Playoff Miscellany: Blue Jays Stay Alive, Astros Take the Lead, Utley Gets Suspended

2015 mlb postseasonThe Cubs and Cardinals resume today, with the series tied at one. They’ll play at 5pm CT, but there will also be three other games today – yup, all four LDS are in action today, which is pretty cool.

  • In the American League, each LDS went to 2-1 yesterday. The Astros won 4-2 over the Royals, behind a 124-pitch, 7-inning outing from Dallas Keuchel. They are riding him very hard this postseason, which may seem rough, but it’s generally what teams do this time of year (and players generally welcome it).
  • No sweep for the Rangers, as the Blue Jays beat them 5-1. Troy Tulowitski hasn’t done a ton in the playoffs, but he drove in four of those runs, including a three-run homer.
  • MLB came down hard on Chase Utley for his slide that broke Ruben Tejada’s leg on Saturday., suspending him for two games – a suspension he’s appealing. While I definitely think Utley’s slide was unconscionably dangerous, and probably even went beyond what most would call a “hard baseball play,” I think it’s difficult to suspend a guy mid-stream for a play like that, when too many ugly slides have been tolerated for years and years. If Tejada isn’t hurt on that play, is Utley suspended? Almost certainly not. Should the outcome of a play determine the punishment? Seems like no. Again: I think that was a terrible “slide,” and is dangerous thing that should not be part of the game. But was it so outside the bounds of what has been acceptable for decades? That’s a bigger baseball problem, not just a Chase Utley being reckless problem.
  • I’ll say it again: the solution here is requiring runners to slide at the base within a specified lane, prohibiting them from targeting defenders, and getting rid of the neighborhood play (so that defenders don’t get free double plays all the time now that they can’t get targeted … since the only reason the neighborhood play exists is to protect defenders … who, with my rule change, would no longer need protection).
  • written by

    Brett Taylor is the Lead Cubs Writer at Bleacher Nation, and you can find him on Twitter at @BleacherNation and on LinkedIn here. Brett is also the founder of Bleacher Nation, which opened up shop in 2008 as an independent blog about the Chicago Cubs. Later growing to incorporate coverage of other Chicago sports, Bleacher Nation is now one of the largest regional sports blogs on the web.

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