2014 NLDS: St. Louis Cardinals vs. Los Angeles Dodgers

Cardinals

Dodgers are too good to let the Cardinals win just because they're the Cardinals.

don't say that don't you dare

we're all gonna have to work together this year guys

we can do this we can pull through

get a brain, moran.

wainwright and kershaw in the shadows b/c of a terrible start time. game may be over before dodgers fans get to their seats.

most boring result this round is cards/angels/giants/tigres right

wd agree cept for the king of baseball in Anaheim

I want to see as much of Kershaw in the post-season as possible. Puig, too.

If the cardinals somehow make it to the WS it will be the first time all year that they got their shit together for more than a few days in a row. I don't see how they can make it this year.

Dodgers. They're the only NL team left in this I'd root for.

Would love to see the Cards upset the Dodgers (Dodgers are the favorite right?), but I doubt it will happen. Is Ryu back? That could be key.

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

haven't really been aware of Grichuk

http://www.foxsports.com/midwest/story/grichuk-has-earned-the-right-to-start-game-1-in-rf-for-cardinals-100214

Grichuk was great down the stretch and deserves to be playing time right now. He's always going to strike out a bunch and doesn't walk much. During his short stint with the club in the first half he was fed a steady diet of breaking balls and he looked like Pedro Cerrano from Major League. When he came back in Sept/Oct he made contact on those much more consistently (anecdotally, and small sample of course). He's also a good/great RF with a good arm.

But his BABIP was around .400 for the second half, and I feel like he's going to be a .250/.310/.420 kind of guy with 15 HRs and 160 Ks, over a full season. which, combined with his plus fielding, is valuable.

but still, personally, his presence in the lineup irks me, because of...wait for it...MATHENY. it's pretty clear that Grichuk is a Matheny Guy. i'm already dreading the situation next season where Grichuk is blocking Taveras, who is not a Matheny Guy. Since Taveras is a Karl Malone guy, this annoys me. it's kind of crazy that there's still a traffic jam in the OF even after Beltran has left and Allen Craig was traded away, but so it goes. Jon Jay, Peter Bourjos, Grichuk, Taveras (and next year Stephen Piscotty, most likely) are all competing for playing time.

Taveras has the highest ceiling out of all of them but is stuck in Matheny Limbo: you get a start every 3 or 4 games, and if you get 2 hits, you play again the next day. 1 hit means you start again 2 days later. 0 hits means you have to wait another 3 or 4 games to get a start. Making any sort of mistake means that you get pulled from the game after 2 or 3 ABs in favor of a Matheny Guy.

again, though, Grichuk deserves at least a half-share of the playing time in RF for the playoffs (which won't likely last long for the Cards this year anyway). Taveras has looked pretty terrible in RF. his arm seems average-ish but his range is just terrible. he looks like 2013-14 era Beltran out there.

http://deadspin.com/the-mayor-of-st-louis-is-a-complete-dipshit-1642052026

http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--xyZki-TQ--/c_fit,fl_progressive,q_80,w_320/v9ns0v4g6meli4u0msxc.jpg

thx KM (not for the pic)

mayor gets called out repeatedly on twitter for saying/responding to stupid crap like that while downtown stl continues its prolonged death spiral.

@dylanohernandez
Zack Greinke, after first two questions of news conference: "Are these questions going to get better?"

http://i.imgur.com/53TzScR.jpg

<3 xp

I figure i will go to bed right after Kershaw-Waino so i can wake up in the 11th inning of Royals-Angels.

we be straw grasping
@b_hoffman11: Forecast is for 93 in Los Angeles. Kershaw career 1-2 w/ 7.98 ERA in 3 starts at 93 or higher.

grichuk?

Drafted one spot before Trout

as a goof

mathenaging ftw

gd is there a SINGLE team that isn't doing the stupid towel thing this year

good call on Grichuk by Karl (and Matheny)

YES I STRUCK YOU OUT DEE GORDON HAHA

Oh gawd

"this just changed the series. levels."

Nice butt tap from Puig there. <3

THEY WOKE EM UP

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

lol at all of the dodgers' helmets falling off whenever they do anything

I am switching to Vin on the radio but i must dump my video feed for it to work. i ... cannot... listen... to those two.

Charley Steiner and the other guy, good enough

you can probably take a nap and wait for royals-angels tbh

rare lefty homer off of kersh

hm maybe wake up from that nap

may i just say btw

SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS
SHUT THE FUCK UP, HAROLD REYNOLDS

― Andy K, Monday, October 6, 2008 7:19 PM (5 years ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is an impressive rally

wowowowow

awes

in harold reynolds parlance -- they just drained a three-point touchdown on a stolen sign

lool doyers

holy cow!

I stopped watching for 2 innings. Now I am scared to turn back on :O

^^^^DO NOT obvs

lmao

just checking in on the game now – and this is not the score i was expecting to see!

Get ready for an exciting ending. 2014 Trevor Rosethal is incapable of closing a game without walking the leadoff man and then allowing a single or double.

p prescient

Here we go

ooh, gass

rosenthal needs like uh a slider

wow this game

well that was not expected.

Yeah, sheesh!

lol awesome

you can probably take a nap and wait for royals-angels tbh

― mookieproof, Friday, October 3, 2014 8:35 PM

what happens when you listen to a Pirate fan

so there will be a playoff fap as soon as my meds break comes up

I was out and didn't see any of the game. Kershaw's linescore is quite puzzling. 6.2 innings, 10 K, 0 BB, 8 hits, 2 HR, and 8 runs. So he was in complete command...except when they were battering him around?

Mattingly left him in long enough to take the loss, so you would know he pitched badly.

what happens when you listen to a Pirate fan

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

(xpost) That's a complete non-sequitur...10/0 vs. 8/8/2 was the question.

maybe read one game summary

I know how I'd react to that in real life. I'm so much nicer here.

sorry. he was in complete command, except when they were battering him around.

godfuck

has anyone said "the mighty yasiel has struck out" yet that'd be a good one

so did everyone see that Marlon Anderson tweeted that Kershaw tips his pitches out of the stretch? CK sez nah.

http://www.thescore.com/mlb/news/595475

http://fat.gfycat.com/UniqueWearyAmericanindianhorse.gif

“I was hot. He knows me well. At that time I wasn’t thinking,” Molina said. Gonzalez “was screaming at me. I told him, ‘If you’re going to scream at me you’ve got to be ready to fight.’ I don’t let anybody talk to me that way.”

There is that Cardinal bitchiness everyone knows and loves.

eh, whatever. i'm sure adrian gonzalez was a bowl of oranges during that fight, too. you could randomly sample verbal fights from around the world on any day, type them up in any order, call it "Bitchiness" and i'm sure it would be a fitting title

i'm 100x more annoyed by cardinals whining about called strikes that are usually within an inch of the strike zone

There was a fight?!

yeah. wainwright hit puig early on (in the 3rd, i think). gonzalez was the next hitter and on his way to the plate he said that he had slept with molina's sister on the previous evening, and that it was really hot. molina countered that he had slept with gonzalez's brother two nights before that - "I was hot. He knows me well. At that time I wasn't thinking" - and things escalated from there. both wainwright and puig were calm, and they even shared an intimate butt tap as puig made his way to 1st after the hubbub.

i read "hubbub" as "hottub" and was sure for a second you were kidding about that entire chain of events.

lol

i would like to note that the butt tap part was true though

I think I'm the only person watching this game.

tie game

maaaaaarp

was greinke really done at 102 pitches

Nah, he was still unstoppable

Let's take this to the 19th inning, WHO'S WITH ME??

yeah, these marathons will be great for growing the game with all those fakey FIFA World Cup hipsters

lol at jp howell praising the heavens

Kemp, one hand

can't really expect Jansen not to surrender the lead, it must be in the rules

why is Lasorda not sitting with Magic? Getting a new intestine?

hey, we might have one 5-game series here

Game over? No blown save + extra innings, no credibility.

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/97769336/dodgers-tab-ace-clayton-kershaw-for-game-4-on-short-rest

I don't know--I always start from the assumption that this is a bad move, even though I know it sometimes works out. I'd rather have a rested Kershaw for game 5, with Greinke ready to go in Game 1 of the LCS if you win. No real sample to speak of in the regular season, but what is there isn't good: the only time he's pitched on three days rest was in 2008, when he went one inning of middle relief against the Giants, giving up two hits and a walk.

Haven't they done something similar last year?

Not during the regular season that I can see. If they tried it in the playoffs, I assume it didn't work out.

You're right, they did try it against Atlanta, and it worked out. Kershaw pitched the 5th game on three days rest, and went six innings: 3 H, 6 K, 1 BB, 2 R, neither earned. He left with the score tied 2-2, Dodgers went on to win.

I'd still hold him back. As I've said before, my feelings on that are heavily influenced by the way the Jays used Stieb in the '85 ALCS.

Boy, the ump missed that one.

Everyone in the booth thinks Kershaw in Game 4 is a "no-brainer." I'll amend my earlier post: if the Dodgers lose tonight, I can see the case for pitching him. If they win, hold him back.

few things in sports as beautiful as watching a center fielder make a play on the dead run with his back to the plate

Scully: "Shades of Terry Moore!"

Wow, 7 SOs in a row for Puig

Wow, 3 HRs in 3 games for marp

Wow, Harold Reynolds is really annoying

Lollygag standup triple

pweeeeeg

agh, the stream i was using went down

strikout.co has a million

thanks!

errrr strikeout.co

i just typed "strikout" again by accident apparently my brain is broken wrt this word

bullpen more like lolpen

Cardinals were also last in the league in HR? Getting closer to a strange improbability that has surely never happened before.

if the cardinals play the orioles in the world series it will be the first time that teams named after birds have battled for the title. neat huh? #jaysonstark

lol almost had me there - right?

now the great Short Rest Test

i guess we don't have rain delays in the PS anymore, as in the days of Bowie Kuhn

yay, extra game(s?)

ah, wrong game lol

A rundown of the eight three-days-rest starts in divisional series since 2013, including Kershaw last year:

http://espn.go.com/blog/sweetspot/post/_/id/52331/poll-right-move-to-start-kershaw

Two bad ones, six that more or less worked out. I voted for "Yes, but only if they're down in the series." They're down in the series.

You can't really justify not using the best pitcher in baseball in a must-win game. It's like losing a playoff game in the late innings without using your closer.

puig benched

plus having Zack for Game 5 should be good

Mattingly on Matt Carpenter: "I'm thinking Stan Musial is somewhere rolling around in that body."

So there's a clip when this is relayed to Carpenter in the post-game and he gives a nice "gosh that's flattering" answer. But right before it you hear Lackey say "siiick". Kind of funny.

Redbirds prepping Lynn to start Game 5 or Game 1 NLCS b/c of Waino's elbow. http://bit.ly/1uy4T3c

@truebluela
Don Mattingly keeps saying, "This gives us the best chance to win today" over and over again. Like he's trying to convince himself

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/10/7/6941103/nlds-2014-dodgers-cardinals-yasiel-puig-slump-don-mattingly-baseball-quotable

i'll be disappointed if there's no giants/dodgers series but at the same time, half a dozen parking lot murders will probably be avoided

@molly_knight
Yadi worked Puig like a marionette last post-season, and Puig knew it. He's in his head again.

@ProductiveOuts
"Just feel like mentally we feel like we have to give Yas a break." Mattingly on the KLAC pregame show

@KenTremendous
Well, it makes sense. I mean Puig led the team in OPS for the season, sure, but look at his last 12 at bats! #Mattingly

a nice long winter break

Has anyone read the Alan Licht book? I leafed through it a couple times (and enjoyed it!), but never pulled the trigger on it.

Lol wrong thread.

wrong "ILB"!

@robneyer
oh, and by the way, Shelby Miller throws a ton of fastballs and Puig is one of the Dodgers' best fastball hitters (Ethier isn't)

10 pitches, 10 fastballs in the 1st

That last one was...wobbly.

cardinals basically taking two strikes in each at-bat, kershaw at 30 pitches in two innings

The strikeouts are nice, but yeah, the meter's running.

Still, so far this is giving me the impression its working.

How could the Cardinals let that one pass? Obviously a foul ball. (I don't think the Dodgers would have won an appeal on the pick-off, though.)

94 pitches--"low-stress," they'd probably argue in the booth, but I'd be stressed. Maybe Mattingly will leave him out for the 7th and 8th if nobody reaches base.

Ethier w/ 2 walks, that aint hay

Pull him out, Mattingly.

here we go

welp

oof, Clayton's walk back to the dugout.

outmathenaged

I'll resist the second-guess. I'm watching, and even though every conceivable indication says to pull him, I'm thinking, "He can get this guy."

considering the bullpen and considering the lefty hitter, yeah

but still

That was awesome. Ps Harold Reynolds is just terrible

do not like neshek on b2b days p. Where is CarMart

Scully: "the dreaded 7th inning"

matt adams is a tub of goo btw

you should celebrate him as a 'bad body' success (also he is a surprisingly capable fielder)

maybe not in the same way as anthony recker tho

what lost opportunities did i miss, besides Ethier getting nailed off third?

Where are all the neshek haters now!?! Time for rosenthal heart attack

Bottom of the order coming up. Hmmm, any good pinch-hitters available?

I've gotten home just in time to enjoy the Rosenthal heart attack

That was funny. Generally pitchers take a few steps before they underhand-toss to first.

lol Mattingly

smdh

welp

if the cards win the world series i swear i'm selling all my belongings and moving into the woods and you'll never hear from me again i swear

Good luck with the post-game conference, Don Mattingly.

go AL

just as everyone thought, we'd beat Kershaw twice :D

Lol pinch running with one of best hitters in game. You made matheny look like Mensa material

yeah but did you see how he made it to second from first on that single? #clutch

@BenLindbergh
Mattingly pulled up his roster page, set PA minimum to 300, and sorted by descending wRC+ before deciding to PH with Turner instead of Puig

http://i.imgur.com/9CkeLb7.jpg

I think the Dodgers really missed an opportunity this year. That lineup is only going to be a year older next season.

It's kind of the same with the Angels, that club could also get old quick.

at least they have those bullpens!

I'm happy for KM and you other nice Card fans, miserable for the rest of us.

The reporters were stepping very lightly during Mattingly's press conference. He only seemed to bristle once, when the subject of Puig pinch-running came up. Easy call, he said.

I'm not sure what else the Dodgers could have done -- who could have predicted TWO complete implosions from Kershaw? That pitch to Adams was frigging awful, the league is literally hitting something like .100 off his curveball with like one HR off it in the past two years, and he throws just about the worst hanging curveball in the middle of the plate to a LHB that you'll ever see. Neither of the Cards' comebacks were lucky.

Four straight NLCS appearances is amazing regardless.

LATEST NEWS
Cardinals mold NLCS berth out of Clayton

great job mlb.com

It's over and done with, but Mattingly said one thing during the press conference that might be worth a second-guess (dammit, I want my one second-guess): he was going to give Kershaw three batters in the 7th and then hand it over to someone else. Shouldn't you take it a batter at a time? You're essentially saying you've committed yourself to giving him a chance to lose the lead.

Okay, no more. Go KC. (Who Gregg Zahn has gone on record as saying have close to zero chance of winning--which will remain in place for as long as he doesn't have to explain how it was clear all along KC was going to win.)

clayton kershaw is pretty awesome so i can almost kind of see letting him face a lefty after putting the first two guys on and throwing 100 pitches on short rest

nevertheless -- and yeah, the odds of it mattering were perishingly small, but still -- using puig as a pinch runner was indefensible. it was like here, i'm gonna pinch run him so you can't second-guess me for not letting him hit

i'm just trying to comprehend the madness that drove mattingly to send a .191 hitter to the plate instead of one of your two best hitters and then having that hitter pinch run for the .191 hitter. i have to type it out because i can't believe it just by thinking about it.

puig needs to face adversity

*matheny inside joke*

In a SweetSpot pre-game post concerning Puig, one of the Tweets: "When talking about lost potential value in not starting Puig, don't forget to include value of being able to PH him. It's not zero."

Unless you don't pinch-hit him.

if 1 AB > 5 ABs, then 0 must be ideal

so never pinch hit ever, then?!

Justin Turner. Unfuckingbelievable.

plaschke calls benching puig 'too little too late'

I'm not sure what else the Dodgers could have done -- who could have predicted TWO complete implosions from Kershaw? That pitch to Adams was frigging awful, the league is literally hitting something like .100 off his curveball with like one HR off it in the past two years, and he throws just about the worst hanging curveball in the middle of the plate to a LHB that you'll ever see. Neither of the Cards' comebacks were lucky.

― NoTimeBeforeTime, Wednesday, October 8, 2014 12:32 AM (17 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

This is what takes some of the sting out for me. The cardinals slapped the shit out of our best player TWICE. Mattingly made all the right moves and it still didn't matter.

The irony is fucking Ned loves nothing more than acquiring relievers at the trade deadline whether we need them or not - and for some reason this year he didn't do it. I assume other clubs all demanded 1 of our top 3 prospects which is some bullshit and I would have said no to all those offers as well..

Mattingly made all the right moves

Oh yeah?

That Plaschke article is ridiculous. Baseball is weird. Any team is capable of beating another team in a 5-game series. Mattingly made a few strange moves but no one could have counted on Adams hitting the first ever lefthanded HR off of Kershaw's curve. The relief pitching wasn't great but the dodgers also only scored 3 runs over the final 2 games. Kershaw kept them in it during the last game, and Ryu did as well. Baseball is weird.

Mattingly made all the right moves

worst of all, no more Vin

He could monetize the hell out of his own appeal by calling the rest of the playoffs Rifftrax-style.

"In his two-plus MLB seasons, Adams was batting .046 against curves from lefties." statistics shmatistics

@truebluela
One positive of the Dodgers 2014 being over: Andruw Jones is no longer on the payroll

how many ABs is that? xp

Speaking of, the immortal Ty Wigginton will finally be off the cardinals payroll after this season.

the mets will always have bonilla

Little-known fact: in an early draft of The Shining, Delbert Grady rather ominously announces, "The Mets have Bonilla; the Mets will always have Bonilla."

Any team is capable of beating another team in a 5-game series.

I know I don't post here a lot. I follow baseball pretty avidly, though. Since I've seen two people making this argument and no one making the counter-argument, I thought I would make it. I actually think that a team has a decent opportunity to show what they can do prior to the point where they've lost three games (or, better yet, to the point where they've lost four games in a best-of-seven).

Re. this year, I'm not sure why the Nats or Dodgers were better on paper anyway.

because they had better players

I think the Nationals were better than Giants (separated by eight games in the standings)--on paper, in terms of personnel. I'm less sure the Dodgers were better than the Cardinals (separated by four games in the standings). I think their series underscored how important Kershaw is to the Dodgers, and what could happen when he's not Kershaw, even for a couple of innings.

xpost
eh, i dunno. baseball's just different. a seemingly dominant team that wins 97 games in a season is only winning 60% of the time. when the worst team plays the best team in MLB, it's not an automatic loss like it (almost always) is in football or most other sports. a sweep isn't inevitable. and no one is too surprised when a team like the twins takes 3 out of 4 from the tigers during the regular season. it's a little disappointing for the dominant team, i guess. but it's Ordinary Baseball Weirdness.

I actually think that a team has a decent opportunity to show what they can do prior to the point where they've lost three games

i mean, you're right, they do. and if you somehow could have the dodgers and cardinals play another 5 game series right now, chances are the dodgers would win. they're a better team. but it's not crazy at all for the slightly weaker team to win over the course of 5 games.

Players who performed better this year doesn't equate straight up with "better players." Peavy and Vogelsong performances obviously crucial for Giants.

they performed better this year because they're better players; they were better before the season started and will continue to be better after the postseason ends

You're probably right on the whole. I'm just not sure the discrepancy is that great and really question the premise that the results of these series lack meaning.

the results of these series lack larger "meaning" because they were FOUR GAMES. vs 162.

Yeah, I understand that that's the argument. And I already said my piece about believing that teams are afforded a fair opportunity to show what they can do in the amount of time prior to losing three or four games.

the same holds true if the losing teams had won, btw.

You DO know that most of these were one-run contests? They are literally decided by a handful of fungible events.

Like last night? I don't think wild pitches and bases loaded walks are more fungible events than hits or strikeouts.

no one's saying the games lack meaning. there's a reason we don't end the season at game 162. you just have to divorce yourself from the idea that the postseason is about deciding who the best team is when there's like a million better ways to determine that. it's a contest.

It's entertainment (will post about this shortly)...

Short series, least of all 3 of 5 like the one my Mets won vs the Reds in '73, are a crapshoot. Were the Mets anywhere as good as Cincinnati? No fucking way.

Anyway,
ALCS = scrappy heroes
NLCS - villainous bastards

The Cardinals are the person who takes the parking spot you've been waiting for, clicker on, for three minutes. They'll step out, shirtless and tan, sunglasses hanging off the backs of their ears, and wave off your complaints. In their mind, they'll think they addressed your complaints politely. In reality, they yelled something like, "U jelly?" or "U mad bro?" and walked away holding the hand of someone insanely hot.

The Giants are more insecure, and it manifests itself in a mad desire to prove something over and over and over again that can't really be proven:

Giants fan: Why did you write that the Giants aren't the best team in baseball?

Pundit: Because they aren't.

Giants fan: /recites stories of recent success

Pundit: I think they have a lot of talent, but they also have ...

Giants fan: /complains

Pundit: You literally won a game last night with a bases loaded walk, a pitcher error, and a wild pitch.

Giants fan: /talks about knowing how to win

Giants fan: /mentions 'even year'

Giants fan: /clicks on 30 articles about the Giants

Giants fan: /complains about lack of Giants coverage

Giants fan: /screenshots postseason predictions and MS Paints "lolololol" over all of them

Pundit: I cover soccer as of five seconds ago. Please stop talking to me.

http://www.sbnation.com/mlb/2014/10/8/6946969/alcs-nlcs-giants-cardinals-royals-orioles

god, the idiots going on about how bryce harper has "no class" need to get punched in the anus

Harper reminds me of hockey. I don't know why.