BASEBALL 2019---LET'S DO IT!

[AllThatJazzZ]

Think of it this way....

Altuve bats 2nd, Alvarez 5th, and Gurriel 6th.
There can always be a situation where Altuve has one more at bat in the game than the others do, and he was closest to 30 already.

@GrouchoTex

Overthink much?   Sometimes you just know things in your bones. Maybe that's one of the advantages of being a newcomer to the game. 

[GrouchoTex]

@AllThatJazzZ

 

LOL, yep, guilty as charged.
However, even @EasyAce, in a different article, apologized, and said I wasn’t wrong about thinking the Brewer’s weren’t going to through In the towel, after Yelich went down for the year.
(Okay, @EasyAce, I am stretching the truth, and having fun at your expense).

My point being, emotion and logic are all part of this game.
Who has the biggest heart can have an impact as much as who has the best mechanics.

Baseball plays so many games a year, it almost resembles a normal work week, but not quite.

It makes us all relatable to the streak versus the slump, because we all can understand.

Heart and ability, and every once and awhile, things that just.........are.

[EasyAce]

Who has the biggest heart can have an impact as much as who has the best mechanics.
. . . Heart and ability, and every once and awhile, things that just.........are.

@GrouchoTex
@AllThatJazzZ

And, unfortunately, all the heart and ability won't stop equal heart and ability on the other side.

All the heart and ability Ralph Branca had didn't stop Bobby Thomson from hitting the Shot 'Heard Round the World. (Nor did it stop Leo Durocher's then-high tech chicanery from enabling that year's Giants to cheat their way back to forcing that playoff in the first place.)

All the heart and ability Mike Torrez had didn't stop B.F. Dent from hitting the playoff game home run in 1978.

All the heart and ability Tom Niedenfeuer had didn't stop Jack (the Ripper) Clark from hitting a monstrous three-run homer with the Dodgers one out from going to the 1985 World Series.

All the heart and ability Donnie Moore had didn't stop Dave Henderson from sending what looked like an unhittable down-and-away forkball over the left field fence with the Angels a strike away from going to the 1986 World Series.

All the heart and ability left to Bill Buckner didn't stop Mookie Wilson's grounder from skipping beneath his mitt and through his legs in Game Six, 1986 World Series.

All the heart and ability Mariano Rivera had didn't stop Luis Gonzalez from lofting the World Series-winning single in Game Seven, 2001 World Series.

All the heart and ability Tim Wakefield had didn't stop Aaron Boone from sending one into the left field seats with a Yankee pennant attached in 2003.

And all the heart rusty Michael Wacha had (not to mention the brains his manager Mike Matheny lacked) couldn't stop Travis Ishikawa from sending a three-run homer to the top of Levi's Landing with a Giants pennant attached in 2014.

It was said best, perhaps, by . . . well, no he isn't baseball's Homer; Homer was ancient Greece's Roger Angell:

We want our favorites to be great out there, and when that stops we feel betrayed a little. They have not only failed but failed us. Maybe this is the real dividing line between pros and bystanders, between the players and the fans. All the players know that at any moment things can go horribly wrong for them in their line of work — they’ll stop hitting, or, if they’re pitchers, suddenly find that for some reason they can no longer fling the ball through that invisible sliver of air where it will do their best work for them — and they will have to live with that diminishment, that failure, for a time or even for good. It’s part of the game. They are prepared to lose out there in plain sight, while the rest of us do it in private and then pretend it hasn’t happened.

[catfish1957]

@GrouchoTex
@AllThatJazzZ

And, unfortunately, all the heart and ability won't stop equal heart and ability on the other side.

In all your zeal to convey baseball's most iconic moments, I can't believe you left off the one that demonstrated the heart point the most.

'88 WS Kirk Gibson's bottom of the ninth , 2 strike dinger off the great Eck,  when he could barely walk.

And I don't even really care for the Dodgers.

[EasyAce]

In all your zeal to convey baseball's most iconic moments, I can't believe you left off the one that demonstrated the heart point the most.

'88 WS Kirk Gibson's bottom of the ninth , 2 strike dinger off the great Eck,  when he could barely walk.

@catfish1957
Frankly, I can't believe I left it off, either! (Even though it didn't win the Series for the Dodgers, who needed four more games to win it.)

Especially considering how Eckersley faced the music after the game: What did I learn? Never throw a slider to a cripple.

I also left out another such moment that was caused as much by a managerial brain fart as by the heart and will of the direct participants: the monstrous three-run homer Edwin Encarnacion smashed to send the Blue Jays into the 2016 division series, after Orioles manager Buck Showalter elected to stick with his faltering Ubaldo Jimenez rather than reach for baseball's best relief pitcher that season, Zach Britton (now a Yankee), who hadn't surrendered an earned run since April of that year, because, well, The Book said he wasn't supposed to reach for his closer until or unless there was something to save.

Not to mention Bill Mazeroski's 1960 World Series-winning homer off Yankee pitcher Ralph Terry. Or Chris Chambliss's pennant-winning homer off Mark Littell---which proved a real game-changer above and beyond being a pennant-winning blow: the Yankee Stadium crowd burst and swarmed the field, to the point where Chambliss couldn't even touch the plate when he ran down the third base line to complete the circuit. In the celebrating clubhouse, Yankee third baseman Graig Nettles told Chambliss plate umpire Art Frantz was waiting on the field for Chambliss to touch home to make the bomb official. Chambliss obliged and returned to the field---only to discover home plate had been removed by some celebrating Yankee fans.

So Chambliss touched the spot where the plate had been. And baseball actually amended its rules to make a single exception to touching all bases on a game-ending hit or home run: An exception will be if fans rush onto the field and physically prevent the runner from touching home plate or the batter from touching first base. In such cases, the umpires shall award the runner the base because of the obstruction by the fans. The rule is known colloquially as the Chris Chambliss Rule.

[GrouchoTex]

Greinke pitch 8-1/3 innings of no-hit baseball last night.

This close.....

This close to having the 3rd no-hitter for the Astros pitching staff this season.

[Bigun]

Greinke pitch 8-1/3 innings of no-hit baseball last night.

This close.....

This close to having the 3rd no-hitter for the Astros pitching staff this season.

IIRC the first 6 innings were perfect.

[EasyAce]

IIRC the first 6 innings were perfect.

First five-and-a-third; he walked Dee Gordon after striking out Tom Murphy to open the inning, then got a double play to end the inning.

[GrouchoTex]

First five-and-a-third; he walked Dee Gordon after striking out Tom Murphy to open the inning, then got a double play to end the inning.

Correct, he did walk Dee Gordon, and got the double play.
While it was no longer a perfect game, at that point he had still faced the minimum.
Pretty impressive.

I am tired today.
I stayed up for both Cole's and Greinke's starts.

[catfish1957]

Greinke pitch 8-1/3 innings of no-hit baseball last night.

This close.....

This close to having the 3rd no-hitter for the Astros pitching staff this season.

Our Astros have a chance to pull off MLB history during the award season.  Win the MVP, ROY, and Cy Young Awards for the first time in MLB history.  Right now the Bregman v. Trout argument is about the only thing preventing it. 

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/columnists/smith/article/Could-Astros-make-MLB-history-during-awards-14458218.php

[GrouchoTex]

Our Astros have a chance to pull off MLB history during the award season.  Win the MVP, ROY, and Cy Young Awards for the first time in MLB history.  Right now the Bregman v. Trout argument is about the only thing preventing it. 

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/columnists/smith/article/Could-Astros-make-MLB-history-during-awards-14458218.php

Yep, and if Bregman can finish strong this weekend, it could happen.

[EasyAce]

The great news: Justin Verlander nailed his 3,000th career strikeout in the bottom of the fourth in Angel Stadium tonight.

The not-so-great news: catcher Robinson Chirinos couldn't hold onto the pitch and batter Kole Calhoun reached first. And the next batter up for the Angels, Andrelton Simmons, hit the first pitch over the center field fence.

I'll have to look it up, but I can't think of any other pitcher who nailed his 3,000th strikeout on a wild pitch and then surrendered a first-pitch home run immediately to follow. (And from what I saw of the pitch, it probably should have been ruled a passed ball. It didn't look that hard to handle.)

But you still have to hand it to Verlander. As Casey Stengel would say, he's still rather splendid in his line of work.

[AllThatJazzZ]

More great news for Verlander. Strikeout #300 for the season. Not a minor achievement. 

[catfish1957]

More great news for Verlander. Strikeout #300 for the season. Not a minor achievement. 

LMAO...

[GrouchoTex]

More great news for Verlander. Strikeout #300 for the season. Not a minor achievement. 

 

Looking forward to Friday!

[Bigun]

More great news for Verlander. Strikeout #300 for the season. Not a minor achievement. 

Two guys on the same team accomplishing that in the same season is anything but a minor achievement.

[AllThatJazzZ]

Two guys on the same team accomplishing that in the same season is anything but a minor achievement.

@Bigun

Okay, now you're just shamelessly bragging.     (Pssst, I'm fine with that.)

[Polly Ticks]

NEW YORK -- The umpire who was at the center of an infield fly dispute during the 2012 National League wild-card game between Atlanta and St. Louis will be the crew chief when the Braves and Cardinals meet this week in the division series.

Ump at center of 2012 infield fly flap to work Braves-Cardinals NLDS

 

[catfish1957]

Also if I see the likes of Hernandez, Bucknor, or West in the post season, I will know that the COB office doesn't give a shit about the quality of this aspect of the game.

[Bigun]

Also if I see the likes of Hernandez, Bucknor, or West in the post season, I will know that the COB office doesn't give a shit about the quality of this aspect of the game.

You will see them all!  I'd bet money on it!

[EasyAce]

In case you all wondered, this is the price for division series tickets this year including the wild card teams who are obviously each feeling optimistic about winning the wild card games. (And, yes, it does take a certain amount of chutzpah for the Rays to be the fourth-most expensive LDS ticket considering their dump of a dome can't even fill up with the diehards on the regular season . . . ):

[GrouchoTex]

You will see them all!  I'd bet money on it!

Pass the Rol-aids and the Tums.

[EasyAce]

You will see them all!  I'd bet money on it!

@Bigun
@catfish1957

In the immortal words of Gabriel Heatter, there's good news tonight (well, this morning)---the list of umps for the wild card games and the division series is posted, and it looks like neither Country Joe, Charlie Brown, or the Devilish Angel are on the list:

Wild Card Games
National League---Cory Blaser, Kerwin Danley, Mike Everitt, Jeff Nelson, David Rackley, Carlos Torres.
American League---Lance Barrett, Fieldin Culbreth, Chad Fairchild, Chris Guccione, Adam Hamari, Bill Miller.

Division Series
National League---Dodgers v. wild card winner: Jordan Baker, Ted Barrett, Doug Eddings, Tripp Gibson, Wil Little, Alfonso Marquez; Braves vs. Cardinals: Tom Hallion, Ed Hickox, Pat Hoberg, Sam Holbrook, Alan Porter, Jim Wolf.

American League---Astros v. wild card winner: Bruce Dreckman, James Hoye, Jerry Meals, D.J. Reyburn, John Tumpane, Mark Wegner; Yankees v. Twins: Lance Barksdale, Gary Cederstrom, Eric Cooper, Manny Gonzalez, Adrian Johnson, Todd Tichenor.

Not a C.B. Bucknor, Angel Hernandez, or Joe West among them.

For now. 

[Bigun]

@Bigun
@catfish1957

In the immortal words of Gabriel Heatter, there's good news tonight (well, this morning)---the list of umps for the wild card games and the division series is posted, and it looks like neither Country Joe, Charlie Brown, or the Devilish Angel are on the list:

Wild Card Games
National League---Cory Blaser, Kerwin Danley, Mike Everitt, Jeff Nelson, David Rackley, Carlos Torres.
American League---Lance Barrett, Fieldin Culbreth, Chad Fairchild, Chris Guccione, Adam Hamari, Bill Miller.

Division Series
National League---Dodgers v. wild card winner: Jordan Baker, Ted Barrett, Doug Eddings, Tripp Gibson, Wil Little, Alfonso Marquez; Braves vs. Cardinals: Tom Hallion, Ed Hickox, Pat Hoberg, Sam Holbrook, Alan Porter, Jim Wolf.

American League---Astros v. wild card winner: Bruce Dreckman, James Hoye, Jerry Meals, D.J. Reyburn, John Tumpane, Mark Wegner; Yankees v. Twins: Lance Barksdale, Gary Cederstrom, Eric Cooper, Manny Gonzalez, Adrian Johnson, Todd Tichenor.

Not a C.B. Bucknor, Angel Hernandez, or Joe West among them.

For now. 

Glad you posted that @EasyAce before someone took my money.

[EasyAce]

Glad you posted that @EasyAce before someone took my money.

@Bigun
You can pay me now.