2014 MLB Playoff

[a700hitter]

The Royals are getting great pitching from very mediocre pitchers. Things are breaking their way. It looks like it is their year, and I am happy for them, but they are not very good.

[Bellhorn04]

The Royals are getting great pitching from very mediocre pitchers. Things are breaking their way. It looks like it is their year, and I am happy for them, but they are not very good.

 

That kind of says a lot about the game of baseball, doesn't it? It's a funky game alright.

[Palodios]

The Royals are getting great pitching from very mediocre pitchers. Things are breaking their way. It looks like it is their year, and I am happy for them, but they are not very good.

 

Here's the thing. They're not getting great pitching from mediocre pitching. Their elite defense is making their mediocre pitching look great. Their defense is the best in the majors, and it isn't even close.

 

Lorenzo Cain and Dyson were the best two defensive centerfielders in the AL this year. Move one to a corner, and add 3x Gold Glove winner Alex Gordon to the other outfield spot and nothing drops into that outfield. Salvador Perez caught 75 base stealers this season around a 35% clip and had a crucial one last night. Escobar and Moustakas are having very good years as well. The only weak link is Hosmer at first base, but he's looked fine to me.

 

And have you seen that bullpen? They have three qualified relievers who had ERA's in the 1.00s this year, and that's not including first round pick Finnegan.

 

They're sneaky good. Not the team I expected in the World Series, but the more I watch, the more I realize they deserve to be there.

[Spudboy]

The Royals are getting great pitching from very mediocre pitchers. Things are breaking their way. It looks like it is their year, and I am happy for them, but they are not very good.

 

That team is flawed but so are the Giants.

 

Looks like the Royal's year.

[a700hitter]

Here's the thing. They're not getting great pitching from mediocre pitching. Their elite defense is making their mediocre pitching look great. Their defense is the best in the majors, and it isn't even close.

 

Lorenzo Cain and Dyson were the best two defensive centerfielders in the AL this year. Move one to a corner, and add 3x Gold Glove winner Alex Gordon to the other outfield spot and nothing drops into that outfield. Salvador Perez caught 75 base stealers this season around a 35% clip and had a crucial one last night. Escobar and Moustakas are having very good years as well. The only weak link is Hosmer at first base, but he's looked fine to me.

 

And have you seen that bullpen? They have three qualified relievers who had ERA's in the 1.00s this year, and that's not including first round pick Finnegan.

 

They're sneaky good. Not the team I expected in the World Series, but the more I watch, the more I realize they deserve to be there.

Everything is falling their way like it did for the 2013 Red Sox. And I think the 2013 Red Sox had more talent. I can see the Royals being a 4th place team next season . Guthrie is mediocre and they are getting wonderful production from him in the post season. A bullpen doesn't mean much if your starter can't give you 5 or 6 strong innings. Next season without Shields they and the good fortune of fate they will drop like a stone even if they put Ozzie Smith at all 8 positions.

[Spudboy]

Everything is falling their way like it did for the 2013 Red Sox. And I think the 2013 Red Sox had more talent. I can see the Royals being a 4th place team next season . Guthrie is mediocre and they are getting wonderful production from him in the post season. A bullpen doesn't mean much if your starter can't give you 5 or 6 strong innings. Next season without Shields they and the good fortune of fate they will drop like a stone even if they put Ozzie Smith at all 8 positions.

 

I think that these are legitimate points Ted. It's very interesting to not that the current Royals squad is not as good as the 2013 Sox and now they are in the World Series and that Sox were a very distant last place in their own division. It's crazy they way things have shifted in MLB. I wonder how many of the young Royals have reached their performance ceiling? Which ones will get better? I wonder how their front office will treat the off season?

[seabeachfred]

Here's the thing. They're not getting great pitching from mediocre pitching. Their elite defense is making their mediocre pitching look great. Their defense is the best in the majors, and it isn't even close.

 

Lorenzo Cain and Dyson were the best two defensive centerfielders in the AL this year. Move one to a corner, and add 3x Gold Glove winner Alex Gordon to the other outfield spot and nothing drops into that outfield. Salvador Perez caught 75 base stealers this season around a 35% clip and had a crucial one last night. Escobar and Moustakas are having very good years as well. The only weak link is Hosmer at first base, but he's looked fine to me.

 

And have you seen that bullpen? They have three qualified relievers who had ERA's in the 1.00s this year, and that's not including first round pick Finnegan.

 

They're sneaky good. Not the team I expected in the World Series, but the more I watch, the more I realize they deserve to be there.

 

Great defense and great bullpen. However, they have to win tonight because they face Madison Bumgarner tomorrow. I don't think KC wants to return home down three games to two.

[seabeachfred]

Everything is falling their way like it did for the 2013 Red Sox. And I think the 2013 Red Sox had more talent. I can see the Royals being a 4th place team next season . Guthrie is mediocre and they are getting wonderful production from him in the post season. A bullpen doesn't mean much if your starter can't give you 5 or 6 strong innings. Next season without Shields they and the good fortune of fate they will drop like a stone even if they put Ozzie Smith at all 8 positions.

 

Nice if we could trade places with them next season. Sounds good to me.

[a700hitter]

I think that these are legitimate points Ted. It's very interesting to not that the current Royals squad is not as good as the 2013 Sox and now they are in the World Series and that Sox were a very distant last place in their own division. It's crazy they way things have shifted in MLB. I wonder how many of the young Royals have reached their performance ceiling? Which ones will get better? I wonder how their front office will treat the off season?

if they win the series, i think they will ride with what they have and let Shields walk. If they come up short in the series, they may make some moves.

[Dojji]

What they're getting from Guthrie isn't difficult to understand. He's a pitcher to contact whose calling card is the innings he consumes. He's doing as well as he does because he pitches the contact and the defense of the team behind him has been a focus of the Royals.

 

Dayton Moore wasn't trying to get the best pitchers possible, he assembled a bunch of highly durable starters and then built a high level defense around them. This had the effect of magnifying what those pitchers did well and allowing his team to contend. Very shrewd in this era of diminishing offense.

 

Put the same pitchers on a team like the Red Sox where the focus is about getting offense out of positions where defense is at a premium, and he would fare much less well.

[a700hitter]

Now I remember why I was so relieved that Lackey won game 6 of the 2013 Series for us and we didn't have to rely on Peavy in game 7.

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

The Royals are s***ing all over San Francisco's face right now.

[Youk Of The Nation]

I must say, watching Peavy fall completely the f*** apart from the other side is much more entertaining.

[seabeachfred]

Now I remember why I was so relieved that Lackey won game 6 of the 2013 Series for us and we didn't have to rely on Peavy in game 7.

 

I was thinking the same thing Ted. I am pretty convinced that if there had been a seventh game last year we might have ended up on the wrong end of it. I remember very well how ineffective Peavy was from the get-go in Game 3 of that series. Still the Giants have Bumgarner lurking in the weeds for tomorrow night's game. Glad my prediction of the Giants in six turned to mush---but it is not enough. I want the Royals to get game seven and the WS Title. I'm hoping I'll be smiling tomorrow evening at this time----and I think you know why I want KC to win it all.

[gojohn99]

Peavy is now one of the most ineffective post season pitchers ever. I think I saw that he has one of highest postseason ERA's of all time. Still he has that duckboat.

[Navafan29]

Game 7 of the WS tonight! This is bigger than the superbowl! Too bad most americans have too lame a taste in sports to care.

[seabeachfred]

Game 7 of the WS tonight! This is bigger than the superbowl! Too bad most americans have too lame a taste in sports to care.

 

Navafan---You're probably too young to remember but there was a time about five or six decades ago when baseball was so popular there wasn't even a pro football game on TV many Sundays, and only one college game on Saturday. Football came of age for the first time in that overtime NFL Title game in 1958 between the Giants and the Colts and with a decade they were ready to pass baseball as our sport sat on their hands and took the Saturday Game of the Week off the air in the afternoon and soon put playoff games on mostly at night. Baseball is great if we don't get saturated with it and, face it, it is not the TV game football is. Baseball is best heard on radio or seen in person. There isn't a person alive who could tell me that our sport is second to football in person or on radio. Unfortunately, fans want to see the action and not think about it. Football does that; in baseball you have to think and plan ahead trying to outfox what the pitcher and catcher are going to do, and not only that the pace is slower. This may sound blasphemous but I find football boring. I do. They will pass or run and there is a whole lot of dead time in between in huddles and time outs. Action consumes only a fraction of the time and fans aren't forced to do much thinking in between. In baseball you have to be thinking all the time to wonder what is coming next and that is the beauty of baseball. I venture to say if the game can be speeded up a tad and playoff and WS games take place in the afternoon as they did back in the late 40's, 50's and well into the 60's we'll pick a lot of new fans. In short we have the greatest game in the world, the only one where the defense holds the ball and where any time a pitch is thrown dozens of things can happen. Give me baseball any day of the week.

[Northern Star]

oh my God, it comes down to one game for all the marbles.

 

I was checking the score last night and even at 8-0 I didn't feel safe, running through my mind was the possibility of today's headlines being "one of the biggest collapses in postseason history..."

[gojohn99]

I'm all for daytime World Series games. Even with the 8pm starts, most of the games don't end until at least 11pm or later. There have not been many close games in this Series, so perhaps that is why ratings are down.

 

I guess there are many reasons for the lack of interest - attention spans of the computer generation, the saturation of sports on TV, the length of games. Although revenue is up for MLB, TV ratings are down.

[a700hitter]

Outrighted: Kalish, Valaika, Vitters, Meek

 

By Jeff Todd [October 29, 2014 at 3:15pm CDT]

 

Here are the day’s outright assignments:

 

The Cubs have made a series of roster trims, according to Mark Gonzales of the Chicago Tribune (via Twitter). Outfielder Ryan Kalish and infielders Chris Valaika and Josh Vitters have each been outrighted, according to Gonzales. Righty James McDonald has elected free agency as well.

 

The Orioles have outrighted righty Evan Meek to Triple-A, the club announced. Meek will have the right to elect free agency, as he has previously been outrighted (including once earlier this year). Meek, 31, threw to a 5.79 ERA over 23 1/3 innings at the MLB level, all in relief. He struck out 6.2 and walked 4.2 batters per nine over that stretch. Meek has had better stretches in the majors, however, and even made an All-Star appearance with the Pirates back in 2010. Over 41 2/3 Triple-A frames this year, Meek worked to a 1.94 ERA with 8.0 K/9 against just 0.9 BB/9.

 

Kalish was once a part of our outfield future. Prospects are always a crap shoot. Cost control of a crapshoot doesn't excite me. Getting Stanton would excite me.

Edited October 30, 2014 by a700hitter

[d-money]

This Bumgarner guy is pretty good.Geez!

[d-money]

The royals cannot hit bumgarner even on two days rest.

[Northern Star]

I've resigned myself to the possibility of the Giants winning. I'll be sad if KC doesn't, but it's not like I was emotionally invested in them before they made the playoffs.

[d-money]

Royals's inability to hit Bumgarner the story of the series.

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

LOL what

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

Blanco better hope that run doesn't come in.

[Jacoby_Ellsbury]

Three titles in five years. Not bad.

 

See you in 2016?

[d-money]

Salvador Perez is an idiot.He kept chasing the high pitch.

[d-money]

He kept throwing the ball up

[Divinity]

Giants Win!

 

Now Sox fan's can't gloat about being the "only team with 3 championships this century"