2019 WS - Nationals vs. Astros - Gamethread

E5 Yaz

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Howie Kendrick on MLBN sounds as though he'll be a broadcaster someday
 

curly2

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Kendrick hit .344 with a .966 OPS this season. It's gotta be the quietest OPS+ of 142 in baseball history. And it wasn't like he was a bench guy -- he played in 121 game and had 370 PA.... though he did hit a .900 OPS in his 70 starts, and a 1.278 OPS in games he was a sub. Wow.
Yeah, I changed the Kendrick post when I remembered how great a year he had.
 

InstaFace

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Well then don’t diss the guy — that fought to bring the team here even though he’d gotten only a terrible TV deal shared with Peter Angelos, partly funded the stadium, ran the team at a loss for a while, still spends top dollar even though he looks out at half empty stadiums despite being consistent contenders for half a decade or more, and has massive local charities —because of the color of skin.
Not a Deadspin fan, I take it. So it goes.

Look, forget that one-liner. I have no specific problem with Ted Lerner and family. My problem is with the practice (by MLB and NFL only, mind you) of not treating the people who just won a sports competition as the people who need to be honored first and particularly. The "real game" of baseball or football might well be the one being played by owners getting taxpayer-funded stadiums, congressional antitrust exemptions and depreciation loopholes out the wazoo, and that's fine. The "real game" might be the one being played by GMs, moving chess pieces around, and that's fine. But the game the fans turned in to see on TV tonight, the one they spend money to follow, happens between the lines.

What does it say to you that they present the trophy to the owner, ask him to speak first, then ask the GM "how it feels", then ask the manager, and then finally get around to "hey where'd Zimmermann go"? Were you itching to hear anything out of their mouths there, or did you want to see some boyish glee from a bunch of men who just collectively achieved the pinnacle of their profession through their own athletic talents? Think about what it says - the priorities. Again, who's the protagonist of this story?

Let's say a team at Merck pharmaceuticals cures ass cancer, and they hold an awards event to honor the researchers who brought this about... and the first person they hand something to up on the podium is the portfolio manager at Fidelity who happens to control the most shares of Merck. Would that feel "off" to you?
 

JohntheBaptist

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Fernando Rodney is a World Series Champion. I don't care what anyone says, that is damn awesome.View attachment 26534
Some day someone will have to explain to me why everyone here hates him. He is one of my all-time favorite baseball weirdos. I love that he has a ring now, it makes his vaguely hilarious career--peaks and valleys--all the better a story. He still (kinda) gets outs at 42!

I would have killed to have it turn into a blow-out and to see the arrow into the sky after the final out of Game 7 of the World Series it would have been a Fernando singularity or something.

edit to add his performance can absolutely be game for mocking often though, of course
 

DeadlySplitter

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maybe Cole should have been first out of the pen even if it was mid-inning. I do think Cole should have been in the game regardless of game situation by the 8th. if it stays 3-2 to bottom 9th, who knows?

it's tough when your offense is scoring less than 3 runs per game at home though, and looking at Harris' pitch to Kendrick again, Kendrick just beat him.
 

scottyno

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Dec 7, 2008
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He is well spoken, but removing Greinke was inexcusable. I know he had a plan, but you rip up the plans as you see events unfold.
Other than the fact of hindsight that Harris gave up a cheap home run so everyone is going to second guess it, why was it inexcusable? He had one of the best bullpens in baseball plus Cole and he needed 8 outs.
 

rajendra82

elimination day disfunction
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Other than the fact of hindsight that Harris gave up a cheap home run so everyone is going to second guess it, why was it inexcusable? He had one of the best bullpens in baseball plus Cole and he needed 8 outs.
Why would even the best arm in the bullpen be any better than Greinke there? He deserved go further after what he had done to that point, despite the home run to Rendon. I don't think Cole, Osuna, Harris, Smith, or any other pitcher was a better choice than to see what Greinke still had in the tank.
 

Kliq

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Some day someone will have to explain to me why everyone here hates him. He is one of my all-time favorite baseball weirdos. I love that he has a ring now, it makes his vaguely hilarious career--peaks and valleys--all the better a story. He still (kinda) gets outs at 42!

I would have killed to have it turn into a blow-out and to see the arrow into the sky after the final out of Game 7 of the World Series it would have been a Fernando singularity or something.

edit to add his performance can absolutely be game for mocking often though, of course
Count me in on Team Rodney as well. His 2012 season as the Ray's closer is the best modern-day closing season in the history of baseball. A 0.60 ERA and a 641 ERA+, I mean seriously?
 

scottyno

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Dec 7, 2008
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Why would even the best arm in the bullpen be any better than Greinke there? He deserved go further after what he had done to that point, despite the home run to Rendon. I don't think Cole, Osuna, Harris, Smith, or any other pitcher was a better choice than to see what Greinke still had in the tank.
Because over the bulk of a season starter greinke had a 3.03 era and reliever harris had a 1.50? It has nothing to do with deserved, it's the 3rd time through the order and you only need 8 more outs and have an overstacked bullpen available.
 

rajendra82

elimination day disfunction
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Jul 16, 2005
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Because over the bulk of a season starter greinke had a 3.03 era and reliever harris had a 1.50? It has nothing to do with deserved, it's the 3rd time through the order and you only need 8 more outs and have an overstacked bullpen available.
Depends on if you believe in the hot hand theory or the law of averages. Greinke was the hot hand, the bullpen was what averages would lead you to go to. I think Greinke tonight had something special going. It would have been better to let him at least finish that inning. You keep the bullpen warm, but you don't pull your horse.
 

CaptainLaddie

dj paul pfieffer
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Sep 6, 2004
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where the darn libs live
Not a Deadspin fan, I take it. So it goes.

Look, forget that one-liner. I have no specific problem with Ted Lerner and family. My problem is with the practice (by MLB and NFL only, mind you) of not treating the people who just won a sports competition as the people who need to be honored first and particularly. The "real game" of baseball or football might well be the one being played by owners getting taxpayer-funded stadiums, congressional antitrust exemptions and depreciation loopholes out the wazoo, and that's fine. The "real game" might be the one being played by GMs, moving chess pieces around, and that's fine. But the game the fans turned in to see on TV tonight, the one they spend money to follow, happens between the lines.

What does it say to you that they present the trophy to the owner, ask him to speak first, then ask the GM "how it feels", then ask the manager, and then finally get around to "hey where'd Zimmermann go"? Were you itching to hear anything out of their mouths there, or did you want to see some boyish glee from a bunch of men who just collectively achieved the pinnacle of their profession through their own athletic talents? Think about what it says - the priorities. Again, who's the protagonist of this story?

Let's say a team at Merck pharmaceuticals cures ass cancer, and they hold an awards event to honor the researchers who brought this about... and the first person they hand something to up on the podium is the portfolio manager at Fidelity who happens to control the most shares of Merck. Would that feel "off" to you?
You're talking to the person who is least likely to respond to this in good faith on this website. Just saying.
 

DeadlySplitter

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https://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/astros/article/Astros-expectation-of-another-World-Series-14596571.php
Rendon rocketed it into the Crawford Boxes, halving the Astros’ lead. Juan Soto saw five pitches and drew a walk. Hinch came from the dugout. Greinke left after only 80 pitches. He’d allowed just four baserunners. His playoff-high preceding this start was 95 pitches.


“We asked him to do more today than he had done, and pitched deeper into the game more than he had done in the entire month of October,” Hinch said. “I wanted to take him out -- a bat or two early rather than a bat or two late.”

“It’s not really my decision,” Greinke said when asked if he could pitch more.

Hinch deploys Harris for a game’s most stressful scenarios. Some call the righthander a fireman. Hinch prefers a “panic button,” the man to whom he can turn when all hell breaks loose. He summoned him here, with Howie Kendrick coming to bat.

Harris had allowed six hits in 9⅔ postseason innings. His only earned run came in Game 6, when Rendon massacred a meatball cutter for a home run. Kendrick swung through a curveball before receiving Harris’ best pitch. The cutter was located ideally.


“He just made a championship play for a championship team,” Harris said. “I have to tip my hat to them for beating me today. I think I did everything I could do. It wasn’t enough.”

Kendrick got barrel to ball, hooked it into the right field corner and clanked it off the foul pole. The home run gave Washington a lead it did not relinquish. Harris put his hands to his knees as Kendrick rounded the bases.

“It’s every reliever’s nightmare that I’m getting a chance to live,” Harris said.
 

SumnerH

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Not a Deadspin fan, I take it. So it goes.
Between this and the weird media thread that exploded yesterday day or so, the existence and apparent popularity of a site called Deadspin should go into my Things You Only Learned About Recently experiences.
 

DeadlySplitter

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per 538, the Nationals were about 1% odds to win the WS around when they were 19-31 (I can only select week by week looking back at the season).
 

SumnerH

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Wait, there's something you don't know everything about?

Holy fuck, man.
I mean, I was peripherally aware of it before. But the past couple of days' threads (and the post I was responding to) make it out to be a really Big Deal, talking in hushed terms about how the 5th most popular writer at a sports/pop culture mashup site might be leaving.

It's pretty amusing from an outsider's perspective, even as I'm sure it's a big deal to people who follow them closely.
 

Yelling At Clouds

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Jul 19, 2005
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This sporting year, the Blues, Raptors, and Nats are all first-time champs. And first-time champs with extensive histories of postseason futility at that.
EDIT: forgot UVA!
 
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DeadlySplitter

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"According to catcher Robinson Chirinos, Kendrick hadn’t hit a cutter for a home run all season. Most cutters thrown to him this season induced groundballs. This was the information the Astros were operating with in the seventh inning of their season-ending 6-2 loss. " - Athletic article by local Houston beat
 

Soxfan in Fla

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The Kendrick HR was a complete shock. I thought it was a foul ball. I mean I saw it hit the foul pole. It took me a few seconds to process it into “holy shit, that’s a home run”. What a postseason for Washington.
 

NYCSox

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Five of the six starting pitchers for the 2014 Tigers who had at least 10 starts for them have now won a WS. None of them won with the Tigers.
 

Plympton91

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Oct 19, 2008
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You're talking to the person who is least likely to respond to this in good faith on this website. Just saying.
I'm pretty drunk at 2am on a work night, binging on vicariously following reveling by happy sports fans. I'm not making the greatest of decisions right now.
Your revised and extended remarks are perfectly reasonable. For me, I was quite interested in how the 94 year old founding owner was feeling after having had a decade of near misses. To each his own.
 

Norm Siebern

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I like to think that somewhere Camilo Pasqual, Phil Ortega, Ed Stroud, Frank Howard and a whole host of other former Senators are smiling. And a special tip of the hat to Douglas Wallop. I guess Mr. Applegate couldn’t find his shoes again.
 

loshjott

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I like to think that somewhere Camilo Pasqual, Phil Ortega, Ed Stroud, Frank Howard and a whole host of other former Senators are smiling. And a special tip of the hat to Douglas Wallop. I guess Mr. Applegate couldn’t find his shoes again.
Frank Howard was at WS Game 4. He was in a wheel chair and was brought out on the field to be recognized pregame.

Also, I ordered one of these shirts. 19-31 is the Natstown 28-3. 1572531381723.png
 
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AB in DC

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I get that it wasn't one out away, or in extras, but that was pretty high up the pain scale, recent title or not. Not at the pinnacle of it, but pretty damn far up.
How did Celtics fans feel after 2010? Won it all two years earlier, had a big lead halfway through Game 7, then lost.
 

JimD

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Nov 29, 2001
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How did Celtics fans feel after 2010? Won it all two years earlier, had a big lead halfway through Game 7, then lost.
They lost to the Lakers, so it's hard to parse out the losing-in-game-7-when-we-had-a-lead feeling from the nut punch that comes from doing so against your team's hated rival.
 

InstaFace

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How did Celtics fans feel after 2010? Won it all two years earlier, had a big lead halfway through Game 7, then lost.
Speaking personally, I was furious and worthless at work for the better part of a week. I'd gotten up at like 2am London time and gone to the only place in the city that would be open all night showing the game, got my heart ripped out, and then had to trudge to work and put in 16 hours on a banking floor. Those guys deserved better, even if deserve's got nothin' to do with it. The officiating in that game (and the Heat series the next two years) really undermined my undying love for the KG-era Celtics, and I ended up taking like a 6 year break from watching more than a token amount of basketball. Couldn't stomach it. It was RIGHT THERE.