I never said you never said there is anything wrong with it. And yes, Bregman cracks me up. Deadpan humor.
Remember Dave Mliki's NLDS Game 2 start in 2001? Of course you don't, nobody does. But I'd take that again.
Jim Edmonds takes a nice easy route to the ball, slows up a bit and dives early so he hydroplanes through the catch all the way to the wall
Not sure if legit, but it's making some waves. On the topic of baseballs being "unjuiced" for the postseason.
Well be thankful because that fly ball Judge hit in Game 2 that went to the warning tracked seemed like a HR. Also Didi's flyball on Tuesday seemed lkke a homerun as well.
Tomorrow... it’s time to drop the Yankees 3-1 Tired of playing with this team. We have left 20 runners on base in the last two games. Tomorrow..... Greinke shows the Yankees he is a hall of fame pitcher Tomorrow.... our offense crushes Tanaka and brings him back to reality. sweet dreams people...
Yeah, but Maldonado had 2 that would have been homers too, if this report is true, which is a big if.
Sux so bad to wait for tomorrow. Im having Astros withdrawal bad. But - I guess the extra rest can't hurt.
This is the one to win. If they do, Astros just have to win one to close out the series. The Yanks would have to win three.
Spoiler NEW YORK – About 2 1/2 hours before first pitch, Gerrit Cole sat at a table scribbling notes in an alcove behind the Astros’ dugout – yes, writing with an actual pen and paper. He already had jotted down a bunch of thoughts on each of the Yankees’ hitters, but part of his pre-start routine is condensing, finalizing, reducing several sheets of handwritten information to one. Astros pitching coach Brent Strom refers to Cole’s intellect as “cerebral power.” Cole’s mind, though, is as tough as it is active. And his unshakeable conviction was evident on Tuesday when he was not at his best yet still pitched seven shutout innings in the most important game of his career, a 4-1 victory over the Yankees in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series. Cole, 29, is virtually certain of receiving the largest pitching contract in major-league history as a free agent this offseason, and only the usual naysayers will question whether he deserves it. He is everything a team wants in a No. 1 starter, blessed with elite stuff, elite makeup and three straight years of durability. The Yankees placed at least two runners on base in four of the first five innings on Tuesday. Cole battled spotty fastball command, tied his career-high with five walks, endured 32 minutes of time away from the mound, a delay resulting in part from a change in umpires after plate ump Jeff Nelson suffered a concussion. All of this took place before a raucous crowd of 48,998 at Yankee Stadium, perhaps the most difficult place to play for a visiting team. And Cole, in essence, said, “Bring it on!” When asked what impressed him most about Cole’s performance, teammate and fellow Cy Young contender Justin Verlander didn’t start by mentioning a specific pitch or sequence. He didn’t talk about how Cole prevailed despite striking out only seven, ending his streak of 11 consecutive double-digit strikeout games. No, Verlander talked about Cole’s mindset, “just his ability to bear down when he needed to.” “(The Yankees) did a tremendous job battling him early, had a good game plan. Honestly, it seems like they’ve been locked in this whole series,” Verlander said. “But his ability to quiet the noise, make a pitch, not let the moment get to him . . . he just kind of stayed in his lane. We’ve talked about it a bunch – have your blinders on, stay where you need to stay to be successful.” Verlander recalled how a retired former Yankee – he didn’t say who – once told him the team’s entire goal was to distract him, take him out of his game. He never forgot the conversation, using it as a reminder to stay focused. And that was Cole on Tuesday, one of the sport’s great thoroughbreds, keeping his blinders on, fighting his way down the stretch. On Monday night, the eve of Game 3, Strom sat in the Astros’ dugout in street clothes, reflecting back upon his nearly half-century in the game, trying to figure out which pitcher Cole reminded him of most. Strom, 71, went back to 1972, the year the Mets promoted him for his major-league debut. On one of his first days with the club, he watched Tom Seaver warm up for a game against the Pirates. Strom was struck by the thunderous sound of Seaver’s fastball, which seemed even louder as it echoed off metallic parts of the bullpen. “Wow, it looks like you’ve got good stuff,” Strom said. “Clemente and Stargell will tell me if I do,” Seaver replied. Seaver, a Hall of Famer, had an ability to adjust during games. He also would study newspaper boxscores, employing a form of primitive analytics to determine which opposing hitters were hot in the days leading to his starts. Cole, in Strom’s view, possesses similar qualities, thinking, always thinking, both on and off the mound. Listening to Cole during my post-game interview with him on FS1, I was taken aback by the level of detail in which he described his outing. He spoke in almost a stream of consciousness, bouncing from one sequence to the next, yet expressed himself quite clearly, like a pitching savant. “We just had to work it,” he said. “Fastball command wasn’t ideal, especially early. It seemed like it was kind of spotty. I would get off to a good start to an inning, then maybe fall behind a couple of hitters and lose some leverage. I wasn’t able to be free and easy to the spot. I feel like once I got to the fifth inning I started to roll a little bit and we found the location a bit better.” The delay due to the umpire change? Cole said it had almost no effect on him – he played light catch in the tunnel underneath the dugout, and thought that helped. He mentioned that he had to fight through a couple of long innings. And he said, “luckily, we were able to put our foot down in some big spots,” quickly rattling them off. *First inning: “Unfortunate hit by (Aaron) Judge through the shift,” Cole said, referring to a 71.3-mph single that put runners on first and second with none out. A two-out walk to Gleyber Torres loaded the bases. But Cole escaped by inducing a groundout from Didi Gregorius on a first-pitch curveball. *Fourth inning: “Got away with a mistake to LeMahieu, a slider up” on 0-2, Cole said. He had just walked the Yankees’ 8-9 hitters, Gio Urshela and Aaron Hicks, with two outs. But LeMahieu flied to center, missing a chance to punish Cole for his errant pitch with a homer. *Fifth inning: “Good pitch to Didi,” Cole said. “Thank God he didn’t pull it far enough.” Cole liked the pitch, a fastball in with two on and two out. Gregorius skied it toward the short porch in right field, but it reached only the warning track rather than result in a three-run homer. Perhaps during the regular season, when the baseball appeared livelier, Gregorius’ drive would have given the Yankees a 3-2 lead. Cole, at his post-game news conference, said he wasn’t concerned the ball would go out until he turned around and remembered he was at hitter-friendly Yankee Stadium. “The emotions kind of followed the flyball, right?” Cole said. “So it was kind of like low to freaking out to not worried anymore.” Cole would face six more hitters, retiring them all, three by strikeout. His velocity ticked up, as it normally does in the later innings. But this wasn’t a night when he overpowered the Yankees with his fastball. On Oct. 5, against the Rays in Game 2 of the Division Series, Cole recorded 33 swings and misses, the most in any postseason game in the 12 years of the pitch-tracking era. Fourteen of those swings and misses came on fastballs. On Tuesday, Cole recorded only three swings and misses with his fastball, according to STATS LLC. Six of his seven strikeouts came on sliders and curves. He threw 112 pitches in all. The Yankees swung and missed only 13 times. But, like Seaver in his Hall of Fame heyday, Cole found a way. The best game Astros third baseman Alex Bregman ever saw a pitcher throw was not during Cole’s current 25-start stretch, in which he has gone 19-0 with a 1.59 ERA and 258 strikeouts in 169 1/3 innings. No, the best game Bregman ever saw was another Cole start, on May 4, 2018, at Chase Field in Arizona. Cole threw a one-hit complete game that night, striking out 16, walking one. Bregman said that Tuesday, by contrast, “was the most traffic I’ve seen him work through.” “And he was like, calm, cool, collected,” Bregman said. “He knew he didn’t have the exact command he wanted. But he was still dialed in knowing what he’s got to work with.” Bregman compared Cole’s performance to that of a hitter who felt uncomfortable with his swing, resolved to work through his troubles and still went 4-for-4 with two homers. Astros manager A.J. Hinch said Cole struggled with his rhythm and tempo until he found his curveball. Catcher Martín Maldonado offered another explanation for Cole’s difficulties – the quality of the opponent. “That’s a pretty good lineup. It’s not like we’re facing a s***** lineup,” Maldonado said. Maldonado had it right – all things are relative. Cole deemed his five walks “unacceptable” and vowed to do “better next time.” But Verlander took a more charitable view, attributing his teammate’s walk total to the higher stakes of postseason baseball. “You don’t ever want to give in,” Verlander said. “In the regular season, I’m sure there are situations where, ‘here you go, hit it,’ comes in your mind. In the playoffs, you’re not afforded that luxury, especially in a 0-0, 1-1, 2-0 game. Those runs are huge.” The Yankees found the entire experience frustrating. Judge couldn’t recall seeing one pitch over the heart of the plate. Hicks noted the Yankees normally score when given enough opportunities. But against Cole, they were 0-for-6 with runners in scoring position. No, this was not the strikeout monster who has overwhelmed the sport since mid-May. This was a pitcher flexing his cerebral power, armed with both information and determination, refusing to yield. Walking out of the Astros’ clubhouse, Strom couldn’t help but smile at what he had just witnessed. “It’s weird to say – he threw seven shutout innings,” Strom said, “but that was probably one of the worst games he has pitched.” Statistically, perhaps – Cole’s strikeout total was his lowest since Aug. 1, and his nine baserunners matched his highest number since April 20. But Strom knew. All of the Astros knew. Under the circumstances, the performance actually was one of Cole’s best. (Photo of Gerrit Cole: Mike Stobe/Getty Images)
I always thought that was one of the least likely game two starters in history. And then he throws five innings of one run ball.
