Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim vs. New York Yankees of the Bronx
So I'm up "late" watching this great post-season game, which is currently 9-6, Angels. An inning or so ago, the Yankees pitcher hit Benji Molina, the Angels catcher, in the elbow, and he had to come out of the game. In-game strategy memo to Mike Scioscia (Angels' manager): The Yankees started Flaherty as catcher (for Randy Johnson), but replaced Flaherty with Posada when Johnson left the game. So, unless the Yankees are carrying three catchers on their post-season roster . . . plunk Posada. Then the Yankees don't have a catcher.
Posada is up right now. Live blogging the at-bat.
Escobar struck out Posada. No beanball. No fastball to the elbow, or knee, or striding foot. Oh well.
Update: Angels win, 11-7. The Chisox won their first "post-season series" in 88 years earlier in the day. So anyone else looking forward to that Angels-White Sox series? (Assuming that the Yankees don't win two in a row.)
Btw, "post-season series" is a non-category category. There was a time when the World Series was the only post-season series. Then the league championship series were added with divisional play. Then the divisional series with the addition of a third division, per league, and the wild card. This category is just as useless as "post-season" RBI, HR, wins, etc. It should be no surprise that a Braves pitcher (Smoltz) has the record for most post-season wins.
It's said all the time that baseball is a game of numbers. But the numbers today are really meaningless. Regular season numbers are tainted by steroids. Post-season numbers by the proliferation of post-season games.
posted by Number Three @ 11:19 PM
1 Comments:
I don't know about that username.
But anyway, would the objection be less fierce if the post said that postseason records, like most postseason HR, were meaningless? When Jim Thome is one of the leaders in such a category, it starts to look a bit odd. Is Thome really as great a postseason HR hitter as Babe Ruth? How many postseason HRs would Ruth have, had he played in ALDS's and ALCS's? So there is unfairness to great players on great teams of the past, not just to those poor souls doomed to play out the best years of their lives on the Tigers, Pirates, and Deil Rays.
I have less of an objection to individual postseason stats, because those provide some indication of clutch performance.
But only some. The problem here is that the postseason is so short that these numbers often reflect merely a few bad games, and not any kind of trend, at all. (Maybe not for Smoltz, who's played in enough of these games to be certifiably great.)
Finally, I get to pontificate around here, because this is my blog.
Post a Comment
<< Home