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Baseball Primer Newsblog — The Best News Links from the Baseball Newsstand Sunday, October 03, 2021Boston Red Sox to host New York Yankees in AL wild-card game
RoyalsRetro (AG#1F)
Posted: October 03, 2021 at 07:10 PM | 49 comment(s)
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1. Starring Bradley Scotchman as RMc Posted: October 03, 2021 at 08:11 PM (#6043403)*OK, well, the game starts on Tuesday. It might be concluded by Friday.
Meanwhile, "poor" Dodgers with a 106-win season coming down to a single game. But I sympathize even more with Toronto.
Oh well.
I've watched the Giants a few times this year. I have no idea how they won 107 games. They did, can't take it away from them, but geez.
I'd love to see the Dodgers move on and face the Giants, but everyone knows the Cardinals will win. Wainwright will throw 6 innings of one-run ball, Paul Goldschmidt will hit a solo home run, and Yadier Molina will bloop a single into right-center field to score some random guy who no one had heard about before this year but somehow put up a 3-WAR season for the Cardinals.
Yes, I'm a bitter, jaded Angels fan, pissed off at another year getting flushed down the toilet. Sorry for the vitriol.
I'm of mixed minds about that. I'd love to see the Cardinals derail the Dodgers, but then I'd much rather watch the Giants play their historic rivals than have them play a team with which they don't have any really memorable moments.
I'd love to see the "good" Yankees show up and go all the way, but realistically I think the best AL team to hope for would be the Rays or the Astros. But as long as the Braves get a quick knockout by the Brewers, I'll gladly watch any matchup that comes our way. Too bad that foam tomahawks don't cause laryngitis.
That's what sports is about. Teams you love and teams you hate. It's not okay to hate in real life, so I save my hate for terrible, evil teams from Boston and New York (and the Bay Area - screw the Giants and A's).
I need a team to root for, or at least a team to root against. I get neither in the AL Wild Card when I could have had the Blue Jays, who are an incredibly enjoyable team to watch and root for. The last hour of the season yesterday was painful.
But if people dislike the Sox/Yankees that's fine. As vi said, one of them will be eliminated tomorrow and frankly I suspect whichever team wins is likely to be eliminated before Monday.
As a Sox fan . . . Can't Wait!!
I consider the Giants one of the Cardinals' main contemporary postseason rivals.
The Giants have beaten the Cardinals three times since 2000 in the NLCS, the last one featuring the Travis Ishikawa walk-off 3-run homer to win the pennant.
And old timers like me still vividly remember the intense 1987 NLCS, in which the Running Rebirds prevailed over Jeffrey "One Flap Down" Leonard's Giants in seven games despite being out-homered 9 to 2 (and out-stolen-based 5 to 4).
The ball came off Judge's bat at over 104 MPH and Kittredge was in his follow through from about 58' away, so it was kind of lucky he didn't get killed. OTOH if there'd been two outs Judge would've been easily thrown out at first. So yeah, I think the scorer also just decided Whatever and gave Judge a hit for narrative purposes, plus he really did scorch the ball.
I consider the Giants one of the Cardinals' main contemporary postseason rivals.
The Giants have beaten the Cardinals three times since 2000 in the NLCS, the last one featuring the Travis Ishikawa walk-off 3-run homer to win the pennant.
Okay, but only one of those series went the limit, and in that one the Giants won game 7 in a 9-0 laugher. Whereas the Giants and the Dodgers staged two of the most dramatic pennant playoff series in the entire history of baseball, both featuring 4 run 9th inning comebacks in the win-or-go-home game.
And old timers like me still vividly remember the intense 1987 NLCS, in which the Running Rebirds prevailed over Jeffrey "One Flap Down" Leonard's Giants in seven games despite being out-homered 9 to 2 (and out-stolen-based 5 to 4).
That's one I really wish the Giants had one. The Whiteyball Cardinals were my least favorite team ever.
Er, the Mariners had a season run differential of -51, and a 76-86 Pythagorean record, also going 5-9 against the Yankees and Red Sox. They would've been an even flukier playoff team than the '87 Twins.
The Jays had control of their destiny, and then blew it when they could only split with the Twins and the Yankees beat them in their final series. All you can really say about the Jays is Wait Till Next Year.
The two paragraphs reflect different standards of judgment. 1) Four decent teams, now of whom I expect to advance, vied for two spots. In that case, I'd prefer new blood. Deserve's got nothing to do with that opinion. 2) While I know the WC was brought in for the 2-division set-up, it did something to ameliorate the problem of weak division winner, so I would prefer that the play-in, if there is to be one, be among the two teams with the weakest records. I assume there's nothing worng with holding both of these opinions at once, especially on the internet.
After yesterday's game, I went on a b-ref dive. Devers has 110 career homeruns at age 24, which I thought was pretty impressive, and it is, but well out of the all-time top 10. Soto, with 98 homers by age 22, is in the top 10 (#6).
My other favorite factoid that I discovered, Sammy Sosa is the only player since the 1930s (Gehrig, Ruth, Foxx, Hornsby) with multiple seasons of 400 total bases.
Well ok, but your age is showing. The most recent of those 2 games was 59 years ago yesterday (the other was 70 years ago yesterday).
The Cards are a good team and deserve to be in the playoffs. The NL weak link is the Braves. The Dodgers should play them and then the Brewers (assuming they beat Atlanta). The Giants should play the Cards. You'd most likely end up with the Giants v Dodgers LCS, which would be exactly the drama you'd want.
I agree, seeding for the postseason makes all kinds of sense. Too much sense for it to ever actually happen.
That factoid is wrong, though. ;-)
Todd Helton (2000, 2001) also had multiple 400 TB seasons. And your list in parentheses (Gehrig, Ruth, Foxx, Hornsby) needs to add Chuck Klein.
Well ok, but your age is showing. The most recent of those 2 games was 59 years ago yesterday (the other was 70 years ago yesterday).
If recency is your sole criterion for relevancy, then sure.
The Cards are a good team and deserve to be in the playoffs. The NL weak link is the Braves. The Dodgers should play them and then the Brewers (assuming they beat Atlanta). The Giants should play the Cards. You'd most likely end up with the Giants v Dodgers LCS, which would be exactly the drama you'd want.
That'd be my preferred scenario, too, although it's obviously impossible under the current format. The underlying problem is the current power imbalance among the divisions, but then that's subject to change.
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Er, the Mariners had a season run differential of -51, and a 76-86 Pythagorean record, also going 5-9 against the Yankees and Red Sox.
Who was that poster here who used to rail against using pythagorean records?
Guilty as charged, but the Mariners didn't qualify for the postseason no matter which metric you use. OTOH I'm certainly not saying that if the Mariners had qualified for the WC by winning three more games, their sorry Pythagorean record should've disqualified them. I'm perfectly fine with the way it came out.
If the criterion is "playing an exciting game", then yeah I think recency is much more relevant.
That said, if the Giants play the Dodgers in the postseason -- which God and cfb forbid -- then there will probably be drama. But that will be current rivalry rather than the historic background, even if that's meaningful to me and to others who were there.
If there were less than 2 outs, I don't think the fielder had any other choice but to come home.
Wait ... you're a Yankees fan?
Sheeeeit ... you, me and BDC have *got* to catch a game in his VIP seats in the air-conditioned BDCDome next year!
Their batting leverage splits are instructive: they were monsters with 4+ leads, and well below league average late & close. Of course if you think that’s random, then they deserve more wins than they got—but if you think it’s meaningful, then their pythag W/L has a lot of air in it…
If the criterion is "playing an exciting game", then yeah I think recency is much more relevant.
I guess if a requirement for an exciting game is that you had to be there to see it in real time, then sure, that eliminates pretty much every historic game from before you started watching baseball.
The Thomson game? Ancient history. The Merkle game? If there isn't a video, it didn't happen.
We can then apply this standard to ranking presidents and eliminate everyone from George Washington up through Ronald Reagan for most people here, and maybe even up through Clinton.
That said, if the Giants play the Dodgers in the postseason -- which God and cfb forbid -- then there will probably be drama. But that will be current rivalry rather than the historic background, even if that's meaningful to me and to others who were there.
Or maybe it's both, not either / or. Maybe it'd just be the latest chapter in a book that's a lot longer than the book of memorable games between the Giants and the Brewers. Do you really think that the history of the Giants / Dodgers or Yankees / Red Sox doesn't add anything to the drama of those matchups? One of the great attractions of baseball is the way its past informs its present.
Obviously the Thomson game was exciting. Just watching the video of the HR is still exciting. But it has nothing to do with the teams' current rivalry, and that is owing to it being so long ago. They are rivals though--because they are to different degrees excellent franchises in California.
I agree with this, but what Adam said is right. There are lots of fans for whom the rivalry is important, but they don't know the history.
In any case, I was talking about the competitiveness of the teams on the field. That's likely to make an exciting game and is therefore more important. The history can add to that, but that's secondary.
The Giants have a much longer postseason rivalry with the Cards (seriously, how can y'all forget Hunter Pence hitting the ball three times on the same swing, the most Hunter Penceian of plays?)
If the Giants do wind up playing the Dodgers, I'll bet by the time the series starts a lot more fans will have been made aware of that history, at least the fans who don't just tune in for the first pitch.
In any case, I was talking about the competitiveness of the teams on the field. That's likely to make an exciting game and is therefore more important. The history can add to that, but that's secondary.
I agree that even if MLB hadn't begun until 1963, this year's Dodgers-Giants matchup would make for the best possible series.
I got a taste of that rivalry in 1971, when those two teams met in Candlestick in September during a fluke temperature inversion that sent the thermometer up to 104. The Dodgers rallied in the 9th to take an exciting game, but what was really memorable was the way groups of rival fans would parade past fans of the other team, waving the other team's pennant, eliciting great cheers. But then when that first group of fans set fire to the pennant, all hell would break loose. There were fights breaking out in the stands on an almost constant basis, total anarchy that seemed fitting for the intensity of the rivalry.
I only lived in the Bay Area for a few months, so that was the only Giants-Dodgers game I've ever been to, out of the hundreds of games I've seen in person. But in terms of memories, that one is in my top 4 or 5.
Why is it not a wildcard game?
Whoops! I'd looked it up the day before, and was going from (obviously faulty) memory.
Yes I'm with you. I really hope Rafael Devers' 3rd homer tonight doesn't slam into a meteor.
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