playoffs Page 131 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights
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....
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:...
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....
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. ...
This Josh Hamilton At-Bat Was The Saddest Thing
OK, so I knew that Josh Hamilton wasn't exactly a star anymore—a quick glance at his Baseball Reference page tells me that—but I didn't realize things had gotten this bad....
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...
Fans Of The TV Show Castle Angry At Sports
In the bottom of the eighth inning of the first game of the ALDS series between the Baltimore Orioles and Detroit Tigers, the Orioles offense went gangbusters and sent 14 players to the plate as well as prompting three pitching changes. This took a long time, so the Los Angeles Angels-Kansas City Ro...
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....