Today’s Meta (because what good is a day without Meta?).  As I mentioned yesterday both TMC and I are in meetings all day long.  We were able to resolve some of our issues yesterday (we think, that’s what today’s meeting is about) which is good.

In planning the rest of the week (because it’s not like we don’t have weekly and daily story meetings, we’re very professional like that) it’s become quite clear that Thursday the 15th, Transition Day, is going to be fraught.  We expect that the Wordpress sites will be open for reading including our back catalog with little delay (there will probably be some).

We’ve decided that the best way to communicate with our readers is through our normal twitter activities.  Information that can’t be expressed in 140 characters we will post at Corrente which is run by our friend Lambert.

There is virtually a 100% chance that there will be NO POSTING AT ALL on Thursday.  We will simply be too busy.  If you visit you are likely to get an Internet error.  THIS DOES NOT MEAN WE HAVE CEASED PUBLICATION.

We hope to resume posting, at least ours, by Friday.  User posts may take a little longer to resolve.

User accounts WILL BE RESTORED, at least for posting.  Commenting may take longer and there’s a possibility that the initial commenting system will not represent a permanent solution.

That’s the best case scenario.  In the worst case it may take us up to a week.

Sorry for the inconvienience.

After tonight The Daily Late Nightly Show will not be posted again until next Monday (the 19th) at the earliest.

After tomorrow we will stop Baseball Playoff coverage until functionality is restored sufficiently to do so.

We will have an Open Thread Tuesday for the Democratic Debate.

After that all regular publication will stop except for Meta announcements on progress.

I want to apologize once again to our Readers, Authors, and Commenters.  We like Soapblox and are not leaving the Platform willingly, it’s just that our vendor will no longer support it.

Baseball-

There will be no live blogging of today’s games (except the Mets, c’mon).

Sunday’s Game

Top 4th Solo Shot.  Royals 1 – 0.

Bottom 5th Walk.  Double.  2 RBI Single.  Astros 2 – 1.

Bottom 6th Leadoff Double.  Sacrifice.  Walk, Runners at Corners.  RBI Single.  Astros 3 – 1.

Bottom 7th Leadoff Solo Shot.  Astros 4 – 1.

Top 9th Leadoff Solo Shot.  Astros 4 – 2.  Final.

Astros lead Series 2 – 1.

Analysis and Setup

Game as expected, an Astros (89 – 77) blowout.  The Royals (96 – 69) must win tonight or they will hit the links and wait until next year.

The Astros will send out Lance McCullers (R, 6 – 7, 3.22 ERA) and the Royals Yordano Ventura (R, 13 – 8, 4.08 ERA).  The New York Times thinks McCullers is almost as good as Keuchel though te numbers don’t agree.  Ventura is the pitcher who got rocked in Game 2 and had to leave after 2 Innings, supposedly because of a stomach virus.  Royals fans better hope he’s recovered because it’s win or go home.

Game time is 1 on Fox Sports 1.

Friday’s Game

Top 1st Leadoff Double.  RBI Single.  Rangers 1 – 0.  Single, Runners at Corners.  RBI Sacrifice cuts down the Runner at Second.  Rangers 2 – 0.

Bottom 1st Solo Shot.  Rangers 2 – 1.

Top 2nd Leadoff Walk.  Sacrifice advance Runner to Third.  RBI Sacrifice.  Rangers 3 – 1.

Bottom 2nd Error, Runner at First.  Ground Rule Double, Runners at Second and Third.  RBI Single. Rangers 3 – 2.  RBI Double Play.  Tied at 3.

Bottom 5th Leadoff Double.  Sacrifice.  RBI Single.  Blue Jays 4 – 3.

Top 8th Leadoff Single.  Sacrifice.  RBI Single.  Tied at 4.  Caught Stealing.

Top 14th Infield Single.  Single.  RBI Single.  Rangers 5 – 4.  RBI Single.  Rangers 6 – 4 Final.

Rangers lead Series 2 – 0.

Analysis and Setup

No doubt about it, the Blue Jays (93 – 91) are in trouble.  You don’t drop 2 at home in a 5 game series and expect to advance.

If you’re a fan and you want to see them play one last time, you better watch today’s game.

If on the other hand you’re a Rangers (90 – 74) fan (though I can’t imagine why) you’re in the Catbird seat (yes a bird pun, what about I haven’t slept in days are you not understanding?).  Today, tomorrow, who cares?

Well I do dammit.  If they win today it’s one less thing I have to do tomorrow.

Bye bye Birdie (getting it?).

Martin Perez (L, 3 – 6, 4.46 ERA) will be on the mound for the Rangers.  The Blue Jays will be starting Marco Estrada (R, 13 – 8, 3.13 ERA).  Alas, on paper the Jays cream ’em.

Game time is 8 on Fox Sports 1.

Today’s Meta (because what good is a day without Meta?).  BIG meeting Monday about our transition to Wordpress on the 15th (that’s Thursday folks!).  Blogging this week will be especially sucky, starting today and continuing until next Sunday probably.

While I’m attempting to keep up with my responsibilities for content and technical direction, I’m not particularly familiar with some of the issues we have already identified.  TMC and I will probably be in conference until well after midnight, and this comes on top of what has already been a stressful week or 3.  I got three whole hours of sack time in the last 48 hours and at that I can’t complain because it’s been worse for TMC.

I would certainly like to be providing you with live blogging but that’s not going to be possible and the posts themselves are going to be highly abbreviated if available at all.

In my exhausted state I find it hard to pretend that greatly grieves me today, but you know- I don’t really care about the Junior League anyway.

I’ll probably continue to rant about my Metropolitans especially after that criminal assault on Tejada last night.  Be of good cheer, it’s season not career ending and in 5 game series tems that split the initial road games advance over 60% of the time.

Friday’s Game

Top 1st Walk.  RBI Double. Astros 1 – 0.

Top 2nd Leadoff Single.  Walk.  Single, Bases Loaded.  2 RBI Single.  Astros 3 – 0.  Double Play.

Bottom 2nd Solo Shot.  Astros 3 – 1.

Top 3rd Leadoff Solo Shot.  Astros 4 – 1.

Bottom 3rd Leadoff Double.  Infield Single, Runners at Corners.  RBI Double Play.  Astros 4 – 2.

Bottom 6th Double.  RBI Single.  Astros 4 – 3.  Single, Runners at Corners.  Walk, Bases Loaded.  RBI Walk.  Game Tied at 4.

Bottom 7th Leadoff Triple. RBI Single.  Royals 5 – 4 Final.

Series Tied at 1.

Analysis and Setup

So the Royals (96 – 68) won the Battle of the Losers.  Remember what I said above about the Mets chances?  Well, the Royals are on the short side of that.  They must at least split on the road to force a deciding 5th game.

If you’re an Astros (88 – 77) fan (can’t imagine why) don’t sweat Friday’s game.  Sweep at home and advance.

The Astros will send out Dallas Keuchel (L, 20 – 8, 2.48 ERA) and the Royals Edinson Volquez (R, 13 – 9, 3.55 ERA).  Keuchel is the Astros Ace.  He pitched six scoreless innings in a 3 – 0 win over the Yankees.  On paper this is a blowout.

Game time is 4 on MLB.

It’s the second ever race in Sochi, famous for it’s summertime Black Sea beaches and it’s Winter Olympic-time brown, snowless hills and it is really kind of ill omened.  Much of the first Practice was lost when a Cleaning Truck dropped a load of Diesel on the track, the second Practice was in constant rain, and the third Practice (the one right before Qualifying) kind of stopped when Carlos Sainz of Toro Rosso pounded his car into a barrier after ripping off the left side on a wall.

He’s said to be ok, but he was going 120 when he hit and has been held in the hospital overnight (or not) while Formula One decides whether he can race.  You see it’s not whether he’s been concussed.  He has, you don’t decelerate like that with no effects, though they seem not to be serious, yet.  It’s really about what happens should he crash again (nothing good).  It has been only a year since Jules Bianchi died in Suzuka, the last stop of the Circus.  My money is that Bernie the Greedy, Cheating, Bribing (oh, the Bribe wasn’t about the money I stole from the shareholders, I was cheating on my taxes) Bastard makes Sainz race, because it’s all about the money.

You see, without Sainz, Bernie is only putting 19 cars on the track while his guarantees with the Track Owners are for a minimum of 14 and if he fails the financial penalties are quite substantial.

Take the issue of engines.  Engines you say?  Yup, they’re really quite important.

Next year Mercedes is providing their fabled Plants to Manor.  Manor?  Aren’t the one of the poorest teams?  Why, yes.  But these are not just any engines, these are leftovers from this year which any other team is FORBIDDEN to use.  Kindly, benevolent Uncle Bernie is graciously allowing them to play with his new favorite child’s cast-offs.

Favoritism is the rule, not the exception in Formula One.  Mercedes openly admits that only the factory werks Silver Arrow get the best, most up to date engines-

Since last month’s Italian Grand Prix, won by Hamilton, Mercedes’s factory team has had a different specification power unit to their customer teams Williams, Force India and Lotus.

“The decision we took is to do an R&D (research and development) exercise in order to learn more for next year and you can’t do this kind of exercise with a customer team,” Wolff told reporters at the Russian Grand Prix.

“If you go into a development direction, you can’t make eight engines because it could be the case that it was the wrong direction we went in.”

Bafflegarb.  But they’re not the only ones, Toro Rossa uses Scuderia Marlboro cast-offs too which explains why Red Bull doesn’t just snarf up their allocations from Ferrari and slap Hondas (the Gerbil on a treadmill of engines) in them and tell their developing drivers to “embrace the suck”.

Why does Red Bull need engines?  Well, they’re running Renaults which is the slightly less sucky twin Squirrel Power Plant and they basically told Renault at the beginning of the season to piss up a rope.

So Renault bought Team Lotus (well kinda, the deal is firm enough that they paid the back taxes so that the court didn’t confiscate the cars and equipment) and said- “Screw you Horner.  We’re a major international automobile company and you make soda pop.”

Then Chris went to Scuderia Marlboro who said- “We’re very sorry, but between supplying your ‘B’ team with our rejects, we also are committed to Haas now so our Maranello elves have a market for all the floor droppings they can possibly produce, lazy serfs.  Besides, are you demenziale, maniaco, pazzoide?  Why would we give our good stuff to our chief rivals?”

The Germans were more direct- “Give our best stuff to our competition?  Are you verdammt verdreht, verrückt, versessen?  Vögeln off.  Oh and yes, too much demand.”

So, the awesome twin Squirrel (maybe- you have purty lips, squeal like a pig for me) or the less than awesome Gerbil (I’m getting pumped from all this exercise!)?

Once Masters of the Universe who find themselves cut tend to be petulant, or get themselves a Reality TV Show and run for President, or both.  Chris Horner is no different and has been throwing his own tantrum- “I’ll fold my teams and go home unless I can get a competitive engine.”

Now this is a decision with a price tag attached- $500 Million in penalties.  It is also a threat.

Bernie needs 14 cars or he pays Billions in penalties.  He has 20.  Manor is a field filling Zombie, 18.  Red Bull packs up, -4.

Why, that makes exactly 14!

Haas rides to the rescue and becomes the new Manor (or not), 16.  Renault/Lotus says- We’ve had our revanche, au revoir, 14 again.

And most of the also rans are equally unhappy with the current state of affairs, except for Williams who are just grateful that kindly Uncle Bernie has hooked them up with Mercedes ‘B’s in that abused child sort of way.

Kaboom!

Greedy, Cheating, Bribing Bernie assures us Red Bull Engine Supply Is ‘Sorted’

Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone played down fears on Friday that former champions Red Bull could walk away from the sport by saying he was confident their engine supply problems were ‘sorted’.

Without giving any details, and despite reports that Ferrari had joined Mercedes in refusing to supply their rivals with engines for 2016, the 84-year-old sounded upbeat at the Russian Grand Prix.

“Everything’s been sorted out so I wouldn’t worry about it,” he told reporters.

C’est vraiment des conneries!

But why, why would lying Bernie lie?  Is it because of that multi-Billion dollar deal he has to sell out to Stephen Ross and the Qatari Sovereign Wealth Fund?

Couldn’t possibly be.  He has two other offers you know-

(W)hen asked on Tuesday about those negotiations, the sport’s 84-year-old chief executive told the Camp Beckenbauer Global Summit in Austria: “There has been a lot of interest and I would say there are three parties at the moment, where I would be surprised if one of them did not buy them (the shares) shortly.”

…

Max Mosley, former president of motor sport world governing body the FIA, said in June he did not think new ownership would bring an end to Ecclestone’s reign.

Nothing can possibly go wrong.

What kind of asshole wants to be called “El Supremo”?  Benito Mussolini?

Racy Stuff

Softs and Super Softs.  Jenson Button got begged back to McLaren, Alonso says he will end his career there.  Grosjean has signed with Haas.  The other Mercedes that gets blown away on the start anyway is on the pole.  Alonso has a 35 grid penalty, Merhi 20.  Perelli signs a 3 year deal.  Mercedes is virtually guaranteed a Constructors Championship today which comes with lots of money.  The Drivers Championship gets you a nice trophy to pawn and the best endorsement contract your agent can negotiate.

There’s other things, but deadlines you know.

Yesterday’s game

Top 4th Solo Shot.  Mets 1 – 0.

Top 7th Walk.  Walk.  Walk.  Buh-By Kershaw.  2 RBI Single.  Mets 3 – 0.

Bottom 8th  Clippard ruins deGrom’s Shutout.  Double.  RBI Single.  Mets 3 – 1 Final.

Mets lead Series 1 – 0.

Analysis and Setup

Heh.  Looking pretty Amazing last night.

Oh sure, Kershaw had more Ks than deGrom (who had plenty, most in a Playoff debut since Tom Seaver), but who climbs out of the Ravine with the W hmm…

Why that would be the New York Metropolitans (91 – 72).  After our victory tonight their record will be equal to the perfidious Dodgers (92 – 71).  Boo…  Hiss…

Zack Greinke (R, 19 – 3, 1.66 ERA) will start for the Dodgers, the Mets will be putting Noah Syndergaard (R, 9 – 7, 3.24 ERA) on the mound.  Greinke’s 1.66 leads the League and Syndergaard’s?  Well, it doesn’t.

So they could lose I suppose, but I haven’t taken my lucky Mets Cap off or changed my socks and I’m starting to grow a beard.

However the Mets have already accomplished the goals that I said the Cubs must tonight-

They hung tough until the 8th Inning and it’s only the first game, on the road, and all we need is a split at Busch Stadium and we’re golden.  Go Cubbies!

Substitute Dodgers for Busch and Mets for Cubbies and it’s exactly the same thing.  Tonight’s game is bonus, it can only add to the humiliation.

The Cubs game is still in doubt as I write this but it seems they followed my advice.

Game time 9 on TBS.

Yesterday’s game

Bottom 1st Ground Rule Double, RBI Single.  Cardinals 1 – 0.

Bottom 8th Solo Shot.  Cardinals 2 – 0.  Walk, 2 RBI HR.  Cardinals 4 – 0 Final.

Cardinals lead Series 1 – 0.

Analysis and Setup

Well, if you’re a glass half full type and a Cubs (98 – 66) fan (and seriously, if you’re a Cubs fan how can you not be a glass half full type) you say to yourself-

“They hung tough until the 8th Inning and it’s only the first game, on the road, and all we need is a split at Busch Stadium and we’re golden.  Go Cubbies!”

It wasn’t that close.  The Cardinals (101 – 62) beat them like a drum.  The Cubs haven’t scored a Run since the 5th inning of the Wild Card game.

Lester did just about as well as Lackey, but with far more drama.  The Cubs Bullpen, not so much.

So, pick ’em.  I want the Cardinals to lose just as much as the next guy, maybe more, though my Metropolitans sure looked good last night.

The Cardinals will be sending Jaime Garcia (L, 10 – 6, 2.43 ERA) out.  The Cubs will respond with Kyle Hendricks (R, 8 – 7, 3.95 ERA).

Game time is 5:30 on TBS.

James Corden is a funny guy, but I’m not staying up for him tonight because I have things to do tomorrow.

Stephen’s other guests are Shane Smith, and Halsey.

This Week’s guests-

• Monday 10/12: Carey Mulligan, Elvis Costello, and Darlene Love
• Tuesday 10/13: Sarah Silverman, Elijah Wood, and “Legends of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses”
• Wednesday 10/14: Jack Black, Nick Woodman, Michelle Dorrance
• Thursday 10/15: Oprah Winfrey, Joseph Fink & Jeffrey Cranor, and Judith Hill
• Friday 10/16: Jimmy Kimmel, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Mia Wasikowska, Guillermo Del Toro, and Beach House

Trevor Noah

• Monday 10/12: Ta-Nehisi Coates
• Tuesday 10/13: Richard Dawkins
• Wednesday 10/14: Tom Hiddleston
• Thursday 10/15: Jack Black

The New York Metropolitans (90 – 72) are the team of my heart.  The despised Dodgers (92 – 70), the carpetbaggers of Chavez Ravine, are not so much rivals as beneath contempt,

I didn’t expect much this year so this is all a pleasant surprise.

It has been a very busy and frustrating day.  Eight hours of meetings and not much progress to show for it.  I’m not going to write much more preamble except to say that I have my Mets Cap on and I’m looking forward to victory tonight.

Clayton Kershaw (L, 16 – 7, 2.13 ERA) will start for the Dodgers, the Mets will be putting Jacob deGrom (R, 14 – 8, 2.54 ERA) on the mound.  deGrom is a converted infielder who was last year’s Senior League Rookie of the Year.  This is his first playoff experience.  Kershaw is last year’s NL MVP and a three-time Cy Young Award winner, on the other hand he’s only had one Win in the Playoffs having gone 0 – 4 against the Cardinals in his last 2 Series.

Lest you think the Mets have no chance, they took 4 of 7 from the Dodgers this year.

My prediction?  Mets in 3.  Or maybe 4 or 5, I don’t much care as long as they advance.

Game time 9:30 on TBS.

Is this the year the Cubs (98 – 65) break their 106 year drought?  Sadly, no.  They’re going against the Cardinals (100 – 62) who are rapidly approaching the Yankees both as the most sucessful and hated Baseball team ever.

I sure would like them to win though, it would make it much easier for my Metropolitans who I’m pretty sure are not going to make it through the Cardinals either if it comes to that.

TMC and I were talking and she asked me if I liked sports at all, I write about them so much.  The answer is, not really.  There are a lot of things I post because I think they make good material for the site, like Throwball Playoffs and Formula One.  Frankly they’re both pretty boring.  Some sports I won’t touch, like Professional Baskeball (beyond boring into gouge my own eyes out with a double side of Van Gough territory).

I do like the weird stuff like Curling and America’s Cup, but they’re hard to find on a regular basis and…

I like Women’s College Basketball and Baseball.  Senior League Baseball that doesn’t coddle it’s Pitcher and keep famous but ineffective geezers riding the pine after they become too fat and crippled to field.

If the Metropolitans suddenly vanished I wouldn’t hook up with the Yankees or even the BoSox.  Instead I’d probably root for the Cards because I’m tired of losing.  Sorry Cubbies.

The Cardinals have a incredibly strong organization and usually a pretty talented team.  If you want to make book on who is going to be the World Champion before Spring Training in any given year, you could do worse than put your money on the Cards.

That said, the Cubs are sentimental favorites and looked surprisingly good in the Wild Card game againt the Pirates.

The Cardinals will be sending John Lackey (R, 13 – 10, 2.77 ERA) out.  The Cubs will respond with Jon Lester (L, 11 – 12, 3.34 ERA).  The weird thing is they were #1 & #2 on the Red Sox staff in 2013.  On paper Lackey is much stronger.

My prediction?  Cardinals in 4.

Game time is 6:30 on TBS.