Monthly Archives: October 2015

2015 World Series: Mets vs Royals

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The 2015 MLB World Series begins on Tuesday night in Kansas City, with the home town Royals looking to go one better than last year against the New York Mets.

The Royals hadn’t made it to the postseason at all since their triumph in 1985 prior to their heart-breaking 4-3 series loss to the San Francisco Giants a year ago. Few people expected them to get so far and the surprising nature of their postseason run meant there were plenty of doubters who saw them slipping back down the standings as we came into the 2015 season.

They’ve proved them all wrong, including myself, and now they look like a team that is primed to build on all of the lessons learned last time and to take the final step to glory.

The only problem the Royals have in being a team of destiny is that there’s another club who can lay claim to the same title.

The New York Mets have had a similarly long wait for another World Series victory having last taken the prize one year after the Royals (1986). They have at least made the postseason on a number of occasions since then, but not since 2006. Despite a devastating 4-3 NLCS loss to the St Louis Cardinals that year, things still seemed bright in Queens with a new ballpark opening and every reason to think that the team was going to keep competing for years to come.

Instead, the financial crash caught out the Mets’ owners and the big-market team started acting more like paupers, to the increasing anger of their fans.

2015 was thought to herald more of the same disappointment, yet they surprised many by starting out well and the addition of outfielder Yoenis Cespedes at the trade deadline suggested that they may be able to last the pace. Sure enough, a 20-8 record in August saw them take a commanding lead in the NL East and here they are.

Having swept past the Chicago Cubs in the NLCS, the New York Mets come into the World Series full of confidence and their exciting young starting pitchers give them a great chance of proving correct the old adage of pitching being the difference in the postseason.

The series really is too close to call, with the advantage the Mets have in starting pitching being levelled out by the Royals’ proven ability to stick to their plan and get the better of an ace in the end. Both teams have shown great skill on the bases in the play-offs so far and that should set up an exciting contest, alongside the incredible story of the Mets’ Daniel Murphy seeking to extend his scarcely believable home run exploits.

America doesn’t move out of day-light saving time until this Sunday, so the first four games of the World Series – Tuesday night, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday – will get going at just gone midnight UK time, with just a four-hour time difference to contend with. The potential three games afterwards would begin an hour later on Sunday and the following Tuesday and Wednesday. Coverage can be found in the UK on the BT Sport range of channels on online via the MLB.TV subscription.

Division Series: Some teams have a leg-up, some have a leg broken

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We’re two games in to each of the four Division Series and there have been plenty of talking points to set up the rest of each series.

The Toronto Blue Jays are the team in the biggest hole, trailing the Texas Rangers 2-0 having lost the first two games in their home ballpark. The second game on Friday night was a real killer as their 14-inning effort went for nought.

Both teams had their issues with the strike zone being called and there was certainly some variance there during the course of the game. However, the MLB Network coverage was no help at all. On numerous occasions their commentators, Bob Costas and Jim Kaat, confidently complained about the strike/ball call only to then see a replay including their ‘Strike Zone’ box that showed either the umpire had got it spot on or that the pitch was very close (so hardly a grave error by the umpire).

Time and again, they chose to make excuses when the evidence before them didn’t match their original comments, only making themselves look ridiculous in the process. Kaat was particularly bad at this and it was symptomatic of a disappointingly poor presentation by MLB Network that can be summed up as being ‘by the over-50s, for the over-50s’ (right down to the pre-advert music that included such current acts as Phil Collins).

MLB knows its audience in America tends to be on the older side, but they rightly have the ambition to market the game for a younger audience too. It’s a shame that despite bringing in features such as Statcast, the strikezone box and their defensive shift graphics, the overall tone of their own TV coverage is old fashioned.

In the other American League series, the Kansas City Royals won a crucial Game Two at their Kauffman Stadium to level the series at a game apiece. Every team is desperate to avoid losing the first two games at home, but in the Royals’ case it was more imperative than ever to ensure Game Three couldn’t seal their fate.

Dallas Keuchel will start for the Houston Astros on Sunday night (a 21.05. BST start, although unfortunately on MLB Network coverage) and he has been unbeatable at home this season. His home record – 15-0 with a 1.46 ERA – shows just how tough it will be for the Royals, yet, as you always find in these extreme situations, there is a positive spin that they can put on it. If they can somehow find a way to beat him, or perhaps more likely to knock him out of the game and then get the better of the Astros’ bullpen, that will be a huge blow for Houston and you’d fancy the Royals to go on and take the series from there.

It will be a similar scenario in Chicago for the St Louis Cardinals. They have to face the Cubs’ Jake Arrieta in Game Three, whose masterful display in the Wild Card win against the Pittsburgh Pirates only enhanced the seemingly invincible force that surrounds him right now. The Cardinals at least now Arrieta can’t knock them out on Monday, although a 2-0 series lead rather than a 1-1 series split would have made a potential Game Three loss easier to recover from.

The added ingredient here is this being the first ever play-off game between the two teams at Wrigley Field. Cubs-Cardinals is one of the game’s most publicised rivalries and I’m sure that I am far from the only baseball fan who didn’t realise until a few days ago that the two had never actually met in the postseason during their 100+ year existences.

The LA Dodgers and New York Mets have their own rivalry due to both claiming a link back to the Brooklyn Dodgers. As two teams from mass-media markets, they didn’t need anything extra to hype this series up but their Game Two on Saturday produced it anyway thanks to Chase Utley’s slide into second that left the Mets’ Ruben Tejada with a fractured fibula.

We’ve been here before recently with the Pirates’ Jung Ho Kang suffering a similar fate to Tejada in mid-September. In this case, it was a decisive moment in the contest as it fed into a game-winning inning for the Dodgers that allowed them to draw level in the series 1-1. The Mets are rightfully aggrieved by the incident, although had the shoe been on the other foot, or more accurately the protective splint on the other leg, they would be making the same supportive comments as the Dodgers in the aftermath.

The added issue here came in replay being used to call Utley safe and the ruling that it wasn’t a ‘neighbourhood play’. It has long been accepted that an infielder turning a double-play just needs to be close to second base to record the out, rather than actually touching it, precisely because of the risk of injury that is inherent in forcing the player on the pivot to leave their legs in harm’s way. Consequently those plays cannot be challenged on replay and the explanations as to why it was allowed here have not been convincing. It’s definitely an area that needs to be clarified or else you will just see more players in hospital.

So, we have a bit of controversy thrown into the mix here even before the Mets’ self-made controversy around Game Three starter Matt Harvey. Much was made about a potential innings limit on the ace pitcher following his return from elbow surgery, something stirred up in part by Harvey’s own apparent taste for the limelight. Actions always speak louder than words and we all know how dominant Harvey can be. How he performs on the mound at Citi Field on Monday night could go a long way to determining the outcome of this series.

Division Series schedule

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The Houston Astros and Chicago Cubs came through exciting Wild Card games to complete the Division Series line-up.

Start times have been announced for games up until Sunday. Whilst this is the time of year when more Brits will be prepared to sacrifice sleep to watch late games, it’s good to see that six of the contests over the next few days are early starts and therefore during the evening for us in the UK.

The pre-midnight BST games are as follows.

Thursday 8 October

20.37. Texas at Toronto ALDS Gm1 (Gallardo – Price) *BT Sport/ESPN

Friday 9 October

17.45. Texas at Toronto ALDS Gm2 (Hamels – Stroman) *BT Sport/ESPN
20.45. Houston at Kansas City ALDS Gm2 (TBA – Cueto) *BT Sport/ESPN
23.45. Chicago Cubs at St Louis NLDS Gm1 (Lester – Lackey) *BT Sport1

Saturday 12 October

22.37. Chicago Cubs at St Louis NLDS Gm2 (TBA – TBA) *BT Sport1

Sunday 11 October

21.10. Kansas City at Houston ALDS Gm3 (Volquez – TBA) *BT Sport/ESPN

All of these games are available to watch or listen to live via an MLB.TV subscription. TV coverage of MLB comes courtesy of the BT Sport and ESPN channels and these are highlighted above, as are any games that are available to view online for free via MLB.com. The above list of games just shows those starting before midnight UK time. The full schedule of MLB games can be found on MLB.com.

BGB Fantasy League 2015: Final Week

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After 25 weeks of competition, the winner of the BaseballGB Fantasy League has been crowned. After 14 teams set out dreaming of glory, which team has lifted the (imaginary) trophy?

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
NE Riverkings 27 5 22 2 .195 .616 3 5 58 1 1.39 1.06 4
Mighty Slugs 18 8 26 0 .267 .812 4 3 61 2 2.61 1.00 8

 

Congratulations to the Slugs, who lived up to their Mighty name by defeating the Riverkings 8-4 in the final. In a matchup which was a little closer than the final score suggests, the hitters and pitchers shared the load, winning four categories each. Seven different Slugs batters homered, including two from Duda, while Moustakas drove in five and teamed with Heyward and Pillar to take average and OPS. Lester was the pick of the starters with a win and a miniscule WHIP, while Porcello struck out 15 and Carson Smith and Soria had a hold each.

The Riverkings had seven runs from Choo, while Zobrist and Dozier swiped bases. Britton had two saves while de Grom, Harvey and Hendriks helped take ERA. Well done to the Slugs on an impressive season and a tip of the hat to the Riverkings for putting together a great playoff run.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Norwich No II 24 11 25 5 .265 .819 2 5 46 0 1.76 0.87 6
Jesmond Dennings 27 8 21 6 .276 .852 1 3 53 0 3.88 1.25 5

In the matchup for third place, Norwich squeezed past Jesmond 6-5. Dickerson, Lindor and Springer each had two homers and helped take RBIs, while Odorizzi had a win and teamed with Syndergaard to take ERA and WHIP. Rondon and Jansen each had two saves. Chris Davis scored sven runs for Jesmond, teaming with Arenado and Phillips to take average and OPS. Richards struck out 13.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Newcastle Knights 28 12 30 6 .286 .898 4 4 37 0 3.73 1.10 8
Weston-Super-Sox 28 7 18 4 .272 .841 3 3 58 3 2.78 1.26 3

 

The Knights fell a run shy of an offensive sweep in an 8-3 win against the Sox in the consolation final. Encarnacion hit four homers, while Betts and Pujols belted three each. Correa led the team with seven RBIs and joined Blackmon in stealing two bases.

Colome had two wins, while Jepsen and Gregerson each collected a pair of saves. Estrada and Salazar helped take WHIP. Goldschmidt scored seven runs for the Sox, while Verlander struck out 14, Strop had two holds and Lynn helped take ERA.

 

Team R HR RBI SB AVG OPS W SV K HLD ERA WHIP Score
Batteries Essential 25 9 31 8 .301 .888 2 0 30 2 4.28 1.37 7
Iron Men 16 5 13 3 .256 .789 3 0 26 2 2.41 1.13 3

 

Batteries Essential ended the season on a high, defeating Iron Men 7-3 to finish seventh. Machado scored eight runs, homered five times and knocked in eight as well as stealing two bases, while Cabrera, Martin and Fielder helped take average in an offensive sweep. Kennedy struck out 11. Keuchel, Kluber and Cole each had a win and helped take ERA and WHIP.

THAT’S ALL, FOLKS!

This concludes the 2015 fantasy season. Thanks to all of the managers for taking part. Now we can all sit back and enjoy the playoffs without worrying about our pitchers’ ERAs and having to set lineups.

Hopefully we will see many – if not all – of you back for next season. As soon as the league can be renewed, I will be in touch. Thanks for playing, congratulations to the Slugs and for the rest of us, there’s always next year.

The 2015 MLB Wild Card games

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Twenty MLB teams saw their 2015 season come to an end on Sunday, but for the other 10 the excitement has only just begun.

It’s rare that we get a postseason that disappoints in MLB and, based on this year’s entry list, we’re going to be in for another treat this time around.

It all gets going late on Tuesday night (technically 1 a.m. on Wednesday morning for us in the UK) with the American League Wild Card between the Houston Astros and the New York Yankees, followed the next night by the National League version between the Chicago Cubs and Pittsburgh Pirates.

Baseball is a game for the traditionalists and so the introduction of the Wild Card ‘play-in’ game was, like most changes, not universally welcomed in 2012. However, it has been a success from the off, producing exciting races down the stretch in the regular season and then the thrilling, excruciating all-or-nothing Wild Card games themselves.

I’ve felt the bitter disappointment that this cruel contest can bring having suffered through the Oakland A’s Wild Card loss to the Kansas City Royals last year. It’s a crushing blow, as if you’ve hardly made the play-offs at all.

From a personal point of view, the Royals’ run to the World Series made it all the harder to take, only enhancing the feeling that it could have been my team in the Fall Classic. Still, the Royals’ success, and that of their nemesis the San Francisco Giants – who also got there having come out alive from their Wild Card showdown – showed that whilst a team would always prefer to qualify without the Wild Card worry, so long as they win it they have as good a chance as any to go all the way.

That will be the mantra for all four Wild Card teams this year.

Although this is far from being a vintage New York Yankees team, the aura of the fabled Pinstripes may still come into play now they’re in the play-offs again after – for them – a long two-year absence.

The Houston Astros meanwhile have been one of the great surprise stories of the season. We all knew that their recent years of abject uselessness, handing them a bevy of high amateur draft picks with which to stock up on the best young talent, was designed to bring about better days such as these, but few of us realised that those better days would come so soon.

Dallas Keuchel, Houston’s starting pitcher for the Wild Card game, may have a lumberjack beard, but the only thing that’s merely “OK” about him is the abbreviation of his home state, Oklahoma. The Astros’ ace has been outstanding this season and the left-hander should match up well against the left-leaning (in the handedness rather than political sense) Yankee batting lineup. The question mark is simply whether pitching after only three days’ rest knocks him out of his usual stride.

There are more question marks against the Yankees’ expensively acquired Japanese pitcher Masahiro Tanaka. Injury fears have plagued him for the past year or so and he’s been effective rather than outstanding this year in his second MLB season. This would be a good time to show that he was worth the considerable investment.

In the National League Wild Card, it’s the Chicago Cubs that take the Houston Astros role. Like their old NL Central rival, the Cubs deliberately chucked several seasons away as they rebuilt a team that had got old and expensive, and have climbed back into competitiveness earlier than most expected.

It’s difficult to imagine anyone coming into a Wild Card game in more relentlessly brilliant form than the Cubs’ pitcher Jake Arrieta will do. In 12 starts from 4 August to 2 October, he has allowed a total of four earned runs. Honestly, four earned runs. Those 12 starts include a no-hitter against the NL West division-winning LA Dodgers, and two impressive appearances against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

He’s been so good that Pirates fans have been wondering out loud whether they have much of a shot of winning the game ever since it became clear he would be lined up by the Cubs to start it.

The Pirates have good reason to fear yet another dominating start by Arrieta, but they know they’ve got a great young pitcher on the mound too in Gerrit Cole. This might just be the start in which things don’t quite go Arrieta’s way. Certainly the Pirates would like to believe that he’s due an off-night and, as is the way in this Wild Card game showdown, that could be all it takes for Arrieta’s excellent season to – whilst far from going to waste considering all he and the Cubs have achieved to get here – come to a disappointing end.

This is the third consecutive year in which Pittsburgh has hosted the NL Wild Card game, so everyone – from manager Clint Hurdle, the players and the PNC Park fans - knows exactly what to expect. They beat the Cincinnati Reds in 2013 and lost to the Giants last year, so they’ve got direct experience – if it was really needed – of just what this game means.

After the A’s heart-breaking meltdown a year ago, there’s a part of me that’s glad to be able to look forward to the two Wild Card games this time around without the potential emotional distress of tiredly peering out from behind a cushion at 5.45 a.m. as your hopes of glory – we were 7-3 up heading into the bottom of the eighth inning, don’t forget, then took an 8-7 lead in the top of the twelfth – crumble to dust.

But then again, oh how I wish we were there with the chance to experience the other side of it.

For two teams the Wild Card play-in will seem like a cruel joke. For the other two it will seem like the sweetest thing imaginable, an exhilarating start to a potential World Series and a season that will never be forgotten.

Both games are live from 1 a.m. on BT Sport/ESPN and online for MLB.TV subscribers (don’t forget, whilst U.S. fans are ‘blacked out’ from watching the postseason live on MLB.TV, those restrictions don’t apply in the UK).