NLDS IST - Cubs vs Nationals

[Guest d'Kong76]

Or not.

[Frayed Knot]

Nats have now scored 12 runs in this series, 10 of them coming on three swings: Harper 2R HR, Zimmerman 3R HR, Taylor 4R HR

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

Whoever wins Game 5 will be my NL pennant favorite.

[Frayed Knot]

Contrary to Gerald Ford, their long Nationals nightmare is definitely NOT over.
They've just been inventing ways to allow runs tonight. And the Cubs, while hitting better tonight than in most of this series, still aren't exactly ripping the cover off the ball.



Ooof, I think HP ump Jerry Layne just got that four tip in his ears and in his eyes.

[Guest d'Kong76]

These things do drag on when you have minimal rooting interest. This game
is gonna end like 12:30 at this pace.

[Edgy MD]

Pushing four hours and it's the top of the eighth.

I'm not sure rooting interest is the issue. This game would be a slog if it was the 1969 Mets against the 1986 Mets.

[Frayed Knot]

One thing Manfred has said he wants to reign in is mound visits - and I'm all in favor of it.
Commercial breaks between innings and during pitching changes are one thing, but at one point I timed it at a full two minutes between the final pitch to one batter and the first pitch to the next
simply because the team in the field decided they needed a committee meeting before proceeding. That kind of stuff can't continue.

And as I type a new mound meeting is going on.

[Frayed Knot]

And now another mound conference.

[Edgy MD]

Whatever they're conferring about isn't helping. Call out the fart police.

[Edgy MD]

And a challenge. That should accelerate matters.

[Frayed Knot]

There's no way I would have overturned that challenge based on what I/we saw.

[Guest d'Kong76]

The dual-sync'd shot they showed later was pretty good.

[Edgy MD]

Davis pulling out the knuckle curve like he's Pete Falcone.

[Edgy MD]

And KA-POW!!!

[Guest d'Kong76]

Let's go Astros!!!

[Edgy MD]

Mets might want to hire a new manager before the Nats fire Baker and beat New York to their man.

Just kidding. The Nats are more likely to pull a bad manager off the market.

[Frayed Knot]

For such a good team over the last 5-6 years, the Nats have had a horrid record of futility come October.

[MFS62]

Frayed Knot wrote: For such a good team over the last 5-6 years, the Nats have had a horrid record of futility come October.

That really brings a tear to my eye.
(S/M = 96)

LAter

[Fman99]

Once in a while I work a split shift, I go home after lunch, and nap, and then return to work and do some trainings for our off shift engineers, and work a 8 PM-midnight shift, and yesterday happened to be one of those days.

So I got to come home and watch the 9th inning and see the Nats season end. And I'm 100% cool with that. I will root for the Cubs to beat the Dodgers as well. Because of Face Buttley. Fuck that guy.

[Frayed Knot]

So it's safe to say that the Max Scherzer experiment didn't quite work out last night.
In fairness to him he got more than a bit unlucky, but the bottom line is four runs/two earned in just one inning and he gets charged with the big 'L'

And all of the damage came after he retired the first two guys on just six pitches total. Then the roof caved in:
- infield single
- bloop single
- double (that one was at least hit semi-hard) - 2 Runs
- IW
- K, but passed ball and then a throwing error allows a run to score and runners wind up on 2nd & 3rd - 1 Run
- Reach on catcher's interference *
- HBP - 1 Run
- and finally the 3rd out on a pop-up




* speaking of catcher's interference, Ellsbury got on again this way in that Game 5, this coming off a season when he passed Pete Rose for the all-time lead (in about half the plate appearances).
I'd like to know how often he just happens to do that when he has two strikes on him. I'm betting it's a lot more common than with no or one strike which would add credence to the idea
that there's a degree of intent there. And while there's something to be said for getting on base any way you can, this 'method' is one that whacks the catcher's hand with a club and I'd be
tempted to stick one in his ribs or even 'buzz his tower' the next time up if I even thought he was doing that intentionally.

[Ceetar]

https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/event_finder.cgi?request=1&year=2007&year_to=2017&id=ellsbja01&divisory=1&from=button&type=b&event=17

He's never had a CI with no strikes.

14 behind in the count, 9 even, 8 ahead.

5/31 of the times his team has had more than a one run lead. 19 of the times his team wasn't winning.

It's most often on the 4th pitch. Only 7 have come before that.

It's not conclusive in my eyes, but certainly suggestive.

[Guest Mets Willets Point]

Frayed Knot wrote: For such a good team over the last 5-6 years, the Nats have had a horrid record of futility come October.

This is why I wanted them to win this year, so that I might actually be able to muster up some feeling of hate for them instead of pity.

[Frayed Knot]

Ceetar wrote: https://www.baseball-reference.com/play-index/event_finder.cgi?request=1&year=2007&year_to=2017&id=ellsbja01&divisory=1&from=button&type=b&event=17 It's not conclusive in my eyes, but certainly suggestive.

That 24 of the 31 came with two strikes makes is more than a bit suggestive IMO
The usual excuse of 'well, he has a long swing' doesn't explain why it suddenly gets longer when you would normally want it to get shorter.

It's also occurring much more often as his career goes on.
I'm surprised more isn't being made of this by MFY opponents.

[bmfc1]

Mets Willets Point wrote: For such a good team over the last 5-6 years, the Nats have had a horrid record of futility come October. This is why I wanted them to win this year, so that I might actually be able to muster up some feeling of hate for them instead of pity.

No reason to pity them from my perspective. Rizzo said "we've won 4 division championship, we've played tough series" so that's apparently what he's going for. Their fans will be fine, they barely care. One told me that he's glad he can save money on playoff tickets. It was a bizarre, tough loss but the hell with them. They have the division championship in 2018 all but locked up already and that's a nice way to go into the off-season.

How bizarre was it? Unprecedented, per from Barry Svrluga about the top of the 5th:

Four straight Cubs reached base in unconventional ways, some known only to true baseball seam heads — an intentional walk, a strikeout with a passed ball (about which there was some controversy), catcher interference and a hit batsman. The website baseball-reference.com has 2.73 million half-innings in its database. None of them contain those four events — let alone from four consecutive hitters.