AL and NL Division Serieseseses 2010: Discuss/Vent
Submitted by Sarah D. Bunting on October 6, 2010 – 4:03 PM52 Comments
We interrupt an IM conversation between me and Bean about our postseason-pool-pick buyers’ remorse to bring you a discussion thread about the 2010 division serieseses. On the plus side, no Chip Caray, calloo callay! On the minus side, why is the hero of the postseason ALWAYS a guy nobody picked? I should start handing out an award for that…”the Golden Victorino,” something like that.
Terrified? Apathetic? Thrilled that there’s still baseball on? The beer is cold and so are we. Come on in.
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Tags: bad baseball announcing Chip Caray Cliff Lee friends Shane Victorino
feeling a littlee squeemish that my twins have to face the evil empire again…having lost something like 16 out of the last 18, but, they do have a deeper line up this year–we’ll see
Dude. You HAD to put of a picture of Cliff Lee in his Rangers uniform??? Some of us here in Philly still aren’t done mourning his loss. The Roys are amazing, but Cliff is…Cliff. Sigh.
I just heard the “H20” designation for Halladay/Hamels/Oswalt the other day. Pretty rad. (I know I’m supposed to hate them again now, as a Met fan, but I don’t.)
There’s still baseball on? Funny, I could’ve sworn the season ended on Sunday. ::notbitteratallabouttheRedSoxsuckingthisyear::
I gotta root for the Twins. (I actually can’t stand them, but: Jim Thome.) It’ll end in disappointment the way it always does and then I’m left rooting for natural disasters. My fondness for the playoff field ranges from indifference (Reds) to seething hatred (Giants, Yankees).
As a Reds fan that generally only gets to see them in action once a year (when they come to LA to play the Dodgers), I’m excited just to see them on TV. It was also awesome to see them actually beat the Dodgers this time, first win at Dodger Stadium in years.
According to nearly everyone I’ve read, we’re going to get swept by the Phillies, but it’s still fun. We’re a young team and we’re likely to do it again next year.
@Bridget: As a Rangers fan, I thank you for sending us Lee. I’ll admit I didn’t have much postseason hope until we got him. Yay for our first postseason win since ’96!
Another Rangers fan saying, yay, Cliff Lee! Although actually in the late 90s the pitching wasn’t the problem in the playoffs. So, I guess, yay, Bengie Molina?! And Jeff Francouer?! (Not forgetting you, Nellie, but I knew you would be great.)
The last time the Rangers were in the playoffs, I was a sophomore in high school. The last/only time the Rangers won a playoff game, I had just started junior high. A long, long time coming!!
…Victorino just doubled. WHY DON’T WE EVER PICK THAT GUY.
I’m a longtime Braves fan, and I’m terrified. I want to believe in all the baseball-magic-y stuff about Bobby’s and Wagner’s final season, but I’m scared to get my hopes up. They’re so injured and slumping and generally falling apart, and the Giants’ rotation is not to be trifled with . . .
I’ll be rocking back and forth on the couch tomorrow like the second coming of Leo Mazzone, I can tell you that. Please, please, please let them win.
The stolen base was more clutch than that double even… I love Vic.
Only in Boston is an 89-73 record “sucking”… sigh. Anyway, as a Twins fan in Boston, I’m just glad the whole city is on my side for this next series! God, I hope we can get over this whole Yankees = choke thing…
I was thinking the same thing, Jeanne.
I mean, who do I root for now? No way in hell I’m cheering on the Yankees or Tampa. Sigh . . .
Watching Bengie run after the home run (…well, “run”) was awesome. Reminded me of watching my mom, also a catcher, play softball. Her “yay, I hit a home run/damn now I gotta run alllll the way around the bases” face was priceless.
I need more people to cheer for the Giants to maybe even out the bad voodoo I bring to them in post season. It’s a family curse dating back at least three generations that I know of, and it’s really chafing my hide. For once I’d like the team I cheer for to win something substantial!
I really don’t have that much hope for them in the post season, what with Sandy the Pandy slumping then streaking only to slump some more and all the other loose cannons I can’t trust on the team to produce. But the Franchise is pitching first game out so I’ll just hope that putting our best foot forward will get us somewhere the first two games. Fingers crossed people, fingers crossed. Also Fear The Beard! (No seriously, fear the beard. When your beard is two shades darker than your mohawk it’s time to leave the beard dying to professionals, alright there Willy!)
I live in Pittsburgh. Weep for me, baseball fans.
Oh, Doc. One inning away from the no-hitter. Man – we Jays fans love and miss you but we REALLY want you to get a World Series win even if it isn’t in Toronto.
Woot! And it’s official – a no-no for Doc. Go Phillies!
…so, that happened. Wow!!!
I would like to extent a warm invitation to all the Red Sox (or whoever else) fans to jump on the Ranger bandwagon. Still plenty of room! Fun young team–good pitching, good defense, and enough bats in the middle of the lineup to compensate for holes elsewhere.
WHOA. That was freaking amazing.
Aw, good for him.
I live in Seattle. @Mary: I’ll pass the tissues as soon as I can get up offa the floor, here.
@Kim: Oof. But seriously, what happened? Weren’t the Ms supposed to do pretty well this year? I feel like SI picked them to win the West, maybe?
…Sorry, they were picked 3rd, but still over .500: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/writers/ben_reiter/03/30/al.west.preview/index.html
Chone Figgins’ one good year was just one good year, Milton Bradley was crazy as usual, Ichiro still has no power, and Gutierrez, Saunders, etc. couldn’t hit either.
Posnanski had a post a few weeks back about how historically bad the Ms offense was this year–as of a couple weeks to go in the season, had the chance to be the worst in the AL in 35 years, including several pre-DH (!!) years.
As a Rangers fan, I’m actually most scared of the A’s going forward. That rotation is scary young, good, and deep. Actually I think they’re all younger than I am, pretty sobering. Plus obviously Beane scares me a lot more than Zuriednick (sp?), what with his “oh, I didn’t know Josh Lueke had faced felony charges” ass-covering.
@ Kim: Yeah, that sucks. @ Sarah in Ottawa: Doc is absolutely amazing–he does help heal the Cliff-wound. I’m so annoyed I had to work tonight & missed game 1. Victorino astounds me. He doesn’t look like he should be that fast, but he’s like the Flash out there. And you know he’s that crazy intense guy that just vibrates the whole way through the game.
If anyone has access to Wednesday’s Philly Inquirer, check out the picture of Oswalt on E5. It’s, well, extremely flattering.
Don’t forget Ken Griffey Jr. and Napgate! (Granted, catching a quick snooze in the middle of an Ms game is one of the great pleasures of my life…but I am not actually ON THE TEAM, Junior, DAMN.)
I came to TN this morning hoping for some baseball chatter. I too had to work and missed the game, and I am in Nats-land, so the coverage isn’t the same, but still, oh PhillIes my Phillies! I knew the suffering would pay off in time!
Here in Tampa our pastime is watching the Rays implode like we all wish their stadium would.
Plus, all the whining about attendance, and THEN we get stuck with the early games? Was at the game yesterday. Someone held up a sign that said, “It’s OK, MLB, I didn’t need that vacation day.” Hee.
Ah well, at least we can get on to watching the Lightning implode now…
I had the extremely delightful experience last night of explaining to my 5 month old daughter that she was almost named Chase Utley after last year’s post-season. And that I was glad we didn’t name her Cliff Lee, given the trade. I’m sure she understood. Gotta get that kid some Phillies gear….
I’m feeling like the noblest wife and mother in the world to have encouraged my husband and son to take the 2 tickets to yesterday’s game that husband got from work (but what a thing for my teen son to have witnessed–I am so glad he went instead of me). Of course I watched from home, waving my towel and singing High Hopes like a crazy person all by myself! Wow, what a class act Halladay is. Always immediately gives Chooch all the credit. (Not that he doesn’t deserve plenty, especially after that final out he threw. How did he *do* that?).
Am intrigued that post-season rally towels are twice as thick as the regular end-of-season ones.
Finally, we are lucky to have gotten the green light to stop giving one of our cats nebulizer treatments (mist mask held over face, growling machine nearby, a cat’s delight–yeah right) right before postseason started. We would do the treatment while watching the games, but learned the hard way not to holler and high-five during the treatments unless we wanted to be wearing cat-inflicted red pinstripes of our own.
I know that stadium is tough, I know TB got the shaft day-game-wise…but if it’s true as the TBS team said that a lot of fans left after the bottom of the eighth? Come on. It’s the postseason, your team is down six and on the brink of two home losses — you don’t leave the game until it’s over. If you bothered to come, you can stay until the end. Fail.
Edited to add that Carl Pavano can grow a mustache…OF BEES.
I wasn’t exactly trying to make excuses for the Rays fans–I just think there’s a pile up of frustrating circumstances to a comical degree–but god only knows why people would’ve bailed en masse. You can add whatever group psychosis goes on ’round here to the team’s issues. The crowd stayed full on through in game 1–which led to some pretty entertaining synchronized eye-rolling, I thought.
Yay! I’m so thrilled that MY Texas Rangers (heh) are in the post-season…and doing well!
And watching Halladay get the no-no last night was amazing. He is phenomenal.
I’m hoping the Twins will win at least one so the Yanks are tired when they get to Texas. ;)
“A vineyard? Come on!” Most of the TBS ads aren’t that annoying (I love the State Farm one where the emo dude is holding the bunny and says, “He’s a rescue!”), but enough with the pensive fortysomethings texting each other about their evaporated savings.
Also, fellow Brooklynites, who makes a worse local ad than Bay Ridge Honda? Nobody, that’s who.
A lot of heartbroken Braves fans at a. my house, on b. texting me that I went to school with. Goofy ass Lincecum is stellar, of course, but without Chipper and Marteeeeen Prado, I just don’t see us making it much of anywhere. Especially with Brooks Conrad in the field, MY GOD.
@Kat: I felt bad for D. Lowe. He had a hell of a game, but the offense just had no chance.
I will keep my Yankee love in check because I know how people get all riled at that. But I just wanted to say it must suck to be a Twins fan. They looked so sad last night I almost felt bad for them. Not so much that I wanted the boys to throw a game, but soooo sad.
OK. That is all.
“…it must suck to be a Twins fan.”
Yes. Yes, it does. Dammit.
just brutal -twins cant even come close-get out the brooms
I’m afraid to watch today’s Giants/Braves game. I got to go to Friday’s game (my first ever post-season game!), and the way the wheels came off was just horrifying. You load the bases in the 10th with one out, and you hit into a double play! Posey, how could you! Part of me wants to think that they will rally and finish off the Braves at home, the other part of me is afraid they will split the series in Atlanta, then come back and choke at home in SF. Crap. (Off to work now – if I focus on my job, I won’t focus as much on the game.)
I’m trying to enjoy all the post season action even though my Tigers aren’t there, but I can’t even watch the Braves’ home games because the constant droning of the awful chop chop song makes me want to claw my ears off. Sorry, Braves fans, but ugh.
I’m “watching” Giants/Braves on the computer at the studio, and it’s a nail-biter even on goofy Yahoo! Sports refresh.
Woo-hoo! I heard a huge chorus of cheers from the bar across the street when the Giants tied it up! Now I just have to figure out what is the trick to ensure that the Giants keep on winning. (Maybe I shouldn’t go to any more playoff games in person – they won both times I wasn’t there.)
Oh my God, Brooks Conrad is SUCH a moutain of suck. I know the Braves are injured as far as infielders go, and I know we sorely need Conrad’s (jeez, so far non-existent just like everyone else’s) bat, but wouldn’t the untested rookie infielder (Hernandez) have been better than Conrad last night? I seriously question Cox’s decision to pull Kimbrel so quickly, but the bottom line is that without Conrad, it’s an entirely different ballgame. Oh, ugh. I was at the game, and it was PAINFUL. And I have great seats tonight and will be glad to go (a night at the ballpark is never wasted) but…I am not hopeful.
Hey, Rays fans, if you leave the game tomorrow night before the bitter end, you don’t get to complain about how out-of-state transplants remain faithful to our home teams. Your team hasn’t quit and has actually made this series one of the only exciting things about post season so far ( . . . seriously, Twins? Reds?).
Go to the game. Stay at the game. You can even use the stupid cowbells if you want. ::sigh::
Aw, apologies if you’ve been treated badly in Fla., Erin. I’m a native, God knows transplants are part of what keeps us ticking. I’ll be at the game again tomorrow night–haven’t ever left a game before the final buzzer (so to speak).
@Hannah- Have a blast! We wish we could be there!
We, personally, haven’t been treated too badly by Rays fans so far, but we’ve heard tons of comments and witnessed our friend’s 16 year-old daughter berated by a middle aged man behind her at a game because she was rooting for the Red Sox (her mom was born there) even though she was born in Florida. It was just sad.
J. Hey! Finally! I was starting to think that pool pick was a bad idea. (Unlike all my others. Oh, wait: those were all mistakes also, JOEY VOTTO.)
Argh, that sucks, Erin. We were at game 7 against the Red Sox two years ago WITH a Red Sox fan, and we had to fend off some jackasses. Having grown up with seemingly everything BUT Tampa fans around, I’m not sure where people get off being jerkoffs. I guess the team’s about 13 years old, now…ugh, teenagers.
Aargh. I’m so frustrated over how the Rangers are playing. I know
I should expect it because…it’s the Rangers. But dammit, they’ve gotten my hopes up! Please, please can we win tomorrow night?
I’ll stop whining now. Just…bleargh. I’m not accustomed to the pressure!