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An Early Preview of the 2012 World Series
Sunday October 21st, 2012
Sam Evans: With St. Louis and San Francisco in a battle to be the National League representative in the World Series, it’s not too early to preview what each team would look like in a seven-game matchup with the AL Champs, the Detroit Tigers.
The NLCS between St. Louis and San Francisco has been absolutely thrilling. You have to imagine the huge pressure that each and every one of both team’s players have been dealing with. With the Cardinals winning the first game, the Giants winning Game Two, the Cards taking the next two, and the Giants winning Game Five, the Cardinals lead the series 3-2 heading into Game Six tonight in San Francisco. One would have to think that even with the Giants recent win and home field advantage, St. Louis has a slight advantage due to their recent postseason magic. After all, they are the defending champs.
Meanwhile, Detroit has had a lot of time on their hands since winning the ALCS on Thursday. So instead of just sitting around and waiting to find out where they will be playing, Detroit is flying out their Instructional League team to play a couple of scrimmage games. Detroit will play their Instructional team today and tomorrow in a couple of scrimmages. In my opinion, this is a fantastic idea for the Tigers. This way their hitters don’t lose their timing in the extra couple days off. Not to mention, it must be a once-in-a-lifetime type of experience for a lot of the young Instructional League players.
A St. Louis/ Detroit matchup in the World Series would be a fantastic matchup pitting Mississippi against Detroit. St. Louis started Lance Lynn in Game One of the NLCS but likely won’t choose him to start Game One if they made the World Series. No matter who they start, St. Louis really doesn’t have anyone who would be able to pitch at the same level of the Tigers’ Justin Verlander. With Verlander well-rested and the Cardinals lacking a talented enough group of starters to contain Miguel Cabrera and Prince Fielder, I would give the Tigers the advantage if these two teams end up meeting.
San Francisco and Detroit in the World Series would be a matchup of two very balanced teams, that both have recent postseason experience. The Giants have an experienced starting rotation that relies on veteran pitchers and a couple of younger pitchers as well. The Giants offense hasn’t been great this postseason, but if Buster Posey and Hunter Pence get going, they could easily score some runs on the Tigers. Detroit definitely could hit a few homers over the short right field wall at AT&T Park, but in seven games, I would give the Giants a slight advantage. The Tigers would need to continue their hot streak, but the layoff could still create some rust.
All three remaining teams have all had tremendous postseason success over the last couple years, but Detroit is the only team without a recent World Series win. Unless the Giants offense can heat up and take these last two games from St. Louis, I don’t see any team being able to take the World Series Championship away from Detroit.
(*The views and opinions expressed in this report are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of mlbreports.com*)
***Today’s feature was prepared by our Baseball Writer, Sam Evans. We highly encourage you to leave your comments and feedback at the bottom of the page and share in the discussion with our readers. You can also follow Sam on Twitter. (@RJA206)***
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2012 MLB Playoffs: Cardinals Win Despite Controversy, While Rangers Face A Painful Offseason Ahead With Loss
Saturday October 6th, 2012
Jake Dal Porto: It was the night of the “non-favorites” on Friday with the two “do or die” Wild Card games taking center stage. The Cardinals escaped a hostile environment at Turner Field (more on that later), while the Orioles beat the Rangers to begin a very long and painful offseason for the Rangers’ management group.
Here’s how each game went down:
St.Louis Cardinals (6) AT Atlanta Braves (3)- Cardinals will play Washington Sunday in game one of the NLDS
The storyline in this game wasn’t Chipper Jones’s career coming to an end, nor was it a specific play which defined the game. The storyline was a bad call by the umpires. More specifically, the added left field umpire.
The Braves were down 6-3 entering the bottom of the eighth inning. They had failed to capitalize on multiple opportunities to cut into the Cardinals lead. Shortstop Andrelton Simmons veered too far into the base path with runner on first and third and one out while trying to bunt. The ball ticked off Simmons’s helmet and kicked down the right field line. Originally, two runs would’ve scored on the play had the call not been reversed, but upon further review, Simmons did indeed interfere with the throw, and both runners were brought back to their respective bases while Simmons was ruled out. In that situation, a simple ground ball would’ve done the trick with his above average speed. Read the rest of this entry
ATR: Ask the Reports Answers Your Baseball Questions: WBC, Pascucci, MLB Standings, Bonds, Clemens, Pedroia, Bautista and Wild Cards
Monday September 3rd, 2012
Jonathan Hacohen: I have some baseball thoughts on my mind. Ok…I have baseball thoughts seemingly always on my mind! Call it what you like. A gift. A curse. I am what I am. And I do love baseball a ton. So before we jump into your weekly questions, here are three topics that I wanted to throw out to the baseball world:
1) In my respectful opinion, the organizers of the World Baseball Classic should be ashamed of themselves. Yes, I said it. Two of the qualifying groups have their games being played this month before the end of the regular MLB season. How does that make any sense? Firstly, you lose MLB players who still have their games going, who otherwise would have been eligible and possibly participated. For a country like Canada, that is a huge blow which could mean to elimination before the tournament itself even begins next spring. Add to the fact that coverage of the tournament has been literally non-existent, and people need to ask themselves what exactly they are doing. If marketed right, the WBC should be big. Huge in fact. But it’s not. With the addition of 12 new eligible countries in the qualifiers, there should be a huge amount of hype going into the games. But now, people don’t know when these games are being played, where, rosters and even that these games even exist. If we are going to promote baseball to the world, let’s do it right. There is no baseball in the Olympics, so let’s get the WBC to be a bigger global stage. Until that happens, the WBC will not fulfill its potential. Ever. Groups 3 and 4 are playing their qualifiers in mid-November. Now that makes sense.
Quite frankly, I don’t care about excuses on timing, locations etc. There are thousands of ballparks around the world. The games could all have been played much after the World Series and had its own captive baseball audience to shine. I certainly hope that is considered in the 4th edition of this great tournament.
2) Valentino Pascucci: Big Val (@PoppaValentino) on Twitter, is a huge guy. 6’6″ and 255 lbs. to be exact. He recently passed the 250 home run mark in the minors. Pretty big stuff. In 14 minor league seasons (8 of them in AAA), he has a .269 AVG, with a .390 OBP and .484 SLG. After representing Italy in the 2009 WBC, I expect to see Val back there in 2013. Glad to see that he will get to represent Italy and play at one of the highest levels of the game in the world. Whenever I think of Val, I always wonder why the man never truly got his “shot”. He got into 32 games with the Expos in 2004 (Expos??!!) and 10 games with the Mets last year. Even hitting 34 home runs in 2007 (AAA Marlins) didn’t do the trick. Could Big Val had become the next Big Papi if given his shot? We will never know. You can never have too much offense in baseball. I wish teams could have seen that and had tried Valentino Pascucci on their team one year. Who knows what could have resulted – 20-30 bombs, 70+ walks. But rather than thriving in the show, Valentino Pascucci will likely one day retire as one of the top home run hitters in the history of the minors. I wanted to take a moment and salute a great hitter in this game. Mr. Pascucci, whether the 2013 WBC will be your last or you stay in the game for another season or two, thank you the home runs and having one of the greatest baseball names we will ever hear. Well done sir.
3) If you were sleeping under a rock and looked at the MLB standings today, your jaw will drop on the floor. Yankees in first place in the AL East, with the Orioles only 2 games back. In September! White Sox and Tigers in a dead heat in the Central. Rangers on top of the West, but the A’s only 3 games back. The NL picture is a little more certain though. The Nationals (is that possible) are on top, ahead of the Braves by 6.5 games. While most of us have accepted the Nationals dominance this season long ago, someone new to the picture would still be doing a double take. Let’s not forget that this was once a losing franchise not so long ago, that just recently put it all together. In the Central, the Reds are close to becoming champs with a stranglehold 9.5 games on the Cardinals. And that is significant considering St. Louis is 10 games over .500! In the West, it’s the Dodgers and Giants, with San Francisco enjoying a 4.5 game lead. Two wild cards per league? If the season ended today, Baltimore and Oakland would meet in the sudden game playoff. If you had bet that in Vegas during spring training, you would be a millionaire soon. But the Wild Card race in the AL is far from done, with the Rays, White Sox/Tigers and Angels all in shooting distance. With much baseball to be played, anything can still happen. In the NL, Atlanta and St.Louis have the Dodgers and Pirates to contend with to clinch their respective Wild Cards. Yes, it has been an unbelievable season thus far with lots more ball to be played. Care to make your predictions at this point? Watch out. As last year taught us, it ain’t over till it’s over.
For our Batting Stance Guy featured video of the week, we bring you Gar’s recent contest: Who Takes Most Steps Out of MLB Batter’s Box? This one is fun and damn funny:
Now let’s get to your top questions of the week: Read the rest of this entry
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