2013 Playoffs

I'm actively rooting for chaos down the stretch, and my ever so-close Royals competitive into Sept.

It's those one-run wins in extra innings that's so great.

The last few minutes of the 2011 regular season were amazing - I remember switching feeds on my laptop das fast as I could.

4 teams within 3.5 games of last wild card. Go Royals!

AL Wild Card still tightening, 6 teams vying for two spots, all within 3 games of the leaders.

This is the way a season should end...down to the wire! Me - I will be glued to the computer for the outcome of the PawSox and Bulls game...

Rangers collapsing along with the Rays, 5 teams within 2 games in the standings, vying for one spot.

The Honolulu Star-Advertiser said today that the Rays "regained" the wild card spot, by winning the 3rd game of a Red Sox series.
But the standings still show them 2 games behind the Rangers:
IS there only one wild card spot per league?

I believe this year there is a one-game playoff to determine who gets the wild card spot, so: yes and no, on the one spot per league, apparently. (See the schedule here: http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/schedule/ps.jsp) Because you can never have too many playoff games.

". . .this year there is a one game playoff. . ." (8>9)

Thanks for the link.
Yes, I;ve just looked at the
schedule. I was expecting to
see something like "if necessary", or "in case of a tie", but apparently not. So, the second best wild card record team can oust the best one in one game?

>10 rolandperkins:

Yeah, they added the second WC team but made the game a win or go home format, so teams would try to win their divisions.

Thanks, kcshankd

The two Wild Cards per league setup started last year. The Cardinals beat the Braves in the NL wild card game and the Orioles beat the Rangers in the AL. The Cardinals-Braves game was the one that had that controversial infield-fly call that cost the Braves and caused Braves fans to start throwing trash on the field.

Well we have one play-in game, for the one game wildcard. 163rd game tomorrow!

Boston - St Louis. I usually root for the team that has had the longest drought, but these teams have both won recently. Tough call. Rooting for 7 games anyway.

3rd St. Louis (NL) vs. Boston (AL) of my baseball -following life (which stretches back to the (rare) AL pennant race of 1940 (Cleveland vs. Detroit) in the year of the
"Cleveland Cry-babies"* imbroglio.
I"m so old I can even remember the Boston NATIONAL League team being in the Series (1948).

*The heavy application of that nickname by the media is an indication of how the media's sympathies traditionally incline in
Management vs. Players
disputes. We sports news readers were assured that
the two outstanding Indians players, Lou Boudreau and Bob Feller did NOT join the "Crybabies". Manager Oscar Vitt was replaced in 1941
by another old timer, Roger Peckinpaugh who, in turn was replaced in 1942 by Boudreau.

I've definitely never seen a game end that way before, let alone in the World Series. That is what the Red Sox get for letting their 9th or 10th best pitcher bat in the ninth inning of a tie game with Napoli on the bench. Dumb, and obviously angered the baseball gods...

"letting their 9th or 10th best pitcher bat . . ."

I thought the same as I read
the re-cap* in the Boston Herald. But noticing how effective Workman was in his previous inning, I could understand that Farrell might want to have him pitch, or at least start the 9th

*No television, so I've only seen a still picture of the
controversial play. The Herald also showed a picture where the CATCHER (Saltalamacchia) is being pointed at and shouted at by the umpire - - as if it
was he and not the 3b who was being called for (!?) something. An off-the-field (Red Sox?)player or coach is apparently
yelling something in to the plate.
One (and only one) commentator wrote that the catcher should never
have thrown. Another (again only one) said that Middlebrooks should have caught it -- and then, no argument.

It was a questionable (and poor) throw from Salty, but definitely catchable by Middlebrooks. He stayed rooted to the bag on a tag play and Craig slid into him.

Here's the highlight from mlb.com:

http://wapc.mlb.com/play/?topic_id=58778504&content_id=31186659

The Herald said that 3 possible 3rd basemen were
given some infield practice before the game: Middlebrooks, Boegarts and NAPOLI (!). The latter of course to get his bat in the lineup, so it would only affect Games 3,4, and 5.

The Herald's picture I mentioned in 18:
I'm starting to think, the umpire was just making the out call on the runner ahead of Craig, confrontational with
Saltalamacchia though the photo made him seem. (It also contained what looked like an oversized pile of cloth
lying next to the plate. I think that must have been
the runner who was being called out, that part of the photo having undergone
some kind of syncopation.

My memory of the play had the home plate umpire giving the safe sign and then pointing emphatically towards third. That may be what the photographer caught.

Tonight's game ended in a pick-off, maybe a walk-off balk will be next...

"umpire giving the safe sign and then pointing emphatically towards third..."
(22)

That could have been the
next play at the plate, while the one I saw
the (defective?) still of was the previous, where the runner really
was indisputably out.

Game 5 a little more traditional. Sox in good shape heading back home. Game 7 would really fall on Halloween? What terrible planning.