Talk Elections

about time for one of these.  I'll be your unofficial host and guest expert.  storylines to note.

TweedSuggests™: the outcome you should pull for / team you should root for.


AL East: Toronto beat NYY today, so Baltimore has a chance in the 7pm slot to tie NYY for first place.  Baltimore will hold the tiebreak over NYY so a tie = an effective half-game lead.  skin is in the game this time because the 2nd place finisher will have to play in the one-game coin-flip festival, reducing their chances of winning the World Series by half or so.

TweedSuggests™: Baltimore outright

AL Central:  Detroit and Chicago battle it out as agents of relative mediocrity for the (3) seed.  proving the absurdity of the Brave New Wild Card World. Tigers appear to be in solid shape, up one and faring well on the scoreboard so far today.

TweedSuggests™: a regular season tie and one-game playoff, failing that, Detroit, as thanks for knocking out the NYY in 2006 and 2011.

AL Wild Card: TweedSuggests™: the best hope for a sh**tshow, though hopes are dwindling.  the Angels can gain two more games on Texas this weekend.  this would pull Texas within 3 of LAA, and possibly less than that of Oakland, with 3 to play.  the Rays are 3 back but winning today...  we still could have an LAA/OAK/TEX/TB tie in some perfect world, where chaos would ensue.  pull for Oakland to lose, Tampa to win, LAA to win and TEX to lose until further notice

come-from-behind Oakland victory (1 in 8th, 2 in 9th, 3 in 10th) is pretty devastating to LAA/TB.

Yeah, that should just about do it there. If Texas loses tonight, it leaves a real window for Oakland to still grab the division, as well. Shame for TB as they have such an incredible run differential and are on such a hot streak here. The perils of being an AL East team.

TEX/LAA has been delayed almost 4 hours. lol

let's go oakland

Game was postponed.

My St Louis Cardinals are doing their very best to miss the playoffs.  They currently hold a 2 game lead for the second wild card spot over the Dodgers and a 3 game lead over the Brewers, I believe.  It could be 3.5, but I'm not sure.  I still think the Cardinals will do just enough to play the Wild Card Game agsint the Atlanta Braves.  The thing that worries me, though, is I haven't seen the same fire in the Redbirds that propelled them from mid-August 2011 through to the World Series Champions.  Losing Berkman is probably a big part of our trouble, but I think the worst group is the bullpen.

Fuck the A's.

I really want the Angels to make the playoffs; I think they'd have a great chance at going all the way if they could just make it in. I don't think it's going to happen though. Oakland and Baltimore just keep getting every break possible, and the Angels shot themselves in the foot in April and August. Ugh.

If the Braves win five games in a row now, and the Nationals lose five games in a row (i.e., the last four season games then a playoff in Washington) then Atlanta goes from being a Wildcard to being NL East winner. Statistically, there's apparently totally a 0.3% chance of that happening! It'd be nice for the Braves to not have to play the extra series against the Cardinals or whoever.

CLUTCH 2-out, 2-run, GW double by Torii Hunter (who has had an amazing career) keeps the bottom end of the AL wild card interesting for a few more hours.

Yep, we needed that something fierce. Still need help from the Mariners though, but they've been pretty useless this year.

Hopefully, St Louis can take care of the Reds at home the next three days and solidify a spot in Atlanta for the NL Wild Card Game.

And they were still useless. Ugh. It's pretty much over now. I guess I'll have to root for a Washington-Baltimore World Series now.

Well, didn't take the Yanks long to stick the pressure back on the O's....7-0 in the 2nd v. Boston.

Nats NL East Champs.

NATS BABY!!!  Let's go!

Weren't you a Red Sox fan?

suck it dodgers

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Another year... Another failed season for Pittsburgh.

Won't make the mistake of getting caught up in the hype if it happens next year. Once bitten, 20 years burned.

Cub fan says-Give 'em another half a century or so

     Fools doubted the Giants and got burned. Losing Melky didn't slow this team one bit.

really tough Yankee hater night last night

Instead of messages about when playoff tickets go on sale, my inbox is greeted with this
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Mets and Jets......yeah your life sucks.

Hey, don't forget the Islanders and Knicks.... Definitely just thinking about jumping on the Brooklyn Nets train though.  I absolutely loathe Dolan and supported the Nets when I was very young.

Re: Yankees, I am never surprised when they have some ridiculous comeback.

yeah I'm totally off the Knicks wagon.  I like the Clippers better than any other team but prefer the Nets in NY context.

I won't be able to watch the Orioles game today, but it still looks like shelling out the $10 for MLB.TV was a good choice, if only to see the A's and Rangers.

Well, now that the Angels are gone, the A's better knock off the Rangers today.

God it feels good to support a winning team.

Well, after what we went through for most of the season, a .500 record is acceptable.

Unbelievable! 6 runs for the A's when trailing 4, the lead (and 2 runs total) handed over by a Josh Hamilton dropped ball on a routine catch with 2 outs!

I suppose the silver lining here may be the Yankees drawing Texas in round 1

Oakland is 3 outs away from winning the west.

Lol Rangers ... I must be dreaming. This is not happening.

no, if the Yankees win tonight they get the no. 2 seed and will play Detroit.  OAK has tiebreak on NYY.

Suck it Texas

The last time the Red Sox had a losing record was 1997.

and they got Lowe and Varitek for Heathcliff Slocumb that year so it's all good

It doesn't look like the A's are ever going to lose a game again.

2007 Rockies

Do the Giants get to be the Red Sox, then?

the two teams that have caused the Mets the most pain over the past 13 years... I'll take StL, mostly due to Beltran.

It's shocking how underrated Beltran has been over the course of his career.

He went from under to over to under, to properly rated, to under all in a career.

Braves fans are taking the 1934 World Series approach.

A joke. The entire NL playoff run is now an entire joke. And again, it's because the umpires are a group of self-serving thugs. Disgusting joke.

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hahahahahahahaha

Also, isn't an infield fly supposed to be immediately called? That's how it's always been in every video game I remember.

what happens to the Protest if the Braves come back and win?  are they able to rescind it?

ABSOLUTELY INEXCUSABLE.

The WORST call in my lifetime easily.  (Don't worry, I was born in 1986 - after 1985.)

Worst call I have ever seen. I'm done with baseball.  them.

That's silly. The Posey call in Game 1 in the 2010 NLDS was a lot more egregious than this one, since it wasn't a judgment call.

Me too. I hated everything about the NFL scandals recently, but this is something else. This is the final straw in a clear lack of care by both the MLB administration and it's literal gang of haughty evil (not incompetent, evil) umpires. The point can't be made while we still watch. I'm truly done with baseball through the MLB. Just means more soccer/independent baseball for me. I am not going to support this junk anymore.

Yeah, as a Braves fan I had a feeling we would lose this one. 5 WS appearances in an 8 year stretch with only one ring sort of turns you into a fatalist. The fact that we finished 6 games ahead of them meant we were destined to lose.

Even though Chipper was leaving and the last component of my childhood team was gone, I was still going to follow the game in the future. No more, however. I am done with baseball, it's been dead for years, we've just now seen the obituary.

St Louis just won't die. :). Goodbye Chipper!

You're an insult to the game. Won't miss sharing this league with you.

Don't get me wrong, I hate seeing a legendary baller retire, but I am glad St Louis won.

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The call is supposed to come much earlier than it did, and Cardinals are lying when they say they heard the call and intentionally didn't catch it.

The Rangers are gone! Hallelujah! All is right with the world at last.

Braves fans:the people making sure Dodger fans aren't the worst in baseball

Oh whatever.  All 30 fanbases would have reacted that way after being victims of the worst call in all of MLB since 1985.

No they wouldn't have.  A good fanbase isn't going to do what the idiots did last night.  A northeast team, sure.  Cubs, Oakland, sure.  Dodger fan wouldn't, because he's gone before the 8th inning.  But Cardinals fan?  No way.  Twins fan?  Not going to happen.  Reds, Brewers, probably not.

But that's not why Atlanta has the sh**ttiest fans.  It's the fact that nobody goes to games if the Braves aren't leading the division (despite the fact that they have some of the cheapest tickets in baseball).  They fight for a playoff spot to a half empty stadium.  They've failed to sell out playoff games for Og's sake.

Nats in 5
SF in 4

Bal in 5
Det in 4

Any fanbase who gives that little a sh**t as to sit back and take that sh**t-eating-grin-umpire-ing is one of the problems with baseball, not the "good" fans. Fans loyal to these umps and this Front Office are enemies of baseball as a sport. I hate the Braves, but God bless their resistance.

They are sh**tty for never showing up to games, however.

Yeah, I'm sure if an umpire were to - hypothetically, of course- make a bad call that would, say, potentially cost the Cardinals the World Series, I'm sure said umpire would never receive any death threats from Cardinals fans and would never have to contact MLB security or the FBI.

Although let's be honest here - Cardinals fans may be the most likely to live in trailer parks, sport neckbeards, mullets, and pedophile moustaches, and consider Busch light to be the pinacle of American brewing, they at least go to games. South Florida probably has the worst and most undeserving-of-sports-championships-fanbase in North America.

What does being "loyal" to the umps or "this Front Office" have to do with not acting like infants?  There is no reason to rain garbage on to the field because a call doesn't go your way.  There is never a reason to rain garbage on to the playing field.There is no way fans in Busch Stadium would ever act in the way those in Atlanta did last night.  Yeah, a few fans were stupid in 85, but it's really not the same thing.I'd bet dollars to donuts that Brave fan is more likely to be what you described than Cardinal fan.  I've lived in both places and the fanbases couldn't be further apart in their knowledge and respect for the game.  Yes, there are asshat Cardinals fans, but they are WAY in the minority.

Joey Votto scares me, so I made a chart to show why.

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If that had been in Los Angeles, there wouldn't have been any Dodgers fans there to throw things.

what's a playoff run like now that your championship virginity has been broken, Xahar?

Late to the party but

Reds in 5
Nats in 5

O's in 6
A's in 7

Nats in 7
O's in 6

Nats in 6 as well as in the least watched World Series since 1955

I find myself much largely resigned to the Giants losing and not all that upset about it.

     We're here and the Dodgers aren't. It's not a championship, but it's cause for celebration in its own right.

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amazingly low counting stats totals for Votto, even considering he missed 50 games.

Barry Zito has the same ERA as in 2010, when he was so bad that he was left off the postseason roster, and the offensive context is worse; he also has the second-highest xFIP in the league.

and he went 15-8 just like Steve Trachsel did in 2006!

Shawn Estes was also 15-8 in 2004 with a remarkable 5.84 ERA for a team that wasn't even good.

This game has literally the worst strike zone that I have ever seen.

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w/standard Coors Field disclaimer.

so would Lincecum replace Zito in the NLCS rotation?

Yes.

The St Louis Cardinals blanked the Washington Nationals 8-0 today to put Washington on the brink of elimination.  Anyone think there could be a second straight World Series Championship for the Redbirds?

serious guts by Girardi, pulling A-Rod for Ibanez.  should be a hot topic on NY radio tomorrow regardless of the outcome here.

Ichiro, Alex Rodriguez and Raul Ibanez all played for New York today. The Yankees are basically the Mariners.

The A's had an amazing comeback. I'm glad I didn't quit on them at the top of the ninth.

Oakland better win tomorrow.

Of course.  We've got a few more to go before we catch up with the Yankees.

really bad turn of events for the Yankee-hater in the bottom 9th in Oakland last night.

Hoping for an A's-O's ALCS in large part so that the Raiders game next weekend has to be moved to accommodate it.

WERTH!!!  What a finish!  Game 5 tomorrow in DC with Gio on the mound!

Projected NLCS rotation: Vogelsong, Lincecum, Cain, Bumgarner

It's depressing to be a Mets fan. Go Orioles!

anti-capitalist Yankee hater from Long Island?  cool kid


also congrats @Xahar

four game 5's.  pretty sick

The Tigers and Giants have already locked up half of the LCS appearances. I'll be rooting for them to go to the World Series.

Cardinals Rally!  Suck it Nats!

Hell yeah! Let's go Cardinals!

Haha! Just looked at the scoreboard. LOL.

So who won the DSs?  Boycotting the playoffs* has given me a lot of free time.


* - This World Series champion will have to always have an asterisk next to it.  It's sad how one idiot can ruin an entire playoff and taint a championship that probably still would have been won by whoever wins...

The NLCS will be a matchup of the last two World Series Champions.  The San Francisco Giants in 2010 and St Louis Cardinals in 2011.  It should be no secret who I will be rooting for. :)

Sorry, that's silly.

Time to put on the old Giants cap, I suppose. It would have been nice for the A's to make a run, but they have nothing to be ashamed of. Verlander is the best pitcher there is.


And it is no secret as to who will win.

I'm actually wearing a New York Giants cap right now.

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Don't be so sure. Baseball has such random results that anything can happen.

the Cards have certainly elevated winning-while-not-being-the-better-team to an art form over the past several years.

Have you learned nothing from 2011?

Let's be realistic here: Results in baseball are extremely random. The best teams win 60% of their games, the worst teams 40%. Who wins a 7 game series is not easily predictable.

Ah, c'mon guys, I was kidding. I'm really looking forward to the NLCS. It should be really good.

I wasn't bashing you, by any means.  I was just reminding people of the improbable Cardinals run in 2011.

Pythagorean records:

San Francisco: 88-74
St. Louis: 93-69

The Cardinals aren't the worse team here.

Mark this down as the first step in my becoming a real baseball fan; there's been a strongly negative swing in my opinion of the Yankees as a result of my beloved Orioles' unfortunate loss. There's a hint of passion there, it's up to the O's to build on that :P

    Good news! The big winners are usually some mathematical runts who "should" have been knocked out in the first round, but just had too much heart to lose. It's gonna be us! ;D

Well, clearly you all should listen to me. :P

Det in 7
SF in 7

Good.

Fister playing serious tap-dancer so far.

Haha wow. A shame that it's the Yankees but got to love Raul.

Jeter out for year, Yanks down 1-0, Verlander twice lurking...

I hate that for Jeter.  I don't like the Yankees, but Derek Jeter is one of my favorite players in all of baseball.  With his absence, the Yanks down 1-0, and Verlander up potentially twice, and A-Rod's apparent struggles, all of that doesn't spell good words for The Empire.  They're not out of it, but Detroit has to be licking their chops right about now!

I can describe every World Series going back into at least the 1960s in some detail, but for the rest of my life, if someone asks me about 2012, I'll just say, "Oh, that one was tainted, so I never bothered to learn."

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Yeah, I'm out for this playoffs as well. "The Call" and the umpires' and league's pride in not caring whether or not they made the right call or screwed anyone over was the climax of a building culture amongst the umpires that they are the show and that they matter more than the game and the actual results be damned so long as they end up in the paper and 'stick together.' And Selig can't be bothered to do anything because he's too busy sticking both hands over his ears and saying "Strange, I don't hear anyone saying that more instant replay would be a good thing!" It all has turned me off completely. I love the sport of baseball to my core. It sickens me what it looks like under these fools. I'm takin' in the local indy team next year, and if these clowns ever prove they care, I may come back, and I have every right to feel that way.

As a Blue Jays fan, I do not approve of this year's playoffs.

But how do you feel about the playoffs this year?  Excited heh?

Anyway, sorry Giants fan, it was a nice season.  Good luck in the off season.

Giants, Game 3: 14 baserunners, 1 run
Cardinals, Game 4: 15 baserunners, 8 runs

eep

It's okay, though; the Giants haven't lost in Barry Zito's last 12 starts.

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and the Braves had won Medlen's last 23 starts.

The Cardinals are going to repeat. They just don't lose.

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Barry Zito RENAISSANCE

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     Zito comes through for 13 straight. Our starting rotation has incredible talent; it just hasn't been that consistent this year.

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ok Joe Morgan

Game 7

:(

Well this looks silly now. :D

can still easily pull a 2005 Astros.

Xahar's Zito/Giants pictures are just hilarious. Proud to say that I have a Barry Zito poster on my wall.

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     End of the 3rd, 7-0 Giants. Reality seems stranger than fiction.

St Louis quit after Game 4, plain and simple.

     Who wouldn't quit when they're getting hammered into the ground? Nobody respects the Bay Area teams, but titles > respect in the end.

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Incredible.

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Clearly I jinxed them with this post.Indeed.  Cardinals WS wins=11 (5 in the last 50 years)  Giants WS wins=6 (1 in the last 50 years)

Hopefully they'll win their 7th in the next couple of weeks.

     Thanks for the support. I've always admired the St. Louis Cardinals, but you have to play those games sometimes. Not every opponent can be the Dodgers and the Yankees. :P

It'll be yet another WS nobody cares about, but White Sox + Cardinals collapses make this a worthwhile season in my book.

there should have been a rain delay in the 9th inning.

Remind me how far the Cubs got?

I'm so glad St. Louis isn't in............GO TIGERS!

When Holliday came up to bat, KNBR broadcasters were speculating that the game would be delayed if he hit a ball that couldn't be fielded.

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Mike Trout just got robbed of a Gold Glove by Adam Jones. What fucking horseshit. Trout: 2.2 dWAR. Jones: -1.3 dWAR.