Frayed Knot

I may not have the count exactly correct, but I believe each pitching has made 14 visits to the mound so far. And that might have a connection to why it's taken an hour and a half to get to the top of the 4th. 3-1 Astros as I type. Five pitchers have been used so far.

Game 3 is still going on, although the score hasn't changed in a while, sill 15 - 1 as they play the 9th So we've now got a series at least.

Braves pitching in this post-season - the first 64 innings (2 games vs CIN, one 9 innings, the other 13), 3 games vs Marlins, 1 full game vs LAD plus the first 6 innings of Game 2) = 6 Runs Allowed - the next 6 innings: innings 7, 8, 9 Tuesday night then 1, 2 & 3 tonight = 22 runs allowed

So we were discussing how well the Braves team was put together ... 15-1, end of 3rd

And yet they went 40-20 during the season and are one game away from the WS. What's been most lopsided during this ALCS has been the defense. TBR gloves have been stellar while Altuve seems to have a mysterious case of the yips ... or the 'Knolauchs' or 'Sax's or whatever you want to call them.

Holy shit! I turn off the NL (cuz it was 7-0 Braves,) in favor of the AL only to find that LAD closed it to 8-7 ... and a ground out with the tying run on 3rd ends the game! Game time = 4:12

'Bavk tightness" scratches Clayton Kershaw from today's scheduled start. The Dodgers hope he can pitch in either Game 3 or 4

Rule #1 of late inning / post-season baseball: Never bring in active or former Washington National relievers Exhibit A for tonight is LA's use of Blake Treinen HR, 2B, Deep FO, RBI-1B are the results so far in a game that WAS tied at 1 entering the 9th

Someone in the "Old Images of Baseball" Facebook group that Willie Mays is now the oldest living Hall of Fame baseball player...don't know if it's true, but... Tommy Lasorda, in as a manager but not as a player, is now the only living H-o-F'er older than Willie. Ford had been the oldest.

Another thing Morgan had to do, as a young player, was convince people he could play the infield. The pervailing wisdom back in the day was that those with dark skin belonged out in the OF chasing down flies.

But you ned to consider also their eras. Kent came up in the early 90s as the biggest hitter decade was just getting started. Morgan was a rookie in 1963, right as the most dominant pitching years were ahead. That's why the OPS+ numbers favor JM. Morgan was also the better fielder and runner - by a lot. oe: long-winded version of what Chad said Also Jackie spent a chunk of his career playing 1st base. Also didn't have the length of career compared to Joe (not his fault of course)

GAME 2 A lazy error by Altuve (along with a less than stellar effort by Guriell at 1st) on a grounder which should have ended the bottom of the 1st, led to a 3R HR two pitches later by Manuel Margot. 3-0 TBR even as Houston has had a bunch of hits and runners early on. Magot later went tumbling over a sidewall to make a run-saving catch.

And the kicker with Morgan and his whole rejection of 'new age' stats and all, is that the stats hounds LOVED Morgan the player. Fans who were fans of more traditional metrics back in the day were likely to view Rose as the better player. But if offered a clone of those two where you'd be guaranteed a replica of their actual careers, I'd grab Little Joe over Crazy Pete and not look back.

And the thing is, if the three-batter rule weren't in effect Taylor just would have been removed one or two hitters earlier than he was, but there still wound up being a pitching change in the middle of the inning so the rule had zero effect on the time of game which is supposedly the sole reason why it's in there. His replacement, the same Castillo guy who ended the Yanqui series, threw one pitch for an inning ending GiDP bailing Taylor out of the bases-loaded situation he created. What this all means is that when you add the mid-inning pitching change, which takes at least two minutes (at least until they adopt my no more warmups rule), then Castillo throws one pitch, and then they break for the three minute between innings commercial break (up from 2:05 in reg season) heading into the bottom half of the inning. So five-plus minutes went by during which ONE pitch was thrown and that, dear readers, is the kind of thing that's driving these games towards GONE WITH THE WIND territory in length.

Damn!! What's that now, five over about a six week span? Seaver, Gibson Brock, Ford, Mogan, ...

Nice game, 2-1 Rays victory. Now what would have made it a terrific game would have been if it were an hour shorter. Instead, it was an 8-1/2 inning 2-1 game that somehow took (ugh!) 3:50 to complete.

The bottom of the 7th features some red hot Blake Taylor action. Never active with the Mets, the lefty hurler was 2013 2nd round pick by the Pirates and became NYM property in the Ike Davis trade, and then was dealt to Houston this past off season for Jake Marisnick. Made his MLB debut back in August. The three batter minimum of 2B - K - HBP ends Taylor's night

So I'm thinking that tonight's game is featuring the first Framber (Valdez) vs Yandy (Diaz) match up in MLB post-season history.

Snell is the beneficiary of several at'em balls and yet has still thrown right around six innings worth of pitches just to get thru four ... so he's not long for this game even though only down 1-Zip

No Alvarez, and also no Verlander (or Gerrit Cole for that matter). Rays v Astros was the ALDS last year (3-2) with the Houston wins coming from Cole, Verlander, and Cole. That said, they were a sub-.500 team during this, admittedly fucked-up, season, which is of course a downside (one of several) to ever expanding playoffs. What I'm afraid of is that too many are going to see things like this as an argument for this playoffs-on-roids idea.

Frayed Knot wrote: What a fuckin' AB!!!! And that's even before you mix in the (very recent) history between those two. What is the history? Earlier this season, Chapman sent a 101 mph inches over Brouseau's coconut touching off a bunch of yapping that continued in the press for several days after. TBR Mgr Cash said that 'I got a whole stable of guys who throw 98' as a not so subtle threat. [YOUTUBE]XctGlhYnQb4[/YOUTUBE] And, BTW, not to get all Armando here, but Chapman, for all his successes, is starting to build up quite the resume of post-season game and even series losing/tying HRs: Rajai Davis, Altuve, and now an un-drafted part-timer. * Rajai Davis -- 2016 WS Game 7, Chapman (w/Cubs) comes in 8th inning with a 3-run lead, two outs, and a runner on 1st. Gives up a Double to the first hitter then a 3R Game-tying HR Jose Altuve -- 2019 ALCS Game 6, Tie game in bottom 9th (after yanx had scored 2 in top 9), gets the first two hitters but then walks Springer and gives up a 2R Game & Series Walk-off to Altuve Mike Brosseau -- Last night, enters in tie game top 9th, gets the first out but then gives up the eventual game and series losing HR

The NBA & NHL playoffs are always an every-other-day kind of deal under normal circumstances, so the fact that they were this year as well is OK with me. I just like it when the post-season mimics the regular season as closely as possible. That they'll (potentially) play seven WS games in nine days isn't a crime in my book. But the year (2009) when Selig decided to impose an extra day off in both the LCS's and the WS was a disgrace [Game - Game - Off - Game - Game -Off - Game - Off - Game - Game] That that strategy happened to play right into the hands of the Yanx that year (so they could pitch Pettitte, Sabathia, and Messina over and over again) was an unhappy coincidence, but that plan would have been a horrible one no matter who was involved since it doesn't even resemble what a regular MLB week is like.

Ji-Man Choi looks like he can be a lot of fun.

Well, I don't know about you guys, but I'm going to have a drink.

Nice hustle [CROSSOUT]Michael[/CROSSOUT] Giancarlo.