Originally Posted by TEX: :-) Maybe not in your mind, but to each his own. BTW, didn't the Astros beat your Dodgers in Dodger Stadium in game 7 to win it? :-) The Astros did cheat during the regular season, so I get all the hate. I also think the Stros were better than the Dodgers in 2017 and if they meet again this year in the WS, they'll likely beat them again. You know why? Because they've moved on and your Dodgers, just like you, haven't - and it's getting in the way of what LA is trying to accomplish.
Haters can hate all they want to, but if you can't see how winning it all this year would be some kind of legitimatization for the Stros, then that's your issue.
BTW, I'm in the crowd that thinks they should have been stripped of their WS Title. But MLB felt otherwise, so you can dwell on it, or get over it and play ball. The Stros are playing ball.
Go STROS!
Got over it? Pretty easy to get over it when your players have no consequences.
Originally Posted by lcarus:
I watched that and noticed how many sour grapes Blue Jays fans were commenting "the umps! boo hoo! It should've been a balk and then the strike on Revere should've been a ball!" So many cry baby bitches in the sports world.
Originally Posted by :
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away (i.e. in the ALCS in Kansas City), Ben Revere took his place in the batter’s box — his team trailing by a run and down to its final two outs — and tried to be a hero. Though slight (5'9", 170 pounds) and utterly devoid of “force” (four career homers in 2,660 plate appearances), virtually any ball put in play would’ve gotten the job done.
With men on second and third, the Blue Jays seemed to have destiny firmly in their grasp ... until home-plate umpire Jeff Nelson snatched it away, like some weird parent scarfing down his kids’ Halloween candy while they’re asleep.
Revere took the first two Wade Davis pitches for balls, before letting a near-perfect strike zing over the plate. Another ball brought the count to 3–1 — a hitter’s dream in almost any instance, and particularly one as high-stakes as this was.
Anyone watching the game could clearly see that strike two was actually ball three, high and outside as they come. So, instead of awaiting whatever down-the-pipe meatball came next, Revere — now facing 2–2 — was forced to play defense in the batter’s box. In this case, that meant whiffing on a pitch down and in.
He did, however, make contact just moments later.
Admittedly, had Josh Donaldson knocked in a run or two in the following at-bat, Nelson’s terrible call would’ve been a mere footnote. Instead, the likely AL MVP grounded out to end the series, sending the Royals to their second consecutive Fall Classic (where they toppled the Mets in five games) and rendering Revere’s second called strike an injustice that won’t get much attention in the grand scheme of things. Maybe Revere would’ve struck out anyway, but at least the out would’ve been his to make.
Are we risking sour grapes by blaming a single call for the outcome of a game? Sure, but at the same time, there’s little denying how significantly the call impacted Revere’s approach, and thus the likelihood of him authoring a successful at-bat.
For his career, the Toronto outfielder has hit .333 (39 for 117) with 59 walks in 3–1 counts. By contrast, Revere is batting .279 (111 for 397) with only 31 walks after getting into a 2–2 count. And while that latter figure is much better than the average hitter (.193), it still represents a 54-point drop. According to Ryan bundle of sticksan of The Sporting News, the MLB batting average in a 3–1 count is .274, with an OPS of 1.029. When the count goes to 2–2, those marks drop to .193 and .584, respectively. Obviously, a single call (in the right circumstance) can and will direct the course of a game.
Looks like a ball to me. A pretty impactful one too. [Reply]
Originally Posted by jd1020:
Jfc every Cardinals fan that has periods bitches and complains people like other teams and baseball doesn't revolve around the Cardinals.
Next year we'll start a joint Cubs/Cardinals thread just so you have something to shit up. [Reply]
Originally Posted by jd1020: Might want to start bitching about the Royals conversation going on in the thread that has nothing to do with the 2021 playoffs.
Go play with your Tonka toys in the corner.
yea, but in our defense, we are interesting. [Reply]
Originally Posted by :
The Jays were locked in a great battle with the Royals this game, but they also spent the majority of the game battling the umpires as well.
It started in the second inning, with the Royals already leading 1-0, third baseman Mike Moustakas hit a line shot that looked like it was going to hit off the top of the wall and bounce back into play. However, before the ball could actually hit the wall, a Royals fan reached down to catch it. On first appearances, it looked as if the fan had reached over the wall to catch the ball, so the call went to review. After a lengthy review, the home run stood, and the Royals held a 2-0 lead.
The home run call was one that could have gone either way, as a still image of the play doesn’t give concrete evidence that the ball would or would not have cleared the wall. Still, it’s a call that stings for Jays’ fans who remember the number of close calls that had gone against the team earlier in the playoffs.
The home run call definitely wasn’t the most egregious call that would go against the Jays on this night — those would come in the fateful ninth inning.
After the Royals promptly took the lead after the rain delay, the Jays had a difficult task ahead of them: scoring a run off Wade Davis, who had posted a 0.94 ERA during the regular season, and hadn’t given up a run in five appearances in the postseason.
The inning looked to get off to a good start for the Jays, as Russell Martin led off with a single, and was immediately replaced by Dalton Pompey as a pinch runner. Pompey did his job, stealing second on the very next pitch, to put himself in scoring position with nobody out. He would eventually steal third a few pitches later, as Davis would end up walking Kevin Pillar, to put runners on first and third with nobody out.
Why are these strike calls so significant? Well, for starters, they can completely swing the momentum of an at-bat, and the two outside strikes to Navarro and Revere are perfect examples of that. If the pitch to Navarro is called a ball, then he’s facing a 2-1 count instead of a 1-2 count, and he can be more selective against a pitcher like Davis, who’s very unlikely to groove one down the middle of the plate. He can force Davis to throw him something in the zone he can handle, or he can wait him out and take a walk. The stats speak for themselves: in 2009, hitters hit an average of .339 in 2-1 counts and .352 in 3-1 counts, as opposed to .171 in 1-2 counts, and .189 in 2-2 counts. If that doesn’t show how important those 1-1 and 2-1 pitches to Navarro and Revere were, then nothing will.
What would’ve happened if the calls had gone the other way though? Of course, nothing is guaranteed, but statistics show that they both would’ve had a much better chance if those two pitches were called balls as opposed to strikes.
Originally Posted by TEX:
Why are some of you talking about prior year playoff games in this thread?
The alternative would probably be people still talking about the Astros cheating to win the 2017 WS (which apparently was being talked about a day ago by the looks of this thread). Not sure if that’s preferable. [Reply]
JFC, some people really put a lot of effort in absolving their own team and placing blame on umps/refs... the home run was clearly a home run. Balls/strikes that are called one way or another are more common than any other missed call in sports..... might as well complain about a holding call that cost a team a Super Bowl.
Ask Red Sox fans how they feel about being a strike that wasn't a strike away from being out of an inning tied, yet the Astros tacked on another 7 runs (or whatever).
In the grand scheme of bad calls, a strike that wasn't a strike, which didn't end an at bat or an inning or a series all by itself is relatively minor and could have happened in the 2nd or 5th or 7th inning.
