MLB 2013
 

Hey Dodgers: remember that the Yankees have had the highest payroll for the past 12 years during which they have only won one World Series.






Yes, they also had the highest payroll in 1999 and 2000 when they won the World Series making it 3 World Series in 14 years of the highest payroll, but after the first two years, it's been pretty slim.

It'll be fun watching the Dodgers and Angels compete for the most bad press.

I meant to one back and post how the Angels are trying to compete with the Dodgers on the payroll race.

Play Ball!

The season is under way for the Nationals! Go red!

I'm so excited about the new season!



Just kidding, April fools! :D

For a while, the Astros got to enjoy having the best record in baseball. Probably the only time that is going to happen.

A nice, lively beginning to this year's battle of good vs. evil.

Question: What does $213 million not buy?

Answer 1: A single earned run off of a Giants starter in three games.
Answer 2: Enough belief that a two or a three run deficit might be overcome in the bottom of the ninth so that the fans stick around.

Round one: Good.

Mattingly up to his old tricks again. Three games, three lineups. What a fvcking mess.

^ Yep. Resting Mark Ellis three games into the season, when the next day is an off day. Apparently, Mattingly still thinks it's spring training.

So far (and by 'far' I mean two games) the Nats are rock steady and going for a sweep of the opening series in about an hour. Time to break out the Slingbox.

Break out the brooms

Wow, even Kevy had nothing derisive to say about the nats. Now that's some respect.

I assumed he was talking about the housecleaning the Dodgers need to do.

Greinke. as advertised.

In a surprise move, the commissioner of baseball has declared that the remaining 156 games on the Dodger schedule will be played exclusively against the Pirates.

Seeing as the A's currently have the best record int he American League and 7 games is more than a sufficient sample size, I declare the season over.

The National League can hold a series of one game playoffs to determine which 5-1 team will play the A's in the World Series.

Carlos Quentin can go fvck himself.

I liked Mattingly's idea - Suspend him until Greinke can pitch again.

Yeah, that made the local sports news. Watching the replay, I'd come down hard on Quentin. Totally unjustified response to a non-issue.

What was Kemp's deal? Dude was not helping the situation.

I wonder if this will boil over to Monday when SD comes to town. I predict extra security in the parking lot before/during and after the game.

Reports were that one of the Padres on the bench was making fun of Greinke being hurt. That set off Hairston and Kemp.

For the record, still waiting for the A's to come back to earth.

Last night I was ready to tweet "ho hum, the A's won again but scored ONLY 6 runs." So they went ahead and scored a couple more.

8 game winning streak, averaging 8.1 runs a game in that streak.

Won't last and I expect a streaky team so they'll probably manage to immediately fall back to .500. But nice while it lasts.

As well they should. What kind of wimp do you have to be to get hurt in a baseball brawl. Only slightly less dangerous than a hockey fight.

What IS the dividing line between "brawl" and "criminal assault/battery"?

A billion dollar local market TV contract.

Sooo... Anyone going to tonight's game?

I wish.

I'll certainly be watching though, despite the fact that the Dodgers offensive woes are driving me to madness. Talk about wasting some great pitching performances.

Well, Quentin did drop the appeal of his suspension, not surprisingly just before the Padres come to Los Angeles.

I know it's very early, but this season is becoming really hard to watch.

So far, despite my initial concerns I am very much approving of the move by Houston to the AL West.

Excruciating in every way to watch - even in DVR warp speed.

Is it next March yet?

And . . . round two to the good guys.

The best way to tell that it isn't next March yet is that Mattingly is still wearing the Dodgers logo on his clothing.

Nice first showing, are the Dodgers looking to add Hwang to the rotation?

So, the Dodgers have a hot new player out in right field.

I hope someone tells him about that stupid wall before you break him like you broke ours.

There was probably one person in a Dodger uniform not pleased about that performance yesterday. He was playing CF.



A friend on FB mentioned Harper breaking himself and called it an example of good hustle and gutsy play. I watched the video. I call it an example of having absolutely no presence of mind on the field. He had no idea where the wall was, and no idea where the ball was (as evidenced by his detour through center field on the way to the right field wall). Bonehead.


Puig hit .517 in Spring training in 58 at bats. The only thing I don't like about his spring training stats is 0BB. But patience can come in time.

Harper started off last season with the same damn the torpedoes I'm swinging at everything attitude. It didn't last long in the bigs. (Overall 10% BB for 2012 vs 16% so far in 2013) so hopefully Puig will get with the program.

Another interesting stat, is that Harper has thrown for less outs this season, not because his throwing is off but because runners challenge him less.


We prefer the term "Youthful enthusiasm" but in this case, yeah the definition of the term is the same in both cases.

That was always the most shocking watching Raul Mondesi do it over and over. They just kept trying. Why?

Puig! Puig! Puig! Puig!


Just rolls off the tongue.

Just counting his homeruns, he's batting .250

Slugging 1.500


UnInteresting note on the Dodgers - there are currently only 2 outfielders listed on their active 25 man roster. VanSlyke, Hairston, and Schumaker are all listed as infielders.

Pffft, Puig is old news.

*sigh*

Mrs. Moonie is away Friday so I thought to myself, "Hey self, that's a pretty good excuse to catch a ball game"

I checked Stubhub and found a plethora of excellent seats going for less than half face value! Yeah me. So I nabbed a pair in a section famed for the number of foul balls that tend to land there.

Only then did I stop to question exactly why there were so many good seats still available. Tomorrows forecast? Biblical style rain all day.

I'm back on the bandwagon!

Game 5, intentional pass. Damn, son.

I have done zero research to see if my gut feeling is accurate - but it seems to me that since Sue Falsone took over as head trainer for the Dodgers, they have had a distressing number of strain/sprain/soreness/stiffness type injuries.

No clue if the trend is real, and definitely no indication that it has any correlation to the new head trainer if it is. But I don't have a warm-fuzzy about the team's conditioning over the last couple season.

Oh and hey, there goes Puig limping after a routine groundout.

Seriously, wtf is going on?

Well that was exciting. You don't see the entire umpire crew lose track of the count every day!

Wait 'til Little League starts.

Been thinking exactly the same thing. I can't recall ever hearing about this many hamstring injuries coming from one team in the first three months of the season.

Her success in keeping the team injury-free seems on par with McGuire's success in getting our lineup to hit better.

Nor do you get to see Bellisario do his Rocky Balboa impression every day. That should account for a nice suspension. Hopefully, they are less harsh with Puig, but I suspect he'll be sitting a couple of days as well.

A tail of two teams:

Moonie Jr. is thinking about going to a Cleveland Indians game this weekend.
So I checked on Stubhub. The cheapest bleacher seat is $23.00

For a Dodgers game the cheapest bleacher seat goes for around $6.00
$23.00 will get you an infield reserve seat.

Cleveland is #30 in attendance (out of 30)
Dodgers are #1

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Not.

It makes perfect sense.

1. If Cleveland's attendance is that much lower, they ain't going to meet their per-game income needs without charging more per ticket.

2. If their attendance is that much lower, they aren't going to make it up in merchandising.

3. Dodger Stadium was built in '62 on land purchased from the government on the cheap (due to an abandoned housing development project). Total cost ~$23 million. Progessive Field was built 20 years ago for $175 million (~50% more accounting for inflation), $91 million out of pocket for the owners, and is probably still being paid off.

4. The Dodgers inked a $7 billion TV contract. The Indians broadcast rights were sold for ~$235 million.

And so on.

The Dodgers don't make their money by selling bleacher seats. The Indians do.

Oh, fine... just be all logical and stuff.

A six dollar bleacher ticket allows the Dodger fan to save his money for things that matter.

Beer and bail.

No beer in the bleachers.

Beer in the bleachers at Cleveland.

Hopefully for substantially more than ten cents.

Moonie Jr decided it was too expensive and skipped the game.

Total revenue for Cleveland? $0.00

Makes perfect sense.

Makes perfect sense. I believe if the Indians don't draw at least 800,000 fans, they can repudiate their lease and move the team.

Anybody?

Oh well. I guess this was juuust a bit outside of the references I thought some of you would get and bust a gut on.

The fact is they lost their two best players to free agency. They haven't won a pennant in over thirty-five years, or placed higher than fourth in the last fifteen. Obviously it's time for some changes.

These guys suck.

The Indians? They won the American League pennant in 1997 and 1995. Last World Series was in 1948.

But no one seems to get my clever remark about the Indians and their attendance.

I got it. I chuckled. Gut is in tact.

Maybe you should have prayed a little harder to Jo-bu for us to laugh.

Just a chuckle? I'll take it.

My reply was two separate quotes from the movie.

Doh!

Kemp healthy and pumped up. Ramirez on fire. Gonzalez steady as she goes. Ellis punishing the Giants. Kershaw still lights out. Greinke mended. Uribe hitting in the clutch. Puig blowing up.

Cautiously optimistic for the season.

Very cautiously.

This is the part of the match where the face gets knocked around by the jobber and we actually start to worry about him. But come September, Hogan will hulk up and drop the leg, Chief Jay Strongbow will go on the war path and slap on the sleeper, and it will be over and order will be restored.

Gosh, I miss Chief Jay Strongbow. For a wop, he was a good Indian.

Very cautiously.

I didn't watch tonight's Dodgers v Phillies game, but I just saw the score and (spoilered just in case for Greg)

Very cautiously.

Keep this up and they'll get Schumacher enough innings to turn him into a legitimate 13th pitching option.

I'd rather see Schumaker take the mound than League.

or even bellisario of late.

the next two weeks are going to be make or break.

Upgrading to "Cautiously"

We still have a tough road ahead, but seeing the Giants in the cellar is a nice way to start the day.

Matthew 20:16.

Now that's what I'm talking about.

10-2 blowouts are fun and keep the team and fans excited. Battling out for 8 innings 1-1, making clutch defensive plays, and winning on a 2-out 9th inning hit wins divisions (pathetic as they may be).

Battling out for 8 innings 1-1, making clutch defensive plays, and winning on a 2-out 9th inning hit are fun and keep the team and fans excited when it is against the Giants in their home park!

And what we learned yesterday was that the Dodgers' so-called "ace" can hang with a balding, beardly 10-team journeyman just back from a good elbow banging.















Sob!

He also hangs pretty well with Lincecum. In fact, he owns him.

It's no wonder the Dodgers do so poorly in interleague play. They lose the pitcher's hitting spot!

Ryu, Greinke, and Kershaw are hitting a combined .243. Add Nolaso's 3/3 and it's up to .264.

To the wind with ye'!

Not expecting too much tonight after that 14 inning marathon yesterday. Tired bullpen, Capuano on the mound - might go 7, might go 2. Tulo and Fowler back in the Rockies lineup. Dodgers have their work cut out for them tonight.

Then again, it's not like this team hasn't continuously surprised me over the past few weeks.

I find it a bit weird and annoying that MLB isn't saying how many votes Puig got.

The only information I can find gives this information

* 79.2 million votes cast total
* 19.7 million votes for Freeman
* Puig was a close second and got more than 15.6 million votes (the previous high for a single player)

But they don't say exactly how many he got. Was he 100,000 short? 4 million short?

He was 1 Bud Selig vote short! It was rigged. They employed the same rigging company that the NBA uses for its draft lottery.

Wait, the National League exists? I thought the Astros had created a fictional backstory for themselves, telling a story of when they lived in a fantasyland.

Is the favorite past time of ALL Giants fans to bash the Dodgers? Every time I try to have any kind of baseball conversation with a coworker, it instantly turns into a Dodger bashing fest (he's a Giants fan, but not the first that I have encountered this phenomenon with).

or, that could happen.

The Dodgers are a great historic franchise, and there are really only three things about them that merit criticism: 1) the fans, 2) the ownership, and 3) the team itself.

The Fans: They've never shaken or attempted to shake the "come late/leave early/baseball is just another form of disposable family entertainment" rep, except, of course, to cultivate a counterbalancing thuggishness.

The Ownership Dey took da team oudda Brooklyn. More recently, they seem bent on giving the George Steinbrenner era a run for its money.

The Team Hard to tell from a distance, and it is the nature of the era, but is there anyone other than Kershaw that you look at and think "I can't imagine him in another uniform."

Trying to guess which of those three points you think the Giants beat the Dodgers at?

But it may be an imagination issue on the last one becuase I have no problem imagining anybody playing for any other team. I can imagine Jeter playing in Houston.

And if people are going to still be butthurt over the abandonment of Brooklyn, then A's and Giants fans have hardly found save haven.

That said, I've never had a conversation with a Giants fan that resulted in Dodgers bashing. They always seem to get to asking why all A's fans do is bash the Giants.

All A's fans do is not go to games in Oakland while bitching about not wanting to have to drive to San Jose if they move.

Just started watching Ken Burns "Baseball" for the first time last night.

The first new thing I learned: The Dodgers were named for their fans.

If you don't work within 10 miles of the stadium, it's neigh impossible to make it on time for a 7PM game without ditching work early. And neigh impossible to get home before 1AM if you leave after the 8th inning of a 7PM game.

I was at Matt Cain's perfect game at AT&T last year. I showed up around the 3rd inning because I was coming from the south bay after working. I was not the only person entering the stadium at the time, it was still filling up, just like Dodger stadium on a weeknight.

Obviously not many people left early that night.

The new ownership actually gives a crap about the team and its success, after years under a greedy, money-only regime. They're spending money Yankees-style now because the previous owners decimated the once historic farm system and spending money is their way to create some value and interest in the short term while they rebuild from within. It's smart...and now that people are healthy, it's working.

Hardly unique to the Dodgers. But even so - Billingsley, Kemp, to a lesser degree Ethier are thus far career Dodgers. And Puig has the look of a franchise player early (and I suspect the new ownership is sensitive enough to such things to make that happen). The thing that's missing is iconic championship moments with those players which would cement them as Dodgers - but again that's not due to some unique shortcoming of the team or the players, or how the players have been acquired. That's simply due to the team not winning the Series since they've been playing (a condition they share with ~70% of the teams in the league)

No-hitting the team that owns Kershaw. Transitive property of ownage.

Hardly. He no-hit one of the worst teams in baseball during one of their worst skids this season. A decent Little Leaguer could no-hit the Padres right now.

Meanwhile, Kershaw remains 11-4 against the Giants in his career, with a 1.32 ERA.

Get back to me when Timmy actually beats him.

Zito's outing yesterday was the perfect, necessary follow-up to Lincecum's no-hitter to avoid heady, unreasonable expectations coming out of the All Star break. First batter: perfect game and no-hitter gone. Second batter: shutout gone. Third inning: win gone.

Thanks, Barry. We're set up nicely.

Dodgers! I've got tickets to the Dodgers game on Sunday. It should be a good game, the Nat's are on a streak having won one of their last one games.

Plus I'll get a chance to see this Puig guy people seem to be talking about.

Stellar job last night, Bochy. Still think it was a good idea to keep Puig and/or Hanley off the roster? Three measly hits.

Of course, the only reason I really care is if we make it to the Fall Classic.

Oh look, they started a new streak!

Yeah, I guess the old one could not last forever. I watched last nights game. That Puig fella has a hell of an arm on him plus he looked quite dashing while swinging helplessly at Strasburg's pitching.

I suppose Puig can't claim not being used to the weather.

Oh well, it's a good time for him to have his sophomore slump. Hanley's got his back.


National weather service might have something to say about that.

One must be careful to avoid actually caring about all the BS that Bud Selig wants us to care about. Things like as World Series home field advantage coming out of the All Star game, a second wild card team/play-in game, last-chance All Star vote-ins. There must be more.

I hope Mooney's having a good time. :)

What's there not to love about a 7 run inning?

The weather was fine, unfortunately.

Puig was a no-show as was Zimmerman (our starting pitcher). On the plus side I ended up with seats right next to first base so I had the chance to exchange "Hey's" with Davy Lopes. That was cool.

I'm always conflicted when the Dodgers play the Nats so I would have liked a closer game.

Oh, and Puig did show up for the bottom of the 9th. So I did get to see him field a couple of balls at least.

Well, he wasn't officially a Dodger until a nagging injury resulted in a precipitous drop in production. Welcome to the club! Viva Yasiel!

I haven't seen that many players LOB in a series since....well since the first couple months of this season.

Exciting news, With Harpers first walk off home run the Nats have managed to work their win streak back up to one. Woot.

If someone told me before the weekend that Cain, Bumgarner and Lincecum would pitch seven, eight and seven innings; give up one, zero and two runs, have a K/BB ratio of 7/1, 7/2 and 10/2, and yet the Giants would get swept by the Cubs, I . . .

probably would have believed it.

Not sure how I feel about the impending beard-cult influx.

Sounds like he impressed the scouts, throwing around 90-93 and hitting his locations. If he can return to a semblance of his former self, I think we can use his experience (especially his post-season experience) in the pen. I expect him to significantly outperform Marmol and League.

Besides, we didn't give anyone up and it's a pretty no-risk situation.

Now he just needs to dye the beard blue.

If I were Wilson, I would shave the beard until I had earned it back. That would, in its way, be its own act of showmanship.

Ergh, bit of a pyrrhic trip to Chicago this was.

Yep, and the timing couldn't be worse.

I will be overjoyed if we manage to take the next two series against the Cards and Rays, but I'm not holding my breath. Thankfully, we have a little room in the standings now and the rest of our division is tanking as of late, but without the two players most often credited with our recent success, it's going to be a daunting challenge. Now we get to see what the team is really made of.

Can we just close this thread and move on to MLB 2014?

I had a GREAT time at the one MLB game I went to in 2013.

If it's any consolation, I was thinking the same exact thing around June 1st. :)

Oh the capricious nature of gravity and the human body.

Ramirez bonks lightly into a rail at barely over walking speed and is out indefinitely. Trevor Plouffe plouffes straight into a rail at a decent clip and he walks away fine.

It's easy to dismiss this series win as the lucky side effect of one well placed line drive off Crawford's bat. But looking past the offensive windfall afforded by that chain of pitching events, only giving up 9 runs in 4 games (with 4 of those coming in garbage-time) to the Cardinals is nothing to dismiss.

Damn, tonight was murder on Kershaw's ERA.

Oh wait, 2nd run was unearned. Nevermind.

Interesting to note that the person with the best batting average on our team is a pitcher, while the person with the best ERA is a fielder.

Man this is going to be disappointing when it comes crashing down.

As long as it doesn't happen until April, it's all good.

I liked the stat Vin read a few nights ago. Among pitchers with at least 100 starts and at least 1000 innings pitched, Kershaw's career ERA is the lowest since 1920.

Zero All Star starts. dafvck?

Yeah, that blew me away.

Can't wait to see if he racks up another Cy Young this year. Assuming ERA holds more weight than win-loss, he has a good shot, I think.

You got me looking at stats tables.

Harvey's WHIP, OBP (against), BA (against), Ks, BBs, etc. are all pretty identical to Kershaw's...yet Kershaw's got him beat by mile in ERA. Wonder what the difference is. Extra base hits? Stolen bases? They're letting the same proportion of batters reach base (more or less) but for some reason they are more likely to score when Harvey's on the mound than Kershaw.

The Dodgers have turned only 19 more DPs than the Mets, that doesn't seem like enough to account for that difference.

I think Kershaw's got to be the favorite for CY right now. It's not like he's way behind in the win/loss column, he's top or near the top in all the other key categories, and the gap between his ERA and Harvey's is bigger than the gap between Harvey's and the next 3 best.


ETA: Not stolen bases. 2 against Harvey, 4 against Kershaw

Nice going, Mattingly. Let's sit Gonzalez, Ellis, Crawford and Uribe on the same day and put a tie game in Brandon League's hands. Brilliant.

And we really need a better backup for Gonzalez. Hairston is a horrific first baseman.

End of rant - today's a new day.

Well if you're going to do it, doing it against a the (currently) worst team in baseball that's got an emotional hangover from the firing of a legend isn't a bad gamble.

"Legend" seems a bit strong for Charlie Manuel.

Local-legend.

Not specifically mlb related but i figure this will serve as good a as any sundry sports suppositions thread.

Been flipping to Fox Sports Live on the new FS1 network during Sports Center commercials. They need to die whoever convinced them that cutting 1/3 of the screen real estate with bloated unreadable blocks of text and graphics. What the hell?

Doing the math, it looks like the Giants are going to need a little help winning percentage-wise from the Dodgers, Cardinals and Reds to make the playoffs.

That, and they have to run the table.

It's your cue, Zeets.

Doing the math, it looks like the Nats are going to need a little help winning percentage-wise. By which I mean Old Testament, real wrath of God type stuff. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes, The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

That, and they have to run the table.

Doing the math ESPN says the Athletics have a 76% chance of making the playoffs. I'm ok with that.

According to them, the Nats have 13 times the chance (1.3%) of making the playoffs as the Giants (0.1%)

Too me a moment of head scratching to figure out how Pittsburgh and St. Louis can both be over 90% being in the same division. Derr

Haven't seen it yet and now I'm even less enthusiastic.

Err, my phone is rather more murderous than me. And with odd gramatical choices.


die=fire.

On a more promising baseball note, go Mexico and Chula Vista!

I just you were passionate about your screen real-estate

Chula Vista should pay me a royalty. Their 6'4" star pitcher has been underperforming at the plate. Twice now late in the game, I've looked at the screen and said, "Come on, Holman, you're due." The other night: walk off grand slam. Last night: game winning three run homer.

Having such power is sobering, and it makes me regret leaving the Mexico/Japan game in the middle.

6Ks, 5 hits, 3BB, 0 runs, 8 innings.

Only for Kershaw could that line represent a "sloppy" game.

Fortunately for Kershaw, the only inning in that game that has garnered attention is the ninth.

These Barry Zito starts are starting to feel like Bruce "the Mouse" Strauss fights. Time to pull his license.

I just can't get used to hearing such a deep Australian accent in the occasional A's post-game interview.

Just read through the first few pages of this thread. It reminded me of just how bad the Dodgers were at the beginning of this season. Horrifically bad.

Now, that magic number just keeps dwindling. What a crazy year.

And Puig has hurt his knee just in time to let Mattingly avoid having to make a decision about Ethier. Excellent!

As soon as I saw that Hairston was hitting lead off, I knew it was going to be an ugly game tonight ... and it was.

This rain delay in Denver reminds me of a funny baseball story.

Remember way back when the Orioles weren't willing to reschedule their game tonight so that the Ravens could open the season at home? And that was because they were concerned about being in a pennant race?

Though Petit fell a debatable 2-2 call short, his effort tonight was arguably better than Cain's perfecto and Lincecum's no-hitter. He threw far fewer pitches, and he pitched against a better team than they did. Indeed, if the Diamondbacks were not still vocally on the cusp of contention, I bet da ump punches Chavez out.

And the dodgers get another visit from the injury fairy. Ryu - sore back, Capuano - groin injury, Kemp - hammy strain (and likely done for 2013).

I wonder what great news tomorrow will bring.

Hope it hasn't begun.

I wonder when the last time was that a World Series winner followed up with a losing season.

Just had the thought that Chad Billingsley is going to be seriously depressed if this is the year the Dodgers win it all.

Especially since if he hadn't delayed his surgery, he might have actually been able to join the team this year.

I'm confused. Is Mattingly trying to manage us into the post-season or out of it?

Not in our house, m.f. NOT IN OUR MF'IN HOUSE!!

Or was it your house?

I don't know. I've kind of stopped paying attention.

Go, um, Niners.

Tonight is going a little better.

Or did I just spoil things for GD again?

In the air at game time. Would listen to the end but not worth fighting the crappy hotel internet connection for a laugher.

Wondering if Fife is going to perhaps be hittable tomorrow...if only to give Kershaw the chance to thrown the clincher.

Seems like Kemp might be feeling a little better.

I'm not convinced he won't injure himself again, but in the meantime, it sure helps to have him while everybody else recuperates, especially with Puig seemingly ice-cold at the moment.

The fix is in.

So it was you that jinxed him.

It is weird that I'm more concerned about the loss of Ethier than Kemp.

I'm just flat-out concerned. :)

They got this far without Kemp. They did not get this far without Ethier.

Agreed. I think we have a decent shot at getting through the first round without him. Gonzalez, Ramirez, Crawford and (hopefully) Puig can still do a lot of damage. My biggest concern is Hanley trying to do too much and aggravating that hammy again. If we were to lose him, I don't like our prospects at all.

I'm still trying to figure out why Mattingly brings in Paco, then has him intentionally walk the first batter he faces. Is that really what you want a new pitcher to do, especially one with no post-season experience? Bring him in with the bases loaded to throw four straight balls to start things off? Why not have the exiting pitcher do that?

Predictably, Paco then has trouble finding the strike zone with the next hitter, who proceeds to knock in two runs. Without those two runs scoring, the Dodgers win.

Sometimes Mattingly amazes me.

Sometimes the only thing wrong with going to baseball games is that they let other people go too.

Last's night's A's-Tigers game ended up being exciting (though 5 minutes into it that didn't seem likely).

But I ended up sitting two seats over from a guy with a gong. And the guy with the gong never went more than 2 seconds without it making noise and pretty much on every pitch his goal was to build up to maximum volume as each pitch was delivered. And gong's can achieve a rather maximum volume.

Forgive me father for I have sinned, it has been forever since my last confession. I had murder in my heart for about an hour and a half (fortunately the guy didn't show up until the 5th inning because he had to work).

Just announced - Kershaw gets the start today on three days rest. Hope that works out.

oof. Not thrilled with the decision - but then I wan't thrilled with Nolasco going out there, so I understand it.

It's interesting how things can change in 30 years. Back in 1982, I listened delightedly as Joe Morgan's late home run for the Giants beat the Dodgers and gave the NL West to the Braves. Now, after 20+ years of Tomahawk Chops and underachievement, while I still don't like the Dodgers at all, I'm rooting for them here.

Somebody should teach Uribe the fundamentals.

Seriously dude. Just get the bunt down idiot!

Edge of my seat until I know if my tickets are for Saturday or Tuesday.

Damn it's been a long-ass time since I've been at Dodger Stadium for playoff baseball. Yeah, I'm seriously jealous here.

Well it's not like there have been a lot of opportunities...

Last playoff game I saw was the first playoff win since '88 (2004, Jose Lima's 5 hit shutout).

Had a chance to see them play at Wrigley, but they had to go and sweep the Cubs, so the series was over by the time I got to Chicago :(

If you posted this when I think you posted this, aren't you glad he didn't get the bunt down?

He posted it the next morning and was sarcastic.

Alex, can I hire you to be my sarcasm interpreter?

Sheesh: y'all expect me to look at time stamps now?

They do make it so hard to parse those out with confusing words like 'Today'

If I thought you actually meant it, I'd consider it.

I TOTALLY mean it. OMG, I'm being so sincere right now!

Go Dodgers #OnTopic

Love that, other than the Rays, the post season is full of old guard franchises. following the full history of the teams, the 'youngest' ones go back to 1901.

No coffee for Jansen.

On the other hand, the game did end.

....It's begun

Still, you have to admire the catcher-to-catcher noblesse oblige in not arguing the non-tag and then joking about it when Molina came up.

Geez. Puig finally lays off a pitch at his ankles and it gets called a strike. What's he supposed to do now?

Disappointed that I have to see Nolasco instead of Greinke, but happy to be going to a game, and with Lynn going for the Cards, it's a smart time to start Nolasco.

or, perhaps not.

It's never a smart time to put Punto in.

I had a good vantage point to see him head straight into the clubhouse, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Not sure if he was more afraid the fans would start throwing things at him or his teammates.

I think Ramirez and Ethier paid Kershaw to throw the game so they can go freaking get healthy.

I think Puig needs to play in Triple A for a year until he learns the fundamentals of the game. We'll do just fine with Kemp, Ethier and Crawford until that time comes, assuming they can stay healthy for a change.

I'm surprised that all of this talk of Puig's at Dodgers games hasn't piqued Lisa's interest in the sport.

Two observations:

1) The Dodgers need to work on placing their infielders.

2) Perhaps it's a tribute to how few Giant runners have reached base against Kershaw, but until last night, I hadn't noticed that he doesn't do his little balky dressage step with runners on base.

Let's see how predictable everybody is.

Giants re-sign Lincecum.

Awesome!

Since the baseball season has been over for almost two weeks I'm in the mode of completely ignoring all off season news. So I'll be surprised in April when I see he's still with the team.

Good move from a fan-pleasing perspective. Bad move from a winning baseball games perspective.

So let me get this straight. Your manager publicly whines about not being happy with managing under the threat of his contract ending and threat of changing his coaching staff....so you all agree to go another year with the threat of his contract ending and forcing a new bench coach on him (not that I disagree that a new bench coach would do him good)? Does not bode well.

Fortunately, managers are almost meaningless to outcome (unless they're really bad and I don't watch NL enough to know if Tommy Lasorda is bad (he's still coaching, right?).

What's the surprise? Mattingly's obviously their long term dream manager. I think the hope is that if LeBron goes back to Cleveland next year, Pat Riley will decide it's time for a new challenge.

Make that obviously not their long term dream manager.

Obviously.

Oh, I know they didn't want him back. The surprise is that he agreed to take the option with them not giving him anything he wanted out of it...though I guess his alternatives are nil.

Kinda ironic that on the eve of instant replay expansion we get a World Series in which the umpires seemingly got every single close/potentially controversial call dead right without its aid.