Holliday Homers, but Brewers Take Game 4
It's starting to get interesting. Discuss Brewers postseason here.
I'll get it started by introducing our first topic in the comment section...will Mark Kockspray start at third base for the Brewers tonight in St. Louis?
Labels: Bullshit Home Runs, Bunting, Mark Kockspray
posted by Condescendy @ 9:24 AM
11 comments
11 Comments:
If Hairston weren't playing so well, I'd say yes. I think we'll see Kockspray at center field instead tonight.
If, God forbid, the Brewers win, we are going to be seeing a whole lot of Kockspray playing DH against TEX/DET. Yes, I'd rather see the Brewers lose to the Cardinals than see Mark Kockspray starting at DH in the World Series. That will be outrageously embarrassing to the City of Milwaukee. I don't think anyone in America not in St. Louis or Wisconsin is watching the NLCS, which has saved us all a lot of embarrassment.
Am I overreacting to Kockspray's playing time? Is he really that bad of an option at DH, his most natural position on the field? Discuss...
Question 2, just how bad are Ron Darling and John Smoltz as colour commentators?
Has one gone off the deep end if he mutters to himself, "I just wish Tim McCarver was doing this game?"
Finally responding to the Bub's Curse of Expectations post below:
I agree that watching these games is really tough knowing it's likely the last time for a long time that we're ever going to be able to watch the Brewers in such meaningful games, though I don't agree with the Bub's persistent use of confusing wet dick metaphors. That said, Brewers fans have been extremely irrational about this. Brewers lose Game 3 and it's over. No chance. Season's done. Brewers win Game 4. Series over. Brewers won. No. It's baseball. And, like the Bub said, that's what makes this all so frustrating.
The Brewers now have about a 51% chance of winning this series. The team can play great and not make it. It can play like shit and make it. It could lose by 52 runs tonight and bounce back to win by one run in Game 6 and 7. In any baseball game, there are an infinite number of decisions that are made. Do we walk this guy? Who do we start? Do we throw a fastball or curveball? Do we throw inside or outside? Etc. Now multiply that infinite number (impossible mathematically, but follow me theoretically) by the 171 games already played this year. That's how many decisions are made in a season. Yet, it will be any one decision (take starting Kotsay in CF, for instance) that likely determines if the Brewers win or lose. That potential to forever second guess a move makes it extraordinarily tense to watch a game. We would have to live with that decision or, perhaps worse, a force outside of the team (e.g. bad umpire call, fan interference), forever as fans.
The point is that I understand why we are so tense, but it's time to get rational. Under a microscope, each move looks huge, but there are so many decisions made that you just have to accept the bad ones. By it's nature, baseball really is about making less mistakes than the other team. The Brewers' managerial blunders are part of this team. If the Brewers lose because of those blunders, it's because the Brewers team failed and the Cardinals made less blunders. We need to also understand that baseball is a game of great parety. No postseason matchup epitomizes that parity more than this Brewers/Cardinals series. The teams have played each other 22 times now this year. Each team has won 11 times. Each team is 6-5 at home, though I would note that the Cardinals do not have any walkoff wins on the road. The teams' lineups are nearly identical in terms of strengths, weaknesses and order. Both teams have glaring defensive deficiencies. In the end, it's going to be a coin flip as to who wins. We can second guess a loss and celebrate a win, but we must not forget why it happened - either the Brewers or Cardinals had one better day.
With this all in mind, I will be content this season with winning the National League and losing the World Series, though I must admit that I am irritated with how much attention the 1982 team got considering that it didn't win the World Series. That 1982 team is like a piece of semi-digested food in a pile of shit. Sure, that semi-digested food looks good in comparison, I guess.
I'm rambling. Sorry.
I guess my rambling is also directed at the very annoying announcers, who on two specific occasions made me want to kill myself last night:
1) Praising Matt Holliday's home run. I've watched a ton of baseball in my life, but that was the worst home run I have ever seen. I've never seen a ball look that bad off the bat. And I've seen very few worse swings on a home run ball. And I can assure you I've never seen a catcher already asking for a ball from the umpire to throw back to the mound by the time the ball left the infield on a home run. It was a good pitch, a horrible swing, and Holliday got lucky as fuck that his pop-up 30 rows foul past first base somehow got blown fair and an additional I'd guess 50 feet by a massive wind for a 335.1 ft. HR.
2) Mark Kockspray's groundout to second. Again, a dreadful swing. It was a horrible waste of an AB. A real hitter would have gotten on base instead, and the Brewers wouldn't have had to settle for one run. There's a reason that someone who does that every time up has a 0.000 batting average. No less than 7 times was that play mentioned on TBS last night. If doing that was so important, why wouldn't you just bunt?
Kudos to Smoltz, though, for mentioning that the Packers will be playing the Rams on Sunday, and the irony of two STL vs. MIL/GB games occurring on the same day. But boooooo announcers for not mentioning this tidbit: The Rams are going to get murderfucked by the Packers. And I do mean literally fucked to death up and down the field. If I'm not mistaken, murderfucking is actually a bit more violent than clown rape. Right, Bub?
I don't know. Did you watch Clay Matthews last year? Looked pretty damn violent to me.
A fitting article along these same lines on BP today:
Playoffs Are What They Are (my title, not theirs)
I've got a lot of work to do in the next hour and fifteen minutes, but I can spare a few minutes to discuss.
1. Condy is right on the Brewers odds to win. Milwaukee is going off at -115 to win the series, while the Cards are -105. This makes the Brewers a shade better than a 52% favorite to win. Personally? I'd be willing to go a few points more than that. They've got two games at home. They've got better pitchers going in the last three games, especially Greinke and Gallardo, and their bullpen hasn't nearly been as taxed as St. Louis'. I'd say that makes them more like 55% (range of 52-58) to win the series. Not Texas-with-a-3-1-lead dominating, but favorable.
2. I think the reasons a move like starting the 'Spray are so heavily scrutinized are twofold:
a. Each decision in the post season is of much more leverage than anything in the regular season, save a game 162/163 decision. Roenicke has done pretty well with these so far (notably, playing JHII at third).
b. The move to start Kotsay was so gallactically indefensible and utterly unavoidable that people deserve to be pissed. Kotsay hasn't started since August. He isn't good defensively. Both of those facts cost the Brewers the game. I don't know that Morgan would have gotten to Pujols' double, but he would have had Jays and sure as fuck would have made it back to second on Prince's out.
3. I wish I had a million dollars to bet on a split in the next two games. This series has been going 7 games since Carpenter closed out the Phillies last week.
"This is a team that has played together all season." - Ron Darling on the Brewers last night.
False. And if it were true, what the hell is the signficance of that statement?
Thank God Anderson is calling the games because the color commentators are just awful.
Make that utterly *avoidable*
Brewing losers.
Brewing cheerleaders?
Brewing cynacism.
Brewing unreasonably high expectations for next season.
Brewing letdown.
Brewing a bunch of new season ticket holders who won't be attending games in August 2012.
Brewing second guesses.
Brewing anger.
Brewing hatred.
Start the goddamn hendies already.
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