Navafan29

The Yankees should boycott this game. They need to lose the division at the hands of the Red Sox, not at the hands of a dumb schedule. If I were in the Yankees position, I would be tempted to boycott the game in the most dramatic way - calling up as many AAA players as possible and putting them in the game, while flying the stars to the next game ahead of time.

Maybe somebody has mentioned this already, but can someone explain why the Yankees are listed as 1st place, but 1 game back? I assume it has to do with the ridiculous difference in games played. http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/standings/index.jsp

Ok Ok, let's wait until we lose Game 2 before we go full negative and pessimist. There have been 4 playoff games so far in 2017 with 8 starters, and only 1 starter has done as good as expected (Trevor Bauer). Our season will be pretty much on the line tomorrow, at a very strangely scheduled 2 PM Eastern (Earlier in Houston). We may be in a 2-0 Series deficit before we even play a game scheduled when most Americans can watch. But I have the day off tomorrow, and I think it will be like Christmas morning. Pomeranz will deliver his big, slow, magical, jolly curveball to homes all across the world, tieing the series up 1-1, which is all we could expect out of the first two road games anyways.

Very excited for the playoffs! What a great feel to the season so far... Price's clutch relief appearance felt like a historic moment.

Andrew Romine played all 9 defensive positions in 1 game for the Tigers yesterday! http://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/20874283/andrew-romine-detroit-tigers-play-all-9-positions-vs-minnesota-twins

What a game, is all I am awake enough to say....

Pomeranz becoming the pitcher we traded for is more important than today's win. If Pomeranz is now that "about as good as Edwardo Rodriguez" pitcher that we originally wanted, then guys, we have one more piece of the puzzle for this team being good enough to win the division.

I've never seen so many swings and misses at high fastballs out of the zone.

Marrero scores surprisingly easily on the weird throw that hit the 1st base coach!

Benintendi has been having trouble with pitches up and away, and he homers off of a pitch up and away! Could Benintendi have just covered a weakness he needs to to become a hot hitter? Bogaerts not a big home run hitter this year, but recently turning up the power!

Something that nobody ever seems to mention is that most studies on clutch have a lot of junk data in them that alters the results. What a typical study of clutch might do is take all of a hitter's plate appearances with RISP, and compare it to how they do without RISP. Or they'll take a player's performance in the postseason and compare it to their performance in the regular season. These approaches will include, in the "clutch plate appearance" category, a ton of situations that aren't actually clutch situations, and omit a lot of situations that are clutch situations. For example, if Ortiz is batting with runners in scoring position, but the Red Sox are winning by 4 runs, then it isn't a clutch situation, yet the study would hold it against Ortiz's clutchness when Ortiz pops out. If Ortiz is batting in a tie game in the 8th or 9th or 15th inning with the bases empty and hits a home run, then that's quite clutch, but the study wouldn't count it towards Ortiz's clutchness because there were no men on base. If Ortiz is batting with men on 2nd and 3rd with two outs and the Red Sox are down by 2, but the Red Sox are 10 games back in the standings and it's September, and Ortiz grounds out, then a clutch study would count this against his clutchness, even though it's not really a clutch at bat, because the Red Sox don't have much of a chance of making the playoffs, and therefore the situation isn't truly important. If Ortiz hits a game-tying season-saving grand slam against Benoit in the ALCS, then a clutch study would treat this equally to another PA with RISP in the playoffs, even though a season-saving hit should count much more than another PA of less importance. Getting a game-tying RBI when your team is 7 games up in the standings should not count as much towards clutchness as the same situation when your team is 1.0 GB in the standings, because there's much more tension and drama in the latter. I think the best way to analyze a player's clutchness is to watch them play, and remember how they do in different mood situations. Also, weigh truly high stakes situations on their clutchness more than unimportant situations.

You know that arguably racist red-faced Cleveland Guardians logo that has been around forever? Now that the Guardians are getting so much air time, the MLB commissioner probably wants to get rid of the logo. Some people say it's blatantly racist, and some say that wanting to change it is PC paranoia. Did you know that there are protests against the logo every year at the Guardians' home opener? Here is the article: http://news.sportslogos.net/2016/10/26/mlb-commissioner-will-talk-to-cleveland-owner-over-chief-wahoo-logo/ What do you think?

Well... at the very least, this is the perfect chance for Buchholz to fully get his confidence back. A chance to erase every bad thing he's done this season and start fresh where it really matters. There's no way we're getting swept by Cleveland, and if we win next game, the series will be 2-1, which is as close as a series can possibly be after 3 games played. I don't buy that David Ortiz's swan song will be getting swept in 3 games by the Guardians. I don't buy that we'd lose at Fenway in Game 4 after making it 2-1. If you forced me to make an accurate prediction on this series at this point, I'd say that we lose it in Game 5. But I think we have a better chance to win this series than most teams who went down the dreaded 2-0.

So we've watched 163 games and our season could be near over tomorrow. Price has never been good in the postseason. When you think about it, making the first round only a 5-game series is pretty ridiculous. But I do think that even if we lose the first two games, we could win 3 in a row. The players we expected to be weaker links are the one's who didn't struggle offensively today. Meanwhile, Betts and Bogaerts haven't gotten going. This makes it more likely that everyone will get going at once soon. This will be Price's chance to prove he can pitch in the postseason. He needs that little bit of movement on his pitches that he gets when he does good. But the Guardians are the type of team that could rip into Price if he goes into straight-and-easy pitch mode.

Don't worry, Shaw will pinch hit and tie it up with yet another solo HR in the 9th.

Thank God he's safe lol... Good move to bring in Marco Hernandez. I would take Marco Rubio as a runner over Ortiz here.

Holttttttt!! What a good performance today! clutch!

In situations like this I don't blame a player as much for what happened in the past. I just want them to succeed now. Good job by Pomeranz to not throw anything right down the middle with the bases loaded and get the 3rd out.

Welcome to postseason tension. We have half a game left. This isn't the regular season when you can lose games like this. Idk I wanted to say something original here, but... let's just hold steady with pitching and know we'll score 1 more run.

We need you Papi!

5 Game series are almost too rough. Gotta love the "86 Red Sox Chokers" sign that that fan's been holding up all game... I think the 3 World Series wins since then makes this sign dated. Porcello isn't quite himself yet. But it seems to be a slow bleeding of runs so hopefully we can score faster than they do.

Oh yeah!!! Benintendi let's gooooooooo

Great start to the game!!! Don't let Cleveland get momentum off of the tag. Great to see Holt starting. Betts looks nervous but I think he'll settle down.

I have been waiting 3 years for this game. Every little moment will be huge. Welcome back to the postseason everybody!

That was an incredible game. Fun to be able to just sit back and let the other teams battle it out in the infamous Wild Card game. One way to eliminate a division rival is by forcing them to play in that game by winning the division. Others have said that we'd benefit more from the Orioles winning then the Jays winning, but I wanted the Blue Jays to win. We don't play the winner of the WC game, we play the winner of the Rangers VS the WC winner. We should get to the World Series if we don't have to play the Rangers, so my top priority is not having to play the Rangers. If the Orioles had won the WC game, they would probably have lost to the Rangers. But if the Jays win (like they just did) then they have an okay shot at beating the Rangers. Plus I want to see the Rangers VS Blue Jays epic rematch.