Moshagge3

If you create a precedent for 16 teams making the playoffs, it will depress salaries in the long run. Some extra players may get playoff bonuses, yes, but ultimately expanded playoffs is a lifeline for owners like Cleveland's, who can slash costs, ship out Lindor for making too much money, and still turn around and say to the fanbase, "What are you complaining about? We went 79-83! We're putting a playoff-caliber team on the field!"

Boston just acquired Garrett Richards. His career has been plagued by injuries but when he's healthy he's very good.

Well, now we know why Jim Hunter became redundant.

Huh? Is today opposite day? Listen to Hunter's call of the Orioles clinching the division in '14. It is about as underwhelming as it gets for the franchise's biggest moment in nearly 20 years. Compare that to Thorne's call of Andino's single in 2011. Thorne screwed up a bunch of facts in that call, as you point out he tended to do, but "reserved" it is not.

92/100. Missed the obscure Browns, Jay Gibbons, Luke Scott, Don Baylor, and it never occurred to me to guess Paul Blair. Surprising absences: Harold Baines, Javy Lopez, and Jeff Conine. It's a bummer that Wieters never cracked 25, either.

Losing 5 HOFers in the span of two months is kind of amazing mathematically and I would venture to guess is unprecedented.

Also, unless the regular season is dramatically shortened, the World Series is going to be all in November, necessitating another horrible idea: the neutral-site World Series.

Shocker, the owners are going after cash in their pockets now and looking to make the 16-team format permanent. The only hope is that the players' union sees how this totally takes away the incentive for teams to sign high-end free agents and draws a line here.

Since taking a 6-3 lead on Mets on Wednesday night, the Orioles have scored two runs in 28 innings.

Ump is horrible. Mountcastle should be standing in there with a 2-1 count.

A little lackadaisical by Mountcastle.

Moot point now, but no. It has to be nine innings.

It would be pretty funny if Cole threw seven no-hit innings and was denied history because of the 2020 doubleheader rules.

So maybe Cobb should have warmed up more? This could still be a close game if those first twenty pitches had happened in the bullpen.

Would have been cool with a Hanser trying a bunt there.

Thank God the bullpen only has to cover six innings.

No ground balls, no swings and misses. Cobb has nothing today.

I think it would have been pretty dramatic to replace the catcher in what, the third inning? Anyway, it's a pretty big swing. If the Orioles and Blue Jays had won last night, I would have said split the Yankees series, but even winning one out of four doesn't kill you. Now I think losing this Yankees series 3-1 would effectively end the season.

Can Stewart play first base? When Hays comes back it would be nice to keep Stewart and Mullins in the regular lineup.

Honestly, now that ballparks are increasingly giant malls with a baseball game in the middle, it's an open question whether owners actually want games to be shorter. Sure, they'll happily put in the extra-innings rule to eliminate those late nights where fans have stopped buying things or left altogether and they still have to pay ballpark staff, but what's their incentive to get to the seventh inning in under two hours? That only cuts into the amount of beer they can sell. The national networks like NBC or CBS that no longer want anything to do with baseball might object to games that last four hours, but now that the games are all on regional sports networks and the playoffs are on basic cable, what's the problem? I'm sure YES would rather have a Yankee game that goes 3:30 than a three hour game and 30 minutes of an old Tino Martinez interview.

That trash Yanks lineup did hang 6 runs on a pretty good pitcher in Ryu last night. It will be interesting to see how Akin and Kremer handle facing the same team in consecutive starts.

Bo Bichette should be back for the Yankees series @NYY next week.

The playoff outlook is so muddled this year. The team you're probably most scared to face in a short three-game series is Cleveland because Bieber and Plesac are unhittable right now, and an East or West team would be seeing them for the first time in over a year. But the Indians could realistically end up slotted anywhere from #1-7. So it's hard to snicker at the Yankees for sneaking into a playoff spot at #8 when that crummy seed could be their saving grace!

Then it would be based on record vs. the division, I believe. The Yankees are currently 12-11 against the East (with a perfect 7-0 against Boston!) and the Orioles are 11-14.

FYI there are no tiebreakers this season. If the Orioles finish tied with Toronto for the last spot, they will get it because they won the season series.