In the early innings, when the Astros were getting runners on against Scherzer but were unable to get anyone home, I had a feeling that that was going to come back and bite them, and it did. I think the key stat in this postseason will be: LOB. I think that the losing team in every series was the one who left more runners stranded on base, and there were an awful lot of them. So the starters for both teams generally pitched pretty well. The difference was in the bullpens, where the Nationals, whose bullpen was much maligned during the season (and one of the reasons for their slow start) did better than the Astros. I think that at one point early in the season, the Nats had the worst bullpen ERA in baseball - who would have expected that that unit would turn out to be among the World Series heroes!
I think that Wizards fans will have to wait a while. But of course, they did win the championship back when they were the Baltimore Bullets.
The Astros lost this because Greinke could not go 9 innings. It was similar to what happened with the Dodgers. When the starters were pulled, Washington won.
I had to think about this throughout the day and listen to all the opinions today. When Greinke was pulled I shut it off. I knew it was over at the moment. Here's my thoughts: -AJ out thunk himself. He should have let Greinke finish the 6th, and brought in Cole to finish it out/ at least get to 9. Been done before and Morton was used that way for the win in 2017. -The bats that hit all year, went silent in the Playoffs. They were swinging way to hard. The men left on base killed it. They had to hit like the did in DC at home. -A guy called in this morning and said he travels to Houston once a month for work and happened to coincide so he got tickets both nights. He gave the Astros fans great praised and said everywhere he went it was friendly banter. I was glad to hear that. -Bregman carrying that bat was added bad kharma. Although I actually thought he was wanting to give it to the FPC to take home later for memory. -Soto is great, but there's no one that I'd love to see get pegged a few times to drop his little hop and salsa dance and looking like he's licking ***** at the plate. Just hit the damn ball. -Rendon, loved his interview after the game. Baller. -Lastly, I had doubts about Greinke before last night. I know he's amazing, but he was making me scared throughout. What he did last night was so damn impressive. I'm ready to believe in him next year. This was a fantastic series all the way around.
Strasburg . . . . = $$$$$$$$$ https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/28261102/sources-stephen-strasburg-stays-nats-245m-deal
Whew! $245 million just to throw baseballs! I bet that Cole and the other free-agent pitchers are licking their chops!
Back then their star player had the vertical jump of a snail... I keep saying - in every sport - if the players don't get it, the owner keeps it. Nobody talks about an overpaid owner.
Looks like Mookie Betts is going to LA (sucks IMO). David Price too (good, he is overpriced and under performing).