2014 MLB Discussion: Regular Season (September)

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Opening Day Quotes:

"Baseball's Opening Day is full of time-honored traditions: the President throws out the first ball, the Cubs' starting pitcher walks away with a 54.00 ERA, the Royals get mathematically eliminated from the pennant race."
-Rob Sheffield

"You always get a special kick on opening day, no matter how many you go through. You look forward to it like a birthday party when you're a kid. You think something wonderful is going to happen."
-Joe DiMaggio

"An Opener is not like any other game. There's that little extra excitement, a faster beating of the heart. You know that when you win the first one, you can't lose 'em all."
-Early Wynn

"It's like Christmas, except it's warmer."
-Pete Rose

Clayton Kershaw goes on the DL for the first time in his 7-year career. He joins many other pitchers who were injured this Spring, including Jarrod Parker and Kris Medlen who are done for the year. Are there any other pitchers left?

Also, the Dodgers have a chance tonight to grab 3 wins before 27 other teams even take the field for 2014.

Dodgers end the Yankees payroll dominance streak.

Predictions:
AL Division Winners: Boston, Kansas City, Oakland
Wild Card: Tampa Bay & Texas

NL Division Winners: Washington, St. Louis, Los Angeles
Wild Cards: San Francisco & Atlanta

World Series: Los Angeles over Boston

I'm not sure Boston can repeat. I just don't see them able to put up that type of season offense again out of the blue.

karmajay wrote:

I'm not sure Boston can repeat. I just don't see them able to put up that type of season offense again out of the blue.

Yeah, last year was literally lightning in a bottle. Not the stuff of which repeats or dynasties are made of.

Predictions:
AL Division Winners: Rays, Tigers, Rangers
Wild Cards: Yankees, Red Sox

NL Division Winners: Nats, Cards, Dodgers
Wild Cards: Braves, Pirates

World Series: Dodgers over Tigers

Opening day in Flushing: The second baseman's in Florida because his wife's in labor, the left fielder we signed for $7.25 million suddenly has a hamstring injury, and 4 or 5 other guys reportedly have the flu. Yep, sounds about right. Let's go Mets!

AL Division: Boston, Detroit, Oakland
Wild Cards: Tampa, Texas

NL Division: Washington, St Louis, Dodgers
Wild Cards: Braves, Pirates

World Series: Cardinals over Tigers

Jose Reyes on the DL. Who saw THAT coming....

#everyone

Strong 1st game by the Rays!

Great game by the Mariners. Felix being Felix the King (after a 1st inning wake-up pinch by Trout!). Great to see Smoak, Ackley and Zunino get some good bats. And even tho' Spring wasn't kind to him, but McClendon's support was, Almonte showed he can (and will be?) a good lead-off hitter.

Nice going guys!

Donan wrote:

Great game by the Mariners. Felix being Felix the King (after a 1st inning wake-up pinch by Trout!). Great to see Smoak, Ackley and Zunino get some good bats. And even tho' Spring wasn't kind to him, but McClendon's support was, Almonte showed he can (and will be?) a good lead-off hitter.

Nice going guys!

Yeah, it was nice to see the Ms turning in a solid performance. Here's hoping there's lots more where that came from.

I think the Phillies scored more runs than they did all of spring training yesterday. They hit the Rangers are the right time, as their pitching staff is banged up right now. If they can take 1 of these next 2, I will be happy.

Sad to see that CC Sabathia seems to have completely lost his competitiveness.

The funniest thing on the internet this year:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkGjCuBIcAAmZT7.jpg)

Don't worry Yankees fans, there are still decent players like Sebathia, Teixeira, McCann, Beltran, and Ellsbury who don't care about money...

Kieth Olberman had a blast with that guy last night.

It's only one game, but I think the Cardinals are going to brutally hard to beat in late innings. They have so many flamethrowers in the bullpen. Siegrest from the left and Martinez from the right were just filthy. And then they roll in Trevor Rosenthal.

The guys pitched around 2 eighth inning errors in 1-0 game on the road versus their most heated rival with surprising ease.

Red Sox visited the president yesterday.
IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkJjrfqIMAAU0mQ.jpg)

Johnny Gomes looking sharp.
IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkJhJYWCMAAG-EH.jpg)

Kush15 wrote:

Don't worry Yankees fans, there are still decent players like Sebathia, Teixeira, McCann, Beltran, and Ellsbury who don't care about money...

The butthurt is strong with this one!

FSeven wrote:

IMAGE(https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BkGjCuBIcAAmZT7.jpg)

The butthurt is strong with this one!

FTFY

In light of his 3 HR day against my Phillies (but FOR my Fantasy team, which trumps everything)

(Onion Article)
Ryan Braun trying to regain the trust of fans before cheating again

Already a tough year pitching wise for the Rays. Moore out for the year, Cobb on the DL and Hellboy still out.

It seems to be a tough year for players everywhere. Injuries seem really high.

TB 11, NYY 5.

And wow, Cesar Cabral ejection was awesome/crazy in the 8th inning. He hit 3 out of 4 batters and was just completely out of control. After he hit Longoria and Loney back to back to load the bases, I was wondering what the hell Girardi was waiting on to get him out of there. And then he gave up a hit to Will Meyers to drive in 2 runs, and he still wasn't pulled. And then he hit Forsythe, and the home plate umpire did Girardi's job for him.

Yowzers, hope this Rays offense can keep it up!

karmajay wrote:

Yowzers, hope this Rays offense can keep it up!

16-1!

27 runs in 2 games. If only we could play the Yankees more.

It's amazing how the PED days have ruined the specialness of a 500 HR person. That was the least buildup of someone getting there that I can recall.

IMAGE(http://imgick.nj.com/home/njo-media/pgmain/img/njcom_photos/photo/2014/04/-8ce3ded33e373444.JPG)

Michael Pineda ejected for substance on his neck. I don't see an issue, clearly it's just mud! Again!

For Pineda's next start, he's just going to bring a tub of pine tar out to the mound. Seriously, how stupid can one person be?

Well, we are talking about professional athletes...

Kush15 wrote:

For Pineda's next start, he's just going to bring a tub of pine tar out to the mound. Seriously, how stupid can one person be?

This. I can't believe he did it again that soon and thought that moving it elsewhere would solve the problem.

From what people (such as MLB players like Pierzynski and coaches) are saying, pretty much all pitchers use some sort of substance be it resin/pine tar/etc. but Pineda was stupid enough not to hide it. He's being punished not because he was using it but because he didn't hide it. It's something that speaks to my waning interest in baseball over the years due to things like their lax approach to steroids when baseball viewership was low and they needed a Sosa/McGwire but sudden adoption of a hardline stance when public sentiment is that the use of steroids is cheating. Baseball has a rule against pitchers using substances and everyone knows the vast majority of pitchers use it but it's totally fine as long as they hide it. Get rid of the rule, maybe plop a resin bag on the mound so the use of it can be controlled, and let pitchers use it in the interest of better ball control so batters aren't being nailed with every other pitch.

Just to show baseball is not without a sense of irony, it was David Ortiz who notified Farrel about Pineda.

FSeven wrote:

Get rid of the rule, maybe plop a resin bag on the mound so the use of it can be controlled, and let pitchers use it in the interest of better ball control so batters aren't being nailed with every other pitch.

There is a rosin bag on the mound. Did they discontinue that? I've always seen that on the mound at games.

And it has very little to do with the pine tar. The Cardinals let Buchholtz get away with it last year, and the Red Sox let Pineda get away with it earlier this year. The problem is all the fans and media freak out, so Farrell had to do something or his competence would have been called into question.

So yeah, he got suspended for stupidity.

Though he was incredibly dumb for how he displayed it, I am not quite sure why they have the rule in there when it is pretty much accepted that all pitchers do it but are discrete.

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