Alright I'm not going to lie...as a Marlin fan I don't hate Washington at all. I don't feel any sort of rivalry with them and my team hasn't been good enough pretty much ever so I know how they have felt all these bad years leading up to the present. I'd be happy for the Nats if they won.
I guess I'll put down my predictions here: Rangers over Baltimore Rangers over Yankees A's over Tigers A's over Rangers Braves over Cardinals Nationals over Braves Giants over Reds Nationals over Giants A's over Nationals
Im a little late on this as the Cards game is late but I hate the Braves so I would have picked the Cards anyway lol. Baltimore over Texas NYY over Baltimore A's over Tigers NYY over A's Cardinals over Braves Nationals over Cards Reds over SF Reds over Nats Reds over NYY Also FWIW the Braves just got jobbed on that infield fly rule call. Just a terrible call. Coming from a Mets fan thats as close as I can be to being impartial.
Some people are saying that was the correct call. Any other opinions? Mainge? Ray Finkle? I didn't see it.
It was a horrible call. It was at least 25 feet from the infield. It completely changed the rest of the game.
The umpire waved for the infield fly rule about one second before the ball hit the ground. Despite the fact that it was over 20 feet into the outfield, the left fielder was running in towards it, and the infielder was still moving around.
I made predictions last year, didn't come true, so im not doing the same this year. Everyone knows who I want to win, but man did todays game remind Yankees/Red Sox fan of 2004? Disgrace by the fans, but man did the Replacement refs get a job in mlb?
I think it was more than just that call. Chipper's career just ended, it wasn't just any old game. The Braves had a good season and grinded out 94 wins and it meant nothing because of Selig's stupid playoff experiment. Chipper has a good final season, helps Atlanta return to the postseason and doesn't even get a proper playoff series.
It wasnt where it landed. That part was fine. It was that call came very late. The rule for IFR is two pronged and part of that is the call has to come quickly and it should be on "an average effort play" meaning that the infielder shouldnt have to exert himself much (not true in this case) and the call was very very late. Terrible call.
Yea, I do feel the call was bad. At the same time Atlanta did have opportunities after that to come back. Also, this playoff format sucks.
The call was correct by the letter of the law: But I don't believe it to be in the spirit of what the rule intended to prevent.
In my opinion if they are going to this format they should make it a three game series played on consecutive nights at the park of the #1 WC team.
That took away any possible comeback away from them. I mean it was the 8th and took every momentum they would have had after that. Bases Loaded 1 out. With that said, that play did not cost Atlanta the game. They left a lot of people on base, and they committed costly errors, and sadly Chipper Jones was a big part in why they lost this game. They just caught a bad break today. Costly one with that call. I still think they lose that game regardless of that call. Also yeah format sucks. There is no reason that the #1 seed has to find out where its going based on tonights game. They should be playing Yankee Stadium, 2-2-1 format is how it should be. Tigers got the best deal out of every team in the AL to be honest, and they had the worst record out of all playoff teams. I know they are fixing it next year, by why did they have to have it the way it is this year?
He's an idiot. The end of last season made for some of the best drama baseball has ever seen. I'm a Braves fan and I can see that. Imagine how much this wild card playoff thing would have ruined that. But this idiot thinks it needs to be 'fixed'. There's nothing wrong with a wild card winning a world series. The wild card was basically just an extra division made up of runner ups. Now it is meaningless. Why not just do a realignment, eliminate the wildcard, and make a fourth division if you're so irritated about wild cards winning the series? The Braves had a bad game last night, [and still had several opportunities because they are in fact the better team] horrible officiating was involved, it was a perfect illustration of why baseball is about series and has never been set up as one game eliminations. Look at the Astros, the worst team in baseball, they still won well over a quarter of all individual games played. Hell why not add some more wild cards and set up an NCAA style elimination tournament? Oh the drama and the ratings Selig could pull in with that. The Cardinals were given an opportunity last night that they did not earn and basically had nothing to lose. It's no surprise they played looser and made less errors. I'm not surprised that the second place wild card "winner" won in both leagues. Expect to see a lot more of that in the future as well if this shameful format continues.
Whether you like the new format or not, by the rules they did earn it. Let's not take anything away from the players.
How so? I don't remember the umps getting any calls wrong in that series, they made some bad ones (Bellhorn HR and Arod's slap in Game 6) but got together and reversed those calls to the right ones in the end. Are you sure you don't mean 1999, where they blew a couple of calls?
The argument is about a judgement call by the umpires, personally I dont think "reasonable effort" was shown, and frankly it was highlighted by the bad positioning the shortstop showed by never being "under" the ball, and in essence peeling off and NOT catching it. I dont know to many instances of "reasonable effort" being part of a NON-CATCH. That said, I think the SS "tricked" the umpire to signal infield fly, but I chalk that up to no different than an outfielder tricking an ump into a trapped catch/non-catch, or a batter tricking the ump into a HBP, etc. Shocked at how bad the Braves defense was throughout the game that really was below par for them and changed the game. Medlen did his job, the D let him down. Sure, the infield fly call impacted the momentum of that inning, but it wasnt the difference in the game. As I said, in the spirit of the call I think the Umpire blew the call and would be pissed if I was the hitting team. I am also confident that if the call wasnt made, STL would not have argued and demanded that infield fly should have been called mainly because the SS peeled off and quit on the play and was out of position to actually catch it. That to me signals that it was a bad call. Shocked but thrilled O's beat Tex. Planning on being there Monday! Woot!
Off to a fantastic start already, haha. But that 1 game playoff is just so unpredictable. But then again so are 5 and 7 game series.
I didn't see the play live but show plenty of replays. Not sure how you can call an infield fly rule on a ball that so far out of the infield. It was the wrong call and it was a bad one at that.
I do like the 1 game WC match up....no need to have a best of 3, etc....one game....take care of business. The goal is to not be a WC....and that reason alone I like this 1 game only approach. Also, remember, for the ALDS and NLDS next year, the #1 seeds and #3 seeds will return to traditional HOST game 1 advantage, its just this year because it got shoe-horned in to the schedule that they decided to have the #1 travel to the WC winner, and #2 the same. Both WC HOME Teams came up short....I like that too....no advantage, burn an arm. That the advantage a Division winner should have....even with DET coming out of weak division this year. P.S. keep in mind this year AL WC match up (Os and Tex) with the same records, would have still produced this 1 game playoff anyway using the same homefield 1game approach even if no 2nd WC format would have changed. In that sense, the same results from AL side would have occurred regardless. Just interesting.
Why not just make four divisions instead of making the wild card a joke? It's stupid to have the wild card and then severely punish the team that wins the wild card by giving some runner up a chance to boot them from the postseason in only one game. MLB was let off the hook in the AL this season because the one game playoff would have happened anyway. Wait until next year though.
The WC by definition is a runner up! Adding a 2nd and making it a 1game sudden death is par for the course of what WC is all about. The 2nd WC gives extra franchises and fan bases hope and a LOTTERY ticket frenzy for post season play. Nothing wrong with the format, and the extra incentive properly given to the Division winners and especially the #1 and #2 seeds also has more value now. The WC should be a disadvantage to running the table....I really like what they have done. And the excitement for the extra fanbases to keep interest up. Now, as far as divisions, frankly, now that its balanced from # of teams per league, they have options to properly configure the schedule. I dont know about the 4th division approach but a balanced schedule could be in the works.
Yep, the rules allowed them to be there. That doesn't make it fair. That doesn't mean they earned that. They lost five of six to Atlanta in the regular season and finished six games back in the standings. That's a pretty significant gap. Welcome to the new MLB where that means you deserve a shot to knock the team out that bettered you throughout the season with one good night and a little assist from the umps. The wild card was effectively set up as a separate division. What is happening now is the equivalent of a division winner being told that they have to beat the runner up in a one game playoff to advance no matter how well they did against that runner up or how far ahead they finished after the season was over. Call it sour grapes, frankly I don't give a crap. The Braves have been garbage in October for a decade anyway and may have very well laid an egg in the NLDS against the Nats. But they absolutely earned their shot to be there at the end of the 162 game season.
The wild card is a division of runner ups. It was fine the way it was if you thought of it as a separate division, which it basically was. Just give this some time and more people will see as their teams get screwed by the new format. Baseball is not sudden death. It hasn't been for over a hundred years. This is an assault on what makes baseball unique.
The beat ATLANTA in ATLANTA, what other advantage did you think ATLANTA earned by not winning the division?
