Not sure I mentioned it yet or not, but “The Fall of the House of Usher” was quite good. Mike Flanagan does not miss.
- Back when they were beating up on the Cubs in September, playing a key role in crushing our hopes, I don’t know that I would’ve said the Diamondbacks had the look of a World Series team. They were definitely playing well, but would we have said, on paper, that they were FUNDAMENTALLY better than the Cubs? And no one was thinking the CUBS had the “look of a World Series team.”
- YET, after those wins (one more than the Cubs, in total, in the regular season), and then a whole lot more of ’em in the postseason, the Arizona Diamondbacks are indeed headed to the World Series. Theoretically, then, that could’ve been the Cubs. It’s a reminder of what has always been true about the MLB playoffs: just get in, and you can go places. Is it better to have a higher seed? To have a perfect front of the rotation or bullpen or power or whatever? Yes. It is. But some years, the games are just going to shake out right, and you’re going to make a run. So get into the playoffs as many years as you possibly can.
- Also, it’s not just the Diamondbacks that made a surprising run:
- Also, while it’s fine when the playoffs shake out to reward the teams that were the best over the course of 162, the whole point of ending the season with a playoff is that any team that makes the cut has a real chance of winning it all. That’s what makes not only the playoffs more fun, but the final couple months of the regular season, too. We wouldn’t actually have cared a lick about the Cubs’ desperate scramble to hold onto a playoff spot if we knew FOR CERTAIN that they couldn’t make a run in the playoffs thereafter.
- Expect Cubs hitting coach Dustin Kelly to return next year, per The Athletic:
Dustin Kelly will return as the lead hitting coach, according to sources familiar with the team’s planning for next season. The Cubs typically wait until all the positions are filled and the hiring cycle is over before announcing the entire coaching staff. But this past season was a step in the right direction for a hitting infrastructure that had been lagging behind the pitching side of the organization for a few years.
“I feel like our hitting department has caught up — or is close to — how much confidence we have in the pitching group,” Ross said during an 83-win season that represented a nine-game improvement from the year before.
- Good read overall on the hitting infrastructure, Kelly’s philosophies, how they work together individually and collectively. Also, a reminder that this past season not only saw the Cubs go with Kelly as the lead hitting coach, but also saw them upgrade to THREE assistant hitting coaches (Johnny Washington, Juan Cabreja, and Jim Adduci).
- We’ll see if Mad Dog follows through with his promise:
- The Phillies had a chance to come back last night, with the right man at the plate and the right pitch to crush, but he juuuuuust got under it:
- Nick Castellanos on the loss:
- This is pretty wild:
- Sharing this not so much for the highlight as part of the game, but instead just a visual on what a REALLY good gyro slider looks like:
- Everyone talks about the sweeper these days, but I like that visual reminder there of just how nasty a traditional, straight-down slider can still be.
- Random indeed: