Prof: We made it. This has been such a long, exhausting week for your friendly neighborhood Prof. I’ve been a grumpy Gertie.
We’re transitioning out of the regular season and heading straight into the postseason. While Scout might have had a problem staying engaged with baseball this year, I have had a heck of a time discovering the new rising stars in the game. Guys like Super Rookie Pete Alonso, the Maple Maddux Mike Soroka, my GQ child Max Fried, Vlad Jr, Cavan Biggio, and many more. (Fried maybe not as much, because I’ve been a fan for a while. I’m just thrilled other people are discovering him.) I can’t wait to see what happens during the offseason, and I can’t wait to see what happens with these guys next year.
It’s Girl Power Friday, of course, and today I’m showcasing Lana Del Rey. I’m absolutely in love with her newest album. It’s absolutely gorgeous, lush, and has some of her best songs. She’s even having a little fun in some of them. Is she Dusty Springfield on benzos? Maybe. But I like her. Style icon and ethereal goddess. Let’s float our way into the weekend.
Cubs 5, Pirates 9 – Scouts: The Cubs were already done a few days ago, but this latest loss really just put the final nail in the coffin for Chicago. Joe Musgrove allowed 3 runs over 6 innings, but it was still more than adequate when Jose Quintana coughed up 7 runs, 5 earned and 12 hits over 5 innings to allow the Pirate sweep to complete.
Spiders 8, White Sox 0 – Scouts: Yesterday I said the Cleveland didn’t need to panic and they still were right in this thing. Now, it’s time to panic. Cleveland picked up an embarrassing loss to the 18 games below .500 White Sox and have now fallen to two games back of the Wild Card chase. Aaron Civale lasted just 3.1 innings allowing 4 runs on 3 hits, and the bullpen didn’t provide any relief from there. Guys, I hate to tell you this, but you are sort of running out of games here, and now you need Oakland and Tampa to choke big time.
Brewers 5, Reds 3 – Prof: It’s funny; a couple of weeks ago we were talking about how the Brewers were slipping out of the playoff model. Now they are solidly in no matter what, and are only a couple of games away from clenching the actual NL Central crown. As Ron Washington always says, “That’s what baseball do.” You know what else baseball do? Double with the bases loaded to score three runs, followed by another RBI double. That’s what the Brewers did. Oh, and Josh Hader gets his 37th save of the year.
Marlins 4, Mets 2 – Scouts: The Mets put up a good fight this year, and have done a lot better than expected, considering they are the Mets and it’s their life mission to embody Sam Lloy’ds character “Ted” from Scrubs. (Fuck cancer, keep fighting buddy!)
Twins 10, Tigers 4 – Prof: Jonathan Schoop has hit his 300th career dinger on a team that has demolished the major league team homer record this season. Fitting that a team in Minnesota would swing a big axe. Anyway, your AL Central champs are now at 99 victories for the year, and show no signs of stopping their winning ways. Sorry, El Tigres, hopefully the bleeding will stop soon.
Red Sox 5, Rangers 7 – Prof: Bit of a controversy in this game. Mike Minor, whose had a bit of a career resurgence this season, went deep into the ninth and was able to secure 200 strikeouts, which is the first time he’s ever done this. Now, he was able to get that 200th K because his teammates let a foul pop drop on purpose. Some people think it’s cheap. I think it’s your teammates down to ride with you no matter what. It’s cheap? Cry about it. Play better and don’t allow grand slams and nine strikeouts. Minor did the work. He still had to strike out the guy after the ball was dropped. So get over yourself, Boston. If you don’t like it, beat a team who has lost as many games as you’ve won, and then do something about it.
Dodgers 1, Padres 0 – Prof: Los Angeles knows that to win, you don’t need to hit fifty home runs or score a thousand runs. You don’t need to strike out every other guy and make Spiderman catches on the regular. You just need to play good baseball, day in and day out. That’s what the Dodgers do. This is how they’ve been able to win the NL West every year, including this season. Of course, it helps to have one of the greatest pitchers of all time on the bump going six innings and striking out seven. It also helps to have a hit machine like Max Muncy going up to bat for you – it was Muncy’s RBI single that scored LA’s only run.
Rockies 3, Giants 8 – Scouts: Tyler Beede was having a very good final start, (3.1 innings 0 hits, 7 strikeouts) that is until his left oblique forced his early exit. What a crappy way to end your rookie season. At least the team was able to parlay that start into a win, thanks in part to a 4 run 8th inning that featured a Mike Yastrzemski double to get things started.
Phillies 3, Nationals 6 – Prof: The already rocky divorce of Bryce Harper and the Washington Nationals has gotten downright ugly. Numerous reports have a contingent of Nats fans wishing bodily harm on Krew Harper, the Phillies’ outfielder’s infant son. I sincerely hope this is untrue and that it was only one drunk idiot, but to be perfectly honest with you, people of all fanbases are disgusting sometimes. Kayla Harper, Bryce’s wife, even stated that some former fans would send disturbing messages in her DMs while she was pregnant. I understand being upset with the guy because he left town, but do you have to attack his family, including an innocent baby? If you want to knock him down a peg, just boo him as he gets shelled by his former teammates. That’s what Stephen Strasburg did, going six innings with ten Ks (including Harper). The Curly Dubs keep their hold on a wild card berth with the victory.
Astros 3, Angels 4 – Scouts: You never know what you are going to get when Wade Miley steps on the bump. 3 runs in 4 innings wasn’t what Houston was hoping for in his final start on the season. Houston will need Miley to step it up if they hope to go far into the post-season.
Athletics 3, Mariners 1 – Scouts: The A’s don’t have things completely locked up, but the win coupled with the Cleveland team’s loss put them in a really good position going forward. Their magic number is down to 1 with 3 more to go against Seattle. Matt Chapman hit his 36th homer on the year to put the A’s ahead for good in the second. It was the end of an era as Felix Hernandez has probably pitched his final game in Seattle.
Fan Interference 
If you suffer a season-ending injury and your team goes 14-2 without you, clinching a post-season berth in the process, should you really be in the conversation for MVP? Looking at you, Christian Yelich…
Anthony Rendon won’t get any serious consideration for MVP this year, but without him, the Nats are definitely playing out the string this weekend, and probably aren’t even a .500 team.
I commented on the Harper in-game heckling yesterday, but if Kayla Harper’s claims of people wishing autism or worse on her unborn child are true, then those people can die in a fire.
Interesting weekend ahead. Nats are a game ahead of the Brewers for WC1, and have the same record as the Cards. Nats lose the tiebreaker with both, so can only guarantee hosting the wildcard game if they sweep the desperate Spiders. My dream scenario is that the Brewers and Cards finish tied for the NL Central, meaning a one-game playoff for them on Monday, with the Nats playing the loser on Tuesday.
As for where that Tuesday game would be, I personally don’t think the Nats should sell out for the prize of hosting; I’d rather see them have Strasburg, Scherzer, and Corbin all available to pitch in that game, with Strasburg starting, as he’s just been better down the stretch than Max has. NL wild card teams are something like 2-5 at home since they started having a wild card game, and the Nats have lost NLDS Game 5s at home in 2012, 2016, and 2017, so the team and the fans really don’t need that level of agita, anyway.
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Oh I don’t know, SG, Yelich has been out for weeks and still led the majors in many important categories. Dude was ballin’.
But Anthony Rendon is THE man. I think of him as the Freddie of your team. Solid guy, always plays at an MVP level but never quite gets there.
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Not denying Yelich has had an outstanding year, and if the award were called “Most Outstanding Player” he or Bellinger would be clear favorites.
If you’ll indulge my (semi tongue in cheek) pedantry, however, it’s “Most Valuable Player”, and when Rendon was out of the lineup due to injury in late April/early May, the Nats went 5-11, while the Brew Crew went 14-2 without Yelich.
Rendon won’t win, so I’ll settle for him still being a Nat in 2020.
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Yeah… But would we deny that overall, Mike Trout is incredibly valuable to the game of baseball, and yet the Angels never even get close to the playoffs?
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The A’s finish up at the Mariners. Their magic number to clinch a WC is 1.
The Rays finish up at the Jays. Their magic number to clinch a WC is 2.
The Indians are not only 2 games behind the Rays (3 behind the A’s), they finish at the Nationals, who are playing to clinch home field for the NL WC and a far better team than either the Mariners or Blue Jays.
It’ll take both an immediate turnaround by the Indians as well as an epic flop by either the Rays or A’s for one of the current top 2 seeds not to be playing next week.
(One might also point out that a big part of the Indians’ 93 wins is an 18-1 record vs the Tigers. Still, I sympathize with their fans as my guys won over 90 last year and had to watch the playoffs on TV same as me. I don’t sympathize with their front office as they seemed to take their division for granted and let their team get weaker compared to last year/did not make moves to strengthen their lineup until mid season.)
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I’m guessing you were just testing to see who’s paying attention, but Schoop’s HR was the Twins 300th of the season, not the 300th of his career.
The 10 – 4 loss helped add to the Tiggers enormous negative run differential. After 158 games they are – 326 runs, an average of -2.06 per game. Only 13 teams in MLB history have averaged more than – 2 / game for an entire season and the only 2 teams to do it in the expansion era (starting in 1961) are the 1962 Mets at – 2.06 & 2003 Tiggers at -2.08.
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The beauty and pain of writing this so late at night is that I often misread the factoids. Thanks for the assist, Sparty. I thought it was weird anyway but again, late night bloggin’. Lol
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So I have to also share a bit of baseball history. 20 years ago today was the last game played at Tiger Stadium. The Tigers catcher was Brad Ausmus, center fielder was Gabe Kapler and 1st baseman was current head of the MLBPA Tony Clark. The last out was a strike out by Carlos Beltran.
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