Baseball Page 1034 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Baseball Battle For Lorde's Approval Continues Unabated
Update: Apparently I'm an idiot/pop culture recluse, and the shirt actually references the hook from Chris Brown's song "Loyal" which goes "these hoes ain't loyal." In my defense I rarely listen to that women-beating moron, and I'm really annoyed by all of those Lorde cover songs. Anyways, look at t...

Giants Ride Their First Big Inning of the NLCS To Extra-Innings Win
The Giants offense has struggled lately. In winning Game 1 of the NLCS, they scored three runs on a single, error, and sacrifice fly. In losing Game 2, they scored four runs on a ground out, single, single, and walk. Across the two games they left 19 men on base to the Cardinals 11, unable to turn...

Royals Pitcher Gives Playoff Tickets To Broke Dude On Twitter
On Saturday, a Kansas City Royals fan was really sad about the fact that he was too broke to take his girlfriend to a Royals playoff game. As any sensible person would do, he looked to amend the situation by taking to Twitter and asking Royals reliever Brandon Finnegan for some tickets....

Cubs Fans, Look Away Now
Yeah, that's real. It's a Cubs cap with a 2003 World Series patch, and it was placed in players' lockers late in Game 6 of the NLCS, anticipating a almost-certain Chicago victory....

Chart: MLB Strike Zone Keeps Expanding
This chart from Jon Roegele of The Hardball Times shows the MLB strike zone for right-handed hitters has expanded 46 square inches since 2009. And this season had the largest single-year increase of the PITCHf/x era as the zone grew 16 square inches expanding from 459 square inches to 475....

Kolten Wong Wins Game Two With Walk-Off Homer
After blowing the lead in the top of the ninth, St. Louis evened the NLCS when Kolten Wong led off the bottom of the frame with a line drive homer to right. Here's how it sounded in Spanish on Fox Deportes. (Hint: it was much better than Joe Buck's call.)...

MLB's Player-Tracking Technology Exists For Players Like Lorenzo Cain
We love us some Lorenzo Cain. The Royals' speedy outfielder made his presence felt yet again yesterday, robbing J.J. Hardy of certain extra bases in yesterday's 6-4 win. And thanks to some fancy technology from MLBAM, we can quantify just how good he is at what he does....

Madison Bumgarner's Curveball Made Hitters Look Dumb Last Night
Madison Bumgarner accomplished a very specific feat in last night's Game 1 NLCS win: The Giants lefty broke the record for most consecutive scoreless innings pitched with 26.2 after he exited the game against the Cardinals. It was entertaining to watch him work his way through the lineup, but obviou...

Chart: Where Pro Athletes Are Born In America
Ben Blatt put together this chart for Slate that shows where current pro athletes were born in America. NHL players tend to come from the Northeast and NFL players are concentrated in the South; New York produces a higher proportion of NBA than NFL players, and California is a hotbed for baseball ta...

Hate Mail (Mostly) From Cardinals Fans
Our recent coverage of the St. Louis Cardinals has elicited many responses from our readers. Some of them are angry, some of them less so....

Bad News, Baseball Fans
We get tips. (You should send us some!) Here's a tip we just got, and it's bad news for those of you who were looking forward to watching baseball tomorrow and Saturday nights:...

There's Nothing Wrong With The Dodgers Spending A Lot Of Money
Fox Sports' Ken Rosenthal has a column up today that rightly marvels at the St. Louis Cardinals' ability to consistently win in the postseason. Things take a weird turn, though, when Rosenthal starts referring to the Los Angeles Dodgers as the "Dollars."...

The Nats Are Gone, But Bryce Harper's Taters Are A Joy Forever
The Washington Nationals were bounced from the postseason last night, but not before Bryce Harper did the thing he's been doing all series and murdered one last baseball into the sky....

Giants Outlast Nationals To Advance to NLCS
There was a moonshot of a home run, a phenomenal defensive gem, a solid pitching performance, and questionable managerial decisions. But when a fluky series came down to a fluky play, the Giants won 3–2 against the Nationals because they always seem to get a fluky play or two in the postseason....

Cardinals Beat Dodgers, Clayton Kershaw On Three-Run Homer
The crucial talking point preceding Game 4 between the Dodgers and Cardinals was "sample size." That mainly had to do with Dodgers manager Don Mattingly's decision to bench Yasiel Puig and start Andre Ethier in the outfield instead because of Puig's struggles in the first three games of the series. ...

Yasiel Puig Benched For Game 4
Yasiel Puig has barely been a warm body since the start of September, but Don Mattingly chose today's potential elimination game to make the change. Puig is out of the lineup, replaced by nonentity Andre Ethier....

MLB Managers Are Playing Less Small Ball Than Ever
It's well documented we're in an era of dominant pitching, with declines in home runs and batting averages coinciding with the highest strikeout rates in MLB history. But there are also other, less prominent stats gravitating toward record rates that have slipped by most fans. ...

Cardinals Fans Get Ugly In Clash With Ferguson Protesters
This guy right here, the one with "I am Darren Wilson" taped onto the back of his Cardinals jersey—an homage to the Ferguson, Mo., police officer who shot an unarmed teenager named Mike Brown to death in August—was at the Cardinals game last night. He, along with many other Cardinals fans, clashed...

Matt Kemp Blasts Dale Scott's Strike Zone: "The Worst I've Ever Seen"
John Lackey was masterful and the L.A. bullpen couldn't hold the fort in last night's 3-1 Cardinals win, but afterward, all a number of Dodgers could talk about was home plate umpire Dale Scott. Matt Kemp went off:...

Report: Yadier Molina Will Be Fined, Not Suspended, For Pushing Umpire
St. Louis Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina will be fined, but not suspended, for pushing an umpire in Game 1 of the Cardinals series against the Dodgers, according to Jon Heyman of CBS Sports. Leading off the bottom of the third inning, Yasiel Puig was nailed in the back by Adam Wainright. Adrian G...