2011 World Series: Rangers vs Cardinals

Sorry, I can't figure out who I want to win.

should be a poll

Yeah, we are back!

btw, Rangers in six

Cards in whatever.

Cards in whatever.

yeah, this

don't care about the rangers but actively dislike the cardinals, guessing rangers in six

BP did a team article as a preview (free) and picks TEX in 6.

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15327

for me the Rangers will never wash off the stink of W.
i hope they lose.

I feel you TT, but I can't get with the Cards winning with perhaps the worst team in the postseason AGAIN, 5 years after they did so. We were debating what October "proves" a couple weeks ago and I don't think anybody posted this Posnanski column:

http://joeposnanski.si.com/2011/10/08/theres-only-one-october/

whoops forgot:

Gm 1 TEX @ STL Wed Oct. 19 8:05 PM FOX
Gm 2 TEX @ STL Thu Oct. 20 8:05 PM FOX
Gm 3 STL @ TEX Sat Oct. 22 8:05 PM FOX
Gm 4 STL @ TEX Sun Oct. 23 8:05 PM FOX
Gm 5* STL @ TEX Mon Oct. 24 8:05 PM FOX
Gm 6* TEX @ STL Wed Oct. 26 8:05 PM FOX
Gm 7* TEX @ STL Thu Oct. 27 8:05 PM FOX

NLCS poll picked MIL 9-2, so who cares what we think?

We can't get anything right.

yup (to Morbs) - it's been the playoffs/day-before-the-playoffs of the underdog. don't see why it should stop now.

if the Cards win at all (again) we can all expect statues of Tony Larussa to start popping up all over the continent almost immediately.
fans will be forced at gunpoint to sing "God Bless The TLR" between every inning. for halloween for the foreseeable future the only costume available will be Tony Larussa.

rangers in 5

if it means he jumps to the Red Sox... well, that wd be even worse

xp

Grant Bisbee's anagrams for Ryan Theriot:

Anagrams for Ryan Theriot:

Antihero Try
Rayon Hitter
Rotten, Hairy
Horny Attire

However, the less anagrammable Nick Punto is starting tonight.

Breezy. Mostly cloudy with a 40 percent chance of rain. Low in the lower 40s. Northwest wind 15 to 20 mph with gusts to around 30 mph.

its nasty outside for sure. a little schadenfreude for all the assholes who got tickets at work and passed me over. I may get game 6 or 7 though.

Nick Punto: Cup In Knot

Rangers in 6!

Rooting against a team that has never won a World Series is kinda a dick move (unless you're a fan of the opposing team, obv), but I think my conscience can handle it. Besides, Midwest > Southwest.

I've written and erased three posts where I say I actually want Texas to win -- I can't bring myself to actually click the "submit post" button on that.

I don't know if I agree with that Posnaski piece. Postseason is about matchups, too, and a best-of-seven series should give the team that matches up better plenty of opportunity to win. A best-of-five series is a little quicker, but we've had that for the first round for over forty years.

@mtmeyers
N. Cruz is a good player who just had week of his life, but has a career OPS+ of 115. Let's stop pretending he's Dave Winfield

Autumn showed up just in time for the WS. Monday's high was mid-80s I believe.

Some great camera work early on here.

Took Buck only two outs to make an football reference.

lol @ freese

Listening to the radio bcz my new antenna can only get pixilated ABC. Fuckin' "digital conversion."

will this be the only game that has good pitching?

it's written in the stars, a million miles away

It could be the only one that might be 3 hrs or less.

How 'bout that futuristic infrared technology

that freese edmonds trade gets worse and worse

that's a good piece of ______ing

whoa crazy video of Pujols sticking it back to Nyjer Morgan: http://bit.ly/qV1gbC

tim mccarver: "it's a five-letter word: s-t-r-i-k"

1 down

thermal cam is dumber then tbs announcers

McCarver just turned 70 -- time for his neurologist to talk to him about retiring.

Way to go, blue.

ok, splain: bad strike zone?

oh OK

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2011/10/19/2501986/world-series-game-1-beltre-foot-video/in/2265013

a 3-2 game, probably the lowest scoring game in this series.

you can't predict baseball

ppl are killing wash too much for the ogando vs allen craig outcome. i thought that was just a relatively bad pitch by ogando. throw him another pitch up and he prob strikes out

Are ppl offering superior strategies? What are they?

i guess make nick punto beat you, for one

OH, right -- forgot about that.

well rating are a little down this year, so far:

The Cardinals' 3-2 win Wednesday night on Fox earned an 8.7 rating and 14 share. That was down 2 percent from the 8.9/15 for Game 1 in 2010 between the Rangers and the Giants, with San Francisco a bigger market than St. Louis.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/10/20/sports/s162139D03.DTL#ixzz1bNBRFQwW

Rangers in 4

p fucked up that the rangers lost two WS in a row

and here we were thinking that joe buck couldn't top "we'll see you tomorrow night!"

http://30fps.mocksession.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2011-October-29-0-42-9.jpg

Realized during the game tonight that the Rangers (technically, as the Senators) came into the world the same year as me. I hope they get another chance at it while the core of this team is still around. I don't know if any loss ever--by the Red Sox, Cubs, or anybody--would have been as tough to spend the winter with as game 6 will be for longtime Rangers fans. I think because of the comparative uneventfulness of tonight's game, the sixth game will outlive the series as a whole; a great game tonight, and probably the entire series goes down as one of the greats.

p fucked up that the rangers lost two WS in a row

the Giants dominated that Series last year, this year they had it in their hands and let it slip away

wow was Wilson ever brutal

i hope hamilton admits after the game that it was god's will that the rangers lose

― mookieproof, Friday, October 28, 2011 11:14 PM

A+

Congratulations Cardinals, for lucking out in "tournament baseball" for the second time in six years. (Hey, at least it's not one of the Two Bought Teams)

Congrats to ZS and bnw.

MORBIUS YOUR TEAM IS THE METS YOU ARE ONE COMPETENT OWNER AND GM AWAY FROM BEING A BOUGHT TEAM JESUS H FUCKING CHRIST ON THE CROSS

I MEAN QUIT PRETENDING YOUR TEAM IS THE ROYALS

CRAZY PILLS

I am speaking on behalf of the unbought teams, chillax

Speaking on anybody's behalf is such a bad look for The World's Greatest Misanthrope.

fie on ye!

Neyer on Wash's Game 6 "tactics":

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2011/10/28/2520194/world-series-game-6-rangers-manager-ron-washington

The series is over, so let me tie up one loose end from yesterday.

When I looked at Sports Illustrated's cover story for the 2002 Series, there was no mention of Bonds's misplay in Game 6. I started to wonder if I'd completely misremembered everything, but the piece I was thinking of was Rick Reilly's back-page essay, which is archived online:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/rick_reilly/news/2002/10/29/life_of_reilly/

"So, no, Barry Bonds doesn't get his ring. But then, he doesn't get a lot of things."

More than anything, that's the quote that had stuck in my mind. So: Alex was right, in that I took one isolated piece (if I remember correctly, Reilly in particular had it in for Bonds) and wrongly generalized from that that there were a lot of sportswriters who made a big deal out of that one play. I don't think it's accurate to say that no one remembers the play--it lingered in my mind, probably in large part because of Reilly's piece, and Reilly undoubtedly remembers it well--but I was definitely more wrong than right.

To bring it back to 2011, I don't think you can say for sure whether Cruz will be mostly remembered for the eight home runs or the play in game 6 until some time passes. No Time says categorically it won't be the play in game 6. I hope that's the case, but Bill Buckner's entire career (far from HOF-caliber, but, at least by pre-sabermetric standards, a pretty decent one) has been subsumed by a single play, so I don't think it's inconceivable that something similar would happen with Cruz.

http://i.imgur.com/uZCXI.png

since when were players allowed to wear jackets on teh field

since forever

whoa

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090423042501AAWBcYJ

j0rdan I am going to need more clarification from you

I don't think you can say for sure whether Cruz will be mostly remembered for the eight home runs or the play in game 6 until some time passes. No Time says categorically it won't be the play in game 6

Seeing as nobody's blaming him *now* for blowing the game, it's safe to say that he won't be remembered for it. He messed up, but the blame has already been spread around (deservedly). Think about the Bartman game or the Pedro/Grady Little game -- a million other things went wrong in those games (just like Game 6 this year) but the next day all the focus was on one thing only, so you knew how those games would be remembered.

i think the blame for game 6 is going towards the pitchers, but tbh i think it's less "blame" and more folks praising freese and berkman.

no one more responsible than wash imo

Seeing as nobody's blaming him *now* for blowing the game, it's safe to say that he won't be remembered for it

Well, Verducci pretty much did in that day-after assessment I linked to upthread: "But make no mistake: the Rangers cannot a lose a ballgame -- not one in Kansas City in July, nevermind a potential World Series clincher -- by allowing a ball to go over an outfielder's head with two outs and a two-run lead in the ninth inning." That was two days ago, which seems on the now-ish side.

I imagine the impact of the play will be mitigated by the fact that the Rangers jumped out ahead again next inning, and that the two blown leads will meld into one colossal meltdown. I'm just not as convinced as you that Cruz (or Cruz + Washington) will not be forever linked to that play--or, at the very least, that the play will be appended to any mention of Cruz's phenomenal hitting during the postseason.

For what it's worth, Cruz himself would seem to disagree with you:

http://espn.go.com/blog/dallas/texas-rangers/post?id=4875603

"Cruz said in the end, the homers he hit will fade, but the play he didn't make will be difficult to erase."

j0rdan I am going to need more clarification from you

― dayo, Saturday, October 29, 2011 2:45 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

i can remember pitchers in cold weather environments putting jackets on when they're on the bases for my entire life. idk what year it actually started tho.

That's sad. I think Josh Hamilton is right in the quote just above that one. Thing is being blown out of proportion. (x-post)

Is there a rules exception for pitchers? I've never seen a position player do it.

i'm sure that a position player could if he wanted to... but it would certainly hamper your ability to run, so i don't think any position player has ever done it

there also might be an exception for pitchers

actually thinking back to the baseball I watched as a kid I think I remember it

I guess it wasn't seared in my memory since it only happens in october

"The play in right, I don't care who you are, was a tough play," Josh Hamilton said. "Except God--he'd have caught it," he quickly added.

(There's a funny typo just before Hamilton's quote: "Cruz was scrutinized after the 11-inning Game 6 loss for not misplaying the tailing liner that crashed off the wall and scored two runs to send the game into extra innings.")

Well, Verducci pretty much did in that day-after assessment I linked to upthread:

Duh, of course it was an important play and contributed to them losing the WS, but was it *the* play? Was it as monumental as Buckner's error? Not even close, and that's why it's not getting talked about in the same way.

Verducci said that he noticed that Cruz wasn't in position before the first pitch to Freese was thrown, and that's the fault of the Rangers coaching staff for not noticing where their outfielders were standing with the WS on the line.

For what it's worth, Cruz himself would seem to disagree with you:

His team just lost the WS, what do you expect him to say? "Yeah we lost but I hit eight homers, so if you want to blame someone then don't blame me"? Of course he's going to fixate on the bad stuff, just like Lowe will fixate on the HR to Freese, Harrison on not being able to match Carpenter in G7, etc.

Me: "I hope Cruz's home runs aren't overshadowed by that one play. They probably won't be, but I think there's a chance they will."

You: "No--there's only one way this will play out. End of story."

This is really kind of silly.

Just watching it again - Cruz was definitely playing deep. Deep enough, I don't know, but he had to run quite a ways to his left after that thing.

I laughed the other day when Jordan said that everything has to be either/or with me. The majority of the arguments I get into on here come down to me expressing uncertainty or skepticism about something in the face of somebody else's 100% certitude.

No, what you're doing is taking this play and putting it in a box with a bunch of all-time famous choker plays even though nobody else thinks that it belongs there. We pretty much know it doesn't belong there because it's not being treated even remotely like those other plays, even with only two days of perspective behind it.

Let's agree to revive the thread in five years and discuss it then.

We have a date. Between two days of perspective and five years, I'll go for the five years.

IOW, I don't see why we might want to consider the possibility that it might become the story of this WS some years in the future when nobody's even treating it that way now.

xpost

We can kind of test this now ... check the ILBB archives and I'm willing to bet that we've forgotten about 95% of the stuff that seemed really important at the time.

even though nobody else thinks that it belongs there

A quick Google search of "Nelson Cruz Buckner" turns up a surprising number of nobody elses:

http://communities.washingtontimes.com/neighborhood/fade-black/2011/oct/28/will-nelson-cruz-be-bill-buckner/
http://sullybaseball.blogspot.com/2011/10/nelson-cruzs-play-was-worse-than-bill.html
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/community/ci_19216700
http://kidfrank.blogspot.com/2011/10/nelson-cruz-new-bill-buckner-video.html
http://broxey.wordpress.com/2011/10/28/bigger-choke-artist-buckner-or-cruz/

Etc., etc. (Yes, I agree--I can be very annoying.)

I remember having some crazy arguments on this board during the '05 playoffs, but off the top of my head, the only moments I can clearly remember from that year are Pierzynski running to first on a caught third strike and Pujols homer off Lidge. I mean, the White Sox and Astros played the longest game in WS history that year, and I'm sure there were a bunch of heroes and goats from that game, damned if I can remember who they were.

I'm willing to bet that we've forgotten about 95% of the stuff that seemed really important at the time.

That sums up life in general. On a message board, I'd bump that to 98.3%.

I think it's going to shake out that Feliz will take a lot of blame and they'll buy a 'more reliable' closer for next season. I think the Rangers start their new $85mn TV deal this season, which opens up some free agent doors.

esp in Game 6, how do you isolate ONE play as THE essential one? With all the weird managerial tactics and unlikely comebacks? It's too simple.

yeah i mean, it was a bad play, and it might have cost them the world series, but it's certainly not alone in that category

Agreed. But history does tend to simplify, and I'm just allowing for the possibility that it may happen here.

I went back and checked my original post from yesterday morning, and it was me who was too categorical there: I said "will be remembered for the botched play more than the amazing postseason he's otherwise had," and I should have said "may be remembered."

http://mlb.sbnation.com/2011/11/4/2538461/rangers-ballpark-visitors-bullpen-reconfigured

http://static.sportressofblogitude.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/rangers-world-champs-tattoo.jpg

That ended because the team’s coaches weren’t happy with them, although it didn’t help, either, that players had run up $70,000 in Internet usage charges.

hahaha

:|

Marmol was really into farmville