MLB Playoffs Page 6 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
Padres’ Clevinger could be lost for the postseason, and that sucks
Because it’s 2020, the most fun team in baseball just has to take a gut-punch to its title hopes....
Expanded Playoffs Suck, But Here’s a Way to Fix It
Rob Manfred says this season’s expanded baseball playoffs are likely to remain in place for 2021 and beyond, and everybody hates it....
Baseball's 2020 Playoff Plans Are Simultaneously Absurd and Perfect
Major League Baseball’s plan for this fall, an expanded postseason in which 16 of 30 teams have a chance to win the World Series, is patently ludicrous....
Bryce, the Braves, and a Buffalo World Series? Our MLB Roundtable Predicts a Wild Season
It is, somehow, about to be baseball season, so Deadspin’s elite crew of people who have been tasked with making predictions about the 2020 MLB season, Chris Baud, Sam Fels, Julie DiCaro, and Jesse Spector, are here to make predictions about the 2020 MLB season. Everyone recognizes that this is a te...
Max Scherzer Can't Go Tonight, So The Nationals Are Turning To, Um, Joe Ross?
What was going to be a marquee Game 5 pitching rematch on Sunday night between the Astros’ Gerrit Cole and the Nationals’ Max Scherzer has taken a bizarre left turn, as Scherzer won’t be healthy enough to get on the mound for Washington. In a shock announcement this afternoon, manager Davey Martinez...
Alex Bregman Let Out All His Frustration With One Booming Swing
It seems likely that nobody in the World Series was more pissed off than Astros third baseman Alex Bregman heading into Game 4. The ’Stros’ top hitter in the regular season was only 1-for-13 in the first three games of the Fall Classic. His lone positive contribution was a meaningless dinger in a 12...
Alex Bregman Was So Close To Stopping Everything
It’s obviously hyperbole to say that a misplay on a tough grounder lost the Astros Game 2 of the World Series. But that six-run seventh inning from the Nationals that broke the 2-2 tie and led them to a 12-3 win was such an intense morale-sapper—for both the Houston team and the formerly rowdy crowd...
After Game 2 Pounding, The Astros Are Up To Their Necks In Doo Doo
The Astros are in big trouble. They lost Game 1 Tuesday night when the Nationals touched up the best pitcher in baseball for five runs, and came into Game 2 needing to scratch out some offense against a rolling Stephen Strasburg in order to salvage a split at home. They got off to a good start on th...
Patrick Corbin Was The Only Choice
Dave Martinez knew it. He knew it by the fourth, when the Astros worked Max Scherzer for 27 pitches, pushing his pitch count on the night to an unsustainable 96 through four, but also he knew it on Monday, when the Nationals manager declined to name a starting pitcher for Game 3 despite having a cle...
Overeager Victor Robles Eats Shit On Badly Mistimed Diving Catch Attempt
The Astros are tough as hell. They jumped out to a 2–0 lead in the bottom of the first against Nationals Game 1 starter Max Scherzer, and have made Scherzer work out of trouble in every inning so far. In the bottom of the third, with the Astros up a run, Yuli Gurriel flared a blooper to shallow left...
Report: Astros Assistant GM Yelled "Thank God We Got Osuna" At Female Reporters After ALCS Win
During the Houston Astros’ clubhouse ALCS victory celebration Saturday night, Astros assistant general manager for player evaluation Brandon Taubman taunted three female reporters about the organization’s trade for closer Roberto Osuna, who was suspended for 75 games last season for violating Major ...
Jose Altuve Sends Astros To World Series With Walk-Off Bomb Against Aroldis Chapman
The final inning of the ALCS was a dramatic one, as the Astros booked their tickets to the World Series with an emphatic walk-off dinger. After spotting Houston a three-run lead in the first inning and trailing for the entire game, the Yankees finally drew even in the top of the ninth when D.J. LeMa...
Here's Another Reason To Hate Baseball's De-Juiced Baseballs
The defining image of the Yankees’ Game 5 win over the Astros on Friday happened with two outs in the top of the sixth inning. Having just struck out Yordan Álvarez after walking Carlos Correa, Aaron Boone slowly came out of the dugout to have a talk with his starter. While it’s not clear what the e...
Giancarlo Stanton And His Bum Quad Will Try To Save The Yankees
This postseason, the New York Yankees are 4-0 when Giancarlo Stanton gets into the game, and 0-3 when he does not. The lack of Stanton’s bat in the lineup isn’t the only reason the Yankees are down 3-1 to the Astros in the ALCS, but it’d certainly help to have him at DH instead of Edwin Encarnacion....
CC Sabathia Has Thrown His Last Pitch, And Joe Girardi Could Barely Hold It Together
Just about everything that could go wrong has for the Yankees, down 3-1 in the ALCS after Thursday night’s 8-3 loss to the Astros in the Bronx. (Except, weirdly, they’re still outhitting Houston in the series—which is itself a sign that they’re leaving men on base and the Astros aren’t.) So it was o...
The Washington Nationals Are The Team Of Destiny, Until They're Not
For the entirety of their brief existence in the nation’s capital, the Washington Nationals have been too insignificant or too lousy or too unlucky or too self-defeating to hate. This is not to say that I haven’t figured out various ways to do it over the years, but also I am not without some intere...
What's Wrong With The Baseballs Is What's Wrong With Baseball
Something is definitely up. There is data, and it points in a specific direction, but also there are some long shadows and heavy circumstances and longstanding and well-founded suspicions in play as well. But we might as well start with the data....
Nationals Complete Sweep Of Cardinals, Nanny Nanny Boo Boo
The Washington Nationals completed their four-game NLCS sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals Tuesday night, 7–4, and advanced to the franchise’s first World Series. They did it with a seven-run first inning, and then mostly held on for dear life, but they had a bunch of help from the Cardinals themselve...
This Is Just Some Delightful Baserunning From The Astros
The Houston Astros doubled their lead against the Yankees in the seventh inning of Game 3 this evening, not with the fancy-pants longballs that initially gave them a 2-0 advantage, but with some gritty, scrappy, heads-up baserunning that was unironically delightful to watch. Through just one hit and...
Stephen Strasburg's Teammates Must Keep Hugging Him Until His Icy Heart Melts
Stephen Strasburg kicked ass last night, striking out 12 Cardinals hitters in seven innings of work and leading his team to an 8-1 Game 3 victory. As you can see in the image above, all that hard work was repaid when he entered the dugout after recording his final out of the night and received a gro...