mlb-playoffs Page 20 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

A <em>Clash Of Clans</em> Addiction Nearly Sank The Royals' Season
A baseball season is long enough that any successful team will invariably slump, break out of it, and with hindsight be able to point to the year's largely symbolic turning point. For the Royals' narrative, that turning point was the clubhouse valiantly overcoming its crippling addiction to mobile g...

Royals Fans Celebrate Pennant With Long, Sloppy Victory Kiss
The YouTube description accompanying this video claims that these two lovebirds are total strangers, which seems a little hard to believe, but I guess anything is possible when two people are a few beers deep and the Royals make the World Series for the first time since 1985....

Bruce Bochy Was The Anti-Matheny, And It Made All The Difference
If you're looking for an argument that having a smart manager in the dugout is integral to a baseball team's success, last night's Cardinals-Giants game is it. Not only did it feature Mike Matheny badly managing his club right into a walk-off homer, it had the manager on the other side of the field,...

What The Royals' Pennant Win Sounded Like From The Parking Lot
It's the next-best thing to being inside the stadium! (No it's not. A bar would have been better. Or your couch in front of a TV. But I'm glad this video exists!)...

The Giants Can't Stop Winning Weird
After a 6-4 win keyed by another one of those Giants rallies that just sort of happen, San Francisco finds itself a game away from the World Series, and completely unable to explain it....

Jarrod Dyson Claims An Oriole Deliberately Kneed Him In The Head
Jarrod Dyson said he believes Orioles 3B Ryan Flaherty deliberately "put a knee down" on him on a pickoff attempt last night, as retaliation for his earlier comments that this ALCS would be a short one....

Royals Fans Didn't Let Mike Moustakas Hit The Ground
Adam Jones spoke for everyone with his echoed disbelief of his view after fouling off a pitch and patiently waiting for it to land harmlessly in the seats. "I didn't even see him catch it," Jones said of Mike Moustakas's plunge into the dugout suite. "I just saw him falling over. And—'He caught ...

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....

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...

Some Fools Are Selling Darren Wilson Cardinals Shirts
Inspired by the dude who taped an "I Am Darren Wilson" sign to the back of his Cardinals jersey before Game 4 of the NLDS, a local group of people who support Darren Wilson—a Ferguson, Mo., police officer who shot and killed unarmed teen Mike Brown in August— has decided to start selling handmade sh...

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:...

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. ...

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:...


What's More Improbable: An 18-Inning Playoff Game Or A 13-Inch Penis?
The Giants-Nationals 18-inning game Saturday was the longest in MLB postseason history. But that still doesn't give a proper picture of how statistically unlikely this is. So let's talk dicks. ...

The Royals Partied With Fans And Eric Hosmer Bought Everyone Drinks
After sweeping their best-of-five division series, some Royals—who had popped champagne in the locker room—made their way to a bar in Kansas City's Power & Light District. For this leg of the party, they invited the fans....

Lorenzo Cain Is Your Newest Playoff Star
If the Kansas City Royals' sweep of the Anaheim Angels left us with one lasting image, it will probably be that of Royals center fielder Lorenzo Cain just about losing his damn mind after making his second straight spectacular catch in the top of the fifth inning of last night's series-clinching w...

Buck Showalter Can't Stop Pushing The Right Buttons
It's a results-based business. And Orioles manager Buck Showalter—who, if he doesn't precisely rely on his hunches, at least tends to make decisions questionable enough that you notice they were decisions at all—finally has a playoff series win to call his own....