As a soulless automaton I don't have to worry about believing I will jinx the Nats. They will win or lose independent of whatever I do here. So let's talk about the World Series.
Ok, ok let's first talk about the NLCS. Both teams failed at an objective I laid out. The Cardinals didn't get to Anibal Sanchez. The Nats didn't beat up Adam Wainwright. But you saw how that plays out. The good but not great Cardinals team can't win that game. The great as long as you don't look behind the curtain Nationals can. And so we see how the rest of the series will probably play out. The Cardinals may win tonight, as they have their legitimate ace who might out ace the Nats ace, and the Cardinals may sneak a win from a late game Doolittle or Hudson beat up. I don't think anyone here is convinced those guys are untouchable. But can they do that three times? Or twice and have Flaherty out ace the Nats twice? Seems very unlikely.**
That means the Nats will end up in the World Series and I don't know if you've been watching the ALCS but those teams are very good! Now the Nats just beat a very good team in the Dodgers, so it's not like it can't happen but to do it they had to go Defcon 5, all starters throwing relief innings, only 2 crucial outs being made by the regular non Doo/Hud pen basically. You figure to win the World Series they'd have to do something similar. And if you want to do something similar you have a particular hope. The Nats need rest.
I've said this multiple times, but I'll mention it again. Strasburg is beyond his max innings pitched for any season. Corbin is beyond his max innings pitched for any season. Max, isn't but he is 35 and pitching hard after a late season injury. These things take their tolls.* And the more rest the better. So the Nats need to win as quickly as possible. 4 or 5 games. Do they care if the ALCS goes long? Yes, but not for scheduling (the World Series is a set date 10/22). The longer the ALCS goes the more those arms get tired. So root for that as well.
Is there a team that the Nats should hope to face? Well either team is top-level but I would imagine given the Nats plan (Aces ace, get lead, hold on) you'd rather face the Yankees than the Astros. Why? Two reasons. The first is the Astros, in Verlander, Cole, and Greinke, have real aces. So even if the Nats' aces ace, the Astros ones could match them. You have to hope that doesn't happen. The Yankees on the other hand have good pitchers, but ones you'd expect to beat if the aces ace. The second is the Astros walk the most and strikeout the least in all of baseball. That goes directly against the Nats aces strength of King everyone and against the goal of trying not to get deep into the pen. The Yankees are a poor consolation prize. They take the most pitches per plate appearance and their pen is outstanding. But if you have to pick your poison...
Joe Torre used to say that G3 was the most important game in the seven game series. That the momentum was really decided at that moment. Obviously a team taking a 2-1 lead would be important, as well as the 3-0 team preparing for a knockout. But a team winning 1 after being down 2-0 would feel again that they were in the series. So that whoever loses G3 would be knocked on their heels a bit. Don't get knocked on your heels. Keep dominating this average line-up. Get your lead. Hold on.
*I am VERY worried about how that all plays out in 2020 and beyond but win a World Series and no one cares.
**Of course this is still just guessing. Maybe the Cards win 4 in a row? Maybe the Nats make the series play the Astros and sweep them! It's a small sample size, with new rules, and weird things happen.
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Were you prepared for the shit storm that would come from a potential Nats - Yanks World Series?
Totally agree, the Nats should be rooting for the Yankees to win in 7 and to take care of the Cardinals in 4 or 5 games. The Nats should win this series in 5 games, 6 at the absolute worst.
Unlike Harper, I don't think the Yankees are that much better than the Nats in a 7 game playoff because their starting pitching is not great. In fact it might not even be good. Also, people tend to think AL lineups are better than they are because of the DH, which is to say they don't adjust for league. For 3 games the Yankees are going to lose the DH and have to make National League decisions about leaving pitchers in to hit. For 4 games the Nats won't have to worry about Kendrick's defense to get him into the lineup.
All that being said, the Astros are going to beat the Yankees, so you can forget about that New York smell, which is really just the smell of urine so prevalent on New York streets, invading DC. On the plus side--and Harper obviously isn't one of these--you won't have to deal with the loud and obnoxious Yankee fans who have a 2nd grader's understanding of the game of baseball.
I hate you so much for this Harper. There are still games to be played and it's against the freaking Cardinals of all teams. This might be the most soulless automaton thing you've ever done.
GO NATS!
that's all i have for now
@JW
Check your NY hate! NYC is home to the best and worst of smells, piss in the sewer yes but delicious food wafting out of restaurants and food trucks lining every block. Garbage bags lined up on the street on trash day smelly yes, but offset by the perfume of the beautiful woman passing by (lol).
And I'll take a Yankee fan's blind support of their hometown team over a DC pedant who won't take time out of his or her "busy" schedule to attend a game until the team shows they are playoff caliber, or worse, actually in the playoffs.
Keep the criticism for ATL and Philly - teams whose fans truly deserve it!
@Coolsny Don't worry, I have plenty of criticism for the Barves whose fanbase is the Yankees/Red Sox of the NL. However, Atlanta is a nice city, sure it has traffic that's almost as bad as DC's. But, it's clean and people are friendly, especially for a big city. Yeah it's hot in the summer, but great weather the other 8-9 months of the year. Easily in the top 10 of nicest big cities to live in in America. Still, it's a football town and people care way more about UGA football than they do about baseball, which leads to the super-uninformed Barves fan. As for Philthadelphia, it's a city after New York's heart, just a nasty place that somehow people have collectively led themselves to believe is something different than what it is. Just like New York, there's good aspects to it, and it has its nice parts, but overall it's a hole, with terrible weather and filled with abrasive people who seem to wear that moniker like a badge of honor, as if being an a-hole is something to be proud of. However, I would say that the average Philly fan is pretty knowledgeable. Yeah, they might throw batteries at you, but they understand the game and know why they're throwing batteries at you.
As for New York, it's such a great place to live that a good chunk of its inhabitants now live in Florida. After they move, New Yorkers love to tell you how great New York is, how great the food is especially that triangle of grease they call pizza, but it's painfully glaring that despite how great they say it is, they don't live there anymore.
Come on now the fact that you can go to just about any corner in the city and walk away with a perfectly serviceable slice of pizza is one of New York's few redeeming qualities. You definitely can't say the same for D.C.
Yes, NY sheds its weak like a dog sheds its hair. It's not a comfortable place for the faint of heart. I imagine you've only seen NY in the cinema, and no doubt you were wheeled in on your electric scooter. If you have in fact been here, I can only believe that you did so from the comfort of a double decker sightseeing bus or in one of those tour groups with a colored-flag waving guide at the head.
And insulting pizza, my man - insulting pizza is...well...I know we call Harper the soulless automaton, but it is now clear you are the robot.
WILL WE GET TO EVER SEE AUSTIN VOTH?!?
coolsny - Austin Voth is an illusion. He's a invisible silent partner who only exists to take the fall if the Nats lose.
Costanza OUT!
https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/27834957/washington-nationals-adam-eaton-says-seinfeld-key-big-hit
While watching Correa's walk-off, the Astros radio play-by-play guy has a similar call to Bob Carpenter, just a little sped up: "See ya later! See ya later! See ya later!"
Couldn't help but laugh as he was shouting it. Reminded me of this:
https://youtu.be/skgLehA-FFI
Holy shit! What did I just read?
From Harper's pseudo post to the strangest comments I've seen in awhile, how can we go about insulting other cities (other than Philly) just because we don't like grease dripping off our elbows as we eat pizza, or complaining about trash bags lining the curb (at least someone picks it up instead of miscreants tossing it into an ally (yeah you, DC)).
Looking forward to the game tonight while I can still watch the whole game as Wednesday is back to work and I really need to function.
Sure hope that the Nats win tonight because it would be great to see Austin Voth start game 4.
All I can hope for is that whatever devil magic the Yankees got so that any random trash they pick up off the street (Urshela, Maybin, Ford, Tauchman) puts up a .900 OPS was stolen from the Cardinals and that thus the Cards have to win the rest of the series by playing actual baseball instead of invoking narrative-laden witchcraft. It might also help if Flaherty goes back to pitching like last year instead of being the literal best run-preventer in baseball the way he was in the second half...
I just want to go to a game or two. So for that reason alone I hope the NY market is out of the market for WS games. Not that Houston fans won't travel, but we all know that Amtrak down from NY will loaded with Yankees fans over the Games 3-5 weekend.
I lived in the middle of "Cardinals Nation" for 2+ decades. When we left DC in 96 and landed in Misery, I toyed with the idea of becoming a fan because back then, it looked as if baseball would never come back to DC. Hell, when I lived there (I'm a native of DC), I refused to go to games when Camden Yards opened for obvious reasons.
The instant the Cards hired LaRussa and then brought in McGuire, any idea of supporting them stopped. They hypocrisy of a franchise whose fans always yammered about how the team did things "the right way" then bring that crew onboard was massive.
When baseball did come back to DC, I went to every game the Nats played in Busch. Ah, the good old days of April games with Detweiler starting and getting shelled. Then Pete Fucking Kozma. We don't call them the Zombie Cards for nothing. I won't be assured of anything until the final out.
It's been great watching the team this year. I'm now in Denver and went to the 3-game series earlier in the year, the one where Trevor Rosenthal was either beaning batters or splaying the ball all over the place. I was surrounded by Rockies fans and had to explain to them that he wasn't doing it on purpose, he was really that wild. Of course it's great being here because you can give the fans at the game friendly amounts of shit about Ian Desmond. We dodged a bullet on that one.
As for who to face, I have tons of Fucking Yankees (tm) fans who are friends so that would make for some great cross-country trash talking during a series.
A NYC political blogger, Steve Gilliard, who unfortunately passed away a dozen years ago was a Mets fan. His signature statement about the other team:
Fuck The Fucking Yankees &trade (tm)
I really should trademark that.
Let's go 1-0. No WS talk. We will cross that bridge when it happens. We have played great baseball and we have been lucky. Lets hope baseball Gods stay happy with us. Go NATS!
@SM Toronto is a very nice city. Weather sucks, but it's a nice city. Opinions about cities and fans are made independent of one another.
Also, I don't believe in jinxes so I felt it appropriate to start the smack talking bout the Yankees and New York now, in the likely event they lose to the Astros and it never comes to fruition. It's all in good fun, hopefully no one is offended by my feelings about New York and New Yorkers. Like anywhere, there are nice people and not nice people who live there, mine are generalizations based on a lot of travel through the years.
@coolsny Bless your heart.
Hat tip to coolsny
Glad to see Robles is back. Taylor's defense is good, Robles' defense is great. Hopefully he can put some good AB's together.
Heyyyy what's with the New York hate? I live here! I f*&%ing hate it! It's the best city in the world! I can't wait to leave!
I agree most Yankee fans don't know diddly squat about baseball. This is because the New York media, for years, has been preaching home runs and all-people-who-are-good-people want to play for the Yankees so if a free agent doesn't sign with the Yankees, they don't matter. Can't really blame the fans because that's all you heard here. Its been better the last ten years or so with the internet allowing alternative points of view to be relevant, and the mainstream media has been embracing this newfangled advanced stats stuff. So it's still bad with the older fans but most Yankee fans under 40 have a working knowledge of baseball IMO.
For those who think the Nats starters are unlikely to suffer brutal fallout if they go to WS and keep piling up innings, check out the Red Sox rotation this year. They really fell apart. (I still want them to go as deep as possible of course!!!!)
The Red Sox suffered a brutal fallout this year because piling up innings last year got them a WS championship.
Actually listened to the talking heads tonight.
Of COURSE the players are "...among the best in the major leagues." They're in the effin' playoffs, morons.
Heh. The lead is big enough to trust the bullpen.
Wow! These guys are really doing it!!!! WHAT A FANTASTIC GAME!!!!!
Anthony Rendon hates baseball exhibit 99:
"Rendon was asked what he'll be doing at 36.
'Hopefully not playing baseball,' he said. 'Probably sitting on the couch hanging out with my kids. [Kendrick's] probably going to play another 20 years.'"
All hail King Everyone, first of his name.
I agree that from a pure baseball perspective, the Yankees are a better opponent. OTOH, there will be more obnoxious visiting fans at Nationals Park if it's the Yankees rather than the Astros.
Also, for those of us who are local, the Yankee fans will bid up the price of WS tickets on the secondary market. Not only will they be more unpleasant to sit next to than the Astros fans, we'll have to pay extra for the privilege!
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