nats catcher Wilson Ramos is out for the rest of the year with a torn ACL. That hurts. Between him and Strasburg, Murphy, and Harper, those are four big guns that are injured. At least Murphy and Harper might come back.
Thank God we’ve still got Trea Turner, Jayson Werth, Max Scherzer, and Anthony Rendon.
With a significant contribution from their bullpen.
So the Mariners basically knocked the Astros out of contention last night, and the Astros returned the favor tonight. Basically all that’s left for the season is to see if Jose Altuve can drive in 4 more runs in the last 4 games to get a buncha nice round numbers in his final season stats.
CBS sports is reporting that the Cubs and Theo Epstein have agreed on a 5 year contract extension
If the Red Sox could have done that, Theo wouldn’t have had to sneak out of Fenway on the last day of his contract - Halloween - wearing a gorilla costume to avoid the press.
Is this as weird as it looks?
Here are some stats for the MLB division leaders:
Games Runs scored minus
Team above .500 runs allowed
Cubs 55 252
Texas 28 8
Washington 27 151
Red Sox 27 190
Cleveland 25 95
Dodgers 23 98
How in heck can Texas have the second-best record in baseball with such a pitiful run differential? Has this sort of thing ever been done before?
Texas are 36-11 in 1-run games this year. That is off the charts. While there are probably some particular team characteristics that can help a team in close situations, your W-L record in close games like this is, in considerable measure, a function of luck.
They are about 13 games ahead of their X W-L, based on runs scored and conceded. Seattle has scored basically the same number of runs as Texas, has conceded about 50 fewer runs, and yet are 9 games back in the standings.
There’s a discussion of Texas’ unprecedented success in close games, from late August, at fivethirtyeight.com. Note that the article also singles out the 2012 Orioles, who had a 16-2 record in extra innings, and a 29-9 record in 1-run games. Baltimore beat the Rays into the Wild Card by three games that year, but the Rays should have been about 8-10 games ahead of the Orioles.
A real nailbiter in Toronto tonight, with an absolutely HUGE late-inning victory for the Orioles.
Baltimore was down 2-0 going into the 8th. Mark Trumbo hit a solo shot in the 8th, and then Hyun Soo Kim hit a 2-run, pinch-hit home run in the 9th. Britton notched his 47th save (from 47 opportunities!) to keep the Orioles one game up on Detroit in the race for the second Wild Card spot.
I’m still rooting for an all-birds Wild Card game between Toronto and Baltimore, and i’d be even happier if the Orioles managed to pass the Blue Jays and get home field advantage.
Just realized, too, that Kim’s home run officially knocked the Royals out of playoff contention.
Even in Baltimore lost tonight, it was going to be almost impossible for Kansas City, but the Orioles win makes it mathematically impossible.
Sure, teams have gotten lucky before.
The Royals in 1985 won the division allowing more runs than they scored. It happens from time to time.
That was the most Red Sox way to win a division. I’m thrilled they won, but their bullpen is so shaky that I can’t see them getting past the ALDS. Hitting will only take you so far. Still, it’s better than last place. 