2021 World Series Atlanta Braves vs. Houston Astros

Logan Webb hit a home run in his last at bat in the regular season

oh yeah, the Giants had Madison Bumgarner too

i will miss the old rules and strategy but yeah most of the time is sucked

Just in case my post makes no sense, I finally found a good clip of this:

https://www.mlb.com/bluejays/video/stottlemyre-on-his-famous-slide-c2372168183

One of my favourite baseball moments ever. Love Stottlemyre's "Yup."

I like pitching duels

Good call, I would have called that a strike

Didn't matter, why swing at that pitch

Big moment

Should have the third baseman got to that ball?

No

I'm bored obviously, anyone want to join me tonight?

Huge out

Wow

3 2/3

5

Don't agree that Anderson being taken out without giving up a hit

Yeah it seems like no starting pitcher is allowed to go deep in the postseason anymore

i think it’s a little odd considering they’re headed for back-to-back bullpen games, but also he was throwing as many balls as strikes and was never going to go the distance

So far it’s all justified.

jesus.
he could have made that catch right?

yeah kinda shocked he didn't but I think the SS backing up on him caused his brain to malfunction

Matzek has just been unreal

is that the first actual hit by Houston

The second!

oh they called that a hit lol

Excellent teaser from Joe Posnanski: "6th inning: Atlanta manager Brian Snitker took Anderson out of the game after five innings even though he had (1) not allowed a hit and (2) only thrown 76 pitches. I do have a lot to say about this — like A LOT to say about this, like a BOOK-LENGTH amount to say about this — but books take a while to write, and so for now let’s stay focused on the game and the way the Braves somehow shut down this brilliant offense."

(I was hoping for the no-hitter so I could have come on here and posted that it was the most exciting thing I'd seen since six Raptors combined for 101 points.)

Sheehan:

Ian Anderson got the first 15 outs, and while he did not give up a hit -- we’ll get to that -- he wasn’t dominant. To pick just one number, Anderson had a CSW% of 29%, which per the stat’s creator, Alex Fast, is just “okay.” (CSW% is simple: the rate of called and swinging strikes as a percentage of pitches thrown.) The Astros did have trouble squaring up Anderson; he allowed just three hard-hit balls, and only one batted ball with an expected batting average of even .300. Eyeballing more conventional numbers, Anderson walked three and struck out four, hardly the hallmarks of a dominant performance, and at no point watching him did I think I was watching a dominant performance.

The dominance would come after Anderson left. Four Braves relievers combined for 12 outs, striking out three, walking no one (hitting one batter) and shutting out the Astros to finish out a 2-0 win.

and more:

I almost don’t want to engage on the decision to pull Ian Anderson after five innings, because I think the people rending their garments over it are arguing in bad faith. They’re ignoring what was clear from watching Anderson, what’s clear from watching playoff games in recent years, what’s clear from watching baseball in 2021. Pitching requires so much effort now that completing nine innings under benign circumstances is a difficult task. Doing it in the playoffs, at the end of a seven-month season, against postseason lineups tuned to maximum performance, is nearly impossible. Doing it when you have rested and ready teammates who haven’t thrown 70, 80, 90 pitches is folly.

The no-hitter is just not relevant to me. That cannot be part of Snitker’s thinking at all, not least because the chance that Ian Anderson was going to finish last night’s game is fiction. Snitker’s job is to win a game, to win a championship, not be part of baseball’s culture war over The Diminishing Role of the Starting Pitcher. At some point, a segment of the baseball world decided that starting pitchers are star quarterbacks, and it just isn’t so, not least because star quarterbacks play every game.

I’ve said this a few times now, and I will repeat it: Pitching in the modern baseball playoffs is the hardest pitching there has ever been. Stop comparing what these pitchers are asked to do with the rest of baseball history, even history as recent as six or seven years ago. Whoever your particular heroes are...Ford, Gibson, Morris...they’d be maxing out at seven innings and averaging 5 2/3 the same way the guys we’re watching are.

Anderson had thrown 76 pitches, and even at a startling ten pitches an inning over the next three would have been at 106 entering the ninth. That would have been the third time in 38 career starts, postseason included, that Anderson threw more than 100 pitches in a game. His career high, set in May, is 110, and he had not reached 100 pitches in a start since then. More likely, of course, is that Anderson would have needed another 15 pitches an inning, pushing him over 100 in the seventh, to 120 in the eighth.

Ian Anderson was never finishing this game, so once that’s settled, we’re just haggling over when he leaves. The top of the order the third time around is always a good choice. (Anderson’s tiny sample TTP numbers are far less relevant than what we know about all pitchers the third time around.) Brian Snitker gave the Braves the best chance to win by taking Anderson out when he did. Snitker focusing on anything else -- a no-hitter, entertainment value, pleasing starting-pitcher fetishists -- would have been grounds for firing.

Sheehan otm.

otm

All of which might even be exactly what Joe P. wants to write in his book; at the very least, he's certainly aware of all that--he wrote a column two weeks ago about how much harder it was for Chris Sale to pitch against the Astros in 2021 that for Sandy Koufax to pitch a two-hitter against the Twins in 1965. But, as I've said before, I don't have to like any of it; it just makes the game less interesting. (And yes, I realize that Atlanta's manager isn't there to make the game interesting for me.) The idea that great starting pitching performances in the World Series are a thing of the past--or that they've been so re-defined that they may as well be--is not a happy thought.

Somebody on here said more or less the same thing that I'm saying a few days ago...can't remember who or what thread. It all makes me think of a line from Zodiac: "Just because you can't prove it doesn't mean it's not true." Just because something makes sense doesn't mean I have to like it.

VHS!

I thought I was alone last night so I abandoned this thread

My point last night had to do with two bullpen games in a row

we hardly knew ye, dylan lee

So here we go, bullpen game and only got one out

Impressive to get out of that mess with only one run

Just turned on the game after Lee had been pulled, so I don't know how badly he was missing the plate. I do wonder, though: if this is a guy the Braves want to be part of their future, what does that do to his confidence? Once you decide to start him, you should maybe at least let him give up, I don't know, a run? Lucky Durocher stuck with Willie Mays after his 1-26 start.

God, Trump's there. Nothing to do with the All-Star Game or the chop, I'm sure.

Greinke is looking good

Even if they lose the game, Kyle Wright did a tremendous job saving the ATL bullpen.

saddened that greinke didn't homer, but at least he got a hit

...

well this AB could be the series

yeeeesh how do you take that

Good game

barves starting every AB 0-1 it seems

Wow!

Wow

Unbelievable