Happy Friday!
Welcome back to Red Pinstripes. In today’s newsletter, it’s all about the playoffs. What a game we had last night for the Dodgers to win the NLDS, although not exactly a standard-bearer for the umpires. Los Angeles will join Atlanta, Boston, and Houston in the championship series.
Already, baseball’s postseason has demonstrated its capricious randomness. And I’m sure that we’re in for more of that, but I’ll make some predictions anyway. I also have some thoughts on the broadcasts we’ve seen so far this postseason, and how one commentator in particular hurts the game.
In the ALDS, cheaters prospered
Houston Astros def. Chicago White Sox 3-1
I think these Astros might be a great team and they demonstrated why during this series. They neutralized a good White Sox pitching staff to put up a lot of crooked numbers. And their pitching was good enough to stop what’s otherwise a prolific White Sox offense.
The big story coming out of this series was, once again, discussion of the Astros and stealing signs. Even though just five members of the 2017 Astros are still on this team, it’s a scandal that will follow this franchise for a long time. White Sox reliever Ryan Tepera poured gas on the fire when he accused the Astros of still using some sort of cheating scheme at home and that they couldn’t score runs on the road. He said this after game 3. The Astros proceeded to score 10 runs in Chicago to eliminate the White Sox.
The cheating scandal is still a big deal. But there’s no ethical fandom in baseball. No team is pure. Every team has some sort of warts. The Astros scandal was a black mark on the sport, but it’s time to move on, just for the sake of our enjoyment of baseball. If the Astros are cheating again, that would be bad for the game and we should know it. But unless there’s proof, I’m getting fairly tired of the discourse about cheating every time someone brings up the Astros.
Boston Red Sox def. Tampa Bay Rays 3-1
This was a great series. The Rays looked like they would be the dominant team after Game 1. But then the Red Sox bats came alive. We saw Kiké Hernandez became the world’s hottest hitter. And some weird stuff happened during extra innings in game 3.
If you missed it, I feel bad for you because you missed great postseason baseball. This series was also another reason for these divisional series to go seven games. I would have loved to see more baseball between these two rivals.
ALCS preview
So that means we have the Astros vs. the Red Sox in the American League Championship Series. Remember where I said there’s no ethical fandom in sports? That’s true in this series, where you have the team known for their cheating on one side in the Astros and the coach that helped lead the scheme managing in the opposing dugout with the Red Sox's Alex Cora.
Get past that stuff and this should be an entertaining series. Both teams can beat the cover off the ball. They also have good starters, though the depth will be tested during a seven-game series.
I love the Astros lineup. Except for their center field platoon and Martin Maldonado at catcher, every regular in this lineup can hit. With Jose Altuve and Michael Brantley, they also have players who excel at making contact and avoiding strikeouts.
On the Red Sox side, they have a deep lineup when everyone is going right. And right now, everyone is going right. Hernandez has led the charge, but they’ve also received key contributions from Alex Verdugo and Christian Vasquez. And those three players might be the offensive key to this series for the Red Sox. If they can continue to play well, they make a good lineup great. But they’re not stars and could turn back into pumpkins at any moment. Rafael Devers, Xander Bogaerts, Kyle Schwarber, and J.D. Martinez need the backup.
With the pitching, I don’t know what we’ll get. Lance McCullers and Framber Valdez are good for the Astros. Nathan Eovaldi is good for the Red Sox. Chris Sale, the game one starter for Boston, is still coming back from Tommy John and has been erratic. Eduardo Rodriguez has pitched well for the Red Sox in the postseason, but flip a coin and you’re getting good Rodriguez or bad Rodriguez. There’s no in-between.
So who wins? I’m hesitant to pick against this hot Red Sox team. It’s a franchise that loves to do the team of destiny thing. But the Astros are a great team. They’re a case of “everything you can do, I can do better.” And at some point, the Red Sox deserve decades of championship-less karma for trading away Mookie Betts.
Pick: Astros in six.
Solid pitching in the senior circuit
Atlanta def. Milwaukee Brewers 3-1
Game one made this series look like it would go exactly like I predicted when the Brewers shut out Atlanta. But then the script flipped and it was the Brewers who suddenly couldn’t score. The leaky Atlanta bullpen held and the Brewers couldn’t hit when they needed it most.
Unfortunately, this series was marred, as so many recent playoff series have been, by Atlanta encouraging fans to do the racist Tomahawk Chop. If you remember, in 2019 the team played the musical cues for the chant when Cardinals reliever Ryan Helsley entered the game. Helsley, a member of the Cherokee Nation, later said that the playing of the chant was offensive. Atlanta said they would begin limiting the use of the chant during games. But this week, when Adrian Houser entered the game for the Brewers, the chant could be heard throughout the stadium, prompted by the team. Houser, like Helsley, is a member of the Cherokee Nation.
Professional sports teams have finally begun to wake up to the reality that the use of native imagery and words in their presentation is offensive, if not outright racist. Cleveland’s baseball team first eliminated the racist Chief Wahoo caricature and is now changing its name to the Guardians. Washington’s football team has removed its native imagery and is in the middle of a search for a new name.
In other places though, the imagery persists. Kansas City’s football team uses the imagery, including the same chant the Atlanta baseball team uses. It is 2021. There’s no excuse.
Los Angeles Dodgers def. San Francisco Giants 3-2
This series was everything we could have hoped for as baseball fans. The Giants’ pitching nearly won them this series. But in the end, the Dodgers’ bats were too much.
Of course, we’ll all remember this series for the way it ended. Umpire Gabe Morales called Wilmer Flores out on a checked third strike that clearly wasn’t a swing. But he wasn’t the only bad umpire in that game. Home plate umpired Doug Eddings had an erratic zone that had both teams barking all game.
But really, this game and this series was tremendous anyway. Logan Webb was fantastic in allowing just one run over 14.2 innings against the Dodgers. Camillo Doval was dominant until Cody Bellinger got him in the ninth inning of game five. And Bellinger himself proved that his regular season struggles don’t mean he can’t be an impactful bat for the Dodgers in the playoffs. Finally, Mookie Betts gave a star performance with four hits in game five. He manufactured the Dodgers’ first run by singling, stealing second, and scoring on Corey Seager’s double.
Then to cap it all off, Max Scherzer earned the first save of his career. Amazing.
I really don’t want to be a broken record, but the worst thing about this series was that we only had five games. Baseball needs to figure out a way to make these divisional series seven games. It’s that simple
NLCS preview
Last year, Atlanta and the Dodgers played in a classic postseason series. They went to game seven in the NLCS and this year, they’ll meet again. They took different routes this year. The Dodgers were the second-best team in baseball but had to win a Wild Card game just to make it to the NLDS. Atlanta wasn’t great during the regular season and had to do a lot of work to retool their team, but they won a bad division and get home-field advantage during this series. Maybe this year, that’s enough.
On paper, the Dodgers have the edge in every category. Their rotation, with Max Scherzer, Walker Buehler, and Julio Urias. Tony Gonsolin should be the dependable fourth man, if they go that route. Their bullpen is excellent, as we saw during the Giants series. Cory Knebel, Blake Treinen, Kenley Jansen, Joe Kelly, and Alex Vesia are all great relievers. And the depth and versatility of the offense is remarkable. Almost every regular can play multiple positions and their bench has righties and lefties capable of starting for most teams. The big question will be whether Max Muncy is healthy enough to appear during this series. That could be an x-factor for the Dodgers.
But move beyond the paper matchups. This Atlanta team is dangerous. Their rotation can keep up with the Braves. Max Fried and Charlie Morton are great pitchers. Ian Anderson, if he’s on, is another great one. It will be interesting to see who they go with in Game 4 between Huascar Ynoa and Drew Smyly. Ynoa is better, but he might be needed out of the bullpen. Atlanta’s lineup is deep, too. Freddie Freeman and Alex Riley both put together MVP years. Ozzie Albies is a switch-hitting phenom. And look at the four-headed outfield monster of Joc Pederson, Adam Duvall, Eddie Rosario, and Jorge Soler: all of these players were on different teams before the All-Star break.
The difference for Atlanta could come down to the bullpen. Will Smith, Tyler Matzek, AJ Minter, Luke Jackson, and company have been better than expected in the playoffs over the past two years. But they’re risky. And the Dodgers are a team more adept than most at beating good relievers because they can play the matchup game. This should be another really fun championship series.
My definitely wrong guess: Dodgers in 6
Playoff broadcasters
Let’s start this segment on a positive note. It was a joy to listen to the broadcasts of most of these divisional series games. The TBS crews are both great. And the Fox crew of Adam Amin, Adam Wainwright, and AJ Pierzynski that covered the Astros series was a blast to listen to. All three crews did one simple thing: they focused on the game in front of them. They enjoyed the baseball they were watching. And they appreciated the players on the field.
They also told it like it is. Brian Anderson and Ron Darling handled the end of the Giants-Dodgers game five wonderfully. They gave the Dodgers their due as the winners. But they also immediately recognized the controversy of the check-swing strike and said it was the wrong call. They’re a great crew and the NLCS will be a fun watch with those two in the booth.
Unfortunately, the broadcaster I didn’t mention will handle the ALCS: John Smoltz. No matter what play-by-play man you pair him up with -- and Smoltz has already worked with Joe Davis and Matt Vasgersian this postseason and will work with Joe Buck the rest of the way -- Smoltz is a miserable listen. I think it has been at least five years of Smoltz calling baseball’s biggest games now and it gets worse every year. He just doesn’t like the way baseball is played today and he constantly reminds viewers of that. He hates shifts. He hates pitcher usage. He just doesn’t get baseball today. It’s one thing if he’s a studio talking head and he only gets a couple of minutes. But we’ll have to listen to Smoltz for at least 30 more hours this month, and it’s going to suck.
The ALCS and the World Series should be crowning events for baseball that remind viewers about what they love about baseball. New and old viewers should feel excited about the game they are watching. NLCS viewers will get that with Anderson and Darling. But on Fox, with Smoltz in the booth, MLB is putting its biggest critic on air. It doesn’t make sense. It’s dumb. And it’s going to take away from the games.