mlb-playoffs Page 21 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Yusmeiro Petit Was Essentially The Giants' Second Starter Last Night
Yusmeiro Petit has a weird position on the Giants. He was passable as a spot starter, but couldn't earn a place in a strong San Francisco rotation. The Giants don't need him to close out games, either, and Petit is capable of pitching longer than only an inning. But last night, in the longest MLB ...
Bryce Harper Killed A Baseball Into The Sky
Seventy-two years to the day from the first man-made object being sent into space, Bryce Harper mashed one hell of a tater....
Why The Cardinals Suck
By now you know the Cardinals and their fans and their city are terrible. But, you would be justified in asking, just why are they all so terrible?...
Orioles Win Game 2 By Thiiiiis Much
This here is Baltimore Orioles shortstop J.J. Hardy eluding Tigers catcher Alex Avila—by, hell, an inch?—to give the Orioles a 7-6 lead in the bottom of the eighth. Hardy was the third run to score on Delmon Young's pinch-hit, bases-clearing double. ...
The Royals Stole The Game In Right Field
The Royals continue to play to type. A team that's never going to slug, Kansas City has to win with speed, defense, and timely hitting, or it's not going to win at all. There was no repeat base-stealing extravaganza in last night's 3-2 Game 1 win over the Angels, but the timely hitting showed up...
Chart: Royals-A's Was Awesome; Giants-Pirates Was Shit
Everyone knows the AL wild-card game between Oakland and Kansas City was much more exciting than San Francisco's blowout win over Pittsburgh in the NL game. Fangraphs' Jeff Sullivan has provided all of us with a stark visual representation of that fact by charting the win-expectancy fluctuations fro...
The Royals Will Never Stop Running
The Royals had seven different players steal a base on Tuesday night. That's a playoff record, and an incredible figure considering that most teams would have become gun-shy after a disastrous failed double-steal in the first and a four run deficit after six innings. The Royals are not most teams....
The Pirates Were One Of The Unluckiest (And Best) Teams In Baseball
Pittsburgh hosts its second straight National League play-in game tonight. The Pirates will host the Giants, with both teams finishing the regular season at at 88-74—which doesn't mean they were necessarily equal this year. While the one-game format renders a lot of season-long trends obsolete, the ...
Royals Fans Got Loud Enough To Help Their Team Win
If you are a Royals fan who attended last night's crazy-ass wild card game in Kansas City, you should go ahead and give yourself a pat on the back. Because according to A's outfielder Sam Fuld, you played a direct role in the Royals winning that game....
MLB.com Runs "Royals Lose" Game Story
Live on MLB.com in the minutes immediately following the Royals' incredible extra-inning win was a version of the game story written in the ninth inning. In this version, which you can read below, the A's hung on to win and advance. ...
Chart: How Sabermetric MLB Forecasts Stacked Up Against Vegas
From Skidmore College statistics professor Michael Lopez comes the handy chart you see above, plotting the 2014 win totals of all 30 MLB teams against preseason predictions from Vegas and what Lopez calls his "Statsheads Prediction."...
TBS Baseball Crew Recreates "Boom Goes The Dynamite" Highlight Reel
To help ring in the playoffs, TBS had the crew from its studio baseball show do a new version of the famous "Boom Goes The Dynamite" highlight disaster. It's a pretty well-struck parody....
Jon Lester Vs. James Shields Is An Argument For The Second Wild Card
There are plenty of reasons to dislike the presence of MLB's second wild card teams, but tonight's matchup is not one of them. That's because we will get to watch two great pitchers—James Shields of the Kansas City Royals and Jon Lester of the Oakland A's—start the precise game that they were acquir...
Important WSJ Study: The Cardinals Are The Most Hateable Playoff Team
According to science, the Cardinals are the most hateable team in in the MLB playoffs. ...
This Cardinals Fan's Playoff Music Video Makes Me Want To Fight Things [UPDATE]
We know what time it is. The St. Louis Cardinals clinched a playoff berth, which means that St. Louis Cardinal fans—the worst, wackest, whitest fanbase in all of sports—are going to hit us with an indescribably corny music video....
Ryan Dempster Was Throwing BP At Fenway At 3 A.M.
How did Ryan Dempster cap off his night of celebrating following the Red Sox's World Series victory? He made his way—a little buzzed, we imagine—to the Fenway Park mound and offered to throw batting practice to his buddies. ...