MARCO’S
BASEBALL BLOG-O-ROONIE 2019: Post Season Almanac
Check it out:
THE
GYPSY SPEAKS!:
AL
Division Winners: Boston, Cleveland, Houston
NL
Division Winners: Washington, St. Louis, Los Angeles
AL
Wild Cards: New York, Oakland
NL
Wild Cards: Atlanta, Chicago
ALL
Pennant: New York over Oakland, Boston over New York, Houston over
Cleveland, Houston over Boston.
NL
Pennant: Chicago over Atlanta, Washington over Chicago,
Los
Angeles over St. Louis, Washington over Los Angeles
World
Series: Houston over Washington.
This was my March
prediction and as you can see, I had a lot wrong. But I have the
right two clubs in the Series! I still pick the Astros to win
in 6 but the Nationals have parlayed their strong starting
pitchers into a nice playoff run.
A brief recap: In
the AL Wild Card Game the Tampa Rays skwushed the Oakland
Athletics like the proverbial grape. All those Oakland strong
boys were flailing helplessly at Charlie Morton’s curve
balls and it was little old Tampa that hit all the homers...4 of
them...to take the game 5-1. They advanced to face Houston and were
of course heavily UN-favored.
The first match up
in the division was Twinkies vs. Yanks. No big
surprise….the Twinks lay down and died for the pinstripes like they
always do in the playoffs. The Twinks are 2-15 in the playoffs vs.
the Yankees since 2003 and have lost 16 straight playoff games
overall. After setting the new home run record for a season (the
Yanks broke it too) the Minnesotans looked pretty damn pitiful in
this series.
Tampa surprised the
Astros with good pitching, timely hitting and a game attitude that
took the ‘Stros to the brink until game 5 when they rolled away 6-1
behind Brantley and Altuve home runs.
So ...the matchup in
the ALCS was the one everybody predicted….New York vs. Houston 2017
redux.
That was an epic
series as you may recall….and this one wasn’t that great until
game 6. But first…
Game 1: Gleyber Torres ... single, double homer
and rbi grounder for total of 5 ribbies after mashing in the sweep
of Minnesota. Youngblood! And not the first to make himself heard in
the 2019 Post Season.
Game 2: The Carlos Correa game. Carlos almost hit one out to dead center early. Perhaps if MLB hadn’t introduced the new “playoff” balls it would have gone. Semi-embarrassed by the cheapness of home runs this season, MLB came up with a batch of “older” baseballs to take some of the oomph out. That and the cold weather seemed to have an effect on carry. Carlos made a truly great play on a ball that bounced off Altuve in the late innings. He picked up the carom and twisted himself into position to make a bullseye throw to nail LeMahieu at home.
Verlander and Paxton were starters but both were gone early. The Houston bullpen surprised by matching the Yankees vaunted pen...keeping the game tied until Correa hit a walk off in the eleventh.
Game 3: Back
in Yankee Stadium the Bronx Bombers send Luis Severino out to
face Gerrit Cole, who looks
just like Blake Shelton when the country singer had a mullet.
Everybody expects Cole to dominate, as he has since May. (18 straight
decisions for the team when he’s started!) Surprisingly, Cole
struggles in this outing, walking 5 in 7 innings and fanning 7. But
he holds the Manhattan Dandies to 1 run and Houston wins it 4-1.
So far, watching
this series is a massive strike out fest. 4 hours worth every game.
With all these power pitchers working on both clubs, the K’s are
out of control. High fastball, high fastball...slider in the dirt.
Fastball, curve out of the zone, change up in the dirt. Swing and
miss, foul ball, swing and miss. In the playoffs through the ALCS
Sanchez has fanned 16 times, Judge 11, Gardner 15 and
Encarnacion 13. Edwin can’t seem to see the breaking pitch
at all. It’s an unholy banquet of K’s going on.
The Astros are just
as bad, and they’re supposed to be the best in baseball at not
striking out. Brantley with 10, Bregman 12, Springer
19, Yordan Alvarez 21 and Correa 23! That’s the best
contact team in the majors? That’s with an average of only 45-60
plate appearances. Springer and Correa look like the same hitter to
me. They are both well built athletic guys who keep the bat flat on
their shoulders and take all or nothing, horrendously violent swings
at the ball. They totally sell out every time. Once in awhile they
run into one. So you get 1 or 2 homers in the whole Post Season and
watch them fan the rest of the time. Correa hit .171 and Springer
.152 in this series.
And poor Yonder
Alvarez (.171)! They pitch him fastballs just high out of the zone
and he dutifully swings and misses or fouls these pitches off. Then
they throw him a breaking pitch in the dirt...I mean every time! And
he swings at it every time and misses it. What is he thinking?
“Okay...it’s full count... I wonder what they’re going to
throw me this time? A fastball right down the middle...Yeah! That’s
it for sure!” WHIFF!!!
Game 4: Astros
win it 8-3. Correa and Springer both hit 3-run homers, thus insuring
that they will each strike out 5 times in the next two games trying
to repeat the singular sensation.
Game 5:
Verlander continues
his trend of giving up first inning runs. LeMahieu
and Hicks both homer
and top the ‘Stros 4-1 in a game that takes...Oh
My God!...LESS THAN THREE HOURS!
It’s the first game in post season history where each team score in
the first and never score again in the rest of the game. Curious and
Trivial but True.
Game 6:
Back to Houston for a Bullpen game...that’s where the manager
pitches each and every member of the relief core about an inning and
a half til the exhaustion of it all renders them feeble-armed and
helpless. God forbid you
should ask your starter to go out there without the minimum four days
rest. Each team uses
7 pitchers. The game lasts
4 hours and 9 minutes and Jose Altuve hits
a clutch walk off four-bagger to win it. A thing of beauty really. In
defeat, LeMahieu is
also clutch...delivering a two run bomb to tie it in the top of the
ninth. This was the most interesting game in the series.
Over
in the Senior Circuit (what a monikor!) the Wild Card game was won
4-3 by the Washington Nats when they scored 3 against the fearsome
sidewinder Josh Hader while their own Stephen Strasburg came in in
relief of starter Mad Max Scherzer and
shut the Brewers down for 3 innings.
The
Nationals
are a compelling team. As you remember, they sucked a gigantic
lemon-flavored Big One for the first 50 games of the season going a
horrible 19-31. Then
they picked up Gerardo Parra
who had been dumped by San Francisco. Parra promptly hit a walk off
homer, talked to all the Latin players and got them to loosen up in
the clubhouse, taught everybody to do the Baby Shark dance in the
dugout after home runs and in general provided just the kick in the
ass that this uptight club needed. Now the Nats are in the Series and
I don’t think they would have made it without the strange chemistry
experiment that General Manager Mike Rizzo
concocted with the help of the little Venezuelan. Leadership comes in
many forms...but this little guy Parra, like the Astros little guy
Jose Altuve...has that certain something that creates a winning
attitude.
The
Nationals started the playoffs with an offense that consisted of
Anthony Rendon and
Juan Soto (the 20 year old
wunderkind) and slowly got hot. Rendon
is a sort of silent assassin...calm and cool all the time. Soto is
just the opposite. He dances around in the box like he’s doing the
rumba. After each pitch he either nods his head as if to sanction
it’s excellence or weakness...sometimes honoring the pitch,
sometimes dismissing it and the fact he didn’t hit it as shear
random luck. When he takes a close pitch that is called a ball he
squares off and stares down the pitcher like a martial artist ready
to plant a side kick on his head. Very entertaining.
Starting
late in the Dodger series, other guys started warming up: Howie
Kendrick beat the Dodgers with
a grand salami and a bunch of doubles. Then guys like Trea
Turner, catcher Kurt
Suzuki and Adam Eaton
started producing. Ryan Zimmerman,
the old man of the team, bashed a few long balls and suddenly the
Nats won 8 straight playoff games. Their starting pitching was superb
and disguised the lack of arms in the bullpen. Scherzer,
Strasburg, Corbin and Anibel
Sanchez all looked pretty good
(except for a wobbly appearance in relief by Corbin against the
Dodgers.)
The Nats, running counter to almost every trend in the game...are an
old team, averaging over 31 years per man. But they have been lethal
in the clutch, racking up two out hits with runners in scoring
position and even bunting!
NLDS St. Louis
vs. Atlanta
Game 1: The Cardinales come from behind and crush 6 runs off
the Bravos weak bullpen and steal this one. Goldschmidt starts
his Playoff experience with a double and a homer and this give away
is the deciding factor in Atlanta’s flop in this year’s playoffs.
Game 2: Atlanta 3-0 as Foltynewicz outpitches
Flaherty. Adam Duval hits a big pinch tater for
the home town Tomahawks.
Game 3: Wainwright turns back the clock to dominate the
Braves until his bullpen coughs up furballs in the ninth. Soroka
keeps the Bravos in the game until they score 3 in the ninth. Duval
gets another pinch hit to win it but it is shortstop Dansby
Swanson whose double and great defense makes it possible for the
Georgians to come back.
Game 4: Yadier Molina’s sacrifice fly wins it for St.
Louis in the tenth. Goldy and Ozuna homer. Atlanta wastes a
4-hit game by Acuna and lose another one run game.
Game 5: A laugher as the Cards tie a record (most runs in a
post season game inning) as they score 10 in the first. Foltynewicz
is El Foldy in this one. The Braves sure found a variety of ways to
lose in this series. Offensively, the Cardinals are carried by Goldy
and Ozuna , who each hit .429 with 2 homers for the series. I hope
they enjoyed it because here come the Nationals.
The Cards struck out 47 times and homered 4 times. The Braves K’d
46 times and hit 5 homers. Both teams had 16 walks. Pretty evenly
matched teams... so it was situational hitting that won it for St.
Louis.
NLDS Nationals vs. Dodgers:
The Dodgers were one of the Big Three in MLB this year. Most people
rated them just under the Houstononians and pretty even with the
Yanksters. The Dodgers were expected to crunch the bones of the the
Nats in this series but people kept forgetting that the Nats’
starting pitching is actually deeper and better than the Dodgers now
that Kershaw is showing some age.
Game 1: The Nats look overmatched as they get only 2 hits
against Walker Buehler and the L.A. bullpen, striking out 13
times. 6-0 no contest.
Game 2: Strasburg and the Nats’ bullpen strike out 17 Boys
in Blue as the top of the Nats’ order gets on base 7 times and
scores 3 off Kershaw. Washington 4-2.
Game 3: In our nation’s capitol, Dave Martinez, the
Nats’ manager, gets cute and brings in his leftie starter Patrick
Corbin to shut down the Dodgeheads in the the 6th. 7
runs later the Nats are behind in the series 1-2 losing 10-4.
Game 4: Scherzer guts it out for 7 innings and gives up only a
run as the Nats win 6-1. Ryan Zimmerman hits a sentimental old person
3- run home run off Pedro Baez to give the Washington fans a
golden memory.
Game 5: A day that will live in Dodger infamy. Buehler and
Strasburg duel for 6 innings and the Blues enter the 8th with a 3-1
lead. Dave Roberts , who announced to all the world that
Clayton Kershaw was going to come back to pitch out of the pen to
help close out the Nats, delivered on his promise by bringing in the
Big Guy to get the leftie hitting Eaton to close down the 7th.
But then, for some sentimental reason Davey leaves Kershaw in to
pitch to the one guy he shouldn’t have faced: Anthony Rendon.
Rendon had gotten used to a steady diet of 98 mph fastballs from
Buehler so Kershaw’s 90 mph leftie stuff looks good to him and he
jacks one out to left. Then, with Kershaw still in there, Juan Soto
puts a beautiful swing on a weak pitch and the Nats are tied. That
was the spirit-crusher for the Dodgers. After a scoreless ninth, the
Nats work the bases full against Joe Kelly and watch him give up a
grand slam jack to ex-Dodger Howie Kendrick. The ‘Heads go down
meekly in the bottom of the tenth. Game, set, match.
NLCS Nationals
vs. Cardinals:
Slash and burn. Game 1 Anibel Sanchez pitches 6 2/3 innings of
no hit ball for the best start of the playoffs. St. Louis gets beat
2-0 with only 1 hit. Game 2 the Cardinals lose 3-1 and get
only 3 hits off Scherzer and company. Game 3 more
Strasburg….8-1 Nationals. The Cardinals are striking out in
bunches. Paul Goldschmidt has K’d in 9 of last 11 at bats including
a stinking 7 in a row. Game 4 the Nats score 7 in the 1st
inning so the Cardinals know how Atlanta felt when they got boxed for
10 by St. Louis. This series was a huge, mismatched anti-climax. Now
the Nationals have to sit around for a week waiting for the Astros
and Yankees to finish up. This has been a bugaboo for many teams who
win their league series too quickly.
I complete this on the eve of Game 6 of the World Series. Yes, the
Nats were rusty after their week off. They only pestered the Astros
for two wins in Houston to start the series! That’s 8 games in a
row that the Washington team has won. But then, in a switch, the
‘Stros hammered back for 3 road wins in D.C.
It’s Verlander vs. Strasburg in Game 6. I have a feeling it’ll be
a good one tonight.
...and I’ll be back to discuss it in my next edition.
God Bless Baseball!
--Marco
