Following a 10-0 beatdown from the BABIP gods, the Giants and Royals play game 7 tonight. I’ve been surprised by how much I’ve enjoyed this world series, considering I have essentially no opinion on any player on either side and am mostly rooting for the Giants due to my dislike of Ned Yost and the inevitable barrage of articles about small ball.
Tim Hudson gets the start tonight, and hopefully it goes a little better than his meh start in game three, where he gave up three runs in 5.2 innings. It’s hard to believe a guy who has had as long and successful a career as Hudson had never pitched in the WS, and it makes for a nice narrative going into the finale.
I was a little surprised at all the people dumping on Jake Peavy last night. Who would have guessed that a guy pitching with a bruised thumb might have a bad outing? If a manager is going into a game saying your starter is on a really short leash, maybe you should just start someone else. If his performance in his two World Series games is going to cost him millions of dollars in the eyes of some GMs, I’m sure glad that the Cubs have a GM who isn’t likely to change his valuation of the guy based on two starts.
The strangest thing this whole postseason has been the trope that Yusmeiro Petit is somehow an ace up the sleeve for the Giants. I’m going to need to see a lot more before he starts knocking on the door of the Wandy Rodriguez HOF.
I’ve been listening to Chicago sports radio at work this week (mostly due to Bears train wreck-related shadenfreude), and the callers haven’t disappointed. The best Cubs-related ones I heard were guys talking about how the Cubs really need to lock down Joe Maddon since he’s the best manager out there, then went on to opine that the team really needs someone who can teach fundamentals of things like giving themselves up to move runners over. Never change, sports talk show callers, never change.
Pretty much everyone assumes that Maddon is coming to the Cubs at this point. I’m still kind of meh on it – I think he’s better than Renteria but this isn’t going to make or break anything. I feel kind of bad for Renteria, but he’ll soak up his tears in a big pile of money the Cubs will be paying him for not doing anything, and I think he should be high on the list for another managerial gig somewhere. He issued a statement through his agent on the situation, but for all the media hand-wringing over him I’m surprised that there hasn’t been more questioning of the players. The biggest plus attributed to Renteria was his ability to develop and connect with the young players (and turn things around for Rizzo and Castro), I wonder if anyone in the clubhouse is pissed to see him booted out the door.
Pos wrote a long piece on Bill James that went up yesterday. It’s a great read, and some critical comments from him on WAR has had the internet buzzing. I guess we should pretend that Win Shares weren’t a thing?