Down the Stretch - AL Style

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Go O's.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

The Second Spitter wrote: Machado fakes out Thompson who gets caught in a run down between 3rd and Home. 2-2, Bot 9th. Watch-out for this play on Baseball Tonight. Go Birds!

Just caught it on MLB Network's cut-in-- bellissima. A beautiful bit of baseball justice, too, as Thompson should've been called out on his steal of second.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

Yeah, he was out by a mile.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Salty homers to lead off the bottom of the 9th. 5-4

[bmfc1]

The Second Spitter wrote: O's win, O's win, O's win!

I just made plans with an old friend to go to the Orioles game on the 24th (if they're still in it). I don't mind the O's and certainly want them to beat out the MFYs so I will do my best to cheer them on. I want to remember what important September games are like.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr wrote: The Second Spitter wrote: Machado fakes out Thompson who gets caught in a run down between 3rd and Home. 2-2, Bot 9th. Watch-out for this play on Baseball Tonight. Go Birds! Just caught it on MLB Network's cut-in-- bellissima. A beautiful bit of baseball justice, too, as Thompson should've been called out on his steal of second.

That was an awesome play. I must have watched it 20 times.

[Frayed Knot]

The late night development from last night was that Oakland took its third straight from Anaheim (game 4 is this afternoon) and now have a full two-game lead on the theoretical loser of the Yanqui/Orioles log jam and are five games ahead of current WC #2 Tampa.
Hell, they're closer to winning their division right now (3 games in back of Texas) than they are to missing the playoffs entirely.

[Edgy MD]

I love me a good second half Oakland surge.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Rays & O's go the 9th tied 2-2

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

The always-reliable Luis Ayala provides a scoreless inning and its onto the bottom of the 10th.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

onto the 12th

[G-Fafif]

O's load bases in 13th with nobody out, can't score.

But it's not the same as the Mets doing that.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

Well, no, it's not. Because they actually score runs at home, and they eventually won.

Your turn, MFYs. (Things Metly aside, this is going to be a fun month.)

[Guest The Second Spitter]

Hey Red Sux, score a frigging run!

[Frayed Knot]

Soxx suxx, what can ya do?
They were lucky enough to get the first game win via the walk-off. Taking two of three was probably too much to ask although they did hang close in all of them. Doesn't help when Pedroia, one of their few real players they have left up there, has to leave in the middle of game 2 because his wife is popping out a kid. When are these players going to learn that they have to abstain from sex in the off-season?!?



It's not like I was watching the entire game(s) so maybe there's a logical explanation, but how does Joe Madden [u:2eppi0u5]Twice[/u:2eppi0u5] wind up losing his DH and needs to have his pitcher batting in the middle of a pennant race - especially during September expanded roster games?
And it's not like I'm watching every Rays game so that's just twice that I happened to see in the last week. It happened in yesterday's game and I saw one last week where the same thing occurred. For all I know there may have been others.
Rays in the Bronx this weekend. Price v Sabathia tonight. Ivan Nova returns tomorrow. Pettitte expected to return on Tuesday.



Final game of ChiSox - Tigers got rained out last night. They'll make it up on Monday but lose the scheduled Verlander-v-Sale match-up.
Both teams now get a break between now and Monday as the Sox go to Minnesota and the Tigers to Cleveland.




Oakland finally lost a road game after 12 straight as tried for a 4-game sweep of Anaheim.
Texas lost too so that race tightens up a bit.

Oakland now hosts Baltimore for the weekend (cross-country flight following a 14-inning game for the O's)
Anaheim is in KC, Texas hosts Seattle.

[Frayed Knot]

Tampa probably played its way out of the playoff picture by getting skunked by the likes of Ivan Nova and Rookie Caroca while losing 2 of 3 to the Yanx and 5 of 6 to their main contenders if you go back to the previous series when they got swept by the O's.
They now sit 5 back of the Yanx & 4 behind Baltimore and 4 back of the 2nd WC spot.
Yeah they were further out last year but also had fewer teams in the way.


ChiSox sweep Minnesota to stretch their Central lead over Detroit to 2 games.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

A horrible thought occurred to me. Adam Dunn's gonna be a Hall of Famer. He's a shoe-in for 500 homers (currently 404) and is a legit chance for 600. His lifetime SLG is > 500.

He's also likely to surpass Reggie's career whiff record in the next two years.

[metsmarathon]

well, that oughtta get some people to rethink the whole 'round number' thingy.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

O's bats have Mets disease tonight.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

Somebody please kill this game.

O's tied it in the 9th. We are at the top of the 18th.

Mariners 0-18 with RISP.

edit: O's finally score a run. Hallelujah.

edit 2: and another run. 4-2 O's.

edit 3:
[youtube:d5px9ucd]L03JVPaZpyc[/youtube:d5px9ucd]

Edit 4: 14th straight in extras for the O's

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Holy shit.

[Guest The Second Spitter]

These Orioles have true grit, but Buck annihilated his bullpen for no good reason by over-managing, specifically PRing for Davis in the 9th after he tied the game (with a single!) and then giving the green light to hitters to hack away with the bases loaded against a pitcher who was throwing change-up after change-up out of the strike zone.

[Guest LeiterWagnerFasterStrongr]

The Second Spitter wrote: These Orioles have true grit, but Buck annihilated his bullpen for no good reason by over-managing, specifically PRing for Davis in the 9th after he tied the game (with a single!) and then giving the green light to hitters to hack away with the bases loaded against a pitcher who was throwing change-up after change-up out of the strike zone.

I saw that inning. That was just plain weird.

[Edgy MD]

I don't get how managers don't use the take sign more. I don't get how hitters don't on their own, but using it strategically as a team in an extra-inning war of attrition is the way to go.

[Frayed Knot]

Just looking over the O's/M's box score, there was a lot of odd stuff going on.

Mostly there was a whole lot of late-inning bunting going on including Seattle players popping out twice trying to bunt runners over. And the only sac bunt that really paid off was Buck bunting while down by two runs with no outs in the 9th. A 2-RBI singled followed but that would have driven me nuts had I been watching.

In the 18th the O's got a lead-off walk and then a single and Buck chose not to bunt either time ... and that paid off for him too with an RBI single and later an RBI ground-out.
Dude is leading a charmed life these days.

Being September each manager was able to trot out 8 pitchers - and Buck, god love him, was able to hold off using his closer until the save situation came around in the bottom of the 18th as the rest of his pen kept the Mariners scoreless from the 6th inning on.

Winning 14-straight extra-innings games (especially with 9 of them being on the road) is just unreal - but they're not undefeated this year in extras. In the first week of the season they lost at home on consecutive days in the 12th & 10th innings to ... the MFYs

[Frayed Knot]

In response to both last night's eight pitcher game and their every-game-counts pennant/WC race, the Orioles are calling up 19 y/o Dylan Bundy.
Bundy, a RHP who was 2011's 4th overall pick in the draft out of a high school in Oklahoma, didn't start his pro career until this season where he began the year in low-A ball (for 8 starts & 30 innings) progressing to high-A (12 starts & 57 innings) and briefly to AA (3 & 17)

[MFS62]

O's manager Buck Showalter doesn't sleep in the office much any more:
http://sports.yahoo.com/news/orioles-manager-buck-showalter-doesn-t-sleep-in-office-much-anymore--even-in-heated-race-with-yankees.html

But after last night's game, he may have wanted to.

Later

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Frayed Knot wrote: In response to both last night's eight pitcher game and their every-game-counts pennant/WC race, the Orioles are calling up 19 y/o Dylan Bundy. Bundy, a RHP who was 2011's 4th overall pick in the draft out of a high school in Oklahoma, didn't start his pro career until this season where he began the year in low-A ball (for 8 starts & 30 innings) progressing to high-A (12 starts & 57 innings) and briefly to AA (3 & 17)

Love it. Please let him be the one who no-hits the MFYs in the play-in game.

[HahnSolo]

In the first game of a day-nighter at MFY Toilet 3, Toronto trailed 3-0 entering the 8th. Despite managing 2 doubles, 2 singles, and a walk in the frame, the Jays only get 2 runs across. Now 3-2 Yanks bottom 8, with old friend Darren Oliver in the game.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

Robertson somehow mixed in two whiffs among the doubles and singles.

Now of course the MFYs add some insurance. Fug.