Grant77

Our local hockey team, the Soo Greyhounds, moved their game ahead by an hour so people won't miss the Jays game after! You know Blue Jays fever has taken hold everywhere when hockey games are moved in one of the nation's top hockey cities.

Wroblewski was their best reliever by fWAR and has gone a full month without throwing a pitch. Strange.

That Dodgers bullpen has pitched 27.2 innings in these playoffs. They lost the second guy in their pecking order in Vesia and Scott is not back. 7.48 K/9 6.18 BB/9 5.32 xFIP It's so important that we get these starters out by the 5th inning, even if we can't score many runs. The bullpen is their one major vulnerability.

That issue was more about the team making promises and lying to him than it was about a position change.

This is similar to the Aaron Loup situation a few years ago. Hopefully the result is the same with a healthy child.

Watch IKF's single before the HR that cost them the game and tell me that Crawford is a positive defender. It's been evident all year that any defensive skill that he once had is completely gone. Bo Bichette is similarly bad, but at least there are some positive defenders around him. Watch them stick with him in the offseason when it's such an obvious spot to upgrade and they have a ridiculous amount of money under the luxury tax. It would be the most Mariners move ever.

I don't know if the Braves are the best example, given that the had a positive FRV and were 9th in K rate. There's always an exception to every rule and I'm sure there is a team out there that fits the profile, but it's not what you usually see. I don't hate the team by any means just because I don't like the way they play. It's almost the opposite in some ways. They have an absolute butcher at SS in Crawford and they go get one one the league's worst third basement to play beside him? Get some defense for God sakes. The bench was minor league calibre and they rolled through the deadline with these massive black holes in the lineup. Six through nine hit .113 or something in the playoffs. There was so much potential there with Raleigh and they always seem to waste it with stupid decisions. Obviously I'm not pulling for them when the Jays are contending, but I would love to see Mariners management pull their heads out of their asses and actually build a well rounded team for once. Their fanbase deserves it so much, very nice people.

When I said team building strategy, I didn't specifically mean this season, even though 5th is still bad. Over the last 6 years, for example, they are first in strikeouts. It's a consistent trend. I don't think a ton of strikeouts and ridiculously bad defense makes for entertaining baseball and I don't think it's a formula that will lead to a Championship. When your catcher comes out of nowhere to have an all-time great season then of course things will look better than they are, but you can't expect that every year. It's just another disappointing missed playoff season of Raleigh is his normal self.

These are mostly about Seattle. I don't think the Mariners are very good and I don't respect the way that they build their team. I haven't made that a secret. Every hitter swings for a home run in every situation. They strike out a ridiculous amount of times. They play horrendous defense. Their owner is a piece of s*** (listen to his infamous interview online) and he doesn't actually invest in the team. It's just sad and low quality, boring baseball all around.

I'm not sure about those exact words, but there have definitely been times where I didn't believe in this year's team, for sure. The way we play down to lesser opponents has really frustrated me, but that could work in our favour against the Dodgers.

The strikeout rate is even more striking than it was in the regular season. It's not just that we're good, we're like 10+% lower than the average and also hitting for the most power. The latter part is pretty wild considering both of our opponents have had a 'swing for the fences on every single pitch mentality.

https://www.nbcsports.com/mlb/news/astros-fan-logs-trash-can-bangs-from-2017 I don't know where this fits in the timeline, but a lot of the reports and stuff were based on this guy's work. I only remembered because it was mentioned in the recent baseball bits episode on YouTube.

My tickets in the 500 level are a hair under $500 each.

Hopefully Ohtani bet on the Blue Jays to win.

I believe it was actually an Astros fan that compiled video of the banging. Former Jays pitcher Danny Farquhar also brought it forward before Jomboy did anything on it, if that's the Yankees fan that you mean.

The biggest home run list is so incredibly difficult to rank after the first one. Carter has perhaps the biggest hit in baseball history, let alone Jays history, so that's easy. Alomar's home run, as some have already said, was the ice breaker that led to 2 Championships. Do you take that into consideration or do you just look at the moment? It didn't give us the lead and it wasn't a game 7. In that game, he also went 4-5 and made a game saving defensive play, which plays into the lore a bit. Bautista's home run was easily the most electric/epic of the three (perhaps some recency bias there), but it was also the least important in some ways. I've just never seen anything like the atmosphere and reaction. That goes for any game, not just Jays games. The Rangers throwing at our players, the perception that we got cheated on the Choo play, the length and buildup. It was really something to behold. Springer's home run is probably more important than Alomar's without the benefit of hindsight. If we win the World Series, I think it goes to #2 for me, but that remains to be seen.

I hate these ticket sites so much. That's almost the same spot I'm sitting, but for about 5x the price. Who is getting this extra $6000 over the face value? It's one thing if it's just a fellow Canadian who can't make it, but you can bet that it's some Chinese government funded bot that is siphoning billions from our economy. I'd honestly prefer if the Jays just used dynamic pricing and kept the money for themselves.

Who would have thought back in 1977 that the Blue Jays would have a better ticket base than the Dodgers (at least at this very moment). People would have laughed at you.

https://aviewfrommyseat.com/photo/361268/Rogers+Centre/section-537/row-1/seat-10/ It ain't ideal for over $2000 (4 tickets), but this is where my family and I will be on Friday.

Wow, the radar gun on the broadcast was laughably incorrect 🤣. I like the profile as well.

That's a hell of an increase. I got lucky in the queue and the face value of my section 537 tickets are $484. There were still a couple in the 200 sections, but they were over $1500 and I couldn't justify it. I also wanted to act quickly since there wasn't a ton left.

Bassitt throwing 97 with his command and pitch selection is an ace. Of course that's not a reality, but he's a real relief weapon with that kind of velo.

A couple of familiar plotlines played out in our first two series. For us to have success, the first 2 will need to continue and the third will have to change. First, is the bottom of the lineup: Our bottom 3 guys hit .276 (21/76) with 7 extra base hits. Seattle's guys hit .113 (8/71) with 0 extra base hits. Second is the defense: There are no team stats in the playoffs for defense that I can find, but the difference was extremely evident in the first 2 series. From the double plays for us, to the errors in big spots for our opponents, it has just made a difference in all of the close games. Look no further than IKF's single last night that would have been an easy out of Gimi were fielding. The Dodgers were 18th in defense this year, which was between the average Yankees and horrendous Mariners. It will be important for us to exploit that difference again. The more concerning trend is in the bullpen, where we have given up an astounding 11 home runs in 11 games and got out pitched pretty badly by Seattle's strong bullpen. I don't have a lot of confidence that this can change, but at least Hoffman is doing well. I do think, however, we can exploit a weak Dodgers bullpen that has walked 19 batters in just 27 postseason innings and relies heavily on a lot of unproven arms. The key will be actually forcing them to use the bullpen, unlike the Brewers.

I'm calling it now. Game 7, bottom of the 9th. Myles Straw gets a World Series winning hit off of Roki Sasaki.

The contrast of this series is so stark when you look at the batting averages. Taking away the top 2 guys it was: Suarez .209 Polanco .205 Crawford .189 J-Rod .186 Arozarena .182 Rivas .154 Robles .115 Canzone .111 The Blue Jays don't have a player hitting under .200 in the playoffs. I hope the contact approach can continue to pay off against the Dodgers, especially when it comes to getting the starters out of the game.