2023 World Series: Arizona Diamondbacks vs Texas Rangers

Cmoooon dbags, can’t be doing that!

ohhh it is just all unraveling now

crazy stat from before: the last time the Rangers won 9 straight road games was in 2013. assuming this holds it's gonna be 10 straight in the postseason

Nice at bat

Damnit dbags!

Cut that hair jankowski!!!

That is insane

Xpost

Mercy rangers, mercy

Wow

WAS THAT BOCHY SMILING?!?!?!?

OK, this isn't even fun.

Yup

Rangers new Texan villains

lol, dang

Trust Texas to ruin a World Series

my god, it's only the 3rd inning

Spalding Gray - Texas Joke

Was following along (no sound) while bowling. Last thing I expected, especially with Garcia out.

Not that I want to question the Greek God of When to Remove a Pitcher, but I'm not sure I get removing Heany (unless 80 pitches is his limit). Maybe they want to have him available for an all-hands-in Game 7, but every inning he pitches saves the bullpen an inning.

well at least Arizona did something

Blue Jay, etc., etc.

There is a tiny part of me that would like to see Texas lose this for making all these pitching changes in an--or what was--an 11-1 game.

Paper aeroplane throwing contest mid World Series game is pretty funny. What other sport is that happening in?

Pitching change to start the inning? Piss of Bochy

It’s still a long way, but credit the dbags making this interesting!

Wtf Bochy, let it end

If enough people tell you you're a genius, you start to believe it. This seems silly to me, and by the end of the game, he will have used seven pitchers in a blowout win. Maybe he's just bored.

Good

My irrational hate for Leclerc now extends to the entire Rangers Organisation for the next 24hrs

He's one or two baserunners away from having to worry about the win.

(Irrational, yes--I haven't understood this. You picked them to win at the beginning.)

See ya’ll tomorrow, hopefully for a better game.

Pick doesn’t necessarily mean want. That’s the joy of being neutral, you can feel what you want!

Irrational is by definition, beyond logical understanding. I’m just following the wind as it blows

Still not discounting a seven-game series if Arizona can send it back to Texas. So I hope they close it out tomorrow--I wouldn't want to let them back in (like they almost did tonight).

No surprise, I guess: the first three games were the least watched ever. Game 4 probably hasn't been incorporated into the page yet. (You'll have to wade through the various tables.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Series_television_ratings

I don't know how to square this with online viewership--if added, maybe that makes a tangible difference.

I don't blame the two teams--they're a small part of the lack of interest, but--putting aside 2020--you can see a straight line down from the Cubs winning in 2016.

My own frame of reference would be 1975, Game 6: 41 million. (Game 7, carrying over, was watched by 51 million.) Not sure why--I don't think it's considered an especially memorable series--55 million watched the final game in 1980 between the Phillies and Royals. (Only thing I remember from that series: Rose playing in at third, daring Willie Wilson to bunt, and snatching a line drive off Wilson's bat at some point.)

"Blame" is obviously the wrong word. "Link that to" would be better.

https://awfulannouncing.com/ratings/mlb-national-viewership-disappoints-2023.html

seems pretty simple - when the big market teams don't do well viewership drops?

otoh, in-person attendance was up 10% even at season end after big market teams were mostly out of contention: https://www.mlb.com/news/mlb-attendance-mlb-tv-post-big-numbers-in-2023

so idk

The thing that suggests otherwise to me (meaning that's a factor but it's more of a general trend) is that straight line down starting in 2016:

Chicago/Cleveland > Houston/L.A. > Boston/L.A. > Washington/Houston > Atlanta/Houston > Houston/Philadelphia > Texas/Arizona (so far)

I skipped 2020, the COVID year, where there was a steep drop. Also, that sequence starts with a huge story, the Cubs winning their first Series in 100+ years. And the ubiquity of Houston probably has an effect. But it does seem like a bigger problem than who's playing.

If you think it's a problem, that is. I know that right on this board people have argues that WS ratings are nothing more than a sideshow.

"argued"

I've been turning off the games at 9:15 to watch horror movies the last few nights tbh - I'm not invested in either team and it was spooky season.

Is 9:15 some kind of secret Satanic symbol?

Enjoyed Harold Reynolds' MLB interview with Junior about his photography. Had to check--never played in a World Series. Damn.

Also this, from Marcus's "Real Life" column posted earlier today:

6. Geico Insurance, “Umpire” (Martin Agency). Ken Griffey, Jr., and Melissa Griffey have a nice new house on a tree-lined street with the Geico house commercials’ just-one-problem: the “little-opinionated” next-door neighbor, big, white, former MLB balls-and-strikes majordomo Jim Joyce in full regalia. He peeps in the window and calls strike one, strike two, for invisible transgressions. He kicks leaves dropped by the Griffeys’s tree back in their front yard. Finally he takes offense to Ken’s shirt, Melissa tells him he needs glasses. He pumps his arm in the air and shouts “YOU’RE OUTTA HERE!” and banishes them from the neighborhood as if he’s burning a cross on their lawn. Secret BLM commercial? Or coded appeal to the Great Replacement demographic? The more it’s appeared throughout the playoffs the more the balance seems to tip to the right.

link to reynolds interview?

those geico commercials play every break - kind of annoying

I'll post one if I find anything.

I'm amazed at how Arizona's able to run at will.

Is this what the 2015 royals were like? I know they were famously a small ball team causing chaos in the world series

They were a great contact team, but I don't remember them stealing bases like this.

very annoying how prevalent the "he HAS to get it done here, it's SO IMPORTANT to score first!" rhetoric is. I get the reasoning, but there's 25 more outs left if Moreno gets out. maybe take a break for a few innings before this emotional leverage talk

gallen’s got some nice cleats on today

2015 Royals: stole seven bases for the series (5 games), struck out 37 times--both a little more than I thought.

“Defence is the new market inefficiency” was the claim I hard in response to the royals win