P.C. Principal said:

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SIAP. Love hearing the multiple broadcasts of big calls. The Spanish one is always the best.

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The best part of that Spanish version was him calling Altuve "El Pequeno Gigante"
I love that.

*starts eyeballing DC flights for next weekend*

Off days...

I think this series did show the limitations in the "quick hook", bullpen taxing approaches used by Tampa and NYY. I understand the advantages of not letting the Astros see a starter three times and reduce the risk of letting us find a tip, but just not sure it can work in a seven game series.

Worst case scenario going forward is playing teams like that in the ALDS because you can tax the bullpen 5 times in 7 days and not have it come back to bite you. But 7 games in 9 days is rough. I'm really not sure what the Yankees would have had left in the tank today if they had won last night.

Having at least three starting pitchers on a staff that you trust to get you to the 6th/7th innings consistently will probably never go out of style and I think that turned out to be our biggest advantage in the series. Even in his game 1 loss, Greinke gave us as many innings as Tanaka. Then JV gave us 4 more innings than Paxton in game 2. Cole gave us 3 more innings than Sevy in game 3. And JV giving us 7 innings in game 5 after his rough start was HUUUUUUUGE. Those advantages perpetuated themselves as the series went on.

With that said, even though our bullpen was less taxed, there was still no guarantee guys like Smith, Harris, Osuna, Pressly, etc would come through like they did. On paper, the Yankees have a better bullpen than us. But like last year when we had a better bullpen on paper than the Red Sox and got outpitched, we did the same to the Yankees this year. What an outstanding job by our guys.

I was so impressed with Osuna for getting Judge/Torres last night after giving up the game tying HR to LeMahieu. That could have gotten away from him quickly. But he kept it tied and gave us a chance in the ninth to squeeze one across and end it. To me, the Yankees seemed due to tie it up in the ninth. They had a few scoring threats that we snuffed out with spectacular defense. And LeMahieu was hitless on the night up to that point. My biggest fear was getting two guys on base for Judge (the modern day Pujols) for a 2005 NLCS game 5 type of moment haha.

Looking ahead, even though Peacock and Urquidy weren't perfect last night, I feel pretty confident in both of them going up against Anibal Sanchez in game 4. The Nats seem like the opposite of Tampa/NYY from a pitching strategy perspective. They seem to only have a couple guys in their bullpen that they'd consider using in high leverage and plan to ride their starters as long as they can. If we can get to their bullpen early in any game, that's a huge advantage because they don't have 5-6 horses in the bullpen to hold us in check.

Does anybody have a shot of that call girl in an orange skirt hanging out near Cashman's box last night?

Forgiven_Ag said:

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Say we get it done vs the Nats. Who is the most beloved Houston coach? Rudy T or AJ Hinch?

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Imo Rudy T and for me personally it's not close.

The first championships in the cities history will never be replicated.

Forgiven_Ag said:

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Say we get it done vs the Nats. Who is the most beloved Houston coach? Rudy T or AJ Hinch?

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Great question.

I love Rudy T, but damn it if I dont adore AJ. Dude is as classy as he is brilliant at his job.

bullard21k said:

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Forgiven_Ag said:

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Say we get it done vs the Nats. Who is the most beloved Houston coach? Rudy T or AJ Hinch?

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Imo Rudy T and for me personally it's not close.

The first championships in the cities history will never be replicated.

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Plus Rudy T played here as well.

I don't know but at the pace this team is racking up Ws and playing for (and hopefully winning) titles AJ is on his way to a HOF managerial career.

I will admit I didn't think much of the hire originally. AJ was like 80-120 for the D Backs in his first gig and after Porter I thought "yeah another nothing hire for a team going nowhere"

jr15aggie said:

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Anybody care to give a brief scouting report on the Nationals. I know little about them.

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Well, they used to be the Expos and somehow got rid of Andre Dawson, Pedro Martinez and Randy Johnson at one time or the other.

In 1992, I got to throw out the first pitch at an Astros game and Mark Portugal threw a complete-game shutout against them in front of about 5,000 people. Before the game I got to meet Portugal as well as Andujar Cedeno and Bob Watson while I was walking around with a reporter from the Houston Post. Gary Carter had staged the comeback that nobody wanted that year and asked us to move out of the way so he could get some extra cuts in the batting cage. Portugal rolled his eyes and said to me, "Don't worry about him, he's an *******."

In back to back years they drafted Strasburg and Harper. Strasburg has been hailed as the second coming for a decade, which is weird because he's led the league in strikeouts just once,in wins just once (this year with 18), and has only had an ERA under 3.00 once in a full season. he's been lethal in the post-season, 3-0 with 33 strikeouts in 22 innings.

Max Scherzer sounds like he should be a 1930s German strongman, but is actually their other top notch pitcher, although he was only 11-7 this year, he did have a 2.92 ERA and 243 strikeouts. He's old pals with JV from Detroit and he's a baller, 170-89 in his career and has led the league in wins four times and in strikeouts 3 times. He hasn't been fantastic in the post-season, 6-5 lifetime with a 3.35 ERA. He sucked ass in the wild card game with the Brewers but they won anyways. He was lights out vs LA 1-0, 1.13 ERA with a relief appearance, and 1-0 with 7 innings of shutout ball vs. the Cardinals. He and Tim Lincecum were selected back to back in the 1st round of the 2006 amateur draft. The Astros took somebody named Maxwell Sapp in the first round that year. I have no idea who the hell that is.

Their manager is Dave Martinez, I recall being a pain in the ass outfielder for several teams, perhaps including the Expos. Baseball Reference confirms my suspicions. He played from 1986 to 2001 for the Cubs, Expos, Reds, Giants, White Sox, Rays, Cubs again, Rangers, Blue Jays, and Braves. 1,918 games total and he hit all of 91 home runs. Hey dummy, take some steroids already!
He was traded a fairly remarkable 5 times. Once for Mitch Webster, once in a six-player deal involving John Wetteland, and once for "Mark Guthrie and cash."

Their bullpen looks awful based on stats. Everyone has an ERA of at least 3.91, their closer has an ERA of 4.05, and at some point they had Tony Sipp. Also Fernando Rodney, who I once had in Fantasy Baseball in a year he had 11 relief wins.

Anthony Rendon and Corellian smuggler Juan Soto are their big bats, each had 34 HR this year with Rendon driving in 126 and Soto 110. 1B Matt Adams had 20 HR in 111 games and 2B Brian "Don't call me D.J." Dozier had 20 as well. Rendon was their only regular to hit over .300 (.319) or have an OPS over 1.000 (10.10).

Their shortstop Trea Turner stole 35 bases this year, which probably led the league, but I'm not looking it up. They really like striking out a lot, six of their starting 8 had at least 105, with Soto at 132 and CF Victory Robles at 140. Rendon looks like the real threat here. He only struck out 86 times.

On the bench they've got Howie Kendrick who knocked out the Dodgers wit his grand slam, Kurt Suzuki, who I thought retired 5 years ago, and Ryan Zimmerman, who I feel like is the original National or something. He's 34 now and only played in 52 games, hitting 6 home runs and batting .257. He's been with them since 2005 and this year made $18 million, or $3 million per home run hit during the regular season (6).

I have no idea what their ballpark looks like. In Montreal they had a mascot named Youppi whose antics made Orbit look like Daniel Day Lewis putting on a one-man show.

HTH

He said the last time his jersey got torn off in one of these Celebrations he got in trouble with his wife.

The Rays twitter account liked this tweet:

Twenty-seven championship banners ring the third deck at Yankee Stadium. But with Altuve's homer, which ended Game 6 of the American League Championship Series and sent the Houston Astros to the World Series, the Yankees have been bounced from the postseason 28 times. In three of the last four knockouts, the Astros have dealt the blow.

27 titles
28 playoff appearances with no title

We just knocked them below 50%

Ciboag96 said:

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It takes a pretty big chode to throw beer on someone while they are busy pissing. I wish more of these *******s would get their teeth bashed in.

annie88 said:

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NSFW

Stay classy New York!

Great child-rearing here.

#Astros
#NYYankees
#wetookitback
#WorldSeriesBound
#Yankeescansuckit

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The kid with the sigh and then the all serious disclaimer that this was not going to be family friendly.

What makes it double funny is he's going all gangsta and talking trash in his New York Yankee PJs his mom probably bought him for Christmas.