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Good pitching stops good hitting. Every time. The Cub's dreams are over (sad Chicago), mostly because Mets pitchers held them to a .164 team batting average, lowest ever for an NCLS, and a mere 8 runs across 36 total innings. I mean, look at this! Take away a decent - but relatively pedestrian - 3 innings by Tyler Clippard where he gives up 2 runs on 4 hits, and nobody on that staff allowed a BA over .222, or an ERA of over .257.
And then there is this Daniel Murphy mystery. 6 home runs in 6 straight games would be an amazing story anytime. Doing this during the playoffs is simply brilliant. Doing this during the playoffs right before one hits the FA market is priceless.
Oh. And somebody tripped over the Blue Jays and stirred them in their slumber. It seems that they won a game yesterday. Because of pitching. Maybe something will happen there.
I want this playoff season to end so that the Angels franchise can get busy again and I have some local links to share with you all. And yet, I don't. This is getting too juicy. Even without the cutesy teams with the Disney story lines. Even without the Halos. F%#k it. Let's Link:
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In Baseball
Goodbye Anaheim?: Today's rumor (from UniWatch) is that the Angels will drop the "of Anaheim" from their name between now and Opening Day of 2016. It's early, but let's see how far this rumor goes.........
Joey Batsflip: Rangers fans are still pissy, sure. That's their lot in life. But Rangers players are still pissy, too, and this should make next spring particularly fun when the Rangers and Jays meet early. Derek Holland is pissy (nothing new there) about all the whining Bautista does over balls & strikes calls (nothing new there, either).............
Get The Lawyers: 106,922 rules in the MLB rule book and there is still an important one missing. No room for bereavement leave in the playoffs, leaving the Blue Jays down a man as Aaron Loup is out with a family emergency................
Replacement Greatness: The Baseball Hall of Fame has lots of inductees, and they have their own range among greatness. So, logic suggests, there must be an average to all that range. Introducing the hofR, the Average Hall of Famer..............
Price Less: So maybe this is why David Price has been a hot mess. He has no idea what his manager is going to be doing with him from day to day. This might work for a utility player, but top-of-the-rotation starter.............
"Dusty"?: Ok, so maybe Duty Baker is not such a bad guy after all. I'd spark up with Jim Hendrix, too, had I been invited. (For kids reading at home, I wouldn't have inhaled!)............
You Know Yeonis: So you want Cespedes, eh? Cespedes was out of gme 4 due to a sore shoulder. One story is that he hurt it doing push-ups. Hey, the guy is committed and accidents happen, right? Then again, maybe it was all the gold he was playing earlier in the day.............
Winning: I love the smell of ESPN layoffs in the morning. It smells like...victory...........
Baseball Biz: Yeah, MLB wants to be chasing streaming services and cord-cutters with a vengeance, and creating an affinity for Millenials. Their problem, though, starts with all those mega deals with cable services that are funding teams directly. They can't cut the cord that, at the same time, feeds them. I should take a moment to note that MLB is the worst, by far, in how they clusterf@#k the free social media marketing resource that those same Millenials are hungry to provide. Yeah, we here within the SBN empire are under pretty strict social media rules and MLB content. I won't go into it all but you can google it and find out for yourself...........
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And now, being the full-service weekend linkage institution that we are, here is the obligatory moment we take out of each Thursday...for beer...
Friday: Nada
Saturday: First Year Anniversary Party at Three Weavers Brewing Company in Inglewood...........4th Annual BierBuzz Masquerade costume festival at Industry Hills Expo Center in City of Industry...........7th Annual Hoptoberfestat Pizza Port San Clemente..........OC Seafood, Brew & Wine Festival at Sea Terrace Park on PCH and Nigel Road in Dana Point..........SADIE Bottle Release & Tasting at Beachwood BBQ Long Beach..........Stone Brewing Company hosts a Tap Takeover at Draughts Restaurant & Bar in Thousand Oaks..........San Diego Beer and Music Festival at Waterfront Park...........Brews on the Bay at S.S. Jeremiah O'Brien in San Francisco.............
Sunday: Nada
Stay safe, everyone!
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