35thstreetswarm

After all this, applying Occam's Razor leads me to the conclusion that the HBP was unintentional.

Yeah I had to call to get them to load the tix. Got lower bowl season tickets but only playoff tix left were in upper deck. Very exciting to see World Series tickets on my phone, even if they are just “aspirational tickets” ?

Boy, it’s nice to have Bummer pitching well going into the playoffs.

Poor guy. That slapped a little harder than expected tho

Seems like Tony is really going out of his way to poo-poo all things Rodon-related. Not sure if that’s gamesmanship, an assist to the org for negotiation purposes, just a reflection of undeniable reality, or some combination.

Don’t dramatically disagree with any of that (though I’d quibble with the notion that he’s somehow interchangeable with multiple other available reliever options). BUT if Kimbrel is nails in multiple high leverage situations in a deep playoff run that will make me feel dramatically better about the trade.

I’m actually not a huge fan of the trade but you’re not disputing that playoff performance is more important than performance in August and September, are you? That’s not a subjective preference. It is more important. And to be fair that’s the center of the rationale for the trade.

Not sure where else to put this.

?

Grade this thread. I’ll start: D

So much for the dreaded end-of-season, five game series that was going to close the gap. Always nice to win a road series, even when it doesn’t matter at all. Gio is looking very good.

Kids got a game used broken bat, couple signed balls, Tim Raines bobble head and DeWayne Wise “the Catch” bobble head. It was ok but a little underwhelming to be honest. And the line was insane. Waited like 45 min to get in.

Uh, they’re not?

Wow, pitching staff. Have yourself a night. And 6-page game thread!!

Yeah, well you can put this in the "let's shut down the whole board, then" file. You can say that about every aspect of team decision-making, and if you believe fans have no basis to discuss or form opinions about the direction of the team you're probably in the wrong place.

Ah well bad on me, then!

That is helpful, thanks. Seems to me, though, that he could potentially be pretty effective, and work multiple innings, at far fewer than 100 pitches. I’m really excited to see him as an X factor in the playoffs. I guess I just don’t see a huge problem with the way he’s been handled given the innings limit he was facing. Any further “stretching” seems likely to have come at the expense of his availability at the most crucial part of the season. I love having a well-rested Kopech for October.

Why? Penn State does it regularly. They're called the White Sox. I mean, I think I know what you're getting at, but if you're being serious I don't think it would be controversial to have alternating blackout/whiteout games given that those are the team's colors.

I'm not talking about what it takes to get ramped up to be a starter for an entire season, though. I totally agree that it takes substantial conditioning to ramp up to pitching 180 to 200 innings. (Sidenote -- if we had done that this season it might well have compromised his availability effectiveness in the playoffs). I'm talking about the playoffs -- and in particular I'm responding to the suggestion that it is somehow too late for Kopech to fill a multiple-inning relief or even starting role if necessary in October because he's not "stretched out" enough. I'm not totally convinced that is the case.

I'm all for alternating blackout and whiteout games. I generally don't think we make enough use of the "white" color in our color scheme and name. I think whiteouts/all-white jerseys etc. would be a pretty cool departure.

Honest question here - what exactly is the magic to being "stretched out" (setting aside the question of whether such a "streching" was even possible given his innings limitation)? He has innings left and seems to be healthy and not terribly fatigued. Isn't that what we want? Is there a rule saying he can't go more than 2 innings if he's on fire in the playoffs merely because he's not sufficiently "stretched"? Seems to me they were ready to ride Crochet last year if he hadn't gotten hurt and the guy was like three weeks in the bigs. It wouldn't shock me to see them ride Kopech in similar fashion this time around.

Why about Hendriks? Crochet? Having a hard time with the short relievers

You could be forgiven for suspecting this team kicks ass exactly, and only, when it matters.

I think this is right on. We experience the season as as this long, day-by-day journey and it's easy to get caught up in the results of each at-bat. But having a successful season is really just a three-step process. We've done step 1 for the first time in a long time. Knock on wood we're close to step 2. Here's hoping for step 3.