L(OL)A Exits Again
Watching the Dbacks come together and play like they did in September, it was obvious that they’d turned a corner and they were certainly a million miles better than the Giants. But wow, I didn’t expect them to just systematically disable and embarrass the Dodgers the way they did. Impressive.
Now we just sit back and root for the Phillies to finish off the Braves and this post season is going along positively swimmingly.
A Place To Talk About Giants Baseball 
What the hell happened to Betts and Freeman? AZ pitching is good, but those 2 disappeared. While I somewhat expected Kershaw to fail, I was surprised how flat that whole team looked. So much for winning 100 games. O’s too, somewhat sadly, 101 wins I think. Oops.
to me, this is just what happens in the post season. Or, at least, what CAN happen. These big time offensive players get in a nice groove in the regular season then the post season starts, pitching gets better, stakes are higher, everyone gets a little tighter and then BOOM. They suck. Look at what happened to the Braves great offense.
Pitching does matter. Eovaldi was great and as even douch like Plascke pointed out, he was available for Dogs to pick up at deadline and all they got was Lynn. Plenty of pitchers moved and Friedman watched most of it go by.
See if Strider can keep Phils in the park.
Lot made in TA about Harper staring down Arcia after bombs, after Arcia had mocked him in clubhouse after previous game for getting doubled off to end it. Harper is tough, just like Phils and their crowd.
Baseball squabbles are so cute.
This is how you do it.
Yeah plenty of pitchers moved along with some hitters ate the deadline and all Farhan did was get 2 disabled hitters in Pollock&Mathias who to surprise did nothing and are gone..
I’m all in on Arizona&Rangers in the W/S there could be some real nice fireworks going on between them..
Speaking of fireworks the Rangers and Astros hate each other( sure not Boch&Dusty of course) they have had many dust ups(no pun)the last few years so watch for that this series..
Speaking of baseball squabbles, just saw the vid of Tigers Lerrin Lagrow thowing at ankles of Campy Campaneris (likely on orders of manager Billy Martin) and Campaneris throwing the bat at his head on the mound. 1972 playoffs.
Nowadays, with guys out of pen throwing 100 and not so sure where ball is going, little different.
That is classic. The bat just windmilling toward the mound is insane.
Lenny Randle doing his best Albert Belle impression. Pretty damn good bat control to get the pitcher to the spot where he can blast him. And he gets tackled pretty hard after reaching the bag.
I put this up again since I posted it late last night. Love it!
My daughter sent me this text..
“My favorite holiday of the year. The day the Dodgers get bounced from the playoffs! HAHA!”
I love watching Harper. The most exciting AB’s since Bonds…
Phillies have 9 homers in 14 innings. We might have taken a month of games to do that!
3 teams won 100+ games and 1 other team won 99…. and between them all, only 1 win in the post-season. Ouch.
Phillies are in. Bravos and their 104 wins are done.
Their monster lineup came up with 8 runs in 4 games.
It’s not the PS that’s the crapshoot. The teams healthy and firing on all cylinders when the PS starts have the edge. Getting through the interminable regular season, despite injuries and scandals and so forth and to be lucky enough to be one of those teams, that’s winning the crapshoot.
Regular seasons in all the major sports have been massively devalued by expanded playoffs.
Just do enough to make the PS and go from there.
No need to spend 6 months setting the world on fire…
Yep. AZ was in 3rd place a game under .500 in the middle of August. 16 games behind LA by the end of the year.
Besides money, they expanded the playoffs to keep more fans interested.
But now it’s almost like regular seasons are a waste.
I don’t fuckin know…
I’ve been thinking the same thing, Loo.
Phils did finish strong though. At one point they were 25-32 and had to play well to get to 90-72. Stars are coming up big, SPs rolling and deep hard throwing pen. Great column from J Stark in TA– about what they and Stros do this time of year. Knocking Strider out of the yard ain’t easy.
Well, basketball has had that problem forever with more than half the teams going to the playoffs. THey can shave 20 games off the sched. Baseball can do the same now. Go back to 154 at least. And sched more double headers.
A team like the D-backs that can hit 166 HR’s and Steal 166 bases is easily a team I can root for and dream about the Giants changing this roster up bigtime this off-season.Spend some money add power and speed!
And I know it’s a bad scenario with Z& and the manager hire but I’m putting in my vote for after the playoffs W/S ends to go after the local guy Donnie Ecker who not only turned the Giants hitters around in 2021 he’s doing again with the Rangers under Bochy as his OC bench coach it’s no fluke imo ..
After the last round the playoffs just got interesting for me. Even though AZ knocked off the dogs I just can’t get behind them same as SD last year. So I am going Texas and Bochy. Still love Dusty but dislike the Astros.
July and August AZ went combined 20-31 and had longest losing streak of year (9) at start of August. September they were 15-12 but pitching came around. Only allowed 105 runs that month vs. 133 and 127 months prior. With that lineup, any pitching they get means a lot.
Dogs scored 2nd most runs NL and hit 2nd most bombs, 249. They were #2 in all 3 slash line columns, with team OPS of .795. Not off DBax
Texas / AZ is fine by me. Phuck the Fillies.
Too many headbands on Phils (and never cared for Crawford’s either). Banned them on anyone I coached, game or practice. For awhile too in Travel Basketball there were guys with one long sleeve on arm or leg in whatever team color was. No.
I think Aja Wilson of Vegas Aces does this, but not someone I’d argue with as good as she is.
C’mon, you hadda love Slick Watts!
yes, good one Loo, Slick was cool,
per NPR, James McBride winner of Kirkus award for “Heaven and Earth Grocery Store”, really enjoyable book. would make good audiobook choice too.
Colson Whitehead on quite a roll too with “Crook Manifesto” second in trilogy set in Harlem of the 70s.
Huh, just found out DaVante Adams and Joc Pederson played pop warner and at Paly High together. Nice story on the NFL Network.
Adams was hella b-ball player too. Long history of Paly winning the top division of that league, boys and girls teams. Home of Jeremy Lin too– he was team captain of 32-1 Paly and won effing State championship D-II 2005-06 over private school power Mater Dei of Santa Ana.
How bout them Stanford Cardinal? Couldn’t believe score when I saw it this morning…I’d given up on them at halftime down 29-0 and watched Warriors-Lakers full time.
What an embarrassment for Sanders, all of them, including coach. Shedeur throws critical ill advised int in OT, Shilo’s secondary let cards QB and receiver light them up in second half, and coaching was head scratching ridiculous.
Ouch! Stanford, down 29-0 to Colorado, wins 46-43.
Shit. Same here, Willie.
Right? Side note what did you think of Doc Rivers doing game?
Fine I guess. Wasn’t really listening that hard.