Clev up 3-0, while they still have to get the 4th win, they seem like locks to be in the World Series.
Bauer lasts 2 batters before his bleeding finger forces him out of the game. Bullpen does a fantastic job. Now down to two starters...Cluber and Tomlin...one of whom missed his last start of the regular season with a strained hamstring and the other who was considered fatigued in late August and forcing discussions of a four man rotation. How do they keep doing it? Cluber going to start on short rest tonight. You wouldn't think you'd have to do that when you're up 3-0. I think they want to go all out tonight to give Bauer and maybe even Salazaar a chance to come back. Tomlin even talked about pitching tonight if needed. Geez if he did and we lost, who the heck would we start Thursday? Clevenger seems to be the wild card in all this...the kid can throw but young and a bit inconsistent. He's bounced from the bullpen to occasional starter...it seems as if Francona hasn't figured out how he wants to use him yet.
I'm beginning to like this Indians team. When Mike Napolis steals 2nd base, you know they're playing all out. I sure Toronto is also, but you get the feeling that Francona has lit a fire under his team.
I figured Clevenger to start tonight...but IMO anybody who second guesses Francona is an idiot. PS...have to give kudos to Mickey Callaway our pitching coach...I don't think he gets enough credit in the media.
I never really truly bought into the occult and curses but this Dodgers series is starting to get me to think that the goat really had some evil mojo...
The Dodgers are a scrappy team and their pitching is just dirty. The Cubs have the fire power and the pitching to go the distance or even roll off 3 straight. At the same time, they're gonna get Kershaw again (at least once) and that has to seem like a scary proposition.
Tribe's pitching injuries coming home to roost. Cluber pitches a decent 5 innings on short rest but gives up 2. Sanchez too tough for Indians' bats and then Shaw makes the first Indians error of the post season. Francona rests Miller and Allen who have pitched in 3 of the previous 4 days. Ortero and Clevenger don't embarrass themselves but these are the Bluejays and they pick up a couple more runs. Now...let me introduce you to Ryan Merritt. You are all familiar with him, right? Nice young lefty pitching prospect. Had a pretty good year in Columbus. He has pitched all of 11 innings in the big leagues so he's no doubt ready for this stage. :shock: Well, what are you going to do when you lose 3 of your 5 starters to injury? No doubt part of Francona's tinking in starting Cluber on short rest last night was that he could use him again in game 7 if needed. Oh, and Toronto's bats are starting to heat back up.
Well Congratulations to the AL Champs Cleveland Indians! Now we need for the Dodgers/Cubs to go the full 7 games!
How about that kid Ryan Merritt? 2nd major league start...11 previous innings in the bigs. The Tribe continues to pull rabbits out of the hat.
Cubs rally back! Blues did take away a score from the Dodgers in that call at the plate. It looked clear to be that the Dodger beat the lazy throw from right field with a nifty slide around the tag. I can see why the ump called him out on the field in real time, but after the replay got a look at it in slow mo I don't see how they didn't over turn it. But 10-2 was a pretty resounding win, so it didn't really matter I guess. Most important things for the Cubs is that they got the bats rolling, they really needed that to happen.
I watched my Dodgers go down the drain in a restaurant near Ontario Airport. It was not sad and it was not unexpected among us Dodger Dogs. We road one injured future Hall-of-Fame pitcher as far as he could go. Our magical front office finally ran out of wabbits in their hats and our super-kids learned the hardest lesson of professional baseball: the other guys can have super kids too. Sometimes good isn't good enough and that was the case this year. How we got that far with one good starter; one good closer; and a bunch of youngsters is a mystery to me, but in the end, the best team won. Vin Scully told us in the very first week of the season that the Chicago Cubs were the best team in baseball and that was my opinion too. They were so good, that they were never really challenged. Even we were only able to worry them slightly. When they shrugged it off and returned to business, the outcome was inevitable. Congrats to Sid and Cubs fans everywhere. It's going to be an historic World Series and all baseball fans are ready for that.
I saw that the new agreement between MLB and the MLBPA includes returning the home field advantage in the WS to the team with the best record not the league that won the All-Star game. Thank goodness, that was the stupidist rule ever.
Yeah it was a really dumb rule...not sure I like this one either...mostly because you lack common opponents. I guess I'd just favor going back to the alternating years thing. (Or you could first go head to head record if they had played each other in regular season, followed by record against common opponents...followed by whichever team has the coolest uniforms.)
I would definitely like to go back to the alternating seasons rule as well Stu. It worked well for a hundred years or more.
Carlos Beltran has returned to the Astros...lo those many years ago when he was a rent a player for a 1/2 season he was popular with the locals then when he scorned us for the Millions in NYC (Mets) he was one of the most hated ex-players in our history. So now he's back at the end of his career, I assume that along with the other ex-Yankee he's being counted on for veteran leadership. I'm not sure I wanted him back to tell you the truth.