Tag Archives: NLDS

MLB

The Cubs are why I say screw the regular season

October 3, 2008 – 11:15 am

Billy Beane has a quote in my favorite baseball book of all time, Moneyball, about the playoffs. He said “My job is to get us to the play-offs. What happens after that is fucking luck.” And it’s one hundred percent true. The Cubs went off at 6/5 to win this series. 6/5! They set their rotation based on the regular season. Ryan Dempster was the best at home so he gets to pitch game 1, but is Ryan Dempster the best? Of course not. Rich Harden is the best. Everyone knows this, pitch Rich Harden. Whatever happens in the regular season doesn’t matter once the playoffs start. The playoffs are 100 percent luck. Your only hope is to put the most talent on the field that you can and pray. Kosuke Fukudome starting in RF is not doing that. Ryan Dempster starting game 1 is not doing that. This isn’t an all star game where you reward the best results, in the playoffs you award the best talent. When you look at the Dodgers lineup in games 1 and 2 there’s a reason you don’t see Nomar Garciaparra, Juan Pierre and Jeff Kent, Joe Torre is putting his most talented team on the field. Lou Piniella hasn’t been doing this and it could cost him the series.

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MLB

Corey Hart

October 3, 2008 – 10:36 am

Say what you will about yesterday’s game. Say what you will about THE AT-BAT by Brett Myers (as it will always be known if this team somehow wins the World Series). Say what you will be the Flyin’ Hawaiian’s grand slam. Say what you will about CC not having it. The reason the Brewers lost yesterday is Corey Hart. A wild pitcher walks in a run, his second unintentional walk of the inning. One out, bases loaded and you swing at the first pitch. Trying to pull an outside pitch that leads into an inning ending double play. His strikeout to end game one could be forgiven, but this shouldn’t be. Pull him already. How bad can Rickie Weeks possibly be in RF? How bad can Brad Nelson possibly be in RF? How worse could Bill Hall be at the plate? Seriously. I’m so sick of this guy right now.

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MLB

Cole Hamels and the Milwaukee Brewers

October 1, 2008 – 10:23 am

Cole Hamels is awesome. He’s one of the best pitchers in the National League and one of the best young pitchers in baseball. He is the Phillies key this postseason. If he can shut the Brewers down they have a very good chance of winning this series. Here’s the thing though.

Hamels is up to a career-high 220 1/3 innings, or 37 more than last season. He gutted it out for six innings Thursday to pick up his 14th win, but he was consistently up in the zone and didn’t have anything close to his best stuff or command.

Jerry Crasnick posted that about a week ago and he settled on 227.3, 44 more than last year. Since then Hamels got to skip his start to rest up for today’s game. Will it matter? Last year, after settting his previous career high in innings, Hamels put up this line:

6.2 IP 3H 4BB 3ER 7K (115 pitches)

Terrible? No, but if the Brewers can get a similiar performance today they are in a very good position to win. The key is to have the lead or be tied when Hamels leaves the game, but also getting him out of there before they can go to Brad Lidge.

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