The forecast for tomorrow night doesn't look all that great either. I just hope that if it looks like it's going to be another shitshow they just postpone the game before it starts so that the rotations can remain somewhat intact.
Last night was dumb. Cano is good. Alburquerque had held lefties to .176 with no homers all season. "Valverde has been a hell of a closer (awful outside of closing situations)*" As soon as Santiago sacrificed and Kelly got to second I would've got somebody else up throwing. I was pacing back and forth the whole inning.
I continue to be impressed by Mitch Moreland. Saturday's game was excellent. I hope the road treats us well.
Brewers are up 2-0 on the Diamondbacks. Gallardo pitched awesomely on Saturday, 8 innings on 1 run. Glad to see him keeping throwing strong after a great finish to the year. Brew Crew is looking to sweep the series on Tuesday night.
I've been saying this literally all season, but the Brewers are legit. Unfortunately, they fucked up their near future, but this team they built is the real deal. Verlander. Sabathia. Best of three, Tigers w/homefield. Leggo.
Holy hell, Valverde will be the death of me. I was surprised he came in today after his 30+ pitches yesterday. I was also surprised CC came back out for the 6th. Glad they were able to jump on him after letting him escape all those walks early. Verlander's fifth inning was pretty electric. K'd the side on 10 pitches. He was rolling. Lost it for a bit in the 7th and got me all pissed off. Luckily that didn't last long. Playoff baseball is way too stressful with all of its ups and downs. Takes me back to game 163 in '09.. I'm pretty confident with AJ taking the ball for the Yankees tomorrow. But, Porcello has been inconsistent enough to keep me in check.
I'm hearing a lot of talk about the strike zone last night. I even tweeted about how small it was myself watching Jackson's first AB. (wow those were close pitches). It seemed consistently tight on both sides all night. The one "bad"/inconsistent call I remember was the high strike 3 on Cano in the 8th, which obviously I didn't mind. That's not to say there wasn't more, I just don't remember them. There were a lot for both sides where I said "How was that not a strike" including the aforementioned AB. That probably comes off as bias, which it probably is. Deal with it.
Looking at the chart there's only about 6 or 7 green triangles (Yanks) within the bounds of the red markers. There's about the same amount of green squares (Tigers) within the bounds also. Seems consistent enough. Can't expect much more from an ump, in my opinion. Probably singing a different tune if the Tigers lost. I'll stop rambling now
The Yankees lost a game 5-4 to a pitcher that was throwing 101 in the 8th inning. That is what happens in baseball sometimes. If any fans are bitching about the strike zone, it's just sour grapes -- Detroit scored slightly more runs. That's it, they won, lets all turn our hopes and dreams to A.J. Burnett.
Well said. Should be lots of runs going across with Burnett and Porcello. Hope the Tigers can score slightly more runs again!
The game's not over yet, but I had a bad feeling as soon as Burnett got out of the first inning unscathed. That's unacceptable. Terrible approach by Detroit hitters against him tonight. Hardly made him work at all. Couldn't touch him when they did. Hopefully they fare a little better in the last two innings here. First Alburquerque has to get out of this bases loaded jam. Didn't work so well last time... EDIT: Awesome. A balk. Again: Alburquerque not effective in these playoffs. Again: Wow. Things really escalated quickly. Not ideal.
Not willing to call it yet either. I saw game 162 against the Rays (although this time, we're actually trying). As wildly pessimistic about Burnett as I've been this week, he pitched very well once he got out of the first. After the Martinez home run and then the double, I fully expected him to fall apart. Would have been par for the course given the number of times this season that he's melted down after having a relatively strong first couple innings. Edit: Looks like we're heading back to the Bronx. Suck it Valverde.
Tigers were lucky to get out of all those jams. Phew. AND the pitching lines up with Verlander to start game 1 in the ALCS. As they say on local radio, there's magic in the mustache. The Tigers winning made Leyland look pretty smart, moreso with Sabathia giving up a run. If they lost EVERYBODY around here would be calling for his head for not pitching Verlander. As it stands, he's a genius. When Benoit missed Cano's soft comebacker I was having all sorts of flashbacks to the '06 World Series. Luckily they got out of it only giving up one run (On a walk, god damn it). I was so happy Valverde had a clean 9th. There was enough drama all game, I probably would've had a heart attack if let someone get on. Bring on the Shimmereds. Should be a fun night of baseball again tonight with the two game 5's over in the NL. Will be nice to not be stressing over every pitch.
This is awesome. That's Victor Martinez's son. Dombrowski's son was in there too. I understand that it was non alcoholic champagne. (For the tikes, or for Miggy?)