igor67

Listening to the post game show. It sounds like the Pirates are doing another bullpen game again tomorrow? I don't recall ever seeing that twice in one series.

I don't think any team this century has won often enough to be described as playoff dominant. Last time was the Jeter era Yankees and they had fewer rounds...

Very excited to keep seeing what both of them can do in the Fall League

It's as good of time as any to go back to a 16 games schedule...

There's the special teams we all remember

It's not the worst thing to have the Cubs take a bit longer to be eliminated. Having only the Dodgers to think about for weeks on end is the kind of thing that can get in your head.

The extra game on the Dodgers is pretty nice. 2.5 plus the tie breaker means the team likely just needs to play 7-6 the rest of the way. 8-5 all but forces the Dodgers to win out

I wonder if they are waiting on Naylor so they don't switch catchers on May?

Based on historical anecdotes I think the biggest part of homefield vs. the Dodgers for me is 1 less game on the West Coast. I tend to believe some combination of distance and time zones does make those longer trips harder than. I haven't seen any studies on it, but it is plausible and fits perception.

At this point I like thinking of it as aiming for that 100 win mark. Which means going 9-6 now. Good but not amazing. The Braves have no shot at that point to over take us, and LA would still need to go 12-4 and get to 101 wins. Tough even on the soft schedule

I don't actually think the line between playing to win now vs. October is that different with how much substituting this team already does throughout the season. Finding a balance between rest and staying sharp already means guys are not really going to get shut down. Especially since a bye is highly likely. I can certainly see some more adjustments as the last couple of weeks wind down. But maybe things like Bauers DHing a bit more than last week combined with an off day. Naylor snagging a couple of more starts to keep the catchers going strong etc.

1) Aim for #1 seed for homefield against everyone. 2)And load management instead of rest to avoid being rusty after the bye. 3) Don't worry about your match-up until you know who it will be. Too many good teams anyone can beat anyone. 4) Get to World Series crush the inferior team. 5) Celebrate

Matching the Perfect game would pretty much require a 4 HR game from Fischer, I believe

Combined Minor League and Major League Plate Appearances is still under 1600 total. Prince had over 1900 PAs before getting called up, and Braun was only part way in to his second season with that same number of Plate Appearances. I don't know if Mitchell can radically change who he is at the plate, but it's still not hard to imagine there is a decent chance of a big break out now that he has been able to play for an extended stretch.

Certainly something mentioned before, but so far Henderson and Skubal have continued to pitch on the exact same days post trade. Henderson has pitched 39 1/3 innings allowing 10 runs. While Skubal has only pitched 35 2/3 innings in those 6 starts allowing 13 runs.