Tampa/Cleveland ALCS IST

[Gwreck]

It takes about 5 minutes (maybe less) to immediately recognize how much better the Brian Anderson/Ronnie announcing team is compared to the awful Davis/Smoltz team.

[Centerfield]

I’ll take the under on that. 

[whippoorwill]

I’m enjoying Ronnie

[Centerfield]

Ridiculous we are being subjected to owner propaganda during the commercials. There is no bottom. 

[metirish]

35 minutes ago, whippoorwill said:

I’m enjoying Ronnie

My favorite post-season crew 

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Ronnie is great but the lead guy shouts way too much, overpowers the moment

[Johnny Lunchbucket]

Cedric Mullins crushed a homer in this game, and Cole Sulser pitched, got beat up

[ashie62]

Guardrails win

Cleveland Milwaukee WS anyone?

Crickets

[Centerfield]

Cleveland Milwaukee World Series would be amazing. 

[Edgy MD]

Go, industrialized, upper-Midwest, Great Lake-adjacent, swing-state cities!

[seawolf17]

I really don't know that I care who wins this series. I guess I know more Guardians fans than Rays fans, but either way, it's a good story.

[Gwreck]

Tampa did everyone the great public service of promptly knocking out the Yankees.  But Cleveland has the longest championship drought in MLB.  There are no bad picks in this series.

[MFS62]

The first baseball game I saw in person was in 1949 when Cleveland played the MFYs.

I think I'll root for them in this series.

Later

[ashie62]

That's crazy, 1966 Angels at Yankees here

[whippoorwill]

Grr cmon guys!

[Frayed Knot]

Rare bad play by Ramirez at 3rd leads to three unearned runs vs Cleveland.

And how 'bout Freddie Peralta tossing five shutout innings? Do we hear six?

[The Hot Corner]

Too bad the Mets can't get a pitcher like Peralta for their rotation.  What? Oh, right ....never mind.

[Frayed Knot]

A 2-out RBI single by Chase DeLauter brings the Guardians to within 3 - 1

This is my (and likely your) first extended look at DeLauter and he looks like he's going to be a good one. Turned 25 a few days ago, rookie season, 1st round (16th overall) draft pick in 2022 out of mighty James Madison University (meaning he was at JMU the same time as my niece), one of those rare guys to debut in the post-season (7 PAs in the 2025 WC series).

All he's done this year is .287/.363/.457 // 820 (131 OPS+) in 133 games/559 PAs

[Centerfield]

Can’t believe Peralta is the same dude that pitched for the Mets this year. 
 

Cant believe the Guardians are the same team we swept after the ASB. 

[Gwreck]

1 hour ago, Centerfield said:

Cant believe the Guardians are the same team we swept after the ASB. 

There was a great item about that series in one of the stories that came out after Cleveland clinched.  The Mets realized that the Guardians’ first baseman had the volume too high on his pitchcom and thus the Mets were able to relay to batters what was coming.

After the series was over the Mets told Cleveland to turn down the volume.

[Frayed Knot]

And yet Cleveland followed up on that revelation by going a less-then-impressive 4 - 7 over the two weeks after the Mets left town. Only after that did they suddenly go on a hot streak winning seven straight en route to a 24 - 11 finish which took them from 5 under .500 to 9 over.  

[Gwreck]

Oh certainly, they had more problems than that.  For what it’s worth, they let up 25 runs to the Mets in that 3 game series, and never got close to giving up that many in a single series for the rest of the year.

[Gwreck]

On another issue, the discussion is a bit thinner than I would like, but finally some news coverage of ticket prices in connection with the empty seats in Tampa:

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7688793/2026/10/14/tampa-bay-rays-alcs-ticket-prices-tropicana-field/
 

The Rays can’t fill the Trop in the ALCS. Fans point to ticket prices
[blockquote]
 

The Rays’ announced attendance for ALCS Game 2 on Tuesday night was 32,125, nearly 8,000 fewer people than the crowd that sold out the Trop for the American League Division Series opener against the Yankees on Oct. 3. There were swaths of concentrated blue empty seats for Game 2, a day after the club also failed to sell out Game 1.

Around game time, the get-in price for upper deck seats on the primary market was $84. Fans said that prices were initially more expensive, leading some to purchase seats from the Rays at a higher cost than they were ultimately sold.

The Rays did not respond to a specific question about how they were addressing fluctuating ticket prices, and if they were reimbursing fans.

Individual clubs are responsible for establishing postseason ticket prices, which MLB has to review and approve.

“I got these (tickets), and then they dropped like a day after I purchased them,” said Travis Thomas, a Rays fan and school teacher who goes to many games. “They cut in half. And then two days later, I could have gotten them a few rows up for a third of the price.”

The concern fans have, said longtime Rays fan and blogger Danny Russell, is that they don’t fully understand the value of the tickets. Some, he said, will spend anything to attend playoff games. But that’s not a universal sentiment.

…

“The pricing and the discounts are unclear,” Russell said. “So people don’t know what fair value is for the seats. Even if there is still availability, they’re trying to decide what is a fair price to get into Tropicana Field.”

…

In the last five days, the Rays’ official X account has tweeted the link to purchase ALCS tickets 15 times. The question for many fans is simple: what will it cost?[/blockquote]