Marco's Baseball
Blog-O-Roonie:
PLAYOFF
RUMINATIONS
“95% of playoff teams down by more than 4 runs after
the seventh inning never come back to win”.
Well tell it to the Astros and the Rangers.
Everybody got in a tizzy about the “Cuteness Cubbies” and the
“Amazins” when those two lovable loser types made it into the
playoffs. “Not since 1986, 1984, 2000 etc. etc. blah blah insert
your meaningless latter decade year here.
Hey...down here in Texas no team has EVER WON THE WORLD
SERIES...EVER!!! We're 0 for 3 in the Series since the Houston Colt
45's came into the National League in 1962. In over 50 years the two
Texas teams have managed only 17 playoff appearances: 7 for the
Strangers and 10 for the Disastros. Why?
Because God punishes us!!! Diabolical disastrous ill
luck and ineptitude clobbers Texas Teams over the head with alarming
regularity. If it's not Nelson Cruz lurching helplessly after a fly
ball so he can turn it into a triple off the wall it's the Astros
giving up 5 runs in the 8th inning of Game 4 of gthe 2015
Divisional Series and turning a 4 run lead over Kansas City to an
eventual 9-6 loss.
The Astro's bullpen gave up 14 runs in that playoff
series. Read that again...14 runs! I think they may have an area of
concentration picked out for next year's team.
An unprecedented comeback by the Royals? Not really.
This kind of stuff happens all the time in baseball...it's just so
much more dramatic when one team is about to win a playoff series and
move up to the ALCS like Houston was about to do.
Here's the story of the greatest playoff comeback of all
time. We take you now to the year 1929:
The Philadelphia Athletics are playing the
Chicago Cubs in the 1929 World Series. (Yes...those Chicago
Cubs...the “Goat-Curs-ed”. I swear, they ought to put Bartman
headphones on a herd of goats and let them graze on the Wrigley Field
ivy for about a week just to mollify the Goat Demons. But more on
that later.)
Philly...under legendary manager Connie Mack...was
just beginning a three year pennant romp behind future Hall of Famers
Jimmy Foxx (.354/33/117), Al Simmons (.365/34/157),
catcher Mickey Cochrane (.331) and Uber-Pitcher Lefty Grove
(league-leading 170Ks and 2.82 ERA in one of the highest scoring
years of all times). They won 104 games that year, leaving the
Ruth/Gehrig Yankees in the dust.
The Cubs were no slouches either. They scored an epic
982 runs in 156 games behind Hack Wilson (.345/39/159), Rogers
Hornsby (.380/39/149) Riggs Stephenson (.362/17/110) and
Kiki Cuyler (.360/15/102)
The Athletics are up 2 games to 1 in the 7th
inning of the 4th game with Chicago about to tie up the
Series with an 8-0 lead. In the bottom of the 7th the
Athletics are up and this happens:
*starter Charlie Root pitching for the Cubs
*Simmons homers onto left field roof
*Foxx singles to right
*Bing Miller singles to center when Hack Wilson
loses the ball in the sun
*Jimmy Dykes singles to left
*Joe Boley singles to right
*George Burns pinch hits for the pitcher and pops to
short for the first out
*Max Bishop singles over pitcher Charlie Root's
head
(this is the same Charlie Root who would give up Babe
Ruth's famous “called shot” homer 3 years later... a man of
destiny for sure)
*Art Nehf comes into pitch for Root (about time)
*Mule Haas hits 3-run inside the park homer when
Hack Wilson loses the ball in the sun AGAIN!
*Mickey Cochrane walks
*Sheriff Blake replaces Nehf on the mound
*Simmons singles over third
*Foxx singles in the tying run
*Pat Malone comes in to pitch for Chicago
*Miller is hit by a pitch, loading the bases
*Dykes doubles to the wall
*Boley strikes out
*Burns strikes out
Final score: Philadelphia 10 Chicago 8. Philly now leads
the series 3 games to 1 and polishes off Chicago the next day.
That was some half inning.
The Texas Rangers had themselves one of those in
the 5th game of their division series against the Toronto
Blue Jays.
The Rangers looked great knocking off the Jays in the
first two games in Toronto but coughed up furballs in their two home
games back in Arlington. In the 5th game back in Toronto
it's 2-2 in the top of the 7th, Odor scores from
third when Toronto catcher Russell Martin hits Choo's
bat with his throwback to the pitcher. The ball trickles down the
third base line and Odor alertly runs home.
Not even the umpires have seen this play before and when
they finally figure out it's a live ball (with help from the Umpire
Gods who sit on Olympus back in the New York control room), the
Toronto fans litter the field with beer cans when Odor's run is
allowed, giving the Rangers a 3-2 lead going into the bottom of the
7th.
One of the weirdest plays ever.
But in true Texas-team tradition, the Strangers find a
way to turn this good fortune into a macabre death spiral. They make
3 bad errors in the bottom of the inning...shortstop Andrus
dropping an easy grounder and an easy force out at third...and allow
the Jays to tie it up. Then they serve up an inside fastball to
Bautista who deposits the ball in the left field seats.
Bautista struts his stuff and flings his bat at the Rangers
bench...celebrating his greatness while conveniently ignoring the
fact that he shouldn't even be batting because the inning should have
been over.
The Rangers start milling around as if they are offended
but nothing happens except somebody pats Troy Tulowitzski on
the butt and somebody pushes somebody. Then the Rangers lie down
quietly and die, accepting their unchanging loser-fate.
Thus expires another Texas team.
The Dodgers find another way to die. They hook up
with the pitching heavy Mets. I picked them to win this series
because of Kershaw and Greinke...two of the top three
Cy Young candidates along with Arrieta of the Cubs...are set
up to pitch 4 games of the 5 game series. They won 3 out of 4 all
year.
But not this time. Kershaw wins once but the Dodger bats
are melted by the Mets' young pitchers and especially their lights
out closer Familia. On top of that the Mets second
baseman Danny Murphy suddenly turns into Bat-Beast and starts
hitting everything into the seats and off the walls and stuff. This
character hit his all time high homer total in the 2015 regular
season...14 bombs. Then the sonuvagun hits 7 in the playoffs (so far)
and homers in 6 games in a row...last 2 Dodger games in the
Divisionals and then all 4 in the sweep of the Cubs. Unreal.
So the Dodgers flame out again. They could never get a
settled batting order and Utley sliding hard into second in game 2 and breaking the leg of Met second sacker Ruben
Tejada motivated the Metskies. (Tejada was woefully out of
position on the play but was helpless. As I argued earlier in the
season, the rules should be changed to prevent this kind of contact
at second base, just as it's prohibited at other bases.) Manager
Mattingly is now kaput in Dodgertown.
He was no genius but he was at least an honorable
baseball warrior. I doubt the Dodgers will do better.
The Cubs went down too, but at least they made
some noise before they folded.
First, they dispatched the poor Pirates in the
Wild Card game. Arrieta shut out the Pirates for the third straight
time in a month. The Buccos just couldn't hit the guy. (However,
Arrieta finally used up his mojo and was not as effective the rest of
the playoff run. The Cubs burned out their Ace in the Wild Card which
illustrates the point that it pays to win your division.)
Cubs-Cardinals turned on the injury bug. The Cardinals
were hurt more by the loss of catcher Molina and starter
Martinez than the Cubs were hurt by the loss of shortstop
Addison Russell.
The key game was game 3 at Wrigley...the wind was
blowing out that night...(pure poetry, I know) and for some reason
the Cardinal pitchers...starters, relievers, whoever...decided to
keep throwing sternum-high strikes to the Cub hitters. Hey, any pop
fly was going into the seats! A pop foul behind the plate went foul
behind the screen and blew back onto the field where Molina (trying
to play with a broken thumb) had to make a circus catch. Anyway, 6
homers later, the Cubs had thoroughly spanked the Redbirds. I believe
only 1 homer was legitimately not a factor of wind...Schwarber's
blast to right field that landed on Mars somewhere. The Cards needed
somebody out there throwing sinkers or at least staying in the low
part of the zone. Too late!
The Cubbies triumph and those ever-optimistic Cubs fans
thought the Prophecy of Back to the Future was coming true. (The
movie sarcastically predicted that the Cubs wouldn't win a series
until 2015. Almost!)
Unfortunately for the cute little Bears, the Mets
spanked them in New York and then spanked them worse back in Chicago
to take 4 straight and win the ALCS. Arrieta had shot his wad and
Lester wasn't as good as whoever the Mets put out there. DeGrom,
Syndegaard, Harvey, Matz...clean sweep. The Cubs only scored more
than 1 run in just 1 inning the whole series.
But Mets haters can relax...The Mets have 5 days off
now, waiting for the ALCS to be over. That's been the Kiss of Death
for playoff teams in recent years. Whatever mojo they had goes stale.
Do you think Danny Murphy is going to sustain his Cosmic Clutch
hitting? The pitchers can use the rest but the hitters always lose
their timing with long layoffs.
Their opponent in the 2015 World Series will be either
the Toronto Blue Jays or the Kansas City Royals. The Royals are up 3
games to 2 at this writing with the series going back to Kaufmann
Stadium. We've had a couple of blowouts but it's been a pretty good
series. The Jays bullpen has been exposed but the Jays lineup has
scored enough runs on the Royals starters to win those 2 games and
make it a contest. The Royals have 2 games in their home park to win
the one that takes them back to the WS for the second year in a row.
I stand by my preseason prediction: THE KANSAS CITY
ROYALS WILL WIN THE WORLD SERIES.
YOU GUYS ENJOY THE REST OF THE SEASON!!
