[lex24]

Odds are about 82% Scherzer gets him anyway.  But be nice to let the players decide it.

That's a conservative estimate. Wilmer is 0-17 lifetime against Scherzer and he still has two strikes if the check swing is called correctly, but the point stands that it's sick for a crucial game to end on a bad call and not be decided by the players themselves.

Yes, good point. 

It was a bad call. 

But the Giants were in a deep hole before that pitch, with 2 outs, an 0-2 count, and Scherzer on the mound. If that pitch had been called a ball, the Giants still would have been in a deep hole, with 2 outs, a 1-2 count, facing Scherzer. Chances are slim that the bad call made any difference in the outcome.

But the chances are somewhat higher that the Bryant AB in 4th in which Urias threw 5 straight balls, only to get 2 gifts made a difference.  2 on no one out in 4th - sure would have liked to see what that led to.

---

Count was 0-2. You can’t make that call. Flores probably wasn’t going to make contact but you can’t end the series on an obvious non swing.

I am now a devoted Braves/Red Sox/Astros fan.

And Dickerson needs to be released.

One of the many, many, many things I like about Kruk and Kuip versus...well, any national announcing crew is that they will replay and dissect checked swings.  TBS failed to do that all week.

The major leagues needs to eliminate their umpires.  They're a joke.  Also a joke is not re-seeding during the playoffs, and if a division winner has a worse record than a wild card team, well, you start on the road, buddy.

Loved the season, even loved the playoffs.  When will two 109-win teams ever meet again?

Well, I listened to post game, and in immediate aftermath, Kruk said the umpire made the correct call on the check swing.  It was only in the regular post-game format that he backtracked to questionable/dubious call.  I don't know how anyone - let alone a trained umpire - would call that a swing.  More fundamentally, you need more clarity on the check  swing rule.  IMO, you can't measure intent, so you should go with angle of bat over home plate.

The Giants' hitting abandoned them in the post season, and they were never any good at small ball.  Bad bad combo.  We'll never know, but it's hard not to think the Giants missed Belt more than the Dodgers missed Muncy.

Dodgers are a very good team (obviously), so no shame in losing to them in 5.  It just sucks that season is over.

P.S.  Was hoping Kapler would let Slater bat - he has real Kaboom in his bat - and bring in Wade, if he felt he needed to, in Wilmer's slot.

Slaters splits are enormous.  He can’t hit righthanders. Here are the three things that will haunt me a while from game 5

1. Bryant’s AB in 4th. On Tuesday when it was obvious there would be a game 5, Flemming said Eddings was going to be the home plate ump and that he had BY FAR the biggest strike zone in MLB. He said Eddings “will be a factor.”  Go Back to Bryant’s AB.  Crawford has singled.  Urias falls behind 2-0. Next pitch is about 4 inches off the plate.  Should be 3-0. Instead it’s called a strike.  2-1 pitch isn’t close 3-1. Then Urias throws an off speed pitch misses low.  By a few inches.  Strike 2.  As Miller said - that’s 5 and 0.  Would have liked to see first and second no outs with Slater, Flores and Longoria against Urias. Who at that point wasn’t particularly sharp.

2. The check swing.  First, it wasn’t close.  Second, I wonder the mind set of an Ump that decides on that check swing that he’s gonna be THE MAN.  And decide it.  He now is assured of a place in history.  I didn’t watch replays last night.  Turned it off immediately.  I wasn’t going to watch the celebration.  But I’ve seen it this morning.  Unreal.  Odds are about 82% Scherzer gets him anyway.  But be nice to let the players decide it.

3.  Bellinger gets the hit.  Can’t stand the guy.  Didn’t want it to be him.

In the end, you can’t win when you can’t hit.  Posey, Crawford and Bryant were the only guys that did much.  Longo and Ruf hit HR’s but we’re about 1-20 otherwise.  All year long it was the contributions across the board. Didn’t happen.  Unfair in a way, but to me Yaz was the most disappointing.  

Dodgers will roll through the rest.  Giants are the one team not cowed by them. Maybe Astros can hang.  But they may have lost McCullers.

On umpires in general - I don’t remember zones being quite as “individual “ as today.  But of course we didn’t have the box and the ability to chart each pitch.  Also - how do they decide on the crews for playoffs?  Cause this was a bad one.  I say that not just based on the outcome. One member of this crew - Holberg scored above average this year as a plate ump.  And, of course,  that Angel Hernandez is on it tells me merit has nothing to do with it.  He’s been one of baseball’s worst for a long time now.

This one stings a bit.  But as I said, it was quite a year.  Now we will go into what will be a fascinating offseason.  Tons of decisions to make.  And unfortunately, labor issues. You can count on Manfred screwing up the latter. He’s incompetent. So I’m thinking a strike is imminent.

Go Dusty…..

Abject devotion to splits and analytics is no way to manage.  Sometimes you gotta go with what you're seeing.  And Wade, as great as his season was, had an awful hitting post-season.  Wilmer wasn't a lot better.  Both had lots of Ks.  Slater was 2-5 at the time and had made contact the first two ABs (though both grounders).  I don't know, my sense was Slater was a slightly better option than either of those guys (who both ended up striking out, though Wilmer was hosed).  But who knows, maybe Slater Ks, too.

I would add Longo failing to get runner in from 3B with one out in Game 2.  You never know how flavor of games change in single at-bats, and that could have been what the Giants needed in Game 2.  But again, the Giants were generally poor at getting runners home without a hit.

I’m not an analytics guy. But please tell me the last time you saw Slater have a good AB vs a right hander.  Not to mention one of Scherzer’s caliber.  No way I let him hit in that situation with Wade available.  Hell, that was the situation Kapler wanted for Wade.  He’d been THE guy late.

[lex24]

Odds are about 82% Scherzer gets him anyway.  But be nice to let the players decide it.

That's a conservative estimate. Wilmer is 0-17 lifetime against Scherzer and he still has two strikes if the check swing is called correctly, but the point stands that it's sick for a crucial game to end on a bad call and not be decided by the players themselves.

Yes, good point. 

It was a bad call. 

But the Giants were in a deep hole before that pitch, with 2 outs, an 0-2 count, and Scherzer on the mound. If that pitch had been called a ball, the Giants still would have been in a deep hole, with 2 outs, a 1-2 count, facing Scherzer. Chances are slim that the bad call made any difference in the outcome.

But the chances are somewhat higher that the Bryant AB in 4th in which Urias threw 5 straight balls, only to get 2 gifts made a difference.  2 on no one out in 4th - sure would have liked to see what that led to.

---

Count was 0-2. You can’t make that call. Flores probably wasn’t going to make contact but you can’t end the series on an obvious non swing.

I am now a devoted Braves/Red Sox/Astros fan.

And Dickerson needs to be released.

One of the many, many, many things I like about Kruk and Kuip versus...well, any national announcing crew is that they will replay and dissect checked swings.  TBS failed to do that all week.

The major leagues needs to eliminate their umpires.  They're a joke.  Also a joke is not re-seeding during the playoffs, and if a division winner has a worse record than a wild card team, well, you start on the road, buddy.

Loved the season, even loved the playoffs.  When will two 109-win teams ever meet again?

Well, I listened to post game, and in immediate aftermath, Kruk said the umpire made the correct call on the check swing.  It was only in the regular post-game format that he backtracked to questionable/dubious call.  I don't know how anyone - let alone a trained umpire - would call that a swing.  More fundamentally, you need more clarity on the check  swing rule.  IMO, you can't measure intent, so you should go with angle of bat over home plate.

The Giants' hitting abandoned them in the post season, and they were never any good at small ball.  Bad bad combo.  We'll never know, but it's hard not to think the Giants missed Belt more than the Dodgers missed Muncy.

Dodgers are a very good team (obviously), so no shame in losing to them in 5.  It just sucks that season is over.

P.S.  Was hoping Kapler would let Slater bat - he has real Kaboom in his bat - and bring in Wade, if he felt he needed to, in Wilmer's slot.

Slaters splits are enormous.  He can’t hit righthanders. Here are the three things that will haunt me a while from game 5

1. Bryant’s AB in 4th. On Tuesday when it was obvious there would be a game 5, Flemming said Eddings was going to be the home plate ump and that he had BY FAR the biggest strike zone in MLB. He said Eddings “will be a factor.”  Go Back to Bryant’s AB.  Crawford has singled.  Urias falls behind 2-0. Next pitch is about 4 inches off the plate.  Should be 3-0. Instead it’s called a strike.  2-1 pitch isn’t close 3-1. Then Urias throws an off speed pitch misses low.  By a few inches.  Strike 2.  As Miller said - that’s 5 and 0.  Would have liked to see first and second no outs with Slater, Flores and Longoria against Urias. Who at that point wasn’t particularly sharp.

2. The check swing.  First, it wasn’t close.  Second, I wonder the mind set of an Ump that decides on that check swing that he’s gonna be THE MAN.  And decide it.  He now is assured of a place in history.  I didn’t watch replays last night.  Turned it off immediately.  I wasn’t going to watch the celebration.  But I’ve seen it this morning.  Unreal.  Odds are about 82% Scherzer gets him anyway.  But be nice to let the players decide it.

3.  Bellinger gets the hit.  Can’t stand the guy.  Didn’t want it to be him.

In the end, you can’t win when you can’t hit.  Posey, Crawford and Bryant were the only guys that did much.  Longo and Ruf hit HR’s but we’re about 1-20 otherwise.  All year long it was the contributions across the board. Didn’t happen.  Unfair in a way, but to me Yaz was the most disappointing.  

Dodgers will roll through the rest.  Giants are the one team not cowed by them. Maybe Astros can hang.  But they may have lost McCullers.

On umpires in general - I don’t remember zones being quite as “individual “ as today.  But of course we didn’t have the box and the ability to chart each pitch.  Also - how do they decide on the crews for playoffs?  Cause this was a bad one.  I say that not just based on the outcome. One member of this crew - Holberg scored above average this year as a plate ump.  And, of course,  that Angel Hernandez is on it tells me merit has nothing to do with it.  He’s been one of baseball’s worst for a long time now.

This one stings a bit.  But as I said, it was quite a year.  Now we will go into what will be a fascinating offseason.  Tons of decisions to make.  And unfortunately, labor issues. You can count on Manfred screwing up the latter. He’s incompetent. So I’m thinking a strike is imminent.

Go Dusty…..

Abject devotion to splits and analytics is no way to manage.  Sometimes you gotta go with what you're seeing.  And Wade, as great as his season was, had an awful hitting post-season.  Wilmer wasn't a lot better.  Both had lots of Ks.  Slater was 2-5 at the time and had made contact the first two ABs (though both grounders).  I don't know, my sense was Slater was a slightly better option than either of those guys (who both ended up striking out, though Wilmer was hosed).  But who knows, maybe Slater Ks, too.

I would add Longo failing to get runner in from 3B with one out in Game 2.  You never know how flavor of games change in single at-bats, and that could have been what the Giants needed in Game 2.  But again, the Giants were generally poor at getting runners home without a hit.

I’m not an analytics guy. But please tell me the last time you saw Slater have a good AB vs a right hander.  Not to mention one of Scherzer’s caliber.  No way I let him hit in that situation with Wade available.  Hell, that was the situation Kapler wanted for Wade.  He’d been THE guy late.