2016 MLB Postseason Thread

At some in late September, I made some throwaway post on social media about a game late on a Friday night after I got home from a high school football game.

My brother posts back, "What the fuck are you doing still watching White Sox games?"

 

Why the hell not? It's baseball and it's your team ... Beats 95% of the other nonsense that's on the tube.

 

Plus, it was against the Royals, so there is always a chance that you'll get to see a bench-clearing brawl.

 

I fully agree with that, unless tube refers also to certain corners of the Internet.

 

Ed Farmer and Al Cowens approve.

 

Maybe it was, but weren't the Angels one pitch away? So the Red Sox won two games AFTER that?
(LCS went to 7-game format in 1985).

 

Yeah, but Crawford's throw ended up giving the Cubs an even better situation, because Heyward is a far better base runner than Contreras. Talk about falling into a pile of shit and coming out smelling like a rose.

I watched Heyward for 5 years with the Braves. He's one of the best base runners I've ever seen (not so much stealing bases, but he cuts the basepaths so well going 1st-to-3rd and 2nd-to-home). And he's obviously an otherworldly defender.

But he'll frustrate the hell out of you at the plate. People keep waiting for him to repeat/exceed his rookie year, and it's not going to happen.

 

It was Game 5 and Angels were one pitch away. And Henderson's HR only tied it.

Angels blew a chance to win it, leaving a man on second in the bottom of the ninth, and Boston won in the 11th, IIRC, on a Henderson sac fly.

The Sox then won two more games in Boston.

 

10-4. My mistake. I was working off memory from the MLBN graphic. Should have gone back and looked it up.

 

Man, it sucks to see your team drop to 10-1 in elimination games this decade. Even clutchiness can't win every night for seven years, I guess.

But the end was going to be painful no matter what. I've never seen anything quite like this season. They go from the best record in baseball in the first half to 27th in the second half (and needed a streak at the end of the season to even get up that high). In addition to the much-discussed hazardous waste area called the bullpen, the whole team stopped hitting. Belt, Posey and Pence, the heart of the order, each dropped 100+ pts in OPS from the first to second half.

So I don't fault management all that much. Through 90 games they had the team they wanted. Or thought they did, anyway. It appeared as of July 31 that if they got a closer, they would be fine. They didn't get that closer, but not for lack of trying.

So they rebuild the bullpen this off-season, I'm sure. But the bats falling into the ocean, from core players who are going to be here for a long time, is the bigger concern. Topping that list has to be an evaluation of whether it's best to keep Posey at catcher. All of his seasons end with a power outage now. And he'll be 30 in 2017.

 

Tip of the Dodgers hat to the Giants. Helluva 6-year, 3-championship run.

Congrats to SJ's Cubbies Nation, I'd love nothing more than to see the Dodgers-Cubs butt heads for 7 games.

I'd even be OK with the Cubbies winning it this year. This is a really young and fun team, with some great gristled vets.