2021 Baseball Post-Season

[Mister Tee]

The quick update on Game 2 is, second verse, same as the first; just switch the teams.

Actually, it wasn't quite the same: rather than build the early lead on home runs, Houston relied on the these-days-rare sustained base hit rally (though, it must be said, aided by some clownish Atlanta fielding). The Astros were ahead 5-1 by the end of two innings, and it was never really a game after that. Both starting pitchers went the new-normal 5 innings, the difference being Houston's Urquidy surrendered only 2 runs, while Atlanta's Max Fried gave up 6. The numbers tell me Fried is a top-level regular-season starter, but you'd never know it from his starts over the past two series. Which again makes one wonder how pitching has been wiped out by the length of this season following last year's abbreviated schedule.

I hardly expected Houston to be swept at home, so Atlanta still has what advantage they grabbed from winning game one. On to Georgia, and we might get a better idea of what sort of series this is.

[Mister Tee]

A few brief words about Game 1 of the World Series, which was a good and awful night for the Braves,

The good: the offense showed up literally from the start, as Jorge Soler (injury-absent from most of the post-season till now) led off with a home run -- apparently the first time the first batter in a World Series has ever done that (garbled info from the announcing team at first made it sound like it was the first lead-off homer ever in a Series game, but I knew right away -- Jeter 2000 -- that was untrue). An additional run scored before the Astros even got to bat.

The Astros attempted a rally in the bottom of that inning -- loading the bases -- but Charlie Morton got out of it without a run scoring. And the Braves, back at the plate, continued to blister most of what Framber Valdez threw up at them (it was clearly not the same Valdez who 3-hit the Sox for 8 innings). By the middle of the 3rd, the visitors had a 5-0 lead, and all seemed smooth sailing.

Charlie Morton had taken a comebacker off his shin in the 2nd, but didn't show negative effects immediately -- he got three more outs, including striking out Altuve to start the 3rd. But, on that strikeout pitch, he fell awkwardly, and was in such obvious pain that he was quickly removed from the game. It later turned out he had a fractured fibula, presumably from the comebacker -- demonstrating that adrenaline can drive athletes to amazing things: he continued to pitch despite an injury that is now going to keep him out till, at least, Spring training next year.

The effect on the game was minimal, as the Braves ran out their A-list relievers. Minter was the bulk guy, pitching three innings that were even better than the box score shows (his one run was "earned" because of the infamous "You can't assume the double play" rule -- the play in question was as tailor-made a double-play as I've ever seen booted). NLCS hero Matzek proved a teeny bit human -- surrendering a run on a triple/ground ball out -- but that only brought the game to 6-2, which is where it ended.

The Braves have thus grabbed a 1-0 Series lead and a shot at home-field advantage. But losing Morton is an undeniable blow, and further scrambles the horrific pitching situation that exists for both teams. The Astros have been playing without their best guy, McCullers Jr., all playoffs-long. There's some question about how sensible it was to push all the way to a 162-game, full-playoffs-slate season, after the brief/aborted 2020, and what role that might be playing in many more pitchers breaking down than usual. We'll see how that affects subsequent games.

That's the lay of the land after Game 1. More as things progress.

[danfrank]

You and I are on the same page as far as Tommy Lasorda goes. The whole “I bleed Dodger blue” shtick was nauseating, and don’t even get my started on his homophobia. Speaking of Dodger blue, I even hate that shade of blue. Give me a respectable Yankee blue, and god knows I’m no Yankee fan, any day.

Okay, rant over.

[Mister Tee]

I'll piggyback on some of danfrank's responses.

2) They are the long-time rivals of my beloved Giants (kidding, sort of);

No need to apologize for this. Much inter-team hatred springs from simple rivalry. (My hatred for the Red Sox has lots of additional reasons, but it goes back to fights over AL supremacy.) The Giants/Dodgers history of fighting for the NL pennant from different boroughs created this, and it has lived on since the West Coast moves.

3) They’ve had a squeaky clean image with players like the hated Steve Garvey;

Steve Garvey, who, let's not forget, turned out to be a complete phony -- cheating on his Barbie-doll wife to the extent of having a separate family that was kept under wraps till it exploded in scandal.

My particular issue with the team comes from that era, partly from Garvey, but mainly from Lasorda, who I thought was the phoniest human I ever saw (outside of the entertainment business). He was a showboat for the cameras, but had a mean streak underneath -- and, I'm sure dan will recall, he essentially denied his gay son until the kid died of AIDS.

5) They have and have had among the highest payrolls in baseball and thus are considered a bought team (this is partly true but it is also true that they’ve long had a strong farm system where they develop young players);

This particular team has a goodly number of home-grown players, but they went out and grabbed Mookie Betts and David Price from the Red Sox, won their ersatz World Series, and, after THAT, got truly piggy, snapping up Scherzer, Trea Turner, and Trevor Bauer (the latter a mistake everyone else knew to avoid).

6.They win too much. People hate teams that win too much.

Speaking from experience. The Yankees could win nothing for 30 years, and people will still say they hate them because they always win. It's the legacy of success. The Dallas Cowboys get the same treatment.

Right now, the Dodgers have been in the playoffs pretty much every year for the last decade, and people are sick of them. This can change with time. In the 1970s, the Pittsburgh Pirates were the "I'm tired of them" team. Now, it's so long since they even sniffed a competitive season, they'd be everyone's cuddly underdog rooting interest.

[danfrank]

danfrank wrote
Part of me is happy for the Braves, and I certainly didn’t want the Dodgers to win, but a big part of me has a hard time pulling for a team whose incredibly un-woke fans continue to do that godforsaken so-called tomahawk chop. I cringe every single time. Every. Single. Time. Rosario did have a helluva series.

Can somebody inform me why everyone hates the Dodgers? I'm very new to baseball. All I know is that when the Dodgers win, I get a free cheeseburger from my favorite bar, and when they lose... it still happens sometimes anyway.

Also, what is a wild card game and why do they have them?

Well, everybody doesn’t hate the Dodgers, of course. They have a huge fan base, including beyond the hugely populated LA basin. When I’ve traveled in Mexico, for example, I see more Dodgers caps than anything else. This may be a remnant from when the Dodgers had the megastar Mexican player Fernando Valenzuela. In Spanish they pronounce the name something like “doe-yairs.”

To answer your question, though, the reason that lots of people hate the Dodgers include:

1) They left Brooklyn to go to Los Angeles;
2) They are the long-time rivals of my beloved Giants (kidding, sort of);
3) They’ve had a squeaky clean image with players like the hated Steve Garvey;
4) Their fans are not considered true diehard fans, e.g., they show up in the third inning and leave by the eighth, they seem to pay.more attention to throwing beach balls around or doing the wave than watching the actual game;
5) They have and have had among the highest payrolls in baseball and thus are considered a bought team (this is partly true but it is also true that they’ve long had a strong farm system where they develop young players);
6.They win too much. People hate teams that win too much.

This is a partial list. As for the wild card, it was invented so that more teams play in the postseason. It used to be that the two teams with the most wins in the National League and American League would meet in the World Series. Then they divided each league into two divisions allowing 4 teams to compete, and then they divided each league into three divisions, necessitating a wild card team (the team with the most wins that didn’t win their division). Finally they added a second wild card to each league, where the two wild card teams play a single game to move forward. It’s about money and pleasing the fans.

[Sabin]

danfrank wrote
Part of me is happy for the Braves, and I certainly didn’t want the Dodgers to win, but a big part of me has a hard time pulling for a team whose incredibly un-woke fans continue to do that godforsaken so-called tomahawk chop. I cringe every single time. Every. Single. Time. Rosario did have a helluva series.

Can somebody inform me why everyone hates the Dodgers? I'm very new to baseball. All I know is that when the Dodgers win, I get a free cheeseburger from my favorite bar, and when they lose... it still happens sometimes anyway.

Also, what is a wild card game and why do they have them?

[danfrank]

Part of me is happy for the Braves, and I certainly didn’t want the Dodgers to win, but a big part of me has a hard time pulling for a team whose incredibly un-woke fans continue to do that godforsaken so-called tomahawk chop. I cringe every single time. Every. Single. Time. Rosario did have a helluva series.

So, none of the three most successful teams in the regular season, all with 100 or more wins, make it to the World Series, and only one of them made it to the LCS. This is especially glaring in the NL, where the Giants and Dodgers tied or beat their all-time season records for wins. It seems that in recent years it is not an unusual phenomenon for wild card teams or lesser division champions to have more postseason success than the teams who are most dominant in the regular season. What gives? Running out of steam? The Dodgers pitching staff certainly appeared fatigued in the LCS after incredible domination up until that point. Baseball is about pacing over an incredibly long season, which is why calling the Dodgers the current world champions is laughable. The Dodgers now have the dubious distinction of being a team who have been dominant over the last 9 years or so but who trip up at or near the finish line. Kinda like the Braves of the 90s.

[Mister Tee]

I can't get the picture to post here, but Tyler Matzek's Wikipedia page (until someone notices) reads "Matzek has the largest shlong in MLB history".

No one who watched him pitch tonight will argue. He had the key moment in the game -- coming in with the Dodgers trailing 4-2 (having just scored the second run), 2nd & 3rd, no outs. All he did was strike out the side on 11 pitches...including two former MVPs (okay, Pujols' MVP years are pretty distant by now). The Dodgers pretty much went quietly after that.

The other hero was Eddie Rosario, with his 2-out 3-run homer in the 4th. (What is it with the Braves and their 4th innings this series?) Rosario, a mid-season acquisition, had an otherworldly series, OPS-ing over 1.600, and was the easy series MVP choice.

After the way the Braves have lost in the past two seasons -- blowing a 3-1 lead last year, that grisly 1st inning against the Cards in 2019 -- as well as their long stretch of division winning yielding only one championship, I can't feel anything but happy for the franchise. And they of course become my instant hope to block the path of the Houston Trashbangers.

So, once again, there will not be a repeat World Champion (the Dodgers would have been an iffy one anyway, given the circumstances of last season). As noted on air, the last repeating champion came 21 years ago (I think I can tell you the name of the team involved). For the NL, it goes back even further: the Big Red Machine of 75-76 are not only the last NL team to repeat as World Champs, they're the only ones in, now, a century (the only previous one being the NY Giants of 1921-22). In the AL, we of course have strings of 5 and 4 (the '49-53 and '36-39 Yankees), 3 ('72-74 A's, '98-2000 Yankees), and multiple doubles ('27-28/'61-62/'77-78 Yankees, '92-93 Blue Jays) over that span.

For those interested: 7 NL teams have won a single championship and got back to the Series the following year, but fell short trying to repeat. Fully 5 of them were foiled by the Yankees: the Cardinals in '43, Dodgers in '56, Braves in '58, Braves in '96, Phillies in '09 -- the others were the '66 Dodgers (lost to the Orioles) and '68 Cardinals (fell to the Tigers).

[Sonic Youth]

It's a good evening to be a Yankee fan.

[Mister Tee]

One cheating squad down, one to go. In the end, I wanted the Red Sox to lose more than I wanted the Astros to lose -- though if a way could have been arranged for both to go down, I'd have been for it.

It was a 1-0 game through 5 -- Eovaldi had a slightly wobbly start, yielding that 1 run, but was otherwise solid, including a 4th inning where he escaped a 2nd-and-3rd/no out situation by striking out the side. But he was no match for Garcia, who, after a the game's first runner reached on a third strike that got past his catcher, allowed no more on base till 2 outs in the 6th.

Houston scored a second run in the bottom of the 6th on a play I've never seen before. Runners on 1st and 3rd, no outs. Ball hit on a line to first base. Schwarber caught it on a hop -- but he screened out the base runner at first, who didn't know whether to run to 2nd or not. Schwarber thus tagged out the runner (Correa), and stepped on 1st for the second out. But the runner on 3rd wasn't screened out, so he knew to break for the plate, and Schwarber's throw was a lick too late to catch him. Thisclose to a triple play, but the run scored.

Boston had its best chance in the 7th -- 1st and 3rd, 1out -- but pinch-hitter Shaw struck out and the runner was caught trying to get to 2nd, and that was that. Oh, in the bottom of the 8th, Adam Ottavino justified the Yankees' letting him go: giving up a 3-run homer that iced the game and the pennant.

Really counting on the National League to stave off the embarrassment of the cheating squad hoisting the trophy. The Dodgers got the bad news today that Scherzer will not be available for tomorrow's game, which certainly seems to tilt the Braves' way. But, of course, you never know till tomorrow gets here.

[Sabin]

Mister Tee wrote
It's actually weird -- and somewhat heartening -- to hear that are such passionate Dodger fans. For many decades, the cliche about the team's fans is that they would leave in the 8th inning of a no-hitter to beat traffic.

Oh, they all do that. And then they go right to my bar.

[Mister Tee]

Last night, I got yelled at at the Dodger bar I go to for going in there without my Dodger hat. I explained I bought the Dodger hat because I wanted to be nice. I'm not really a hat guy. They didn't outright say it was my fault that I came in without my hat and then the Braves got those last four runs, but that was generally the vibe I got.

So, I'm staying in tonight.

NOTE: I showed up in my hat, and everyone loves me. Is this baseball?

It's actually weird -- and somewhat heartening -- to hear there are such passionate Dodger fans. For many decades, the cliche about the team's fans is that they would leave in the 8th inning of a no-hitter to beat traffic.

Anyway, if you'd shown up hatless last night, they might have blamed you for Freeman's 1st inning home run, but there was nothing after that to complain about. For the second day running, the team playing a bullpen game outpaced the team using a traditional starter, chiefly because the starter didn't have much going. The Dodgers came back quickly from the early deficit, and, even when it was only 6-2, the Braves' chances seemed remote, as they couldn't get anything going against a succession of Dodger relievers -- it turned out, those 2 runs in the 1st were all they could muster. A late inning barrage put the game fully out of reach, as Pollock and Taylor combined for 5 home runs in the game.

I'm not sure what lesson to take from this. I hardly expected the Dodgers to fall in 5 games, so this win on home turf isn't exactly startling. And they remain the best-credentialed team. The Braves, though, still have that significant games-lead, and are returning home. The memory of last year's fumble is presumably stronger today than it was yesterday, but, until the Dodgers win Game 6, it won't become full-on threat.

[Sabin]

Last night, I got yelled at at the Dodger bar I go to for going in there without my Dodger hat. I explained I bought the Dodger hat because I wanted to be nice. I'm not really a hat guy. They didn't outright say it was my fault that I came in without my hat and then the Braves got those last four runs, but that was generally the vibe I got.

So, I'm staying in tonight.

NOTE: I showed up in my hat, and everyone loves me. Is this baseball?

[Mister Tee]

I see everybody already knows what happened yesterday, but a quick summary of a day that definitively demonstrated that a change in momentum is absolutely/absolutely not a thing.

I'd been noting to people on a baseball blog how this post-season was the least starter-dominated I could remember. Part of this is style-choice (the Rays have long worked with openers and other gimmicks, to downplay reliance on starting pitchers), and some of has been of-necessity (the Dodgers being without Kershaw, and having used Scherzer to close in the SF series). Whatever the reason, it seemed the Bob Gibson-to-Madison Bumgarner tradition, of starters going as deep in games as humanly possible, was a thing of the past.

Naturally, my having pointed that out, Framber Valdez pitched the best game of the post-season (maybe for several post-seasons), holding the Red Sox to 1 run on 3 hits over 8 innings. Chris Sale, who's been...er...unimpressive since his return from surgery, almost matched him through 5 innings -- allowing just a solo homer by Alvarez. But in the 6th, a walk and shoddy defense drove him from the mound, and his successors allowed a 5-run inning that effectively put the game away. So...the Red Sox, whose fans, 48 hours ago, thought they were waltzing into the Series, now head back to Houston having to win both games there to advance.

I'd wager the Dodgers thought they'd similarly reverse their fortunes -- capitalizing on their late rally the day prior to tie the series. With 20-game winner (that rare animal, these days) Julio Urias on the mound, and the Braves cobbling together a bullpen game, they had to be wildly optimistic. But Urias might be a victim of the pitching staff manipulation the Dodgers have resorted to in the past week: he's been used in relief/partial-relief, and may not have had his maximal command for this start. He allowed 3 solo homers over the first two innings; a subsequent RBI single and sacrifice fly upped the Braves to a 5-0 lead. Even with that, we got to the last innings with exactly the same situation as the day prior: Braves leading 5-2. And, just like the day prior, a team scored 4 tuns in its final at-bat -- only, this time, it was the Braves adding 4 runs to that 5-2 lead, turning the game into a laugher.

Braves fans are surely fully aware that their team took this same 3-1 game lead last year, only to watch the Dodgers march to the Series. So, no one is cocky. But there are notable differences: last year, the final two games were in Dodger Stadium; now, because the Dodgers were held to the Wild Card, Atlanta will host those games (if the series even gets back there). And the Dodgers aren't at full strength -- Kershaw and Muncy were already missing, and Justin Turner's hobble off the field last night suggests he's done for the year, as well. (The Braves would of course respond, yo: Acuna Jr.) In any case, things are far from over...but the Dodgers' chance at defending their asterisked championship could be slipping away.

[Sabin]

Baseball’s the worst