Scouts: Sorry for my absence the past few days, I had a mini holiday and was unable to write up the daily post. I’m back now, and should be good to go throughout the rest of the season.
Rays 5, Astros 2 – Scouts: After all that worry over a losing, cheating Astros club advancing in the playoffs, and the arrogance they showed with their “respect me” attitude, the Astros are now 1 game away from getting swept and being forced to go home. Tampa, the top seed, in the AL is showing themselves to be even better than a lot of people thought they were. Tampa doesn’t have a lot of flash. But they win. They play solid defense, have excellent pitching, and timely and relentless hitting. They don’t have any household names on their squad, although that may be changing in the near future. We may very well know tonight if the Rays advance to the World Series as the two teams will face off once again. The Rays will be sending Tyler Glasnow in against Zack Greinke, whom I assume will not be intentionally flashing his pitches.
Braves 8, Dodgers 7 – Scouts: Wow, now this is surprising. Entering the series, the Dodgers appeared to be able to pretty much walk it into to the World Series, but then they ran into an absolute brick wall in Atlanta. The Braves jump to a 2-0 series lead and have the Dodgers playing on their heels. Clayton Kershaw was a late game 2 scratch with back spasms and Tony Gonsolin stepped in and wasn’t very effective giving up 5 runs on 3 hits in 4.1 innings. Freddie Freeman got things kicked off with a two run homer in the 4th, and added a RBI single as part of a 4 run 5th inning. Atlanta kept the pressure on, with runs in the 7th and a solo homer by Ozie Albies in the 9th. And all those runs were needed as LA attempted a comeback in the bottom of the 9th, scoring 4 runs before AJ Pollock grounded out to end the game and the threat. Game 3 will feature Julio Urias for the Dodgers facing off against Kyle Wright for the Braves and will be absolutely vital if the Dodgers hope to get back into it.
Fan Interference 
A Braves/Rays World Series could generate some record TV ratings.
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Yeah, but outside of Atlanta and Tampa Bay you’d need an electron microscope to measure them.
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Agreed. I didn’t mean record in a positive sense.
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Tampa’s ballplayers deserve to be household names, but if you’re playing in the great gunite wart it’s kinda tough to attract attention. If things stay as they are, this will be one of the least watched World Series on record, and it won’t merely be a matter of the market sizes or locations. Between the attenuated season, the pandemic, the dulling effect of designatedhitterball (which seems like a logical extension of the pandemic) and the caciques of baseball’s atrocious ideas of when to televise a game, once the Dodgers for market involvement, and the Astros for the frisson of spite, are eliminated, the level of interest will be, I fear, pretty low.
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