Brian
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Post by Brian on Oct 5, 2022 23:00:13 GMT -8
Wednesday was the last day of the season and the Dodgers finished on a high note after losing the previous three games to the lowly Colorado Rockies. Not only were their batters hitting again, Clayton Kershaw was brilliant in his seventh start since his last residency on the injured list. I'm more anxious than usual as the playoffs begin. The 2022 Dodgers won 111 games -- the most by far in the team's history -- but that means nothing in the postseason when the hottest team always prevails. What worries me is the new wild card scheme pictured above. The two best teams in each league won't play until the two Division Series begin next Tuesday. Will the players benefit from the rest or will they lose their edge waiting five days to play again?
The San Diego Padres finally made it to the postseason again. I root for them whenever they're not playing the Dodgers because they have only been to the World Series twice since their founding in 1969. Worse, the Padres have only won one World Series game in the team's only appearances in 1984 and in 1998. Hopefully, they'll dispatch the New York Mets in the three-game series that starts Friday and take a bus to Dodger Stadium to open the five-game Division Series. If they win that, it will provide some solace over the Dodgers' elimination. Go National League West!
I have no favorites in the other two National League divisions. The Atlanta Braves and the New York Mets were still fighting for the lead in the NL East last weekend, so I watched some of those games on TV thinking I had no dog in that fight. Then I heard the notorious tomahawk chop chant from the Atlanta fans. The Braves are wonderful guys, but they won the World Series last year and I'd like to avoid seeing the mostly white home crowd chopping in unison for as much of October as possible. So I'll be watching the other wild card series between the St. Louis Cardinals and the Philadelphia Phillies to see who I'm going to tout against the Braves in their Division Series.
As usual, I've paid little attention to the American League on the left of that chart. As a Dodgers fan, I'm genetically predisposed to want the New York Yankees eliminated early. (My nightmare World Series match up is the Yankees and the Giants.) My grudge against the Houston Astros is ebbing because last I heard only one player remains from the cheating team that stole the World Series from the Dodgers in 2017, and Dodgers great Dusty Baker has been their manager since the scandal broke. The Yankees and the Astros are sitting out the wild card round. I'll be rooting for two teams this weekend: the Seattle Mariners, who were founded in 1977 and are the only team in major league history that has never appeared in a World Series, and the Cleveland Guardians -- known as the Indians until this season -- who last won a World Series in 1948 against the Boston Braves.
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Oct 10, 2022 0:01:34 GMT -8
I was prepared to like the new wild card scheme and I did. The National League just played two three-game series, a much fairer way of determining advancement into the Division Series than the single elimination game of the previous wild card formats. It took the owners and the players union almost three decades since the leagues realigned from two to three divisions to figure out a good way to pick the fourth team to meet the division winners that wasn't as arbitrary as rewarding the winner of just one game after a 162-game season. The owners were motivated to expand the wild card games by the promise of more money from broadcast revenue and merchandising, and there's nothing inherently wrong with that. I appreciate that they finally returned to the three-game playoff that the major leagues had in the good old days to decide a tie at the end of a season, like the Dodgers-Giants series in 1951 that I still love to talk about.
I'm also pleased that every team I picked won its series, the first time I can remember that happening in the postseason as long as I've been following baseball.
I had two favorites in the American League, the Cleveland Guardians who last won a World Series ten years before I was born and the Seattle Mariners who are the only team in major league history that has never appeared in a World Series. The Guardians are delightful to watch -- and too young to know what they're up against -- so it would be a heap of fun to see them outsmart the New York Yankees like they did with superior-on-paper Tampa Bay Rays this weekend. In the other AL series, the Mariners scored more comeback runs than any team in postseason history to defeat the Toronto Blue Jays in just two games. Now they will have to dispatch the best team in the league, the Houston Astros.
In the National League, I had no rooting interest between the Philadelphia Phillies and the St. Louis Cardinals. The Phillies will take on the Atlanta Braves. The San Diego Padres needed three games to win their series against the much favored Mets in New York. Now they will face the Dodgers next Tuesday in Chavez Ravine having already used their best starting pitchers to achieve their wild card win.
The Dodgers travel to San Diego for the third game of the Division Series. Because of the owners' lockout that wiped out the first week of the season, there will be no day off if both teams have to return to Dodger Stadium if a fifth game is necessary, putting further stress on the pitchers. I expect the Dodgers to win in four games, if not three.
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Oct 17, 2022 23:00:21 GMT -8
I expected to feel some kind of depression setting in as the Dodgers were losing the Division Series 50 hours ago. Instead I got caught up in the fun that the Padres' players were having as they scored five runs to take the lead in the seventh inning. Then I had to cheer the fans who didn't leave as rain poured on downtown San Diego throughout the eighth. Their rampant joy was infectious.
The Dodgers' 111-win season was like a marathon that they won an hour ahead of the rest of the runners. The Division Series was a 1,000-meter sprint that the Padres won easily.
I love baseball all year, so I will always treasure the 2022 Dodgers and what they accomplished.
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Oct 25, 2022 23:00:23 GMT -8
After the Padres defeated the Dodgers easily in the National League Division Series, they folded against the Philadelphia Phillies in the NL Championship Series, winning only one game. The Padres' fate mirrored the Dodgers' crash last year in the NLCS after the Dodgers gave all they had to squeak by the Giants in the NLDS. I had wondered if the Padres would be able to get as pumped up against the Phillies as they had while bringing down their long-time rivals, the Dodgers. But perhaps, like the Dodgers, they had little left in their tank.
Thus the Phillies -- the third place team in the National League East with only 87 wins and the sixth seeded team of the six NL teams in the playoffs -- are the champions of the National League. They got there by taking care of the Atlanta Braves in the other Division Series. I rooted against the Braves because of my aversion to the tomahawk chop. Then the Phillies fans adopted the chant when the series moved to Philadelphia -- I even heard the organist playing it. It looks worse than it sounds when virtually everybody I see in the stands is white in a city that is 40 percent Black. Is the tomahawk chop reason enough to abandon my lifelong loyalty to the National League?
I guess I'll find out when the World Series starts on Friday. If the Houston Astros prevail, Dusty Baker will win his first world championship as a manager after taking every one of the five teams he's managed to division titles. This will be his third World Series at the helm -- his Astros fell to the Braves last year and his 2002 Giants lost in a heartbreaking game to the Angels. After a career that spans three full decades, Dusty has the most wins of all managers who have not won a World Series.
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Brian
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Posts: 3,790
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Post by Brian on Nov 7, 2022 0:35:26 GMT -8
After the final out in the World Series, Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker was at the center of one of the most enthusiastic group hugs I've seen, surrounded by his coaches and every player in the dugout. Somehow the toothpick still jutted from his lips as he emerged onto the field but the next time Dusty appeared on screen it was gone, abandoned by an ear to ear smile.
He once smoked a joint with Jimi Hendrix when he was a teenager. Then he co-invented the high five. Now Dusty will have at least one world championship as a manager to add to his plaque when he is inevitably inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.
The Philadelphia Phillies won two of the first three games, raising my hopes of a fourth National League victory in a row, before losing the last three games -- including the first no hitter in a World Series since 1956. The five players remaining from the 2017 Astros proved that they can win a World Series without cheating.
On that happy note, is it too soon to obsess over the Dodgers team roster for 2023?
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