Skip to main content

Off-Season Winners & Losers

I enjoyed this article by Dayn Perry on thesportingnews.com for two reasons:

1.) The line in the Giants section: "One rare talent surrounded by dreck. It's a bit like Bono fronting Hoobastank."
2.) I share his frustration at finding a whole bunch of teams have improved this off season. Looking at the NL, the only teams that improved were those that were down anyway, and no one West of the Applachains seems to be better today than on October 1.



P.S. is Hoobastank the worse band name ever.

Comments

PlaysByEar said…
I have the Hoobastank album. But only because they were *giving* them away at my favorite wing-serving restaurant. It still lies in my garage unopened.

That's probably a good indication of how much talent/how enjoyable this band is. And, I can only assume, the Giants.

Popular posts from this blog

A House Divided: Mine

Baseball was at the beginning of our relationship. Shortly I moved to New York in 2007 to take a job as a professor at John Jay College, CUNY, one of my colleagues—a Red Sox fan—invited me to go to a Red Sox bar in the middle of Manhattan to watch Yankees- Red Sox. And Erin, another new professor in our political science department, was also a Red Sox fan, so she was going to come with. Sounds great. The first colleague got delayed, so Erin and I took the subway to the Red Sox bar, had a great time, had our first two beers and great conversation before our other colleague got there. Earlier that summer, I looked the schedule and found out that the Astros had a September series at Shea Stadium. I bought two tickets before I got to New York, figuring one of my new colleagues would want to join me at a ballgame.  And since the Red Sox fan was single, a woman, and into baseball, it seemed obvious to invite her. And by the 4 th inning, I knew I wanted to ask Erin out on a formal date. ...

Who's Responsible for the Astros Pitching Turnaround in the ALCS? There Are Several Candidates

The Astros finished off the Red Sox on Friday night, winning Game 6 5-0.  The Astros won three straight to close out the series on the strength of their run prevention. Astros pitching allowed Boston batters a mere 3 runs, striking out 25 while allowing only 10 hits, 10 walks, and 1 hit batsman. Red Sox hitters slashed .111/.208/.244 in the last three games of the series. This is a big contrast to the first three games of the series, when the Red Sox scored 25 runs to take a 2-1 lead in the series. Astro pitchers allowed a slash line of .296/.374/.546. They gave up 32 hits to batsmen from Boston, including 6 doubles and 9 homers.  Who is responsible for the big turnaround? Perhaps it is Brent Strom. The 73-year-old came to the Astros coaching staff before Dusty Baker, but he came before even A.J. Hinch. Strom has led the Astros pitchers since 2014 and has developed a reputation as one of MLB's best pitching coaches. Despite being the age of a presidential candidate, he...