2014 ALDS: Kansas City Royals vs. Los Angeles Angels

Angels of Anaheim.

Voted Royals because I love this team but they're gonna get killed

CJ Wilson is scheduled to start game two.

Rooting for the Royals, but it seems unlikely.

They did split the season series.

The Royals shelled Shoemaker (by the seashore).

Took one night to make me a fan; Royals, fully cognizant of what a longshot they are.

chris ianetta: 30% cs
hank conger: 24% cs
al average: 27% cs
(derek norris: 17% cs)

go Kansas City

rooting for LAAngels bcz Trout and

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-W6kKq_N7mMw/UQP87uZjZQI/AAAAAAAACnM/m18lwhO7DRg/s1600/front.jpg

Way to leave almost your entire right hand prone.

the bunt > mike trout

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

shoemaker starting game 2

Great jockey, too. (I really need to keep up better.)

The Royals are toast.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/By9IZ3pIUAAVH05.jpg

lol

can't believe that the Russian Revolution has come to Orange County thanks to Jerry DiPoto and his merry band of Bolsheviks

weren't one or both of dipoto and scoscia going to be fired a year ago? plus their farm system still sucks, though maybe it doesn't matter -- shoemaker was not a terribly impressive minor leaguer

bum to hero to bum can be a short journey.

Sam Miller of BP on Angel starters:

No matter how they move the pieces around, this rotation suuuuucks by postseason standards. Weaver’s just guts and guile now, striking out double digit batters only once, holding his opponents scoreless just once, pitching past the seventh inning in the second half just once. He does it with a fastball that averages 87 mph, and leans especially on a sinker that doesn’t have any of the sinking or tailing movement one associates with the pitch. Wilson is still capable of good starts, but couldn’t get himself unlost during bad starts; a quarter of his starts ended with game scores 30 or lower. The threat of a two-inning Wilson outing, as much as anything, is why the bullpen-as-fourth-starter option would have been so terrifying, and why the health of Shoemaker—a 27-year-old rookie who went undrafted and could never convince the big-league brass that his peripherals and pitchability would work at higher levels—is such a key to this series.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

The Angels' rotation has looked sketchy to me all season long (i.e. not nearly as good as you'd expect from a 98 win team).

i don't pay too much attention to American League ball all that much but didn't the Angels lose their best pitcher this year?

all that much

Yes, Garrett Richards. At the time the AL West was still up for grabs and many people thought his injury would cost them the division title.

Now their rotation is Weaver (not nearly as dominant as he was a couple of years ago, nowhere as good as his W-L record suggests), C.J. Wilson (oft-injured, inconsistent), and Matt Shoemaker (rookie who came out of nowhere to win 16 games this season, but he's coming back from injury and making his first start in three weeks in game 2). After that, they need to pray for two days of rain.

I just don't see how they can ride their top three guys through three playoff rounds. There will be a few implosions along the way and they'll have to score a hell of a lot of runs to make up for it.

how many bunt attempts so far?

welp, flaws of Trout due to be exposed

omg SAC FLY SMALLBALL, these Royals are innovators!

xpost I think the Angels are ahead in both HR and bunt attempts!

this is a good game tonight.

i swear, i'd forgotten Freese was on the Angels and heard the HR thinking it was a Cards WS clip.

ha

baseball not missing Jeter all that much so far.

Christ, can we have mention of the shutdown inning outlawed already.

Freese in the reg. season: 54 HR in 2266 PA (42 PA/HR)
Freese in the postseason: 8 HR in 187 PA (23 PA/HR)

SSS, but still.

WHOA

what a catch.

yank shields

stay with vargas

A's should take OF noncollision heed of KC

How did Aoki catch that? At first I thought he must have trapped the ball against the wall, but he didn't.

Leaving in Vargas is defensible -- he'd only thrown about 70 pitches and was cruising other than the two mistakes that were hit out. It's only Game 1 and the Royals don't have a lead, can't burn through the bullpen on the first day.

he may yet try! Down goes one of the Super Three.

Aokian routes

again, wow.

aoki piling up the difficulty points

Aoki lookin' like Tommie Agee in '69 there.

He brought in Davis in the SEVENTH! Can Yost have discovered his learning curve?

A friend on Ned's new hook: "It's like he got on the bullpen phone to call FanGraphs!"

umps are so, so bad at determining whether players offer the bunt or not. there was a bad one last night too but that was one of the worst i've ever seen

ah the bunting

have trout bunt?

well there's your sacrifice

balls

Advancing the runner on a wild pitch that ricocheted off the umpire's crotch after a failed bunt attempt. Small ball Angels style!

really challenging trout up high

lotta conferences just to decide to throw fastballs

on the edge of my seat, having fun.

Watching Gameday - according to that a couple of the pitches to Trout were cutters about 4 MPH slower than the fastball he was throwing.

i really thought they would score there.

Huston Street is one of the best trade this season.

Scioscia remembered to bring in his closer for the ninth -- will Yost do the same? I think it was talked about on the WC thread, but it's annoying that TBS never shows or talks about who is warming up in the bullpens.

Nope, it's his fifth or sixth best reliever! In a tied playoff game on the road!

Angels are batting five, six, seven this inning, though.

over matched

is he healthy? those swings looked bad.

wow...hamilton just looks completely done

The point was to have a lefty facing Hamilton, I guess.

If it was about saving Holland for the Angels' best hitters, then why bring him in for the 8-9 hitters? I assume he'll be going two innings though, if needed.

ok ive been slapping myself awake this inning, and get up in 6 hours. bye

No, it's Frasor!

Would it kill TBS to mention who is coming in before they go to the commercial breaks??

No Morbs! You might miss a classic Yost strategy clusterfuck that we'll be able to make fun of for the rest of our lives!

it'll be archived. zzzzzzzzzzzz

I've been watching last few innings w the sound off due to sleeping kids. Why do they keep showing the KC coach who looks like a pudgy Robert Redford?

did they boo Josh Hamilton earlier?

http://cdn3.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2317822/royalscatch.0.gif

wow

did not see that coming. holy crap.

i heard KC doesn't hit home runs.

Now Yost gets to look like a genius when Holland pitches in the bottom of the 11th. Unbelievable.

straight up worst call i've ever seen

yeah that was pretty bad

the moose got loose

Angels had their chances but could not push over a run.

Games with eight total hits shouldn't last four hours, but somehow I managed to stay awake and entertained.

at one point the Royals are going to run out of incredible catches

moussaka! one of my few valuable HACKING MASS picks.

straight up worst call i've ever seen

what was this?

Angels fans must be feeling so robbed right now. In fact I know one and he's a great guy but he is gonna be so pissed this morning. I don't care, I'm thrilled about this, go Royals

xpost

An Angels batter (I think it was Aybar?) got rung up for strike three on a checked swing. He didn't go around, it wasn't even close. Holland had him chasing balls in the dirt for the entire at-bat, so it wasn't an outrageous call, but it was bad.

of course this made me like the royals more
http://deadspin.com/royals-catcher-salvador-perez-loves-annoying-lorenzo-ca-1641760961

My cable provider has three sports stations, and I couldn't get either game last night--thank you, expanded media world. (And I have to miss Kershaw for a movie tonight.)

Anyway, I think the Royals going all the way would cause me to laugh helplessly for the next four or five months.

bottom of angels lineup is not very scary right now

royals losing Herrera for any amt of time is big, tho Duffy is a good asset coming out of the pen

amazing last night worked out when Tim Collins was put on the roster at the expense of Postseason Magician Raul Ibanez.

on the note Thermo was hitting that "the Royals might as well steal whenever":

The Royals hit the fewest home runs in baseball this season, and are, in all, a terrible offensive team. Because of that, and because they have a terrific pitching staff, and because baseball generally is in a low-scoring era, they're in a very low run environment, which actually means that running makes a lot of sense, mathematically. Their break-even rate, using a formula from Fangraphs' Bradley Woodrum, sits at a meager 64.22. So not only are these Royals stealing bases more efficiently than just about everyone else, but each stolen base carries less risk and more potential value for them than it does for any other team.

http://deadspin.com/the-royals-will-never-stop-running-1641615384

yeah I've always been against giving up outs unnecesarily but it never occured to me how much the math can change when your team slugs so poorly

when gore stole second with one out in the 10th, and then the angels ibb'd gordon, i was expecting a double steal

perez just gunned down trout attempting 2 steal 2nd

M Moustakas reached on bunt single to pitcher.
M Moustakas reached on bunt single to pitcher.
M Moustakas reached on bunt single to pitcher.

they really gotta take Sal out i think

looks like Ventura's still got it when he comes in in the first.

(hoping that starts something)

lol that looked like a strike to trout but the ump was too busy looking at first base

really do need the robo-umps for balls/strikes. maybe in 20 years.

Is that hop on the follow-through a new thing for Grilli -- developed for the playoffs?

no, it was NOT worth taking a gamble on, Ripken you douche

but it was the second out of the inning, and everyone knows it's ok to be thrown out on the bases as long as it's not for the first or third out. so the best player in the game doesn't get to bat this inning anymore, so what

wow gore is fast

fucking illegal Hal McRae slide there, btw

Hosmer, i mean

i hope they're keeping the concessions open for all those anxious exurban ThunderStixers.

can't believe this

this postseason with Kansas City has been great!

so fun

Destinyost

god, Hamilton

sub-Ibanez

this is amazing

unbelievable

so are the Angels dead? Shields vs Wilson on Sunday night.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BzFFRJMCIAAHSt4.jpg

YEASTINFECTION2014

Trying to "figure out Yostball" = Kosinski's Being There

Good ol' Rusty Kuntz.

at least the royals are making hack sportswriters' jobs easier by sticking to the #narrative

only a matter of time until trout woke up

cj wilson is so bad

sigh

goodnight Angels.

oh my

really you'd think all of us have been watching baseball long enough to know any team can win 3 in a row, let alone 3/5.

I expect the Royals have not permanently become HR dynamos in four days.

does this need to be a Shutdown Inning?

THERE WE GO, RON DARLING

I guess you all switched over to the NFL

Pujols bomb

http://thumbs4.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/m9ec_GDaViVrgUnOujBQXFg.jpg

Second catch wasn't as difficult, but that was great.

Cain single-handedly killed that rally.

some 'angels' in the outfield strangeness

looking forward to seeing how many pitchers scoscia can use tonight

If Big Game James keeps this up, he's going to bring his career postseason ERA under 5.00.

This is great.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to hate the Royals.

well the ALDS went fast.

Orioles vs royals is a real mid eighties throwback LCS

Very much so. I get all wishy-washy nostalgic just seeing Brett.

I'm seeing Hal McRae and Ken Singleton throwing out the first pitch

A couple of third basemen, maybe, although I don't know about the health of the older one. If not, Steve Balboni and Billy Ripken.

if we can just get a dodgers vs giants NLCS I'll be happy. hoping for one of the AL teams to win though.

did not expect this outcome.

Except for Gregg Zaun, few did.

I never expect an outcome in a short series.

I'm finding it increasingly difficult to hate the Royals.

I'm not! We'll never hear the end of BOW DOWN TO SMALLBALL for a solid year if they win the pennant; it'll be like the United States of Harold Reynolds. Go O's.

ya - i was rooting for them up until i got a better look at Yostball.

actually, i still think i'll take them over the O's (which probably means they're doomed)

I'm not! We'll never hear the end of BOW DOWN TO SMALLBALL for a solid year if they win the pennant; it'll be like the United States of Harold Reynolds. Go O's.

― son of a lewd monk (Dr Morbius), Monday, October 6, 2014 6:57 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

you really prefer an entire year of showalter beatification?

yes, in honor of Earl Weaver and the Three-Run Homer.

my pref is for Dodgers to go all the way, no one will beatify Mattingly.

morbs, always rooting for the rich teams