Tag: 2012 Major League Baseball Playoffs

You see?  The Rally Squirrel is not merely magical thinking.  It actually reaches through the screen and inspires and motivates the team.

We get to see Lohse (16 – 3, 2.86 ERA) for the first time since the Cardinals faced the Braves.  Detwiler (10 – 8, 3.40 ERA) of the Nationals we’ll see for the first time this post season.

Lohse was pretty dominant as I recall and went down with Verlander as a pitcher you didn’t want to face.

Davey Johnson is facing a lot of heat over what is being called ‘The Strasburg Shutdown’ (much of it coming from Fox Sports, in particular the Washington branch).  To me it’s a no brainer.  If a player is injured or potentially injured they sit.

And, as a few people have pointed out, a player is not a team.  Where is the offensive support?  The other pitchers?  If all you have is Strasburg maybe you don’t deserve to be in the playoffs, best record in the Majors or not.

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I’m probably not going to be available to watch this. If TheMomCat is not around to provide updates go to The New York Times Live Scoreboard and push the teeny tiny Gameview button for play by play commentary.

This is it, the decider.  The Giants have clawed themselves back into a tie with the Reds and have a chance to join the historic 9% ever to come back from 2 games down in a short series.

Now if you happen to be a Reds fan they do have some advantages.  They’re playing at home.  They’ll probably start Mat Latos (14 – 4, 3.48 ERA) who has a rubber arm and did a good job for them in Game 1.  He’ll probably be facing Matt Cain (16 – 5, 2.79 ERA) who was unimpressive.  I suppose the Giants could start Bumgarner (16 – 11, 3.37 ERA) but he pitched more, more recently, and wasn’t any more impressive.

On the other hand the Giants have momentum and as I said at the start of Game 4- in a deciding game, the pressure would be on the Reds since they have the better record and home field advantage.

Not that they’re under ARod pressure of course.

If the Giants and the Cards advance I’ll be able to root Senior League whichever team makes the World Series.  Maybe the Giants will even make a stupid video on their break to replace this one.

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I’m probably not going to be available to watch this. If TheMomCat is not around to provide updates go to The New York Times Live Scoreboard and push the teeny tiny Gameview button for play by play commentary.

What can I say?  I like the Bernie Lean.

But I’m done with the As.  The Tigers’ can win it any time as far as I’m concerned and while last night didn’t have any particular urgency, it’s not generally a good idea to face elimination on the road and you should avoid it if possible, more so since the Tigers have a terrible record Away.

If Tigers starter Max Scherzer (16-7, 3.74 ERA) is healthy again there are those who say he’s as good as Verlander though I’ll have to see it to believe it.  He’s opposed by rookie A.J. Griffin (7-1, 3.06 ERA) who will start for the A’s. His only loss came against the Tigers on September 18.

What’s been sputtering here is the offense.  The Tigers are batting .268 and the As marginally worse.  You would expect that against ‘great’ pitching, but neither team has shown much of that.

If the Tigers take it to tomorrow Verlander comes riding in on his white horse.  I’m sure Leyland would rather not have to and set up a proper rotation for the Championship Series.

This game is being carried in it’s entirety on TNT.  Don’t forget to change the channel when the Yankees are done.

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I will be temporarily unavailable during the day tomorrow.  I will put the Playoff Diaries on pre-post and TheMomCat will update as her time allows.  I think at the moment that we’ll cover the VP Debate with an Open Thread and some analysis Friday.

My thinking is that I can always catch the repeats if it seems sufficiently interesting.

Well, now that everybody’s blood pressure is back down after Pettitte’s start and we’re safely back in the Stadium the truth is that the Yankees should have little difficulty closing this out.

Unless what Lola wants is a way out of ARod’s contract.

He’ll be batting 3rd as DH which at least keeps his error prone ass out of the field.

The Yankees will be pitching Hiroki Kuroda (16 – 11, 3.32 ERA) who is the best on their team on paper.  The Orioles will counter with Miguel Gonzalez (9 – 4, 3.25 ERA) who’s a rookie but is 2 – 0 at the Stadium and beat Kuroda head to head August 31st.

Of course all anyone wants to talk about is Rodriguez and the Yankee offense which is the same as it’s always been.  What I find particularly frustrating is that no one took the time to list Kuroda’s vital stats without breaking them into Home/Away WHICH IS COMPLETELY USELESS!

I had to look them up on a stats page and by the way, you can shove your stupid stinking malware ads too.

I should really be more careful.  Now that the As have eluded elimination I no longer feel like a Left Coast jinx and if the Giants go down to the Reds today it means one less thing I need to worry about tomorrow.

Sigh.  If only I didn’t hate Pete Rose quite so much.

I must say that after the first round of games the Reds and the Tigers looked pretty invincible.  Now that they have been beat they can be and I wonder if the Giants will pull one out.  That would tie the series and force a deciding game in which the pressure would be on the Reds since they have the better record and home field advantage.

The Giants would have momentum.

On the other hand they did just barely eek out last night’s victory, so perhaps I’m reading too much into it.

The Reds finally had to put Cueto on the disabled list, this means he will be ineligible for the Championship Series should the Reds make it that far.  They’ll pitch instead Mike Leake (8 – 9, 4.58 ERA) against Barry Zito (15 – 8, 4.15 ERA).  On paper Zito crushes Leake like a bug.

Reds will sit Rolen and Hanigan.  Giants sit Belt and move Posey to 1st so Sanchez can catch.

First of all, here are the links TheMomCat found for me so you can share the game if you don’t happen to get MLB Network.

• ESPN Radio
• The New York Times Live Scoreboard

The live scoreboard is pretty interesting, we were playing around with it last night.  I had played around with it before, what I discovered that’s new is the Game View button underneath the Diamond.  MLB Network is all happy that they were able to get Bob Costas to call the game.

I root too good.

I must admit when I was hoping for extended series I was not considering what a pain in the ass it is to have to cover 4 games a day, and there’s every prospect it will happen again tomorrow and I have some afternoon appointments.  TheMomCat is filling in to the best of her ability, but she has stuff to do also.  I guess we’ll just do the best we can same as always.

Nationals Park is conveniently un-corporately named and the Cardinals come to the field tied at 1 which, while not the very best position to be in, is about what can reasonably be expected.  I was gratified to see flashes of last year’s champions after becoming needlessly discouraged by their initial loss which seems much less decisive in retrospect after they thumped the Nationals in Game 2 12 – 4 (and it was much worse than that, 3 of those were pity runs).

Chris Carpenter is 0 – 2 with a 3.71 ERA in three starts since coming back from left side nerve problems.  It’s hard to say how well he’ll pitch, he does hold the best record in Baseball for playoff performance.  Edwin Jackson (10 – 11, 4.03) is the Nationals’ only pitcher with playoff experience.

Last year, with the Cards.  Go figure.

At least the As are on the right side of the Home/Away equation which means their task is not as hard as the team across the Bay, but it’s still a historical 9% chance they get to teach NYC the Bernie Lean.

Still, they are the favorites to win tonight among those with investments in sports futures and if they manage to eek out a win with Brett Anderson (4 – 2, 2.57 ERA) the prospects aren’t nearly so bleak at 2 – 1 they are at 2 – 0.

They’ll continue to face elimination though even if the manage to get around the Tigers’ lefty Anibal Sanchez (9 – 13, 3.86 ERA) who’s a better pitcher than that and isn’t coming off ligament-replacement surgery and a strained right oblique (ironically coming in a start against the Tigers at Comerica).

It would certainly be easier on me if there were 2 fewer games tomorrow, but I don’t want to be accused of putting on some Bay area jinx.

Since we’re in Extra Innings with the Giants and Reds, they’ll be starting out on TNT.

Back on TBS.

So the Giants at Great American Ball Park for the duration, down 2 and facing elimination.

I’m hard put to find a happy face for that, so how about a fight song from 2010 instead?

On the positive side, pitchers very rarely throw 2 No Hitters 2 weeks apart and if you’re a Chicago School Whitewater Economist you have your rattles and dances and expectations that the Giants’ offense will revert to the mean after under performing the first two games.

Also the Reds’ Homer Bailey (13 – 10, 3.68 ERA) is not as good on paper as the Giants’ counter Ryan Vogelsong (14 – 9, 3.37 ERA).  He’s good enough to win though he was better before the All-Star break than after.

And September 28th was so long ago.

For me watching Andy Pettitte is a deal with the Devil.  I really despise him and his buddy Steriod Boy.  Also he’s one of those over paid and over rated mercenaries that attach themselves to the Yankees like leeches so they can get famous and then leave at the first better offer only to come slinking back in the twilight of their career when they’re all washed up and no one else will have them.

Pettitte has spent almost all season on the disabled list and despite his carefully orchestrated come back is really a crap shoot.  Nobody knows how he will play or how long he will last.  His record this year is 5-4 with a 2.87 ERA.

Contrasting with the 40 year old (thanks to Roger’s Jungle Juice) veteran is rookie Wei-Yin Chen (12 – 11, 4.02 ERA).  He hasn’t performed well in his last starts, but he does better with longer rest and it’s been 6 days.  Showalter almost has to pitch him or he’ll get stale.

The Orioles find themselves in the same position as every other team that lost their first game at home (Cardinals, Giants, As).  They are in a “must win” situation or they will face elimination every game they play away.  Of that group only the Cardinals have (as I write) eliminated that advantage, we shall see how the Orioles fare.

Be careful in your deals with the devil.

Whatever Lola wants.  Lola gets.

Get away day.

The same rules apply to the Cardinals as apply to every other team in a playoff situation- it’s a very bad thing to find yourself facing elimination (Sun-Tzu notwithstanding).  Like the Giants last night they really need a win at home.

Thus, the rally squirrel.

Now there are encouraging signs for the Cards.  They only lost by a late game (8th inning) 2 out pinch hit 2 run single and there is no doubt that Gonzales showed considerable frustration early, but age and guile only go so far and by the end the Nationals were looking considerably more “playoff experienced” than they did going in.

Also on the positive side they’ll be facing Jordan Zimmermann.  Don’t let his impressive record (12 – 8, 2.94 ERA) fool you, he’s 0 – 2 lifetime against the Cardinals with a stunning 9.12 ERA.

He’ll be facing Jaime Garcia (7-7, 3.92 ERA) who wasn’t all that impressive in last year’s playoffs, but most of the damage came on the road, he’s much better at Busch Stadium.

And Zimmerman is good on the road, so we shall see shortly how much trouble the Cardinals are in.