It’s now usually accepted that playoff baseball is complicated. Given that each sequence is every week lengthy at most, and it’s distilling down groups which have performed for six months, every thing is in bounds. Small moments like a pitching change right here or a cutoff man missed there that might simply be barely a bubble on the ocean of a baseball season turn out to be massive issues within the playoffs due to the smaller pattern measurement. Each baseball fan is aware of this and has accepted it, nevertheless they select to evaluate the playoffs.
Nevertheless it appears the L.A. Occasions can’t fairly perceive the distinction.
First, on the cusp of consuming it to the Padres, letters editor Paul Thornton known as for the Dodgers to be merely awarded the World Sequence trophy, in so many phrases, and wailed about how unfair the playoff system is. The tweet and the headline grabbed many of the consideration, however Thornton missed the purpose in saying that Dodgers followers are actually extra centered on profitable than they had been earlier than. Which they’ve completed loads of, and in reality greater than anybody else. In the event you revel within the Dodgers’ profitable, this previous decade has been Valhalla. You’ll be able to’t say you want the Dodgers to win, deride the equity of the playoff system, after which say it’s all left you flat. Both the playoffs imply nothing or every thing, however not each.
Then at the moment, Jack Harris, the paper’s Dodgers beat author, did an extremely deep dive into why the Dodgers misplaced within the NLDS that was one thing akin to the collapse of a neighborhood, if not state, authorities. Whereas Harris definitely did his homework, the conclusion he principally involves is that they didn’t hit for 2 and a half video games.
WELL DUUUUHHHHH.
And the Dodgers had loads of stretches through the season the place they didn’t hit for two-to-three video games. Listed here are two: In a four-game stretch in June towards the Giants and Angels, they scored six runs. In a three-game stretch in August towards the Padres and Mets, they scored 5. It’s a factor that occurs. The concept that the Padres stunned the Dodgers by throwing extra breaking pitches than fastballs isn’t actually a lot of a discovery, or that the Dodgers have confronted higher pitching in playoffs previous isn’t both. That’s type of the thought of the playoffs, and that’s how these groups bought there.
G/O Media could get a fee
It does appear to defy logic how lengthy the Dodgers have been so good and but have solely gained one World Sequence to indicate for it, and it was the bastardized model of 2020. On some stage, you possibly can perceive the urge to essentially CSI it to see if there’s some underlying thriller as to how this might be. However there isn’t. Generally you simply roll snake eyes loads. The subsequent roll of the cube doesn’t actually care, or is even conscious, of the final one.
October doesn’t comprise any tanking or woebegone groups for the Dodgers to beat up on, and in the event that they performed 162 video games towards solely playoff groups being deployed in a playoff method, they wouldn’t win 111 video games both. There is no such thing as a legendary rationalization.
There is no such thing as a secret sauce. There is no such thing as a key to the universe. There is no such thing as a equation. That is simply how baseball works, even when it’s damaged the brains of one in all our institutional newspapers.
We see you, Aaron Rodgers
We’ve spent a lot time on Tom Brady taking a flamethrower to his private life so he might take in some extra public adulation whereas watching his group cough and wheeze to a sub .500 season that we haven’t given Aaron Rodgers’ “don’t take a look at me” act the standard consideration. However in case you had been questioning if Rodgers is below any impression that the Packers’ struggles have something to do with him:
Rodgers has all the time wished to be the GM, so it’s not too shocking that he desires to be the coach now, too. It have to be nice for younger receivers looking for their means within the league to have their QB telling the world they suck as a substitute of working it via with them in personal. That second tweet is the important thing there although, with Rodgers utterly absolving himself of blame, though he seemingly can’t throw the ball over 5 yards anymore.
However so long as he has his personal private bullhorn in Pat McAfee to bellow no matter comes into his thoughts as he huffs his personal farts, Rodgers is free to inform everybody that it’s not his fault and his group isn’t worthy of him. Actually dignified stuff.
