adambr2

Bunt him please. Not sure we want to go down the 2nd and 3rd 1 out road again even on the chance the bunt is successful.

If you guys think Counsell pulls starters too fast, just remember that Joe Maddon has just watched his starter give up 5 hits in a row to start the 7th inning and has still not taken him out of the game.

I remember the first few days after we got Pomeranz, Counsell wouldn't touch him with a 20 foot pole. That seems like forever ago now.

Game cast had that clearly in the strike zone. Yes, it definitely should have been. Not that it mattered.

Strike 4 to Spangenberg. That was not a good inning. Really wanted to get at least one of those insurance runs home. Zero hurts.

That was, uh, Strike 3.

I'm excited to see whether the Cubs' addiction to blowing 9th inning leads or the Pirates' general suckitude is stronger. Something's gotta give!

Oh Keston. The one thing we didn't need there.

He's got a .782 OPS against LHP, so he's hanging in there and did fine obviously in the minors. Most lefties are not going to be as good against LHP as they are vs RHP.

I really thought Taylor could have gotten that first blooper. But if he fails, it's possibly a triple or inside the park. Regardless, Suter got out of another one. Probably a little longer leash than I would have given him today, but it worked out.

That was huge!

I hope the dominance holds up. He's gotten himself into some trouble here.

It pretty clearly changed trajectory after it passed his leg. I didn't think it was conclusive and would have bet that hey would have lost the challenge. Even if they did, so what? It's the 6th inning and after the 7th you can have anything looked at anyway. The odds of needing a challenge in the 7th even if you lose are minimal, you have likely nothing to lose.

It pretty clearly changed trajectory after it passed his leg. I mean I guess I could kind of sort of understand if it's the 1st inning but it's also the 6th and you're 1+ innings from being able to look at anything anyway. Just doesn't make sense not to challenge.

Come on, Craig. Your guy is telling you it hit him and it clearly did. Challenge the damn thing, it's a free baserunner. What are you doing?

Grisham has such a good, patient approach.

Houser with the first successful sac bunt in franchise history to my recollection.

Houser hasn't been good starting lately. He'll make the playoff roster but I think it's definitely going to be in a reliever role.

I guess my point was that Mahomes is that good and can probably put up 31 on anyone including the Bears. I don't think the defense is the same as any other year. 31 was just a number I threw out there. Could they win 24-20? Sure, maybe. They aren't going to hold him to 14 for 32 passing with 1 TD and 2 picks, he'll get his, was all I was saying. I wouldn't really be worried about what the final score was if we won in Kansas City, that would be a major accomplishment. Point totals often need context anyway -- they could allow a punt return TD and turn the ball over near their own goal line leading to 7 and the 31 points allowed would be pretty misleading.

On one hand, yes, you're right. On the other, the Nats don't have to play this one like a regular season game. Their pen is a huge reason they lost 70 games. They could go Scherzer, Corbin, Strasburg for 3 innings each and avoid that crappy pen altogether if they really want to. Doubt they would because it would really hurt them for the NLDS, but they can. Obviously we can play it differently too -- I would guess we'll do everything to make sure that Hader is available for 2+ as well as our other high leverage pen arms.

I could get on board with 6, but I wouldn't want to potentially cram 3 games in for some teams over the holidays. Have the 3-6 play the week after conference championships, it's not a sacred rule that only Army and Navy can play a game that weekend. Then the winners go to the CFP and the losers meet in a predetermined New Years 6 bowl.

I'm honestly feeling pretty at ease about it. If we win, fantastic. I'd love another crack at the Dodgers. If not, it's pretty amazing that we are even in this position after clawing back into things after the Yelich injury. I didn't even expect to be talking about playoffs right now, it still feels like we're playing with house money to me. I imagine the teams are in a similar position, especially if the game is in Washington. They have all the pressure. We can play it loose. At the end of the day I'm sure i will be bummed if we lose but making the playoffs in back to back seasons would sure be cool after all the years of futility. I think we are all aware that it would take a miracle beyond what we have seen so far this month for this team to make a serious World Series run, but there's something to be said about being in that position rather than being the 1 seed like we were last year.

I mean if we're expecting this defense to shut down Patrick Mahomes that is just not going to happen. Best we can hope is to slow them down and hope the offense is clicking enough by that point to win a 34-31 type game, which I do think is possible. But it's still clearly massively improved. While we haven't faced a top 3 offense, we haven't been feasting on the Dolphins or Jets, either. Neither the Broncos or even Bears have a "bad" offense IMO, and I'd go as far as to say the Vikings look awfully dangerous offensively. Cook is probably one of the top RBs in the league and they have really good weapons at WR in Diggs and Thielen.

My problem with analytics is that it has gotten to a point where they are interpreted from a perspective of being the gospel rather than one piece of good information. Analytics and sabermetrics are great tools for modern baseball, but not everything in the game can be quantified scientifically, at least not perfectly. There are just too many variables. Even analytics are constantly changing and evolving, WAR already looks outdated rather than the revolutionary tool it looked like 10 years ago. So clearly, even more modern analytics aren't perfect. Is ERA a great stat? Nah, it's not, but to say it is useful only after 500 innings goes far beyond a reasonable scope for using it. Small samples are often overused to a great fault of misinformation but this is the other extreme end of the spectrum. Josh Hader has 200 career innings, it would take him about 7-8 years of an injury free career to have a "useable" ERA, this is more than many relievers will pitch professionally in their entire career. While there are better ways of measuring pitching performance and predicting future outcomes, there's clearly a correlation between lower ERA and better pitching performance. Corbin Burnes had a 2.61 ERA last year and is at 8.81 this year -- that alone doesn't illustrate why he was so much better last season, but it's not a coincidence that it was much lower in 2018 when pitching much better. Yes, there are exceptions to the rule, but generally, more productive pitchers produce lower ERAs, less productive pitchers produce higher ERAs. There are better stats, but to completely disregard it is throwing the baby out with the bathwater. It's a far cry from saying Kirby Yates is a bad pitcher because his record is 0-5. I understand that the eye test in baseball isn't a great way of interpreting results either because our minds often don't remember things exactly the way they happen and our eyes don't see everything that may be caught on Statcast or other analytical tools. But to assume that modern analytics can interpret all results scientifically is not something I believe with all variables involved. Often unintended consequences are even created by MLB managers as a result of decisions made using analytics. There are still many outcomes in baseball that are still either underquantified or overquantified by modern sabermetrics. Just my 2 cents.

I don't understand how anyone could feel bad about this team or 3-0 record. Not calling you out specifically Nodak, I just personally am pretty pumped. 2 huge division wins. The wins look legit-- no one in our division has lost to anyone other than us. The defense is leaps and bounds better, I don't think there's any questioning that. The offense is still a work in progress, but that's not a bad thing, especially when you look at the defensive opponents faced. I think the offense is only going to get better, and when you look at guys like Gary and Savage and Alexander, you could say the same about the D. And even on special teams, I don't want to oversell a punter, but JK Scott looks like he could be a big difference maker on field position which has kind of hurt us in years past.