2018 MLB Postseason: The Hunt for <insert team color here> October

[Quillz]

5 hours ago, Jimmy Lethal said:

Now I kinda just want the Dodgers to win the WS just to see /sp/ have a meltdown.

Even as a Dodger fan, I know they won’t beat Houston or Boston. The AL champ will be too good. 

[crashcarson15]

6 hours ago, FinsUp1214 said:

To be honest, I think this is the first time I haven’t been bugged by the Red Sox in a long while. I mean, how can you hate Mookie and J.D. and JBJ? They’ve honestly got some really likeable guys on that roster right now. I’m not necessarily rooting for them, but I’d be totally fine with them winning it this go around.

And if you’re going on the likability of the rosters, you have to be pulling for Boston here. I get that my Verlander hatred is a personal thing from his Detroit days, but their starting first baseman made a racist gesture in the World Series last year, then their closer is a domestic abuser they traded for in the middle of the season.

 

Hope the Red Sox can finish them off tonight.

[AnPheitseog]

13 minutes ago, crashcarson15 said:

And if you’re going on the likability of the rosters, you have to be pulling for Boston here. I get that my Verlander hatred is a personal thing from his Detroit days, but their starting first baseman made a racist gesture in the World Series last year, then their closer is a domestic abuser they traded for in the middle of the season.

 

Hope the Red Sox can finish them off tonight.

Flipside though:

 

I like Verlander, and want to see former Pirates such as Morton and Cole do well.

 

I just want to see the AL lose, just  like any year. 

[Digby]

Houston has no moral high ground in this series. I like A.J. Hinch a lot, but man is he a whiner. 

 

Also I don't care about sign-stealing, but if it's going to be a problem, the "I was just making sure no one else broke into your house" defense when caught is the dumbest thing on its face I can ever remember hearing.

 

Also also, the Joe West call was nonsensical, but ethically correct in a situation when some dork in a Reagan/Bush 84 hat ruins even a 25% chance of a next-level Mookie Betts moment. 

[Sport]

If this Red Sox group played in, like, Minnesota they'd be 80 to 85% more likable.

 

My only issue with them is that they're going to deliver another parade to the most spoiled people in sports. 

[MiK]

12 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

Credulous goobers of the Upper Midwest can be refreshing. I can try to make fun of them, but, like, they're not the ones who are profoundly depressed all the time and always getting angry at obscure blogs.

 

You ok buddy?

 

Quote

But every day that the Brewers keep their season alive is a day they're not on facebook posting pictures of their dogs in Green Bay Packers stocking caps that the dogs don't really want to be wearing, so go Brewers, for, y'know, the sake of the dogs.

 

I instinctively wanted to give a contrarian response to this, but it's too accurate. Go Brewers, Go Pack Go.

[pmoehrin]

The only thing I'll say about last night's game aside from how great it was is half the country was asleep by the time it ended.

 

Just something to keep in mind when the league tries to figure out why these games pull the same rating numbers as some NFL preseason games.

 

What gets me is that this is the only sport that regularly receives this complaint. The NBA, NFL, and NHL have all figured out how to make it work. Meanwhile, baseball is still fighting to start games at 9 PM EST for the sake god knows what at this point. It's not to maximize TV ratings because last night's game peaked at 10 PM, three hours before the game ended.

[Crabcake]

42 minutes ago, pmoehrin said:

The only thing I'll say about last night's game aside from how great it was is half the country was asleep by the time it ended.

 

Just something to keep in mind when the league tries to figure out why these games pull the same rating numbers as some NFL preseason games.

 

What gets me is that this is the only sport that regularly receives this complaint. The NBA, NFL, and NHL have all figured out how to make it work. Meanwhile, baseball is still fighting to start games at 9 PM EST for the sake god knows what at this point. It's not to maximize TV ratings because last night's game peaked at 10 PM, three hours before the game ended.

Which is also a problem when you consider the next generation of baseball fans. The MLB is already having issues attracting young fans, and having its best games end way past their bedtime is a huge issue. 

[Digby]

It's nice of them to stagger the times so that the one or two hundred people who want to watch every single minute of CS baseball can do so.

 

EDIT: Now I'm thinking about this and am getting extra annoyed. The last two nights have been a farce. Game 3 was great in that Houston fans had to leave work early to watch (or, heaven forbid, GO TO) the dang game. Game 4 was great in that half of the Red Sox fanbase fell asleep before Benintendi's great play to end the game. The only good thing you can say about this is that each fanbase has been equally inconvenienced across timezones. But how is this helpful?

[FiddySicks]

3 hours ago, McCarthy said:

If this Red Sox group played in, like, Minnesota they'd be 80 to 85% more likable.

 

My only issue with them is that they're going to deliver another parade to the most spoiled people in sports. 

 

All three times Boston has been in the World Series I’ve rooted against them and they’ve won. I’ll be in their corner this season if they face up against the Dodgers, therefore they’re most certainly going to lose. I think that’d actually piss me off even more and make me dislike Boston sports even more so if they did that. 

[Wings]

Amazingly this would be the first Red Sox-Dodgers World Series. Technically the franchises did meet in 1916 but the Dodgers were the Robins then.

[Kramerica Industries]

3 hours ago, pmoehrin said:

The only thing I'll say about last night's game aside from how great it was is half the country was asleep by the time it ended.

 

Just something to keep in mind when the league tries to figure out why these games pull the same rating numbers as some NFL preseason games.

 

What gets me is that this is the only sport that regularly receives this complaint. The NBA, NFL, and NHL have all figured out how to make it work. Meanwhile, baseball is still fighting to start games at 9 PM EST for the sake god knows what at this point. It's not to maximize TV ratings because last night's game peaked at 10 PM, three hours before the game ended.

 

It's not just the start times, either. MLB has allowed itself to be pushed around by their television partners to the extent that barely any playoff games prior to the World Series get televised over-the-air anymore. How bad a problem is this? Last year's ALCS, which involved the Yankees of all teams, went to seven games. Game 7 was on a Saturday night? Know what FOX aired that night? A college football game involving, oh lets see here, umm...[gets eyeglasses]...Kansas. TCU playing Kansas, a game that TCU won 43-0 against a Jayhawks football team that has been useless pretty much its entire history. That Game 7? It aired on FS1. A cable network that not everyone gets; I don't think it's on every standard package that television providers around the country have. At least that's not problem with TBS, as far as I know.

 

This website has a lot of Canadians on it and, somewhat related, a lot of hockey fans on it. That's fine because I love hockey but, more importantly, those of us familiar with NBC's coverage generally don't like it too much. Understood; anything with Mike Milbury plastered all over it is generally going to have a subpar grade. I would at least argue, though, that NBC treats the NHL with better respect than either of MLB's playoff television partners do (at least, vis-a-vis NBC's Premier League coverage, due to time zone differences, there's never any conflicts between the two). Turner Sports clearly prioritizes the NBA as their primary sports property. That's fine; Turner has had the NBA for a long time, has a renown studio show and gets high marks for their coverage. Fox Sports clearly prioritizes football as their best sports property; also fine, because frankly football is where the biggest money is at. I get that stuff. And, perhaps, in the current 21st Century climate, MLB can't try to force any television partner of theirs to give them the #1 billing with their product, but there's still a difference between not being the #1 property for the network, and being treated damn-near as a nuisance instead.

 

As recently as 2013, every LCS game that Fox had was aired on their main network. Since then, there's been, at most, one LCS game per year aired on their network, all of them either Game 1 or Game 2 of those series, and in the case of 2017 none aired at all. Turner puts significantly less effort into their baseball coverage, most of which is during the playoffs anyway, than they do basketball. Fox can't be bothered to air a Game 7 on their network. The start times continue to be a mess. I've always been a baseball fan, but especially with my team out of it and the fact that I'm not spending 4+ hours a day to hate-watch the Red Sox (spending ~1 hour the next morning speeding through the game is more than enough to fill up my hate-watch tank for an entire day, especially after these last three games) or the rest of these games. Obviously, you can't alternate games on a day-on/day-off basis like the NHL or NBA can with their semi-final equivalent rounds, and the NFL is a one-day thing and is, once again, football so they can get away with it much easier*, but MLB trying to insist on having potentially four days** where they have two 3 1/2+ hour baseball games back-to-back, most of those occurring during the week...that's just not gonna work out the way they want it to. It's 2018. People who are into this kind of stuff generally have enough devices that, if they so want, they could have both games going on separate platforms if they so need to watch both of them. Helps get rid of the whole "inconveniencing the  of the fans of the teams playing" aspect as well. But, like, having one game start at 5:09pm ET and the next at 8:39pm ET? And, knowing just how utterly slow baseball games get during the playoffs? No. Not doing it. Not anymore. Only if I have a pro-rooting interest in a team, not if I have a (nearly as strong, admittedy) anti-rooting interest in a team. 

 

tl;dr - I feel MLB's biggest problem with their television partners is they've just let themselves be dicked around and marginalized over the years. They can't just let half their LCS games be relegated to FS1, and air at uncommon start times for baseball games, and then point to the ratings and bitch and moan about them. Major League Baseball brought this on themselves. I have no pity for them or for why their sport is losing popularity year-by-year. It's their fault.

 

*As I was writing this, I kinda realized something though - why does the NFL still do things this way? There's been a two-week gap between the Conference Championship games, and the Super Bowl, since the 2003 season. They had also done this before sporadically in the past. Why do they not play one game on Saturday night and the other on Sunday night? And, no, "unequal number of days off" isn't a good enough explanation. Besides two weeks making that argument virtually negligible, there have been plenty of cases of teams playing on Sunday in the Wild Card round, then having to turn around and play on Saturday of the Divisional Round. And that's with no bye week in-between. That argument doesn't work for me. Is it because Saturday nights aren't the best for ratings? Maybe. Just can't help but think that it would be better for all people to have one game on each night than trying to plow through two games back-to-back. 

 

**The fourth of those days, and this Saturday would be that day in this year's case, would mean one LCS goes to a Game 7. It also falls on the weekend. Under those circumstances, I can allow for the games to be played at different times.

[LMU]

3 hours ago, Digby said:

It's nice of them to stagger the times so that the one or two hundred people who want to watch every single minute of CS baseball can do so.

 

EDIT: Now I'm thinking about this and am getting extra annoyed. The last two nights have been a farce. Game 3 was great in that Houston fans had to leave work early to watch (or, heaven forbid, GO TO) the dang game. Game 4 was great in that half of the Red Sox fanbase fell asleep before Benintendi's great play to end the game. The only good thing you can say about this is that each fanbase has been equally inconvenienced across timezones. But how is this helpful?

Then you had yesterday's NLCS Game 5... with a 2:07 PM local start time.

[Digby]

1 hour ago, LMU said:

Then you had yesterday's NLCS Game 5... with a 2:07 PM local start time.

 

Much as I love day game baseball, a Wednesday in the playoffs doesn't seem ideal. 

[TrueYankee26]

And that is the ballgame. 4-0 after that homer. Boston is going to the World Series

[Digby]

Astros getting hoisted with their own ballpark petard this series.

[Sport]

Maybe it's because the city in which I live hasn't had a reason to care about October baseball in five calendar years or because I have that brain disorder that doesn't allow me to remember where FS1 is on my cable, but I just can't find any juice or other people who care about these playoffs. It all gives me weird flashbacks to being the one dumb loser in my town who had to leave high school parties so I could get home and watch the Oilers and Hurricanes on VS. Maybe baseball really is in trouble. 

[Quillz]

9 hours ago, Bucfan56 said:

 

All three times Boston has been in the World Series I’ve rooted against them and they’ve won. I’ll be in their corner this season if they face up against the Dodgers, therefore they’re most certainly going to lose. I think that’d actually piss me off even more and make me dislike Boston sports even more so if they did that. 

I can tell you straight up a Dodgers fan that if the Dodgers play the Red Sox, they're not winning. The Dodgers don't have enough to stop the Red Sox. Like last year, I'll be hoping more for the Dodgers to not get swept.

[Quillz]

49 minutes ago, Digby said:

Astros getting hoisted with their own ballpark petard this series.

This is what I was explaining to my parents when they asked me why some ballparks have smaller dimensions then others (they never seemed to notice before). I told them that if you play in a park like Houston's, it's a blessing and a curse. Sure, your team can hit a lot of home runs, but if you face another team that can too, you better have some damn good pitching. Clearly Houston's own park worked against them this LCS.

[The_Admiral]

I could never hate the Red Sox as much I hate as the Astros, whether as new-money trash butting their way into the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry and paying Clemens huge money to pitch y'know whenever he felt like it, or as this fake-Moneyball team knocking home runs out of their joke of a park. The Astros are a horrible joyless slog, and not even a natural disaster could make them a feel-good story.