2023 ALWC: Tampa Bay Rays vs. Texas Rangers

Bruce Bochy stares into space. He’s not old fashioned but he doesn’t like some of these new rules. What was wrong with using one reliever per out? Remember the time you used Tim Lincecum for a single out against the Phillies in the 2010 NLCS? Boch? Boch?

randy’s mom ftw

If you’re wondering where Randy Arozarena got his arm, this is it. Wow 😱

What a moment.

Randy Arozarena’s mom throws out the first pitch after getting her visa last week to watch her son play in the majors for the first time ever. pic.twitter.com/tSEb8r93II

— Tricia Whitaker (@TriciaWhitaker) October 3, 2023

Montgomery unnecessarily brave with that catch on the astroturf. His wife was right.

what is going on with the Rays defense right now

You saw Corey Seager boot that ball right?!

Love the Devil Rays uniform

Surprised they didn't send him and ended up not scoring.

Jesus that noggin really is fucking huge isn’t it

kurkjian sounds like the pimply teen on the simpsons

they gotta get Glasnow outta there before he gives up a grand slam

84 pitches already, eiw

Got out of it!

He wants to nuke the whole team

he's pitching well but getting hit in the ass and then uncorking a wild pitch made me think his mechanics were gonna be way off

been a real tough luck start for him so far but they're only down 2-0

sticking with him way too long

what the fuck was that

chaos

lmao @ rays defense

Ouch, bad playing in the playoffs.stiff?

That’s the worst fucking throw I’ve seen in a game since this Jorge Alfaro disasterclass. I’m genuinely in shock.

he was lucky the ball didn't get past him, then airmailed the throw

just totally misplayed

Glasnow in the dugout
https://ih0.redbubble.net/image.2458585004.0473/raf,360x360,075,t,fafafa:ca443f4786.jpg

Rays in 7

never seen a whole team get the yips before

Yosh Yung

4 errors

begging them to stop talking about Caminero’s hair

Had no idea he was the Verlander of cool pitchers

In 10 postseason starts, Glasnow has allowed 29 ER in 45.2 IP (5.72 ERA) while also walking 25. Yikes.

— Red Sox Stats (@redsoxstats) October 3, 2023

I think it's worth differentiating between Verlander in his divisional/ALCS games (15-5, 3.04) and WS games (1-6, 5.63). Obviously, he'd rather have that reversed, but you do need to win the former to get to the latter.

Now Kevin Gausman...

Big win for Texas

Here's some perspective on today's attendance of 19,704 at the Trop: according to @Stathead, it's the lowest (non-Covid year) attendance for a postseason game in 104 years. Last one below 19,704 was Game 7 of the infamous 1919 World Series in Cincinnati.

— Tyler Kepner (@TylerKepner) October 3, 2023

That attendance is horrible, it doesn't make sense to give them a new ballpark. Even Oakland would easily surpass 20K.

It sounded like a swimming pool in there the whole game, eerie place

Definitely up there with Oakland Coliseum as one of America's shittiest ballparks.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

never understood why florida needed two baseball teams

It is the third most populous state right? A better question might be why both of them are in South Florida, there’s a Panhandle Possums team that deserves to exist!

yeah but it's full of retiree transplants

googling around that seems to be the commonly accepted wisdom - seniors move there but maintain their allegiances to their old teams

seniors also maybe not so good at maintaining postseason enthusiasm

otoh, i would love to go to a grapefruit league game

robbie grossman batting 3rd in the order is something i do not understand

garcia is a monstet

*monster

evan carter is a stud also wow

rangers are dangerous, but prob will run out of pitching in a longer series

The pen is tapped iirc, they were out of gas at the end of September. Dane Dunning has been pretty bad for them recently iirc

5th Rays error of the series

“Doing the nyt crossword together” is not the Rays pen’s worst communal activity

well this is a dismal way to end a season that started 23-6

Ugh yeah wish they’d put up more of a fight, I was really impressed by how they stayed close to the division lead in the last month after all the injuries/Franco.

really unfair that even 99 win teams can choke in the playoffs

xp tbf in addition to that they lost a couple of their best starters

Who is the commentator who sounds like this
https://static.simpsonswiki.com/images/1/19/Squeaky-voiced_teen.png

kurkjian sounds like the pimply teen on the simpsons

― mookieproof, Tuesday, October 3, 2023 4:10 PM (yesterday)

Ok I did not know who that was, ty

Also I did know about Bochy’s helmet but I didn’t know he hit a walk off homer against Nolan Ryan

i think 'choke' is overly harsh. good teams lose two games in a row all the time -- it's not like they blew a 3-0 lead against their bitterest rivals

all the errors, however, are a point in yr favour

It probably is harsh. But I’ve seen a lot of the Rays this season and they haven’t played this badly in all but one of the games I watched?