And That Happened: NLCS

Phillies 11, Dodgers 0: I’d jump all over the Kuroda start, but (a) the alternative would have been Chad Billingsley, right, and he didn’t have much of anything himself last night; and (b) even if he gave up one run over eight innings or something, he still would have lost because Cliff Lee is the freakin’ Terminator (8 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 10K). They could have gone with Randy Wolf, of course, who hasn’t pitched since (I think) the 1988 NLCS, but at least he gets a turn tonight. In other news, Ryan Howard’s triple made me tired.


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Chris H.
14 years ago

No, I’m with Grant on this one.  Being a Bears fan helped (well, for a while).

Mode: Theif and Lair
14 years ago

Re: The ANA @ NYY game on Saturday.  What was your feeling on the “neighborhood” play?  Being a Yankee fan, I agreed with Buck, in that, I was glad it didn’t decide the game.  In the aftermath, there were a lot of different views. Many Yankee fans (of course) said it was a good call because he didn’t make any attempt to “Sweep the bag” or a least stepping on it first and coming off early.

Still, I think it’s not something you decide to call in extra innings of a playoff game.

Mode: Theif and Lair
14 years ago

Crap.  Sorry, I did it again.  I come here first and then I check NBC.  I will read that post.

Craig Calcaterra
14 years ago

No worries, MTL.  I understand that a lot of THT readers don’t like the NBC side of things, so I don’t expect them to read it beforehand.

But like I wrote over there: I think it was the right call. At least make an effort to sweep.  Not touching it all stretches an already tenuous rule (unwritten or otherwise) farther than I think reason allows. As they say in law school, you gotta draw the line somewhere.

MooseinOhio
14 years ago

Re: The safe at second call during the Angels and Yankees games – I would love to review all the playoff double plays Jeter has technically not touched the bag but gotten the call.  If phantom tags are going to be allowed then the Aybar’s positioning was more than sufficient to get the call as I am sure Jeter has technically missed the bag countless times in all the playoff games he has played in.  That safe call is not made 99% of the time in regular season games as well as playoff games – so why in this game?  At that time?

My intention is not to slam Jeter (I’ll leave that for Craig over at NBC) but to point out the umpiring biases that exist in the game and the favoritism that certain players get as Maddux’s strike zone was generally bigger than other pitchers and Tony Gwynn not swinging at a close pitch meant it had to be a ball.  The fact that a playoff game could have been affected by such a call should get the attention of the league but because it didn’t impact the result of the game it will more than likely get pushed under the rug. 

My frustration is that this is another sign that something needs to be done to improve the quality of the umpiring, as evidenced by all the bad call in this years playoff alone, but my sense is that Bud Selig and the boys down at MLB will attempt to pull the wool over our eyes by telling us how great the games were and that baseball is a great sports.  While all that may be true – it does not address the issue and I am sure the Orioles fans wished that instant replay of HR calls was put into place prior to the 1996 season. 

My message to Bud.  Before another playoff game/series is tainted by a poor call – please do something about the umpiring or baseball will suffer from a lack of integrity in how calls are made and the conspiracy theorists will have enough evidence to argu the negative of baseballs louder than those of us who prefer to talk about the beauty of baseball.

Grant
14 years ago

At least the football game was exciting, since I gave up on this game right around the third inning.

Megary
14 years ago

I don’t think I’ll ever use (pro)“football” and one other word in the same sentence again.  That other word would be “exciting”.