Hello Baseball Fans,
The New York Metropolitans are in the 2015 World Series. They chewed up the Chicago Cubs in Queens and spit them out like a piece of Wrigley’s. Four games, four convincing wins. Sticks. Mitts. Arms. The Mets had it all on display. And with Kansas City up three games to two and hosting Toronto tomorrow night for Game 6 of the ALCS, the 2015 MLB playoffs are approaching the three-quarter mark after a marathon of regular and postseason competition. How crazy is that? It’s getting darker and colder outside every day. And the intensity of the crowds and players is rising every day too. In retrospect, it’s been twenty years since the first ‘Wild Card’ series, otherwise known as one half of the Division Series in each league, took place. In 1995, the Mariners upended the wild card-qualifying Yankees in five games after trailing two games to none and the N.L. wild card Rockies lost to East division champ Atlanta in four games. Atlanta went on to win the championship over the Cleveland Indians and in doing so were practically crowned team of the decade after winning an elusive title in their third 1990s appearance (out of just a possible five thanks to no ’94 Series) in the Fall Classic. However, the Braves then lost two more Classics to the Yanks as New York took three of the last four titles of the decade to lock down the title as Team of the 1990s.
Alright that’s enough about yesteryear. We’ve had a great postseason to date this year. The Houston Astros of the A.L. (that still sounds strange to me, but I like it) came to the Bronx to battle the Yanks in a winner-take-all Wild Card game, not series. The Yanks aren’t the big name players and faces they used to be, but they still had a solid club with some underrated guys I’ll say. However, I think we all knew the Yanks were a little old and short on mojo and weren’t going to advance to a postseason series this year. And that’s exactly what happened. The ‘Stros are perhaps a couple of years ahead of predicted potential as an October player, but that’s just how talented their young guys are. They advanced to take on Kansas City after a 3-0 shutout. The ‘Stros took K.C. the distance, but lost handily 7-2 in Game 5. Meanwhile, Toronto survived their own Game 5 thriller over Texas in an emotional and hard fought 6-3 victory. Personally, I was rooting for Houston and Texas in order to lineup, I believe, the first in-state non Fall Classic series. You may have to think about that one (and ’51 Dodgers-Giants was a play-off to determine the pennant, which counted as regular season stats). Anyway, maybe next year.
Speaking of next year, the Cubs will be back and probably even better in 2016 than their 97 wins this year. They blanked Pittsburgh 4-0 behind Jake Arrieta’s magical right arm in the NL wild card game. The Cubs then quickly extinguished the 100 win and hated rival St. Louis Cardinals three games to one in the only Division Series of the four that didn’t go all five. Take that Cards fans! Meanwhile the Mets escaped Hollywood after surviving the arsenal of Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke. Slugging second sacker Daniel Murphy was being nominated for Mayor after this series. And, apparently, Don Mattingly is saying ‘three strikes and I’m out’ after leading the Dodgers to three straight NL West titles as reports today say he’s leaving L.A. amicably and will probably land in Miami. And after sweeping the youthful and powerful Cubs (see Kris Bryant and Kyle Schwarber), Mets fans are now nominating Murphy for President after homering in an unprecedented 6th straight postseason game. For reference, he’s a career .288 hitter. Pretty good actually. He’s just not a regular power hitter, and has only homered in consecutive games one time in his career. However, he is a solid 6’1″ and 215 lbs. Finally, don’t forget that the regular season record for consecutive games homered is eight, which is shared by Dale Long (’56), Ken Griffey Jr. (’93), and Mattingly (’87). To date, career wise, Murphy is closer to Long rather than Junior or Donnie. But they didn’t make it to a Classic either.
Well, there’s a quick recap of the playoffs along with some stats and what not. However, we also saw the rare and unnecessarily ridiculous soccer-style slide tackle at second base by the Dodgers’ Chase Utley as he took out Ruben Tejada of the Mets on what was actually a non-double play ball. Utley’s ‘slide’ was worth at least a red card on the spot (come on ump, don’t be scared of the home crowd at Dodger Stadium or anywhere for that matter) and Bruce ‘Boss’ Springsteen would be proud of it had Utley been slinging a guitar as he slid across a stage rather than around the second sack. His delayed appeal hearing for a two game suspension brought on by Joe Torre is even worse than the act itself. Sadly, Tejada made one small error by exposing himself more, and for longer, than he had to considering the slow development of the play because the ball was originally fielded behind second base. The ‘punishment’ of a broken leg and missing remaining games (and now the World Series) did not by any means fit the mistake, nor should it have happened. Bush league play by Utley. The irony of it all is that Utley is a middle infielder himself. Enough said.
So after being ‘this’ close to an in-state ALCS, we won’t have even one ‘state’ in the World Series. Kansas City is well, just like the name suggests, a city folks. And Toronto is a city that’s not even in a state anyway, rather a province. What’s up with that?! And the Mets are actually N.Y. City’s team, not the state’s. Yes, their uniform colors of blue and orange represent the Dodgers and Giants, who left for sunnier pastures, but those colors were originally matched to N.Y.C. flag decor. Going forward, will the Royals advance? If so, are they going to follow in Texas’ 2010 and ’11 footsteps and lose back to back Classics? Or will they become the ’89 Athletics who needed a year of practice in the ’88 final before outlasting everyone? This year does mark the 30th anniversary of the Royals last championship in ’85 with George Brett, Willie Wilson, and Bret Saberhagen leading the way over Ozzie Smith’s Cards. Or is the powerful Toronto lineup (see Jose Bautista, Troy Tulowitzki, and Edwin Encarnacion) going to slug its way back to game 7 and then let it all ride for a chance to represent Canada vs. the USA in the Series? I’d love to watch the state of the amped-up crowd in Queens should the Blue Jays rally over K.C. I think I can almost hear the USA! USA! USA! chants already. Either way, I want a game seven for the remaining states, er series.
Later Baseball Fans.