2011 MLB Season Discussion

Benticore wrote:

I...uh...Scrabble?

...Are you referring to Rep-chin-ski (but spelled with way more Z's and such)?

Yeah, apparently he picked up the nickname in Toronto, and it is easer to spell than Rzepczynski, which is apparently worth 30 points in Scrabble.

And it is pronounced Zep-CHIN-ski, not Rep. Hence the nicknames. He is also called The Zipper, among others.

It's even on his Wikipedia entry: Marc Rzepczynski

Twas the night before the World Series, and throughout Cardinal Nation,
fans dreamt of ball bats and standing ovations.

Jerseys were hung in the lockers with care. This year's Fall Classic,
soon, would be there.
Nyjer Morgan was restless and rolling in bed, grudgingly eating the
words he had said.

Carp slept in his cleats, and Freese in his cap,
while some players struggled even to nap.

The Phils had the pitching, the Brewers, the batters,
but as of that night, none of that mattered.

The Redbirds gave them a run for their cash,
and took them each out like a week's worth of trash.

Fans felt some guilt, for two months ago,
they took their towels and gave them a throw.

"The Cardinals are finished and I have great fear;
we may have squandered Albert's last year."

But the Players not once believed they'd been licked.
They made up some ground and made it up quick.

With heart and resilience, the comeback came.
The season hinged on its very last game.

So Albert, and Lance, Allen and Jay,
and all of the Cards (except Holliday),

delivered a win in game 162,
then waited to see what Atlanta would do.

Their collapse was completed on that very same night.
While booze filled the air, Redbirds cheered, "Happy Flight!"

Most fans regret their early surrender,
but this is a lesson they'd surely remember.

One test remained; a club called the Rangers.
To World Series baseball, they were no strangers.

Nor were the Redbirds, with history so great.
Last rings in '06, not 1908.

So with hearts full of hope Card Nations slumbered.
Hopes to reach four, the new Magic Number.

Twas a perfect year to get number 11,
and bring home the trophy to MLB Heaven.
Go Cards!

Go Rangers. Screw LaRussa.

IMAGE(http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile-ak-ash2/276971_47924244850_18712067_n.jpg)

IMAGE(http://cdn.everyjoe.com/files/2011/08/tony-la-russa-with-shingles.jpg)

carrotpanic wrote:

Go Rangers. Screw LaRussa.

This. I'm going to cut myself if I hear another Torty story.

I'm staying up for the start of the game. Screw work.

Come on, Cards. Early innings heroics and late innings grit, please!

Gumbie wrote:
carrotpanic wrote:

Go Rangers. Screw LaRussa.

This. I'm going to cut myself if I hear another Torty story. :)

TortyCraig wrote:

Right before leaving for warmups Carp said, "I don't care if Chuck Norris is a Texas Ranger, I'm going to shut them the %&$# down!"

Man, I really Really like Dotel.

Benticore wrote:

Man, I really Really like Dotel.

So long as he's used properly (i.e. against mostly righties) he's a fine reliever. Lefties usually hit him hard though.

Jayhawker wrote:

Battle of the Bullpens

Cards 1 Rangers 0

Great game. Wat can be better than a one run lead and having face Young, Beltre, and Cruz. Too bad Beltre got robbed, but no one was hitting Motte tonight.

Bring on Game 2!

Yeah that was a stupid call, but I think you're right, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Super frustrated to see Wash send Gentry and German to hit in a critical situation... that's basically 2 free outs. Oh well, gotta regroup.

MyBrainHz wrote:
Jayhawker wrote:

Battle of the Bullpens

Cards 1 Rangers 0

Great game. Wat can be better than a one run lead and having face Young, Beltre, and Cruz. Too bad Beltre got robbed, but no one was hitting Motte tonight.

Bring on Game 2!

Yeah that was a stupid call, but I think you're right, it wouldn't have mattered anyway. Super frustrated to see Wash send Gentry and German to hit in a critical situation... that's basically 2 free outs. Oh well, gotta regroup.

Agreed. Murphy is the 2nd hottest bat on the team right now. Lefty pitcher or not, you leave him in. German hasn't hat an at bat in a month. Surely Wash had a better option. Hopefully, we bounce back tonight.

Kush15 (Day 1 Predictions) wrote:

American League:
East- Boston Red Sox
Central- Detroit Tigers
West- Los Angeles Angels
Wild Card- New York Yankees
Honorable Mention: Minnesota Twins, Tampa Bay Rays
Disappointing Seasons: Texas Rangers, Chicago White Sox

National League:
East- Philadelphia Phillies
Central- St. Louis Cardinals
West- Colorado Rockies
Wild Card- Atlanta Braves
Honorable Mention: Cincinnati Reds, San Francisco Giants
Disappointing Seasons: Los Angeles Dodgers, Milwaukee Brewers

Man, was I wrong about Milwaukee and Texas, lol. I thought too highly of Minnesota and Boston (then again, who didn't). I did call Detroit winning the Central, so I'll give myself a little pat on the back for that

Battle of the Bullpens

Cards 1 Rangers 0

Great game. What can be better than a one run lead and having to face Young, Beltre, and Cruz. Too bad Beltre got robbed, but no one was hitting Motte tonight.

Bring on Game 2!

Great, great game tonight. Texas dd a nice job manufacturing a run and taking advantage of some sloppy defense by the Cardinals in the ninth.

I think we should see a much different style of baseball when the series hits Texas. The cold air was killing the long balls, and neither team really hit well. MLB really does need to go back to 154 games, and probably add some double headers in. If this game is played a week ago, it's freaking beautiful. Mid to late October in St. Louis is really just too cold for championship level play.

It should be interesting to see Allen Craig playing now that the DH is in play. The Cardinals have been trying to find a way to get his bat in the line-up more. The DH and three LH starters is the perfect recipe. He has done his job, driving in the go ahead run in both of the games in St. Louis. The dude is really a hitting machine.

If I were TLR, I'd strongly consider Westbrook over Jackson. Jackson gives up a lot more flyballs, and Westbrook has a good sinker that should play better in Arlington. We'll see what he does.

Jayhawker wrote:

Great, great game tonight.

Yeah no dog in this fight for me. But some entertaining baseball.

Jayhawker wrote:

I think we should see a much different style of baseball when the series hits Texas. The cold air was killing the long balls, and neither team really hit well. MLB really does need to go back to 154 games, and probably add some double headers in. If this game is played a week ago, it's freaking beautiful. Mid to late October in St. Louis is really just too cold for championship level play.

I can't agree more. There's way too many baseball games in a season. I'd like to see more double-headers (of course, if a DH gets rained out, it's harder to reschedule, because you're trying to reschedule two different games as opposed to one), but unfortunately, the owners proabably wouldn't go for that. Just like I would love to see dome teams and warm weather teams open the 1st day of baseball up, as opposed to say Cleveland or Minnesota. Nothing worse than to see a game get canceled because of snow, and there's no reason for it.

Speaking of which, I find it funny that Tampa has a dome, and Cleveland and Minnesota don't. Hell, Minnesota just built their dome-less stadium. Beautiful ballpark, just not the right climate for it.

Pujols kinda exposed himself and perhaps his true nature. You have gone 0-fer and make a critical error in the ninth inning you need to face the music and don't leave your teammates to answer all the questions.

Kush15 wrote:

Hell, Minnesota just built their dome-less stadium. Beautiful ballpark, just not the right climate for it.

Um...baseball starts in April. April is sweatshirt weather. If it's too cold for somebody to watch a game in April they should probably move.

Also, this:

City Ave. Monthly Temp (°F)
April July Oct
Boston, Mass. 48 74 54
Chicago, Ill. 48 73 52
Cleveland, Ohio 48 72 52
Denver, Colo. 48 73 51
Detroit, Mich. 48 74 52
Milwaukee, Wisc. 45 72 51
Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minn. 47 73 49
New York, N.Y. 53 77 57
Pittsburgh, Pa. 50 73 53
San Francisco, Calif. 56 63 61
Seattle-Tacoma, Wash. 50 65 53

TheGameguru wrote:

Pujols kinda exposed himself and perhaps his true nature. You have gone 0-fer and make a critical error in the ninth inning you need to face the music and don't leave your teammates to answer all the questions.

I'm sure this really bothered you. You probably had trouble sleeping because you didn't get to read some quotes by Pujols and a few others that ducked out. My condolences.

Somehow, growing up, my favorite pitcher was Steve Carlton. I was a hard throwing lefty that dreamed of throwing a Carlton slider (but I couldn't hit the broad side of a barn!). I was a die-hard Cards fan, but I also had a Phillies cap. I loved Mike Schmidt, Greg Luzinski, and Tug McGraw. I liked that McCarver moved to Philly to be Carlton's personal catcher.

Somehow, I followed Carlton's career and still consider him my all-time favorite lefty pitcher. Yet the guy never talked to the press.

And to be honest, Pujols is considered to be a giant ass to most of the St. Louis media. The fans love him, but you hear different members of the press complain about him all of the time. He would probably be better off never talking to the press. But he does use them to help drive a ton of the charity work he does.

And if you've ever heard a Pujols interview, as with most athletes, it's pretty much a pointless string of cliches. I have no idea why fans crave these things.

Not sure what former phillies did or didn't do means anything. I would call them out just the same. But if you don't want to care that's fine. I don't care either but Pujols teammates might even if they don't say it or show it. Part of being the "man" is facing the music. And this ain't the regular season. But go ahead be an apologist.

There were several players that ducked out. It means nothing in the clubhouse.

It means mostly nothing to St. Louis fans. I have no idea why it matters unless, unless you are bitter fan from a team that choked in the LDS or LCS.

My point was that players do not need to talk to the media to become fan favorites. It's cool if they do, cool if they don't. Call me an apologist. I'll call you fake disgruntled fan with an odd sense of entitlement. But if that makes your off-season more tolerable, go get 'em!

For two pretty boring teams, this will be a nice story for the national press to latch on to. They have sheep to feed, you know.

Albert exposed his true nature tonight. He's a freaking machine.

The Rangers got screwed over in the call in the 4th, but then the Cardinals proceeded to buttf*ck them for the rest of the game. Pitcher's duel, this was not.

iaintgotnopants wrote:
Kush15 wrote:

Hell, Minnesota just built their dome-less stadium. Beautiful ballpark, just not the right climate for it.

Um...baseball starts in April. April is sweatshirt weather. If it's too cold for somebody to watch a game in April they should probably move.

Also, this:

City Ave. Monthly Temp (°F)
April July Oct
Boston, Mass. 48 74 54
Chicago, Ill. 48 73 52
Cleveland, Ohio 48 72 52
Denver, Colo. 48 73 51
Detroit, Mich. 48 74 52
Milwaukee, Wisc. 45 72 51
Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minn. 47 73 49
New York, N.Y. 53 77 57
Pittsburgh, Pa. 50 73 53
San Francisco, Calif. 56 63 61
Seattle-Tacoma, Wash. 50 65 53

Thanks for the weather updates. My point was simply I don't like to see snow canceling April games, so maybe avoid places in the first week or two of the season where it's more likely to happen (IE, Cleveland, Colorado, Chicago), and play in places it won't (IE, Texas, Houston, Tampa, Miami). You know, the cities you conveniently left out of your weather chart.

And I wasn't bad mouthing Minnesota, I'm just baffled as to why they didn't put a retractable dome on their new stadium.

TheGameguru wrote:

Pujols kinda exposed himself and perhaps his true nature. You have gone 0-fer and make a critical error in the ninth inning you need to face the music and don't leave your teammates to answer all the questions.

[/quote]

You're also basising this off of 1 game. I don't think Pujols is known for ducking out on the media when he does bad. I'm going to bet money he talked to the press after game 1 of the regular season, where they lost in extra inning, went 0 for 5, grounding into 3 DPs. I have to give Pujols a pass on that one, especially since he came out last night and dominated.

Kush15 wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Pujols kinda exposed himself and perhaps his true nature. You have gone 0-fer and make a critical error in the ninth inning you need to face the music and don't leave your teammates to answer all the questions.

You're also basising this off of 1 game. I don't think Pujols is known for ducking out on the media when he does bad. I'm going to bet money he talked to the press after game 1 of the regular season, where they lost in extra inning, went 0 for 5, grounding into 3 DPs. I have to give Pujols a pass on that one, especially since he came out last night and dominated. [/quote]

He should do it more often... 3 HR's the next night..

Kush15 wrote:

My point was simply I don't like to see snow canceling April games, so maybe avoid places in the first week or two of the season where it's more likely to happen (IE, Cleveland, Colorado, Chicago), and play in places it won't (IE, Texas, Houston, Tampa, Miami). You know, the cities you conveniently left out of your weather chart. 8-)

Yes, because snowed out games are a real epidemic. As far as I can remember, it's happened once when Cleveland had a blizzard. You know where they played those games instead? Milwaukee, where there wasn't any snow. I'll say it again, baseball starts in April not f*cking January. You're making something that isn't a problem seem like it's the worst thing facing baseball. Also, it's not my chart asshole.

This pretty much sums it up...Fan in the back makes my food taste better...

IMAGE(http://www.sawauto.com/uploader/up/noooo.gif)

Noooooooooooo......