2015 MLB Season - Let's Play Two!

[Soulstation1]

KC Royals in 6 games 

Lack of soda and perhaps too much candy corn has obviously turned your brain into mush.

what's your pick or you just gonna bash mine

[Scott Dolan]

I got out of the prediction business a long time ago. I'll leave those to Miss Cleo. Call her for your free reading' now! 

I just want to see a good, cleanly played, relatively well officiated World series. 

[Brad]

The Royals are going to play the way that has been successful for them all year as will the Mets and it will be up to each team to try to counter what the other one does.  The Mets pitchers pitch, not just try to strike you out; they know how to pitch to another team's strengths and weaknesses. That is why the Mets are here.  Obviously KC has their formula: limit the damage of their SP and turn it to the bullpen, which is the Mets Achilles heel.  It will probably be a long series.  Mets can win on the road, something like 21-6 during the regular season in the last 27 games and 4-1 on the road.  As the season wound down, they were actually better on the road than at home. 

As far as Murph goes, he is a good hitter: he will get you a lot of doubles and can hit to the opposite field but he is streaky.  He may be on a prolonged streak or maybe it's coming to an end.  However, here are a couple of interesting articles, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/25/sports/baseball/how-mets-coach-brought-out-daniel-murphys-power.html?ref=baseball and http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/upshot/trust-your-eyes-a-hot-streak-is-not-a-myth.html?ref=baseball

Mets had -- and may still have no intention of resigning him (he's not great defensively and makes some stupid mistakes on the basepaths) -- but the fans love him (he's imperfect like the rest of us) and if he has a decent World Series, regardless of the outcome, they may have no choice.  Even before the playoffs started, fans felt (myself included) that he was probably not a Met next year and that the team would miss his hitting. 

Edited October 27, 2015 by Brad

[Brad]

KC Royals in 6 games 

Lack of soda and perhaps too much candy corn has obviously turned your brain into mush.

what's your pick or you just gonna bash mine

Catesta is from NY so I assume he's picking the Mets. 

[catesta]

KC Royals in 6 games 

Lack of soda and perhaps too much candy corn has obviously turned your brain into mush.

what's your pick or you just gonna bash mine

Sorry dude, I was just having a little fun. Like Brad I'm going for the Mets all the way. I'm expecting a great series no matter what and it may go the distance but I'm saying the Mets will take it.

I'm really hoping the time off did not cool the bats, especially Murphy's. I had a blast watching him launch the ball time after time.

Edited October 27, 2015 by catesta

[Scott Dolan]

  Obviously KC has their formula: limit the damage of their SP

I certainly hope the Mets don't think as poorly of our rotation as you do. 

[Brad]

From what I've read -- and I'll admit to not seeing many of their games -- KC looks to their starters to get them at least five or six and turns it over to the pen, which is very strong, certainly much stronger than ours.  Middle relief is a problem for many teams.

Mets are the converse; they look to get at least six or seven from the starters and use Reed and Clippard to bridge to Familia.  In the post season, Colon has been part of the bridge as Clippard has not been very effective for a month or so.  If I were Collins, I'd flip Reed and Clippard but he's pretty loyal to his guys.

[Scott Dolan]

Middle relief was never a problem for us. Matter of fact, one (yes, I said "one") of our middle relievers was so good he's actually going to start game 4 in NYC. With Duffy and Medlen in long relief, Hochevar can go two or three innings, and our closer, Wade Davis, can also pitch two innings without issue. Herrera…Madson...

Morales may be our weakest point, and even he posted an ERA of 3.18 with a 1.175 WHIP during the regular season. 

One of the reasons why our starters usually only went 5 or 6 innings is because our bull pen is loaded. And almost wall-to-wall lights out. That's not to say our rotation is as good as it was last year, but it's not as bad as you kinda made it sound there. 

Edited October 27, 2015 by Scott Dolan

[Brad]

You're probably correct about the starters.  However, you can probably survive a poor start by your starters.  The Mets probably cannot. That is the one advantage the Mets have in this series. 

[JSngry]

Wait a sec...are you saying that probably not being able to survive a weak outing by one of their starters is an advantage for the Mets, or are you guaranteeing than none of their starters will have an off day?

[Scott Dolan]

Wait a sec...are you saying that probably not being able to survive a weak outing by one of their starters is an advantage for the Mets, or are you guaranteeing than none of their starters will have an off day?

I started to post that I got what he was saying. But, I've also gone back and re-read his post a couple of times since I started this post. 

That said, I can't really see a pitching advantage, overall, for either team. Their rotation is superior to ours, only a fool would argue otherwise. But, considering how lights out our pen has been, almost to a man, I think that advantage is negated. 

Either way, get ready for a possible rain delay tonight, gents. It's been a really dreary and rainy day here, and it doesn't look like it's going to improve that much prior to the game. And from what I've heard in the last few minutes, batting practice has been cancelled. 

[Brad]

I go back to my earlier post that in pitching the Mets strength is the starting pitching and middle relief is weak.  If the Royals hitters knock out a starter we are in deep trouble. I think Colon could save the day but you're asking a lot. 

The strong part of the Royals pitching is their middle relief and I don't think their starters are as strong. The Royals could survive a starter going down early.   The Mets simply cannot. That the Mets middle relief is unpredictable at best is not a secret. I don't see this happening with Harvey but it could happen with deGrom and Matz. 

We will see. That's why they play the games! :)

[Scott Dolan]

That didn't really clear up your previous statement. ;)

[JSngry]

The presence of Bartolo Colon anywhere pretty much means you're starting the discussion with a defying of all known logics.

[Scott Dolan]

While I admittedly don't know of ALL the known logics, I would have to agree. 

Though Colon himself has been known to break the space/time continuum of logic at times...

[paul secor]

And to juice at times.

Edited October 27, 2015 by paul secor

[paul secor]

Pete Rose looks like a combination troll/gnome these days.

[Brad]

Friggin Collins keeps going to Clippard. Game over  

Edited October 28, 2015 by Brad

[Brad]

This game is a killer on sleep 

[JSngry]

That was some stubbornass baseball.

[Scott Dolan]

Or as we call it around here, Royals baseball. 

 

[ghost of miles]

Last night's game = why I love baseball

[Dan Gould]

Last night = why I go to bed early unless I really care about the result.

 

[paul secor]

I don't have a team in this Series. A very good friend is a longtime Mets fan, so part of me is rooting for them. Another part of me admires the way that the Royals play the game and the way Ned Yost manages his team. In the end, I just want to see some good baseball games. And last night I saw one.

[JSngry]

As the game went on...

The way the Mets kept extending the ABs, the way I thought the Royals would do. they kept getting traffic but couldn't quite bring 'em in, I kept waiting for that to reach critical mass against the Royal's relievers. and then Chris Young comes in, and it's like, ok, it's July, sunny afternoon, let's all sit back a roll along with the clouds. Top of the first, and here's the pitch.

Meanwhile, Royals just going up there chopping away, pretty much swinging like if it's not in the dirt or over their head, it's a pitch to hit, getting runners on and then chophacking away ...I thought the game was going to go on forever, and then...Bartolo Colon.

Consider Bartolo Colon: http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/c/colonba01.shtml

Age: 42

Height: 5' 11"

Weight: 285 lbs

I'm not dissing on Bartolo Colo, far from it, he's a modern miracle, or freak, depending on how you look at it, but either way, the guy's got a crazy mad skill set. I don't see how he has any legs or knees left, but that's part of the miracle.

No matter, Bartolo Colon shifts the physics, just because he's Bartolo Colon, he's the Bartolo Colon Zone. Him. Alone. HAS to be alone, couldn't be anybody else in the Bartolo Colon Zone except Bartolo Colon.Use him for his thing and then get him out of there. But that's not how it lined up, was it, bullpens ripped asunder, everybody getting looks at everybody all at once, tippy-toppy time now. and when they IBBed Cain (who was really swinging at damn near anything last night, it looked like) to pitch to Hosmer, I thought, ok, get the Ambien ready, bedtime coming...when you have Bartolo Colon IBB a hitter, that's asking him to role-play in a place outside of the Bartolo Colon Zone, and not just that, you're walking a guy who had struck out his last two ABs, and yeah, he's Lorenzo Cain, gotta respect that, but instead you choose to pitch to probably the MOST highly motivated person in the ballpark...I'm no expert, nor am I a Counselor Deanna Troi type person who feels things through the christmas lights on my head, but it seems to me that if you want the Bartolo Colon Zone to remain undisturbed, you just let him pitch to Cain, do what he always does, just stand there and chunk 'em in one after the other, he quite often does that very well, and then you either lose the game that way or go to the 15th.

But no, you skipped a pebble on the still water, and then here comes the new vibrational pattern, and Hosmer sees a chance to clear out the Bill Buckner debris starting to orbit around his cosmic being, sees a chance to get ALL of that over with before it starts, Bortolo Colon Zone about stasis, Hosmer Zone about Oh HELL No, and you knew what was going to happen, just not how. A it turns out, just a sac fly, but hey - you didn't get to Hosmer through the naturally occurring Bartolo Colon Zone, no, you issued him and invitation to Step Right Up! so, hey...

All that aside, I didn't get the game on until the 6th (it had JUST gone to 3-1), missed the first pitch ITPHR (I love those things, the ITPHRs, thrilling aplenty!), but still saw 9 innings of pretty intense baseball that always seemed to be heading one way only to go another.

If Game 1 sets the tone for the remaining games, this is going to be a Series that feels like it's gone 7 regardless of how many games it actually goes. EX-cellent!