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The Division Series' are getting all tangled up now. Houston increased their lead over Kansas City to 2 games to 1, while the Blue Jays staved off elimination against the Rangers and trail by same, 2 games to 1. Today we have a full slate of games, including the two NLDS series which are both knotted up at 1 game apiece. Even still, the vast majority of eyes will be on Citi Field and all of New York versus Chase Utley.
Things are lying low in Anaheim while MLB playoffs thrive, so most of our focus is on everybody else's Links:
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Angels Baseball
Dean Chance: We lost an Angel yesterday. Dean Chance died at the age of 74 of an apparent heart attack in his hometown of Wooster, Ohio. Chance was drafted originally by the Baltimore Orioles, but the Orioles chose not to protect him in the 1960 expansion draft and the Angels claimed him. This was a prize, as Chance had tossed 17 no-hitters in his high school career. Chance was pitching in LA before the Angels closed out their inaugural season of 1961. Dean finished his official rookie year coming in tied for 3rd in the Rookie of the Year voting, losing out to Yankee Tom Tresh and his 20 home runs (and Angels catcher Buck Rodgers). He would later claim the MLB Cy Young Award in 1964, when there was only one CYA winner in all of baseball, not an NL and AL winner as there is now. After a record of 74-66 and with an ERA of 2.92, Chance was traded away to the Twins for Don MIncher and Jimmie Hall. He threw 2 no-hitters that year for Minnesota (although his first one was pulled down from the official list because he only went 5 innings). IN 1969 Chance started to suffer arm problems and was gone by 1971. We didn't get too much personal information out of Chance and that's a shame, because some stories suggest that he was always a party animal. Here's to hoping that Dean Chance finds some peace in The Great Speakeasy in the sky..............
Seattle: New GM Jerry Dipoto is gutting the minor league coaching staff beneath the Mariners, in what is being called "an absolute bloodletting".............And, for new Skipper, Dipoto is rumored to be favoring Tim Bogar. Not news there. But what is news is that Dipoto might have been lined up to post Bogar in an LAA uniform to replace Mike Scioscia................
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Elsewhere in Baseball
UtleyGate: Chase Utley was suspended for the next two games of the NLDS. This is a significant punishment considering how crucial every game is during the playoffs but it does remove Utley from the field of play in Citi Field, where we could be sure that new York fans would have caused some significant uproar. Joe Torre, in announcing the suspension, references Rule 5.09(a)(13). And this is the CORRECT ruling. The problem that we have is that the Instant Replay mechanism in place is not structured as to allow the review crew to unwind the entire play and re-adjudicate the whole thing. So we are left with bits and pieces of what the umps on the field rule in their bang-bang window, and what the review crew is allowed to deal with within their constraints. For his part, Utley is trying to appeal. How fast that happens will be something beyond my deadline...........(By the way, did anybody else around here realize that this whole shebang was the result of another potential Howie Kendrick GIDP? Just like old times.)..........By the way, the dialog now moves to retribution. And Matt Harvey finds himself in the cross hairs.............
Lyle Being Lyle: Still reveling in his throne among the Flat Earthers, Lyle Spencer throws out a straw man to troll the world of baseball that is leaving him in the rear view mirror. "I'm sure there were statistical brains who saw this coming, but before this season Arrieta & Keuchel were combined 55-59 with 4.30 ERA." I say "leaving im behind because, as I linked last week, the teams getting into the playoffs these days are the teams that are profiled as statistically bent. But, yeah, in fact the Cubs actually did notice that although Arrieta was not lighting it up in Baltimore, his spin factor on his off-speed stuff was incredible. So they took him, and they worked him. And here he is, Lyle...........But, then, Lyle is clawing and pawing hard against pretty much everything these days. It's pathetic, and it's beautiful...........
Hambone: Josh Hamilton got himself a pair of meaningless singles yesterday in the Rangers losing cause, raising his batting average in the playoffs going back through 2012 from .000 to .067................
Cubs Bared: The Cubs appear to have an enemy in blue. Ken Rosenthal notices a troubling trend with umpire Phil Cuzzi, who was behind the plate again in Game 1. And ESPN took a look at how the zone was called in Game 1 and agreed that it favored the Cards heavily. When it happens one time, half of us call for robots and half of us call it baseball. When it happens four times in a row, half of us call for robots and the other half pretend nothing is happening..........But, guess what? The strike zone changes dramatically once we hit the playoffs...........
Minor League Jerseys: Yes! Minor League Baseball is still full of fun and the jerseys they use to celebrate themselves are certainly prized. I, myself, recently came into possession of the Fresno Tacos jersey they use in the main article photo. I wore it to Petco for he final Padres home game and it was a big hit. This really took off a couple of seasons ago when MiLB baseball opened up the jersey rules, and the vast majority of all that fun comes out of a little family-owned factory in Burlington, N.C.............
How Fickle: The Royals are so last year. If you want to be hip, you need to be doing on the Astros. You know, the team that shouldn't even be in the playoffs but for the crap that LAA threw out all too often..........
Self Conscious Much?: Adam Wainwright is troubled by ED commercials. I don't know why he picks on ED, specifically. Why not also go after alcohol, feminine hygiene, online sports gambling, or even psychotropic drugs that can cause one to go sleep walking while having sex??............
Oddly: Man, lose a couple of games in a short series and all of a sudden the world turns against it's own darlings............
Astronomically Stupid: One of the downsides to becoming successful is that it draws all kinds of ignorant rabble to the affair. Don't blame bandwagon ignorance and stupidity on the Astros. Blame it on bandwagon ignorance............
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