2021 NLDS Los Angeles Dodgers vs San Francisco Giants

and Bauer, oh wait

I'm supposed to root against Scherzer, Kershaw, and Betts because of Trevor Bauer?

that was uncalled for, Bauer is below the Belt

i have never bought into big spending team buying players with the Dodgers getting both Max and Turner at the deadline. it's the rich getting Richter and that has just never appealed to me

(ha ha, Belt was a Giants reference)

I'm against it in theory too, but when the Jays bought their way in at the deadline in 2015, it was the greatest thing in the world. I think you hate it until it's your own team, and then it's "Here's an organization committed to winning."

"Bauer is below the Belt"--but above the Posey.

Kershaw is out for the playoffs though (insert your own joke about Kershaw not being clutch in the playoffs).

Scherzer and Betts are already WS winners, what's the fun in rooting for them again?

This Giants team is like an enhanced version of the 2010-2014 teams, a couple of stars, a lot of smart veteran acquisitions, great starting pitching, a deceptively deep bullpen. Winning 107 games is no fluke. I hope they win.

i’m sure the giants would like to increase payroll, but charles johnson’s financial commitments to the most racist politicians and organizations in the country comes first

what's the fun in rooting for them again?

I like watching them a lot more than the players on San Francisco? And while I realize most of the players are different now, the Giants have won three of the last 10 WS!

it makes sense, but it hadn't occurred to me that the dodgers and giants have never met in the playoffs before

yeah it's pretty crazy that this is the first time. over/under on number of fans that kill each other during this series?

Seems weird. The wild card has only been around a fraction as long as each team but they’ve both been consistently good franchises over the last 20 or so years.

Major surprise too. I tend to think of league/divisional tiebreakers as the postseason, though, in which case you've got Bobby Thomson in '51, and then another three-game tiebreaker in '62 (with the Giants again coming from behind in the 9th inning of the third game). But strictly speaking, first time.

it should kinda count. it's like a demi-playoff.

was there not a rule, early in the (single) wild-card era, that required the wild card to play a non-division opponent in the first round?

could be making this up, or mixing it with a similar rule that (i think) existed in the NFL long ago

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

(xpost) No, I think you're right.

The #SFGiants set their 26-man roster for the 2021 National League Division Series vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers. pic.twitter.com/6GEqlh6GmV

— SFGiants (@SFGiants) October 8, 2021

No Jonny Cueto or Jay Jackson. Both teams will not have their first baseman with Brandon Belt being the biggest omission on this roster.

So ready https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiwA0pCKVhI

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

BEAT LA

nice, surprising results

Posey

that was great

Unbelievable double play

two errors in four innings? the giants just aren't a very good team

I deserve that

Good game

That's why you bring in someone like Kis Bryant

Wow

Kis, lol

Anyone watching with me?

A great pitching performance from Logan Webb

That was close

Crawford

This team

There is something magical this year

Crawford. There ya go Bee. A pretty nice game 1 so far

listening to the audio knbr audio feed on the mlb app. horizontal on the couch with jon miller murmuring in my ear

Sounds like heaven to me

One

What a perfect day

sweet game

One more time

😍 pic.twitter.com/ckI2DIuOpP

— MLB (@MLB) October 9, 2021

Walk didn't come back to bit him

Fuck

Stressed but remarkly calm

Longoria

Nice job Alex Wood, only two hits

nerves now ... bottom of the 7th

Ya that was a shite call to end it there.

scherzer is a maniac lol

Remember when Scherzer gave up a grand slam to a relief pitcher a few months ago

what an awful way for that to end

don't even care if he did go around, just give it to the batter

I have died

Well that sucked

My gut reaction

Happy for Scherzer, but the worst series-ending call I've ever seen; I don't think his bat was within a foot of that invisible it's-a-swing line.

I'm ok, I wanted the NL West title, everything else would have been gravy

But fuck the umpire, five horrible calls

"Huge props to Logan Webb... he shoved it up our butt twice" - Cody Bellinger pic.twitter.com/ggqQdknBxw

— Internet #BlackLivesMatter (@cjzero) October 15, 2021

So, other MVP/ROY teammates:
Mays/McCovey
Bench/Rose
Lynn/Carew
Lynn/Ripken
Pujols/Trout
Pujols/Bellinger

Watching live, I thought he went around, IOW that's called a strike more often than not. But what the hell, don't end a playoff series that way.

Ohtani/Trout

I see; misunderstood.

Next year, most likely, yes.

Brutal ending

season-ending. pic.twitter.com/APRlI0UZK7

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) October 15, 2021

Someone else will have to take over the thread polls, I'm out

check swing twitter is good as hell tonight

sorry bee! horrible call

#Justice4Wilmer

this was on too late for me but it looks like it was fucking epic?? game of the year?

oh no i just saw the last strike

it wasn't a great call but it's not like he had runners in scoring position or something

yeah imo much worse was that Kris Bryant AB w/ one on and no one out. he took 5 straight pitches, all well out of the zone, but the ump called two of them strikes anyway, and he struck out on the next pitch

the fix was in

Doesn't really matter that they were unlikely to win, you can't end the series that way

Comparison between 2 morales calls https://streamable.com/q97s2c

Lol

christ.

Umpire: Doug Eddings
Final: Giants 1, Dodgers 2#ResilientSF // #Dodgers#SFvsLAD // #LADvsSF pic.twitter.com/MX0tUmJwzs

— Umpire Scorecards (@UmpScorecards) October 15, 2021

since Bee is, I assume, prostrate on his floor for the foreseeable future; i went to start a poll for the NLCS, but had no idea how to set the time to the first pitch?!

that isn’t bad, but the two worst calls coming in the same at-bat is rough

xp you can’t iirc, it’ll be at 8pm EDT (midnight GMT of the selected date) no matter what

the sox 'stros one ends in 7 hours somehow tho!

he's used his weird giants voodoo magic on the poll times!!

Doesn't really matter that they were unlikely to win, you can't end the series that way

Ditto. Don Denkinger's famous blown call didn't end a series--it didn't even end Game 6.

Posnanski has a long post on last night's game:

Wilmer Flores didn’t swing. He didn’t come close to swinging. It was a blown call.

And that was a crummy way to end a brilliant game.

It’s a weird blown call because I think we’d all agree it probably didn’t make a difference. Scherzer still would have had Flores down 1-2 in the count, and Flores had gone one-for-11 in the series, and he’d never gotten a hit in 16 at-bats against Scherzer, and so the inevitable was still inevitable.

Still, there was something about that call that summed up this whole series and maybe even these whole playoffs. The Giants and the Dodgers should not have been playing a five-game series in early October. This whole thing was upside down, These are two of the best teams of the last decade, and they deserved — we deserved — a seven-game World Series to cherish forever.

Alas, it wasn’t meant to be. Instead, the Dodgers go on, and the Giants will always be left wondering what miracles might have occurred had they been given their final strike.

since Bee is, I assume, prostrate on his floor for the foreseeable future; i went to start a poll for the NLCS, but had no idea how to set the time to the first pitch?!

thanks for taking over, yes i'm over baseball for now. anyways, just set it to close on Sunday and it will close at 5 PM Pacific on Saturday Night.

Still thinking about that last call...It's not something a manager can appeal, okay. But I thought the umpires, for anything that happens, have the option of getting together and conferring. Couldn't they ask to look at videotape themselves? Going back to that Denkinger call in 1985, the inning--the 9th--started with the bases empty, the Cardinals up 1-0 in the game and up 3-2 in the series. After Denkinger's missed call, the Royals have a man on first, but the Cardinals are still up 1-0 in the game and 3-2 in the series. And that call is infamous. This one ended the series.

i'm in the "that's baseball" camp i think

it’s just not feasible to go to the video for every borderline strike call. that this one ended a series is unfortunate, but so it goes

and unlike the denkinger play, a check-swing is a judgment call

I understand both of you, but in all honesty, a safe/out play at first seems no more or no less a judgement call to me than a checked swing--or at least in this case, where the bat is so clearly not even close to where you'd call a strike. Anyway, I won't mention it again. I do feel for Giants fans, though; I think they got screwed worse than 2003 Cubs fans or 1996 Orioles fans.

Okay, one last comment. What I think:

Managers obviously should not be allowed to appeal ball/strike calls.
Managers should not be allowed to appeal checked-swing calls.
Umpires should not be allowed to review ball/strike calls.

But: umpires should be allowed to review checked-swing calls, if someone on the crew feels one is needed. 99% of them would still not warrant a review--they would, indeed, fall under the judgement-call umbrella, or the game-situation wouldn't warrant doing so. But this is a rare and extreme case, and I think a review should have been in order.

the ump that made the call had the only angle from which to do so — no other ump on the field would ever question it. if you want the ump in the review room in NYC to be proactive, that’s feasible but also raises a ton of other issues

and just as a human nature thing, i doubt that umpires will be too interested in overruling coworkers who didn’t ask for help