OK, ok. I've been slack. We're just going to have to deal with this as the new reality for a while because time is not kind. (not like I'm getting old, though I am - slower than you, but still - but in the not a lot of time when you are watching kids in school time). I'll try to figure out something that fits better - even if it' sjust one long post over the weekend or stream of conciousness stuff.
Anyway, the Championship Series are here and it's hard for me to give a damn. I guess I'm rooting for the Dodgers because I don't really have anything against them unlike the still using a racist chant owned by a mega-corp Braves, destroying the game by trying to squeeze out every win regardless of the enjoyability of the method Rays, and the cheating cheaters Astros.
Your mileage may vary.
As far as former Nats out there pickings are slim
- The Dodgers have Blake Treinen (and unofficial Nat Joe "why am I still on the mound" Kelly)
- The Braves have brief Nat Mark Melancon. They had Matt Adams but he sucked and was released. They had Tommy Milone and he sucked and was released
- The Rays have no one I don't think
- The Astros have Dusty. Brad Peacock was also there but got hurt.
12 comments:
Well, I grew up a Dodger fan so don't like the Braves. I respect them, just don't like 'em.
Bringing Treinen in with the score tied meant that I went to bed figuring that he'd screw the pooch.
Woke up this morning, read the highlights, and felt that my time was better spent in bed than watching the Dodgers lose.
Dusty can rally his team with a story about the time he shared a jar of bathtub bourbon with Charles Bukowski. Or something.
Or a joint with Jimi Hendrix. True story.
Nah, Nattydread. That one's old hat. Didn't work with the Nats, won't work with the Astros. Maybe a story about shooting steroids with Lance Armstrong before the Tour de France. The Astros would appreciate that one.
Tampa Bay won the Stanley Cup, so, hell, why not the World Series? They've got Brady, so Super Bowl too. Tampa as sports-capital of the U.S. is the bizarre sort of awfulness that 2020 has wrought upon this world.
I can't cheer for the Dodgers. Another LA team that thinks they can buy a Championship. As a Nats fan, it's hard too cheer for the Braves after cheering against them for so long, but I find it oddly ok when they're playing the Dodgers. Other than that, I got nothing. Wake me when Spring Training starts.
I'm rooting for the Rays. I admire their cleverness in getting more out of less. Plus, at this point I really feel no need to watch the game all the way through, so I don't care if their style of don't care much about the games, so if their style of play is leading to a boring game, I can turn it off without much regret.
After that it's probably the Dodgers. If we get a Braves-Astros WS, I'm rooting for rain.
I like Freddie Freeman. I mean I hate him as a Nats fan, but he seems like a good guy. At the ASG a year or two ago, they had little leaguers hanging out with the players on the field before the game. Most everyone was just standing there awkwardly, but you could see Freddie was going out of his way to be friendly and make sure the kid assigned to him had a good time. So I hope the Braves win for his sake, even though I hate pretty much every other player on the team. Albies is ok, I guess. Markakis looks like an evil magician.
I'm surprised you don't like the Rays. I get not liking cheap teams that are cheap because they figured out they can maximize profits setting the goal to the much easier-to-achieve-relatively-inexpensively "above .500" instead of "win a championship", but the Rays seem to be a team that actually has a budget and tries to use analytics to win a championship within that budget. Personally I'm all for it. Then again, I don't watch a lot of Rays games, so it might be that their style of play is boring. And I just kinda assumed they actually have a tight budget - if this is all just a money-saving scheme then yea screw them.
@SM haha
Personally as long as it's not the Astros I'm fine with it. Before this year I would've said screw the Dodger$ but having 2017 stolen from them gives them some sympathy with me. I wouldn't mind a make-up win (especially if against the Astros). While the Braves are division rivals, the rivalry isn't that bitter, and the Nats just won, so I wouldn't mind if they won, either. Actually IMO it's the Braves that are the team that has money and imposes artificial budget constraints to maximize profit, moreso than the Rays.
I guess nobody in the Astros clubhouse knows who Charles Bukowski is. But I digress.
After watching Clayton Kershaw collapse again in a crucial playoff game, I wonder if there's a definitive explanation. You know: injury, fatigue (not this season,though), tipping his pitches, small sample size, losing his stuff, etc, etc.
David Price, most notably, had the same can't-win-the-big-one tag until 2018. But somehow it feels different with Kershaw.
I recall a theory I once read about "breaking a pitcher." Essentially it's this: A dominant pitcher cruises along, sometimes for years, who overwhelms batters to the point he's considered virtually unhittable. And then one day, in a critical game, a great or very good hitter slams one into the third deck. The baseball world's disbelief is exceeded only by the pitcher's. And from that point, the doubt creeps into the pitcher's mind and he's never quite as dominant again.
I think the specific reference was to Goose Gossage, a big,scary, nearly unhittable reliever who was then with the Yankees. And after George Brett pulled one into the top deck of Yankee Stadium in a playoff game, Gossage was never really as effective again.
When Kershaw failed again in his last start, I kept thinking of Rendon and Soto last year, and the look on a crouching Kershaw's face after Soto's mammoth shot.
I'm not suggesting the Nats broke Kershaw (he already had the playoff-choker label), but I wonder if somebody did "break" Kershaw somewhere along the line. Or maybe no one did or has. Or if such a theory has even a smidgen of merit.
Food for thought, Harper, instead of those donuts you're probably scarfing down.
@SM - I agree with you about Kershaw choking, but don't know if it's that he's broken or just has the big-game-choke thingee.
Other pitchers seem to sail along with their stuff but then try to get fancy (note Scherzer going 0-2 on batter after batter then ending up with a full count only to give up a walk or a dinger).
No idea what it is but I think he'll be watching tonight from the bench. If we slugs in a Nats blog see it, I'm sure Roberts does, too.
@W. Patterson
Ha! Maybe Roberts sees it,too, sure.
Then again, maybe Roberts is turning into the new Dusty.
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