2022 MLB Playoffs

[Brewcrew82]

Figured I'd start a thread. Though it's obviously painful as a fan not having the Brewers in it after four straight years, I still enjoy watching playoff baseball and four games in one day is always exciting. 

With respect to the games themselves, Guardians looking to close out the Rays in the top of the 9th. Meanwhile, the Phillies and Cardinals just started. I know who I'll be rooting for in that game. 

[owbc]

TB-Cleveland game 1 was a pretty good game. It had some elements of a typical postseason game (great pitching, HRs providing the offense), but the pace was fast and it never got dragged into a bullpen chess match. 2:17 time of game. I love when both starters go 7+.

The pitching doesn't look as good in Phi-St. Louis. Quintana is laboring but he put up three zeros so far. 

As a Seattle person I'm obviously very excited about the Mariners-Blue Jays game this afternoon. It seems like Seattle is probably a year or two off of being a serious threat, but they have been playing loose after clinching and have a significantly better bullpen. 

Padres-Mets should be a good one as well. The pressure is all on the Mets in that series. Hoping to see Hader close out a win for the Padres. 

[owbc]

The Cards have imploded! 

[Brewcrew82]

Awwww poor Cardinals.

[Brewcrew82]

Lol. Arenado, the Gold Glove defender. 

[jason21nl]

This Cardinals meltdown has been epic

[markedman5]

You just hate to see it…….

[willie key]

Screw St. Louis.   
 

when are they going to hit a batter or start yelling at the other teams dugout

[BruisedCrew]

Phillies demonstrating the value of putting the ball in play. 

[jjgott]

Sad to see the Best Fans in Baseball head to the exits.

 

How will Cris Carpenter explain this to his son?

[Brock Beauchamp]

Well, it just breaks my heart to see that happen.  

[Hopper]

Looks like Pujols isn't getting meatballs right down the pipe any longer now that the playoffs have started.

HA!

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

I just came here to say the Cardinals complete vomit job has rekindled the dying embers of my love for baseball.

Also, the atmosphere in Cleveland wormed its way into my heart.

 

 

 

[hawing]

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

 

[Robocaller]

Gotta love a Cardinals' bullpen implosion.

[owbc]

As enjoyable as that was, the Cards gotta lose another game. I suspect it isn’t going to be that easy to snuff out the black devil magic.
 

Saw that Mets loss coming a mile away. Feels like they are done. Toronto seems to be playing under too much pressure as well. We’ll see if either of them play better tomorrow. An early deficit for either and they will be toast. Cleveland has quietly been really well for a while now and I expect they will move on. Steven Kwan needs to be a household name. 

Going to be interesting to see how this new format goes in the divisional series. Likely some pitching mismatches coming with the wild card teams having to start their #3 or #4 in game 1. I hope at least one of the WC teams can get through to the LCS. 

[NBBrewFan]

9 hours ago, owbc said:

Cleveland has quietly been really well for a while now and I expect they will move on. Steven Kwan needs to be a household name.

And they couldn't even fill the stadium.  The Dolan's are a prime example of what a horrible ownership group can do to poison the fan base.  This was a city that for 5-6 years had over 3M per year in attendance and sold out the park for more than 450 straight games at one point (don't even know the Miller Park record, but it most likely involves the playoffs) and now struggles to fill half that park during the regular season. Exciting team, horrible ownership, fan abandonment.

[wiguy94]

1 minute ago, NBBrewFan said:

And they couldn't even fill the stadium.  The Dolan's are a prime example of what a horrible ownership group can do to poison the fan base.  This was a city that for 5-6 years had over 3M per year in attendance and sold out the park for more than 450 straight games at one point (don't even know the Miller Park record, but it most likely involves the playoffs) and now struggles to fill half that park during the regular season. Exciting team, horrible ownership, fan abandonment.

Absolutely fantastic management though. If our FO was Cleveland level with Mark's budget we would be a St. Louis level franchise.

[Hopper]

3 minutes ago, NBBrewFan said:

And they couldn't even fill the stadium.  The Dolan's are a prime example of what a horrible ownership group can do to poison the fan base.  This was a city that for 5-6 years had over 3M per year in attendance and sold out the park for more than 450 straight games at one point (don't even know the Miller Park record, but it most likely involves the playoffs) and now struggles to fill half that park during the regular season. Exciting team, horrible ownership, fan abandonment.

Wonder if the name change alienated a bunch of fans?

I know a guy from Cleveland and he told me that he personally knows a lot of fans who refuse to go to games strictly due to the name change.  I'm sure that will soften over time, but I wouldn't doubt that there are a ton of people put off by that, especially the long time die hards...

If those fans stay away (which I doubt they will forever) that could be a small part of their attendance issue.

[NBBrewFan]

17 hours ago, Hopper said:

Looks like Pujols isn't getting meatballs right down the pipe any longer now that the playoffs have started.

HA!

I'm guessing that maybe, just maybe, the 12 playoff teams as a group have better pitching that the 18 teams that didn't make it.  That's just a guess.

[NBBrewFan]

2 minutes ago, Hopper said:

I know a guy from Cleveland and he told me that he personally knows a lot of fans who refuse to go to games strictly due to the name change.  I'm sure that will soften over time, but I wouldn't doubt that there are a ton of people put off by that, especially the long time die hards...

I'm guessing that's only a small part of the problem as the attendance issues predate any discussion of a name change and pretty much started when they went into full rebuild mode then continued to trade away players as they became stars. Cleveland seems to get owners who think PR is just short hand for punt return or pinch runner.

[markedman5]

Either the pitching in this Tampa Cleveland series is out of this world or their offenses suck.

I don’t miss these endless extra innings games at all…….

[Ro Mueller]

This single game is going to make Manfred and the owners insist on retaining the extra inning Manfred Man in 2023, isn’t it?

[NBBrewFan]

8 minutes ago, damuelle said:

This single game is going to make Manfred and the owners insist on retaining the extra inning Manfred Man in 2023, isn’t it?

Well they like to manipulate the baseball so I don't know why they don't manipulate the mound since BA has tanked, strikeouts are way up, stolen bases are way down and a cricket match is considered high activity compared to MLB game. That all equals watching paint dry as a professional sport. Younger people are tuning out and it's almost all due to a boring product with little action.  Maybe they should make changes that make the product interesting.  Having a runner on second to start the 10th is as dumb as the 3 batter rule - it doesn't address the real problem.

[Brock Beauchamp]

I’m genuinely surprised how much I’m enjoying this wildcard weekend. A tip of the cap to MLB for this new format. It’s intense and exciting without the complete chaos of that 2020 postseason. Four games a day over Friday and Saturday is just the right amount.