LA2

You don't need to make as many challenges if you're getting more favorable calls in the first place.

That was a joy to watch. Thank you.

Why are you so surprised? Y's don't have anything close to the Nats' front three of Scherzer, Strasburg, and Sanchez.

By the time I left LA in 2006, I felt like the only way to survive there was to find a neighborhood where almost everything you liked or needed was within walking or biking distance or, in extreme cases, a few stops away on an express bus route. I considered myself fortunate to find a life where I used my car only once or twice a week for mid-morning shopping expeditions and trips to places like the dentist's office. But it really cut down on the number of parties I could go to. Joshua Tree is a fantastic place. I went there often on my motorcycle (what I relied on for about 8 of my years there instead of a car, again because of the nightmare of L.A. traffic). Sometimes I would stay at one of the spa motels in nearby Yucca Valley or Desert Palm Springs--so serene and arid it was a perfect place to read and write. Other times, I would just unroll a sleeping bag under one of the big boulders in the park, listen to the coyotes, and see their pawprints in the sand around me when I woke up.

It's interesting. I think my neighborhood here in Brooklyn likes the Yankees but not baseball. First game of the WS and I was the only one at the bar who sat there for more than an inning or two. They said if the Y's had won the place would have been packed. A rainy Tuesday, but still. It's not a hipster Brooklyn bar, but a working-class place modeled after one in Buffalo.

Although, of course, some pitchers are better than others with inherited runners. I wonder if Buck learned to pull his starters earlier in 2014. He somehow got an extraordinary performance from a mediocre staff.

Yeah, this is true. The on-screen stats I was referring to were 7 innings, only 1 hit (but 4 walks), and 1 earned run. He then added 1 inning, in which he loaded the bases on 1hit and 2 walks, but no more runs. My recollection of his time with the O's was that it wasn't the best use of Zack to bring him in when there were runners already on.

Yeah, he has his fast sinker back more than I thought. I was glad for him: his on-screen postseason stats were impressive.

Look at the active roster, who played and what their stats were. Without a good manager that team doesn't make it into the postseason. What the team's payroll was that year is irrelevant.

To give just one example, the 2014-2015 teams were not much on paper. Girardi led both to second-place finishes and post-season appearances. The rosters for both teams were so weak that no pundits predicted they could go all the way. That wasn't Girardi's fault.

I agree. But it's been interesting to meet Y fans who found him so annoying that they're glad to be rid of him. They usually cite the fact that he made so many pitching changes and slowed the game down so much it became boring to them.

Something similar happened to me and another O's fan visiting from Vegas at the first 2012 playoff game at Yankee Stadium (the one in which Flaherty and Manny hit homers, Adam misplayed Jeter's fly into a RBI-triple, and Ibanez hit the game-tying and -winning homers in the 9th and 12th innings off of Jim Johnson and Matusz after Miguel Gonzalez had pitched his typically Yankee-killer gem). Beer wasn't thrown on us (we were in the bleachers and those fans wd never waste their Bud Light mead)--just the empty blue plastic bottles. We needed a two-officer escort from the water fountain all the way down the ramps. They also mocked my race. The other fan was a young white man and had flown in to bet on the game, and lost. There was a nice Canadian woman behind us who said she was rooting for the Y's, but hated Yankee fans.... I have some some cool photos. Nonetheless, I loved that season and series.

Haha, well, yes-- Just because you pay them, Doesn't mean you play them! (e.g., Ellsbury, A-Rod, Teixeira)

I beg to disagree. Girardi took several teams that had barely middling talent deep into division races and even the postseason.

How so? He pitched a scoreless eighth inning, in the set-up role he's had the whole season. And he barely got through it unscathed despite loading the bases.