2026 Postseason Thread

[owbc]

6 minutes ago, Team Canada said:

King is rolling and the BP looms - they're in serious jeopardy of getting no hit.

They have too big of a lead and will save the leverage arms, otherwise I think it would happen. 

[Team Canada]

Well not in jeopardy after all.

[RobertCrawley]

12 minutes ago, Team Canada said:

King is rolling and the BP looms - they're in serious jeopardy of getting no hit.

He's throwing frisbees

[yourout]

35 minutes ago, Branyanisthegoat said:

Im just rooting for a 3 game series with all going 12+ innings. Not a great start so far.

Sadly it's going to be the Padres in a two-game route I'm afraid. 

We probably are going to end up with the hottest team in baseball in the first round.

[liveforoctober]

1 minute ago, yourout said:

Sadly it's going to be the Padres in a two-game route I'm afraid. 

We probably are going to end up with the hottest team in baseball in the first round.

Suddenly becomes pretty imperative Miz and Logan do their thing in MKE ... Petco and their fans feel feral. Don't want any part of a clinching scenario for the Padres in San Diego.

 

[Just Some Guy]

Any player but PCA would've gotten thrown out there.

[RobertCrawley]

The most Petulant Crybaby Award goes to . . . 

[liveforoctober]

I guess thanks for making them throw Musgrove?

[Branyanisthegoat]

Padres really wasting all their runs/shut down innings in the Wild Card series, classic mistake.

[Brian]

9 hours ago, Pugger said:

Peacock looked bad for the White Sox/Astros game.  Regular NBC was fuzzy at times during the NY/Res Sox game.

I don't understand what the MLB is trying to accomplish with streaming games over normal broadcasts besides pissing off many  faithful baseball fans. 

[titanrick]

2 hours ago, Brian said:

I don't understand what the MLB is trying to accomplish with streaming games over normal broadcasts besides pissing off many  faithful baseball fans. 

[long ball]

I only watched the first 4 innings of the cubs/padres game… but it’s hard not to be nervous about a match up with the Padres. 

[Jopal78]

10 hours ago, yourout said:

Sadly it's going to be the Padres in a two-game route I'm afraid. 

We probably are going to end up with the hottest team in baseball in the first round.

The Cubs clinched last Thursday then threw both Holmes and Peterson in a DH over the weekend making Wednesday the earliest they could pitch. Now they go into an elimination game with Gausman who had an ERA of almost 5.00 as a Cub and with a left shoulder (non-throwing) injury. 
 

Sure seems like Couns should’ve held one of his 2 best starters for Game 1 or 2

[titanrick]

17 hours ago, wiguy94 said:

Yeah I agree. Thought it was smart strategy considering the state of the Phillies bullpen. Just didn't work out. Mattingly is getting roasted online but I'm sure the same people roasting him would have also roasted him if he went to Bowlan or Mayza in the 7th and they gave up runs. Such is the life of a manager with a bad bullpen.

I don't know about that.  Duran only had one multi-inning effort all year, and then Mattingly wants him to go three?  In game one of a three-game series?  Was anyone else warming up in the 8th?  If the plan was for Duran to get through the "meat" of the order, he had already done that.  Riley was hitting 7th.

I know you have to think outside the box in the playoffs.  And the rest of their bullpen is bad.  But that seemed a bit too much to ask and for me, it was a predictable result.

[wiguy94]

2 minutes ago, titanrick said:

I don't know about that.  Duran only had one multi-inning effort all year, and then Mattingly wants him to go three?  In game one of a three-game series?  Was anyone else warming up in the 8th?  If the plan was for Duran to get through the "meat" of the order, he had already done that.  Riley was hitting 7th.

I know you have to think outside the box in the playoffs.  And the rest of their bullpen is bad.  But that seemed a bit too much to ask and for me, it was a predictable result.

I don't think Mattingly had any intention of having Duran getting a three inning save. Maybe he said differently after the game and if he did I agree he definitely was out of his mind. Pretty sure Boylan was warming in the 8th but this is a guy who hasn't pitched in a game since 9/17 because of a groin injury so who knows if he is truly 100%. 

It didn't work out and unfortunately for the Phillies that's the type of move that can essentially kill your chances of winning the series considering you need to win the next two games now and it feels unlikely that Duran is going to be able to pitch in both of those games.

[Fear The Chorizo]

10 hours ago, RobertCrawley said:

The most Petulant Crybaby Award goes to . . . 

You solved what PCA actually stands for!

[liveforoctober]

I guess shout out to Phi/Atl for giving us a game to have fun with yesterday. The other 3 were mainly snoozers, especially if you are not a MKE fan somewhere and got no joy watching Craig squirm.

Hopefully we can do a bit better today and not peak in the early afternoon..

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

24 minutes ago, Jopal78 said:

The Cubs clinched last Thursday then threw both Holmes and Peterson in a DH over the weekend making Wednesday the earliest they could pitch. Now they go into an elimination game with Gausman who had an ERA of almost 5.00 as a Cub and with a left shoulder (non-throwing) injury. 
 

Sure seems like Couns should’ve held one of his 2 best starters for Game 1 or 2

I thought the Cubs handling of their pitching was downright weird. It was just obvious they had no idea who to trust, and they hate the idea of Imanaga (who I think is their best arm) throwing against SD's righty power. Holmes pitching on Friday was just silly.

Felt to me like classic overthinking and maybe over-analytics. 

They may still come back (I think we're due for some game one loser comebacks at some point--a 6 percent win rate is not sustainable), but they've got themselves into an uphill climb.

[Team Canada]

27 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

I don't think Mattingly had any intention of having Duran getting a three inning save. Maybe he said differently after the game and if he did I agree he definitely was out of his mind.

His comments did indicate it was a possibility. Basically he wanted to get Duran in as early as possible and play it by ear from there. That's the questionable part for me. It absolutely made sense to me to have him face the top of the lineup. And it's reasonable to try to get some more outs from him given general BP unreliability, but it would have been more defensible to just use him for the 7th against their best hitters, then move on. Completely diverging from normal process just because it's October isn't necessarily going to work out well.

Obviously hindsight is 20/20.

[wiguy94]

14 minutes ago, Team Canada said:

His comments did indicate it was a possibility. Basically he wanted to get Duran in as early as possible and play it by ear from there. That's the questionable part for me. It absolutely made sense to me to have him face the top of the lineup. And it's reasonable to try to get some more outs from him given general BP unreliability, but it would have been more defensible to just use him for the 7th against their best hitters, then move on. Completely diverging from normal process just because it's October isn't necessarily going to work out well.

Obviously hindsight is 20/20.

Yeah that just seems silly especially because he's largely been a single inning guy this year. It's one thing for the White Sox to do that with Grant Taylor who has been used in a multi-inning role this year and it's a totally different thing to do it with a single inning guy. Definitely a sign of Mattingly being an old school by the gut type of guy.

[Brian]

1 hour ago, titanrick said:

[tmwiese55]

5 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Yeah that just seems silly especially because he's largely been a single inning guy this year. It's one thing for the White Sox to do that with Grant Taylor who has been used in a multi-inning role this year and it's a totally different thing to do it with a single inning guy. Definitely a sign of Mattingly being an old school by the gut type of guy.

A factor was probably that he only threw like 8 pitches in the 7th.  I'm sure in spite of being a mostly 1 inning guy, he's often thrown 20ish pitches, which is what getting the 8th would've been.    Don't forget he get the first 2 outs in the 8th, and it was only extended due to an infield bad luck single.  It was a matter of inches from being 6 up 6 down, while likely throwing so few pitches that he could've pitched today. and it would've left the bottom of the order for their next best guy.   

If he doesn't pitch him, and one of their bad guys blew the lead the same folks would be saying "why did you lose this game while you left your best arm sitting in the pen"

[Brian]

11 hours ago, RobertCrawley said:

The most Petulant Crybaby Award goes to . . . 

[craigharmann]

17 hours ago, Just Some Guy said:

Astros aren't quite as good without their garbage cans.

Actually, not good without pitching and timely hitting. I live in Houston. 

[RobertCrawley]

1 hour ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

I thought the Cubs handling of their pitching was downright weird. It was just obvious they had no idea who to trust, and they hate the idea of Imanaga (who I think is their best arm) throwing against SD's righty power. Holmes pitching on Friday was just silly.

Felt to me like classic overthinking and maybe over-analytics. 

They may still come back (I think we're due for some game one loser comebacks at some point--a 6 percent win rate is not sustainable), but they've got themselves into an uphill climb.

I agree. Once it was clear that it probably wasn’t going to be their tonight, the $8 million manager continued to use up his pen.