MLB Chatter Thread
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Deuce
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I was rooting for the pirates til I saw a kid with the pristine spike mullet in the stands. I can't take them seriously anymore.
E_D_Guapo
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I screamed "Sit down, mullet!" when that kid came on the screen.
Holy shit, the bar I went to was literally wall to wall raucous Cubs fans. Must have been pretty much every Cubs fan in Austin. It was a hell of a place to watch the game. Loud as shit. My ears are still ringing. Feel like I just got home from a loud rock show. Steve Goodman's "Go Cubs, Go" was played so loudly so many times that it was obnoxious, but we all ate it up.
What a game. Jake Arrieta is a predatory animal. Just a beast. So many dangerous bats in that lineup. Rizzo and Bryant did nothing and it didn't even matter.
So psyched for the Cubs vs. Cardinals showdown. Normally I would fear them and they are still damn good but I feel like the Cubs are catching them at a great time. Cards are diminished by injuries and the Cubs are on a serious roll.
Also, Sean Rodriguez...U mad, bro?
. Treated the water cooler like a heavy bag because old man David Ross punked him during the skirmish. What a fucktard. Totally embarrassed himself.
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D
Deuce
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SeanRod has always been an idiot. A personality trait you can deal with when someone develops to expectations...but he didn't.Also, Sean Rodriguez...U mad, bro?
Carp
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Congrats...that was an excellent performance and really showed Maddon knows how to push the proper buttons.
I screamed "Sit down, mullet!" when that kid came on the screen.
Holy shit, the bar I went to was literally wall to wall raucous Cubs fans. Must have been pretty much every Cubs fan in Austin. It was a hell of a place to watch the game. Loud as shit. My ears are still ringing. Feel like I just got home from a loud rock show. Steve Goodman's "Go Cubs, Go" was played so loudly so many times that it was obnoxious, but we all ate it up.
What a game. Jake Arrieta is a predatory animal. Just a beast. So many dangerous bats in that lineup. Rizzo and Bryant did nothing and it didn't even matter.
So psyched for the Cubs vs. Cardinals showdown. Normally I would fear them and they are still damn good but I feel like the Cubs are catching them at a great time. Cards are diminished by injuries and the Cubs are on a serious roll.
Also, Sean Rodriguez...U mad, bro?
Schwarber played RF sparingly...so he goes out there and does his job defensively, but then gets buck wild offensively.
Then he did what I love managers to do...he let his ace finish the game and not try to get overly creative with the whole process.
E_D_Guapo
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I have been highly impressed with Maddon all season. He obviously has had the reputation as one of the premier managers in the game for a while now and the results to back it up, so I was thrilled when they brought him in. But it is really tough to get a true feel for a manager until you see how he does things day in and day out. He is a hell of a manager.
Regarding Arrieta, I said out loud more than once last night "Do NOT take him out" (as if Maddon could hear me
). Really glad he let him finish the game. Looked like he was starting to wear down but the way that guy has pitched and the way he competes...much rather leave it up to him in that situation than gamble with the 'pen.If the Cubs beat the Cardinals in the playoff it will be an all-timer sports moment for me. Right up there with Cowboys Super Bowl wins, even though it isn't the NLDS, let alone the World Series. There is just such a rivalry there, even if it is probably mostly just with the fans. It would be amazing to send them and their "Cardinal Way" packing.
If the Cardinals beat them then it will be tough to accept but I am just thrilled that they got the chance to play a series after such an amazing season. I really do feel for the Pirates and their fans because they have had an excellent team the past couple of years and couldn't get past the one game play-in. They just happened to run into a couple of absolutely locked in buzz saws named Bumgarner and Arrieta. Too bad for them but better them than the Cubs!
Jiggyfly
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How the Astros rode bat flips to a wild-card victory over the Yankees
Jeff Passan By Jeff Passan
October 7, 2015 3:23 AM
Yahoo Sports
NEW YORK – The bat flip is a glorious thing, baseball's version of interpretive dance, ripe for creativity and flair and all of the other things systematically beaten out of players at a young age. Sometimes, blessedly, the deprogramming doesn't work. And for such insolence to end up on a stage like Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night, in the first game of the 2015 postseason no less, indeed tickled the bat-flip gods.
What came of this weren't the sort of flips that will adorn highlight reels or make best-of lists. No overhead tomahawking or single-handed air-chuck or even a laser side-toss. Just the Houston Astros being the Houston Astros, which is as wonderful a thing as it is a story.
And it's a pretty damn great story, the once-upon-a-time Lastros going from perpetual gum on the shoe of the American League to a team capable of coming into the Bronx and sending the New York Yankees home for the winter amid a flurry of boos, the team that started the season with a $71 million payroll icing the $219 million behemoth, the nerds who overhauled the organization with their computers caring about only two numbers: 3-0, the score of the AL wild-card game that sent the Astros to Kansas City for Game 1 of the ALDS.
Down went the Yankees in inglorious fashion, three-hit by a combination of Astros ace Dallas Keuchel – working on three days' rest for the first time in his career – and three relief pitchers from September's worst bullpen. It's October, of course, and the travails of last month mean nothing when great pitching marries the timely hitting worthy of some flippery.
The culprits: Carlos Gomez, whose chicanery sets a high standard for modern players, and Colby Rasmus, never known as much of a bat-art connoisseur. To see both celebrate their home runs off Masahiro Tanaka in such fashion – Rasmus' leadoff homer in the second inning spawning a three-step walk before a full 720-degree double flip, Gomez's shot on the first pitch of the fourth yielding to a classic quick-toss that managed to go 270 degrees before it landed perfectly horizontal – was to see the arrival of these Astros, young and bold and ready to proclaim themselves ready for the defending AL champions.
"It's the swag that comes out," Gomez said. "People like it. People not like it. But nobody practices to have a bat flip. In this kind of game, when you drive a ball like that, you have to enjoy it.
"When I strike out, I'm not looking at anybody. So when I hit a ball far, I have to look at it and see where it lands."
The Astros certainly do not lack swag. The celebration after Brian McCann grounded out to end the game – the same McCann who once stopped Gomez from stepping on home plate because of a pimped home run – lasted for nearly an hour. That felt about right for going into Yankee Stadium and winning a do-or-die game.
Bottles popped early and often. Keuchel, who allowed three hits, struck out seven and walked one, avoided the first round of partying and slinked behind a plastic curtain protecting the lockers, dress clothes and uniforms from getting soaked in booze. On the chair in front of Keuchel's locker sat a lime-green box. Keuchel opened it. Inside were Nike Command goggles with Dark Smoke lenses. Retail price: $240. Not only would his eyes stay protected, Keuchel would look like a Stormtrooper.
To the victor go the grossly overpriced eyewear. Keuchel needed it. Puddles of spray pooled on the carpet. Players kept bringing in laundry carts filled with bubbly and beer. Astros starter Collin McHugh stepped into the fray peeling away at a piece of string cheese. "This is how you celebrate," he said. "Wine and cheese."
Such class descended into madness. "Team pic!" Gomez yelled through a tunnel in Yankee Stadium's bowels, and his teammates followed him onto the field, where he met with almost all the Astros on the mound. Some of them, like Jose Altuve, lived through the misery of 2011-13, when the Astros lost 106, 107 and 111 games in consecutive seasons. They did everything short of full-on tanking, investing in their idea of the future, which would teem with homegrown players who could win together in the minor leagues before they did the major leagues.
With so many primed to arrive this season, they started adding from the outside, including the 29-year-old Rasmus. For years, he was the ultimate tease, a hyper-talented left-handed-hitting center fielder who simply couldn't cobble together a season commensurate to his ability. A bad reputation chased him. He was scorned in the St. Louis Cardinals' clubhouse and not much more popular in Toronto. This season, Rasmus resolved to be different.
"At the end of it," he said, "I don't want them to say Colby Rasmus was a piece of crap because he had all of this time and just wanted to be a douche. I just try to love on everybody."
The love went both ways. Manager A.J. Hinch slotted Rasmus in the cleanup spot, and after Tanaka tore through the Astros in the first inning, Rasmus took the first pitch of the second, a 93-mph fastball, into the right-center-field bleachers. As the ball hung up the air, the bat flew, too, its trajectory not quite the same, its splendor every bit as mighty.
"It wasn't a planned thing," Rasmus said. "I just did it. I just knew it was gone, and I was all emotion. … I was just so pumped and thrilled to be there. I had to do it."
He did it right. Luis Valbuena, the Astros' self-proclaimed King of the Bat Flip – a title he perhaps should've relinquished when the Astros fortified themselves with Gomez for a moment exactly like this – gave Rasmus solid marks for his technique. He appreciated Gomez's as well, though Valbuena was sure to note: "It's not better than me."
When you're winning important games, these sorts of things pass for acceptable discussion. Bat flips aren't an affront to the game or decorum; they're a display of joy. Taking a picture on the mound at Yankee Stadium isn't insulting or disrespectful; it's celebratory, and if anyone deserves to celebrate, it's a team with the recent disastrousness of the Astros.
Right as the team gathered for the picture, Keuchel popped a bottle and liquid flew into the air. Catcher Hank Conger leaned back and bathed in it. Outfielder George Springer popped his T-shirt. Utilityman Marwin Gonzalez held a Venezuelan flag. Gomez protected his shoeless feet by pulling his pants down to cover them. Rasmus lurked nearby, shirtless, just fine with the brisk air. This was a special moment. The Astros may be green, but they know better than to treat it otherwise.
"We are a young team," Carlos Correa said. "We're going to have fun playing baseball."
Correa is the face of the Astros, 21 years old, a brilliant shortstop, baseball's next superstar. He sat at the bottom of the photo, leaning back into his team, both thumbs thrust into the air, his face the epitome of joyousness. However young he is, Correa knows baseball guarantees nothing, and when the opportunity presents itself to celebrate not to turn it down. This was one of those nights for the Houston Astros, one a long time in the making. And it was flippin' perfect.
Jeff Passan By Jeff Passan
October 7, 2015 3:23 AM
Yahoo Sports
NEW YORK – The bat flip is a glorious thing, baseball's version of interpretive dance, ripe for creativity and flair and all of the other things systematically beaten out of players at a young age. Sometimes, blessedly, the deprogramming doesn't work. And for such insolence to end up on a stage like Yankee Stadium on Tuesday night, in the first game of the 2015 postseason no less, indeed tickled the bat-flip gods.
What came of this weren't the sort of flips that will adorn highlight reels or make best-of lists. No overhead tomahawking or single-handed air-chuck or even a laser side-toss. Just the Houston Astros being the Houston Astros, which is as wonderful a thing as it is a story.
And it's a pretty damn great story, the once-upon-a-time Lastros going from perpetual gum on the shoe of the American League to a team capable of coming into the Bronx and sending the New York Yankees home for the winter amid a flurry of boos, the team that started the season with a $71 million payroll icing the $219 million behemoth, the nerds who overhauled the organization with their computers caring about only two numbers: 3-0, the score of the AL wild-card game that sent the Astros to Kansas City for Game 1 of the ALDS.
Down went the Yankees in inglorious fashion, three-hit by a combination of Astros ace Dallas Keuchel – working on three days' rest for the first time in his career – and three relief pitchers from September's worst bullpen. It's October, of course, and the travails of last month mean nothing when great pitching marries the timely hitting worthy of some flippery.
The culprits: Carlos Gomez, whose chicanery sets a high standard for modern players, and Colby Rasmus, never known as much of a bat-art connoisseur. To see both celebrate their home runs off Masahiro Tanaka in such fashion – Rasmus' leadoff homer in the second inning spawning a three-step walk before a full 720-degree double flip, Gomez's shot on the first pitch of the fourth yielding to a classic quick-toss that managed to go 270 degrees before it landed perfectly horizontal – was to see the arrival of these Astros, young and bold and ready to proclaim themselves ready for the defending AL champions.
"It's the swag that comes out," Gomez said. "People like it. People not like it. But nobody practices to have a bat flip. In this kind of game, when you drive a ball like that, you have to enjoy it.
"When I strike out, I'm not looking at anybody. So when I hit a ball far, I have to look at it and see where it lands."
The Astros certainly do not lack swag. The celebration after Brian McCann grounded out to end the game – the same McCann who once stopped Gomez from stepping on home plate because of a pimped home run – lasted for nearly an hour. That felt about right for going into Yankee Stadium and winning a do-or-die game.
Bottles popped early and often. Keuchel, who allowed three hits, struck out seven and walked one, avoided the first round of partying and slinked behind a plastic curtain protecting the lockers, dress clothes and uniforms from getting soaked in booze. On the chair in front of Keuchel's locker sat a lime-green box. Keuchel opened it. Inside were Nike Command goggles with Dark Smoke lenses. Retail price: $240. Not only would his eyes stay protected, Keuchel would look like a Stormtrooper.
To the victor go the grossly overpriced eyewear. Keuchel needed it. Puddles of spray pooled on the carpet. Players kept bringing in laundry carts filled with bubbly and beer. Astros starter Collin McHugh stepped into the fray peeling away at a piece of string cheese. "This is how you celebrate," he said. "Wine and cheese."
Such class descended into madness. "Team pic!" Gomez yelled through a tunnel in Yankee Stadium's bowels, and his teammates followed him onto the field, where he met with almost all the Astros on the mound. Some of them, like Jose Altuve, lived through the misery of 2011-13, when the Astros lost 106, 107 and 111 games in consecutive seasons. They did everything short of full-on tanking, investing in their idea of the future, which would teem with homegrown players who could win together in the minor leagues before they did the major leagues.
With so many primed to arrive this season, they started adding from the outside, including the 29-year-old Rasmus. For years, he was the ultimate tease, a hyper-talented left-handed-hitting center fielder who simply couldn't cobble together a season commensurate to his ability. A bad reputation chased him. He was scorned in the St. Louis Cardinals' clubhouse and not much more popular in Toronto. This season, Rasmus resolved to be different.
"At the end of it," he said, "I don't want them to say Colby Rasmus was a piece of crap because he had all of this time and just wanted to be a douche. I just try to love on everybody."
The love went both ways. Manager A.J. Hinch slotted Rasmus in the cleanup spot, and after Tanaka tore through the Astros in the first inning, Rasmus took the first pitch of the second, a 93-mph fastball, into the right-center-field bleachers. As the ball hung up the air, the bat flew, too, its trajectory not quite the same, its splendor every bit as mighty.
"It wasn't a planned thing," Rasmus said. "I just did it. I just knew it was gone, and I was all emotion. … I was just so pumped and thrilled to be there. I had to do it."
He did it right. Luis Valbuena, the Astros' self-proclaimed King of the Bat Flip – a title he perhaps should've relinquished when the Astros fortified themselves with Gomez for a moment exactly like this – gave Rasmus solid marks for his technique. He appreciated Gomez's as well, though Valbuena was sure to note: "It's not better than me."
When you're winning important games, these sorts of things pass for acceptable discussion. Bat flips aren't an affront to the game or decorum; they're a display of joy. Taking a picture on the mound at Yankee Stadium isn't insulting or disrespectful; it's celebratory, and if anyone deserves to celebrate, it's a team with the recent disastrousness of the Astros.
Right as the team gathered for the picture, Keuchel popped a bottle and liquid flew into the air. Catcher Hank Conger leaned back and bathed in it. Outfielder George Springer popped his T-shirt. Utilityman Marwin Gonzalez held a Venezuelan flag. Gomez protected his shoeless feet by pulling his pants down to cover them. Rasmus lurked nearby, shirtless, just fine with the brisk air. This was a special moment. The Astros may be green, but they know better than to treat it otherwise.
"We are a young team," Carlos Correa said. "We're going to have fun playing baseball."
Correa is the face of the Astros, 21 years old, a brilliant shortstop, baseball's next superstar. He sat at the bottom of the photo, leaning back into his team, both thumbs thrust into the air, his face the epitome of joyousness. However young he is, Correa knows baseball guarantees nothing, and when the opportunity presents itself to celebrate not to turn it down. This was one of those nights for the Houston Astros, one a long time in the making. And it was flippin' perfect.
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Man, I hope so. As an aside, I think this is the first time I have ever gotten the nervous shits while at work. It is not comfortable.
dallen
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That is a true tragedy. My condolences
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I appreciate... hold on, brb
jsmith6919
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