Are we ready for some baseball?

The World Series starts tomorrow night. It’s a Blue and Orange series or a White and Black Series, depending on which color’s you prefer to go with.

People keep asking me, what team are you rooting for? I say, Sabres and Bills and Bruins. With the Yankees not in the Series and since I have no real animosity or affection for either of these teams, I can’t pick a favorite. I’ve already switched the mindset to hockey, and it’ll stay there until February 20th. That’s when pitchers and catchers report.

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World Series bound

For the first time since 1985 the Royals are going to the World Series. Last time they went, they won it all. While I am well aware that past performance doesn’t guarantee future success, I would not mind if the Royals won the World Series. Even if they did boo Cano and were rude to his family. It’s in the past and they beat the Orioles. Swept them actually, 4 games, 4 wins.

Right now I am waiting on the winner of the NLCS. The Giants and Cards are currently tied in the series and the Cards are ahead in this game. No sweep in this series, I am leaning in favor of the Giants, but I don’t really have a favorite.

And the winners are ….

not the teams I picked. Well not all of them.

The Detroit Tigers were my pick and the Orioles swept them. I also picked the Dodgers and the Cardinals beat them, 3-1. On the other and, the Royals swept the Angels. Giants and Nationals, who I didn’t really care about, went 3-1, with the Giants advancing.

Next up the championship series. And the teams in it are, Kansas City Royals versus the Baltimore Orioles (Series starts 10-10). In the national league it’s the San Francisco Giants vs the Saint Louis Cardinals (Series starts 10-11).

My picks are as follows, Royals over Orioles. I don’t want the Royals to win as much as I want the Orioles to lose. Giants over Cardinals. Again I want the Cardinals to lose more than I want the Giants to win, the Cardinals were supposed to beat the Red Sox last year and failed. So they need to suffer defeat again.

After this series it will be the World Series. If things go the way I want, it’ll be a Royals vs Giants competition. I’m looking forward to it.

The Post-season begins now

The ALDS starts tonight with games between the Tigers vs Orioles (at Oriole Park, Baltimore MD) and the Royals vs Angels (at Angel Stadium, Anaheim, CA). My picks are Tigers for reasons already stated and Royals. I picked Royals for the Wild Card and am sticking with them.

The NLDS starts Friday, October 3 with the Giants vs Nationals ( at Nationals Park, Washington DC) and Cardinals vs Dodgers (at Dodger Stadium, Los Angeles CA). I had already picked the Dodgers and for the NL wild card I picked the Pirates who just happened to get shut out by Bumgarner. A rather amazing feat when you consider he also batted (NL = no DH). I am once again conflicted with my pick. The thing is I don’t follow the NL and have no particular likes or dislikes concerning either of these teams. The Nationals also have an amazing pitcher who in the very last game of the regular season pitched a no-hitter. Even though I said I would pick, I think for this game I will lean back, put my feet up, pop open a cold one and just enjoy watching baseball.

This series is a best of 5. I’ll be back when one team wins 3 if not before.

Yankees are out but baseball is still alive

The regular season is over and the post season is about to begin. Even though the Yankees are out of it, I am still baseball obsessed and will be posting my thoughts about the games ahead, including who I have decided to root for this post-season.

Most years, I root against the team that kept the Yankees out of the post-season, or beat them in the post-season, for instance if they didn’t make it past the ALDS or ALCS. Or the Red Sox. It’s always good to root against the Red Sox. This year however, the team that kept the Yankees out of the post-season was the Yankees. They just didn’t win enough games. There are some teams that I absolutely won’t root for, like the Braves, who aren’t in it, and the Orioles who are, but don’t have the most wins in the American League. An important fact that I had to bring out.

The final teams haven’t been decided, since they now have this stupid 1 game Wild Card playoff. The fourth team is YTBD. The teams competing are: Kansas City Royals and Oakland A’s (9/30) in the AL and Pittsburgh Pirates vs. San Francisco Giants (10/1) in the NL. I like the Oakland A’s, they were Hunter’s first team but they have Lester, which makes me want to hate them, but the Royals have Shields, which makes me want to root against them. I have the opposite problem with the NL teams. Pirates have Russell Martin, who is adorable, I mean a really good catcher and longtime favorite player of mine. The Giants have Buster Posey, who is also a really good catcher and fun to watch. The minuses here are the Giants are ORANGE and the Pirates are YELLOW. Also Russell has gone from being clean-shaven to a scruffy little thing. Since I promised to pick one I am going with the Royals (can’t get past the Lester dislike) and the Pirates (Russell is my boo!).

For the ALDS series between the Tigers and Orioles (starts 10/2), I am going with the Detroit Tigers, because, well Baltimore. The NLDS between the St. Louis Cardinals and Los Angeles Dodgers (begins 10/3) is also hard, normally I would go with the Dodgers because they are the blue team, and the Cardinals failed to beat the Red Sox last year (the rivalry is alive!) and they have Don Mattingly. But they are LA soooo, all right, I talked myself into it, my pick is the Dodgers.

So there you have it. After the Wild Card is done, I’ll be back to pick my teams for the rest of the Division Series.

Frustration

Before the game last night, I was thinking I should write a post about how the Yankees swept the A’s, I was even going to use my little broom gif. However it was beastly hot and I really didn’t want to sit with my laptop making my lap hotter. So I thought I would type it after the game. In the first inning the Yankees scored 3 runs, the Angels came back and scored 4. On the surface that may not seem too bad, but the Yankees got 3 runs because the Angles committed 2 errors. The Angels got 4 runs without any errors by the Yankees. It was a sloppy inning, Phil did not have very good stuff.

At lot of times Phil gets very low run support, on May 22, a game I was at, the Yankees scored 3 runs. It was enough because Phil held the Royals to 2 runs. Last night he gave up 7 runs. The Yankees scored 8 runs, tying it up in the 7th inning. Then the Angels got a home-run in the bottom of the ninth to win it. Mark Trumbo hit it off Cory Wade. But I don’t blame Cory, as he said:

“He got paid to do just what he did with it — hit it out of the ballpark,” Wade said. “If I throw that same pitch 10 more times, he’s going to hit it out 10 more times. It was a pretty bad pitch.”

That gives the Angels 7 wins in a row, and breaks the Yankees winning streak. Tonight Andy pitches, hopefully he can shut down the Angels.

In the third inning Nick and Curtis collided. I confess, I laughed, sorry guys. They both got up, the ball went into Swish’s glove and then bounced out when they collided. Curtis was up first and scrambling after the ball.

Granderson and Swisher collide

Anticipation

As I sit here browsing around on the web, I’m not really waiting for the game, since I have to go to church and will miss part of it, but I read this tweet from a while back. I tweeted it during the game, I remember tweeting it.

Moustakas looks like an angry mouse. #mousetacos

— B. F. ⚾❤⚾ (@Foxx_UES) May 24, 2012

Someone else had given Moustakas the nickname “Moosetacos”. But as I was looking at his picture I got the image of a cartoon mouse. An angry cartoon mouse. Just the way he has this fuzzy facial hair, it’s dark against his fair skin and is scowling. If you are reading this and shaking your head, I understand. Well anyway, I have things to do, so I am going to sign off and set my DVR.

Over the slump

The Yankees and I have both been in a slump, there is no reason, I just haven’t really felt like writing here. As you can see I haven’t even written about the games I have been to, my last post was on May 6. I went to the game on Thursday, May 10 by myself and ended sitting next to a creeper. I didn’t write about it because I didn’t want that to dominate the post. I was so annoyed and yet I’m sure that while I was still annoyed he had completely forgotten he had even talked to me. I had bought those tickets because I was buying tickets from a new source so Kasey and I could go to the game Saturday, May 19.

We already had tickets for the next Tuesday, so I don’t know why she wanted to go Saturday. It turned out to be a good thing because Tuesday she was sick and couldn’t go. Kasey left Saturday because she had a nail appointment. Yankees were behind and as soon as she left they started scoring runs. Not enough it turned out, but it was kind of fun to watch. Tuesday I asked Col to come since Kasey couldn’t make it, “PHIL IS PITCHING!” She was thrilled I had thought to offer her the extra ticket, she wanted to see Phil pitch. And he got the win bringing his record to 4-5. “He won for you,” I teased her.

Then Wednesday Sarah want to go to the game, that was a pretty amazing game, one time when A-Rod hit a foul, I said “Alex, that way!” and pointed to Monument Park. He responded by hitting the ball into the bleachers, not Monument Park, brat. Then he went on to hit another home run next at bat. The way the Yankees just kept scoring runs.

Now the Yankees are out of their slump, hopefully I’m out of mine too.

He’s BACK!!

~~ Yankees 10, Royals 4 ~~

Yes Nick Swisher was back in the line-up after a week out with a strained hamstring, but I was referring to Phil Hughes. His outings are getting longer and his record is now up to 2-4. Yes I know that doesn’t look great, but today his line was: 6.2 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 1 walk and 7 strike outs. The main thing is how long he lasted, that is encouraging to me, looking at him he looked more at ease, more determined and less uncertain. He threw 115 pitches which means he is being smarter about his pitches. He was in KC so he didn’t get an ovation, but I clapped for him in my living room.

Coming into the 3rd inning they were tied, Yankees scored 6 runs, 4 with a grand slam by Robbie. The Swish added a home run of his own. In the 8th inning Alex hit a 3 run home run. Combination of small ball and long ball.

Three runs were charged to Phil, the last a home run so Boone came in to replace him, the last run was in the 9th inning, a nice try for a rally that didn’t happen.

Game over: Yankees win.

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛

We’ve heard this song before

~~ Yankees 6, Royals 2 ~~

What song? The sweet melody of CC Sabathia coming in and stopping a losing skid. After losing to the Royals, their first win at home, Yankees came back strong. CC’s line: 8 IP, 7 hits, 2 runs and 5 strike outs, bringing his record to 4-0. Then David Robertson comes in to close out the game. Not a save situation, but still a scoreless inning.

After two runs in the first inning, the Yankees didn’t score again until the 7th innning. Then they blew it out with 4 runs. In this game every Yankee got a hit except Nix, who was the unfortunate hitter of the fly ball that Mariano tripped trying to get. Speaking of Mariano, he came out and said he will be back. He may want to retire, but he doesn’t want to go out this way.

This is what I think, he is not a young man, that works against him, but he has taken care of himself, he’s not 42 and flabby, he’s 42 and fit. He also appears to not have stressed his system with too much working out or overindulgence in drink or food. That is in his favor. I really hope he can come back, it would be a shame for his career to end this way.

~~ Questo è tutto, dice la principessa ~~ 😛