MLB 2024

[gunnar hendershow]

33% of Senga's pitches were strikes. Terrible start by any measure, Mets are lucky to only be trailing by 3.

[The Buscher]

Well, that was ugly as can be.  Thankfully it's just game 1, and it's easier to get over a shitkicking than a soul-crushing late inning loss.

Win tomorrow and they still take homefield advantage and turn it into a new 5-game series.

Lose tomorrow and...well, it's not over but it'll feel close.  This would be an incredibly difficult team to take down 4 times in 5 games + it's a natural downer being down 0-2 without a chance to clinch at home before you've even set foot in your own building.

Hopefully they flushed it all out tonight and can get to the park prepared tomorrow afternoon.

[gunnar hendershow]

The Dodgers have tied the 1966 Orioles for longest postseason scoreless streak. This, the team that everyone said "pitching is a huge liability" going into October about.

[The Buscher]

The 6 early runs were a welcome sight but I feel like we’re not going to make it out of this drama free after leaving so many runners on.  Manaea has only made one mistake and has otherwise shoved but I do still have a bad feeling this could come down to a Diaz ass-clencher.

[The Buscher]

1 hour ago, The Buscher said:

The 6 early runs were a welcome sight but I feel like we’re not going to make it out of this drama free after leaving so many runners on.  Manaea has only made one mistake and has otherwise shoved but I do still have a bad feeling this could come down to a Diaz ass-clencher.

Well I called that one.  But they got it done.  Should’ve scored a lot more than 6 to make it a laugher but a win is all they needed.

Brand new series heading home.  Can’t ask for more than that.

[ThrillhouseMAX]

 

 

[The Buscher]

Tonight’s lineup is the first Carlos Mendoza playoff lineup I’m scratching my head at.  Walker Buehler has been terrible against LHH this year, and yet Mendy has chosen to sit both Winker and McNeil.

The easy path to get them both into the lineup is Winker DH/McNeil 2B as Iglesias has seemingly cooled off big time.  But, in fairness, you worry benching the OMG guy would kill the vibes.  Fair enough.

But why on earth is JDM at DH then?  Winker has been great in the playoffs, has great career numbers off of Buehler.  JDM has been largely useless against RHP since July, hasn’t homered off of one since August, and the Dodgers have just one LHP on their entire roster.  If Winker needs another day off for his balky back, surely this is a great spot to deploy McNeil.  Otherwise, why did they bother adding him to the NLCS roster?

Just feels like he’s thrown data out the window with this in favor of a veteran deference “gotta get so and so going” move.

But hey, sometimes the guy everyone bitches about in the lineup comes through.  Hope JDM can make Mendy look good.

[The Buscher]

The Mets losing 2 of 3 to a 98-win Dodgers team doesn’t bother me so much as the fact that they’ve looked completely uncompetitive in both losses.  Gut check time tomorrow.

[gunnar hendershow]

It's a long series still and the whole thing with the Mets has been how they've been overcoming the odds, but boom/bust teams like the way they've been playing lately seldom win series.

[The Buscher]

15 hours ago, gunnar hendershow said:

It's a long series still and the whole thing with the Mets has been how they've been overcoming the odds, but boom/bust teams like the way they've been playing lately seldom win series.

It's very hard to win a pennant or championship when you struggle to play from the pole position.  Despite having the best record in baseball since June, the Mets were battling from behind in the standings all year due to their very bad start.  The last week of the season could've been relatively stress-free with destiny in their own hands but that's when they don't play as well, they needed to nearly blow it to go back into crunch time mode.  In Milwaukee they couldn't hold the series lead and in fact struggled until the final inning.  They came very close to facing Wheeler in a game 5 if not for Lindor finally running into a grand slam after they'd left a million guys on base.

Now that they're back behind in this series I could easily see them knotting it up but the teams only get better in October and having to constantly play from behind to play your best baseball isn't really a great recipe.  The Dodgers lineup is hard to hold down, meaning they need to cash in on their early chances and not rely on more late-game heroics.

As an aside I'm definitely salty about the WS ads that Fox runs which feature Ohtani and Judge as the only two players.  I realize they will be the league MVPs and they are  the two biggest stars they can try to market.  That's fine.  But would it have killed them to splice in a clip of Lindor and a clip of Ramirez?  We all know that Yanks/Dodgers is Fox's dream especially after how bad the WS ratings were last year but they don't need to make it that transparent.  Pretty much everything about Fox's presentation annoys me.  There's seemingly a mandate to show Ohtani's reaction in the dugout every inning + the constant pop-up reminders of how many batters away he is + Joe Davis in general.  The Dodgers will most likely gift Davis a ring if they win it all as most teams do for their broadcasters, and yet he still gets to call every single one of their playoff games nationally.  Get fucked.