To Cancun
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It wasn’t how any of us wanted the series to end, and the fact that they were literally millimetres from walking it off was tough to stomach, but damn was it a good series. Damn, did the Jays play some good baseball this year. And while I may be snacking on grapes that are a little under-ripe, I know that they should have won that series.
People can point to the mistakes the Jays made – and they made plenty – but we can just as easily point to key bad ball/strike calls that significantly changed the outcome of the series (while also acknowledging that we got some almost shocking calls in our favour, too), or to the absolutely wild bad luck we had with broken bats, lodged balls, and BABIP.
They lost the series by millimetres at least 6 times by my count.
That’s wild. And it resulted in some of the best games I’ve ever watched.
Here’s to next year. We’re just 3 months from the start of Spring Training!
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K Christopher shared this topic
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It wasn’t how any of us wanted the series to end, and the fact that they were literally millimetres from walking it off was tough to stomach, but damn was it a good series. Damn, did the Jays play some good baseball this year. And while I may be snacking on grapes that are a little under-ripe, I know that they should have won that series.
People can point to the mistakes the Jays made – and they made plenty – but we can just as easily point to key bad ball/strike calls that significantly changed the outcome of the series (while also acknowledging that we got some almost shocking calls in our favour, too), or to the absolutely wild bad luck we had with broken bats, lodged balls, and BABIP.
They lost the series by millimetres at least 6 times by my count.
That’s wild. And it resulted in some of the best games I’ve ever watched.
Here’s to next year. We’re just 3 months from the start of Spring Training!
yeah, you summed it up pretty well and even-keeled… we had bad calls go both ways. and i’ve driven myself to the brink of insanity thinking about all the different scenarios that could have played out if the ball went a few millimeters in a different direction.
honestly, the thing that really irks me is bad baserunning…
like, the stuck balls, broken bats, bad strike calls, those things are pure bad luck…
but baserunning is something totally within your control… baseball is a game of inches, and baserunning is a game of milliseconds… the forced out at home… what if we had just practiced sprinting a few days a week? baseball needs to start looking at marginal gains, especially when it comes to running speed. there’s a well established body of science on how to get faster, whereas the same isn’t true for something like batting or pitching.
i’m pretty biased and ranting as a runner, i guess… i just think baserunning is a very underdeveloped skill on the team, and baseball in general
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yeah, you summed it up pretty well and even-keeled… we had bad calls go both ways. and i’ve driven myself to the brink of insanity thinking about all the different scenarios that could have played out if the ball went a few millimeters in a different direction.
honestly, the thing that really irks me is bad baserunning…
like, the stuck balls, broken bats, bad strike calls, those things are pure bad luck…
but baserunning is something totally within your control… baseball is a game of inches, and baserunning is a game of milliseconds… the forced out at home… what if we had just practiced sprinting a few days a week? baseball needs to start looking at marginal gains, especially when it comes to running speed. there’s a well established body of science on how to get faster, whereas the same isn’t true for something like batting or pitching.
i’m pretty biased and ranting as a runner, i guess… i just think baserunning is a very underdeveloped skill on the team, and baseball in general
Couldn’t agree with you more. I was talking with the Mrs about this today, like there were several unfortunate things (crazy amounts of), and baseball is a game of inches and all of that. But their base running was borderline amateur hour. Think of all the moments throughout the world series too, like there was one where the ump called it a strike but it was assumed it was a ball that led to a third out, like that’s just crazy stuff. You’d expect that from a little league team, not one in the depths of the world series.
Regardless, it sure was fun, and I’m still pretty thankful for the ride they gave us. Forever Jays!
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yeah, you summed it up pretty well and even-keeled… we had bad calls go both ways. and i’ve driven myself to the brink of insanity thinking about all the different scenarios that could have played out if the ball went a few millimeters in a different direction.
honestly, the thing that really irks me is bad baserunning…
like, the stuck balls, broken bats, bad strike calls, those things are pure bad luck…
but baserunning is something totally within your control… baseball is a game of inches, and baserunning is a game of milliseconds… the forced out at home… what if we had just practiced sprinting a few days a week? baseball needs to start looking at marginal gains, especially when it comes to running speed. there’s a well established body of science on how to get faster, whereas the same isn’t true for something like batting or pitching.
i’m pretty biased and ranting as a runner, i guess… i just think baserunning is a very underdeveloped skill on the team, and baseball in general
I’m not going to lie: I purposefully chose not to talk about baserunning, because the baserunning that everyone wants to talk about right now is IKF’s in the 9th, and I don’t think there’s any issue with what he did there. He could have taken a slightly longer leadoff. He could have tried running through the plate (though, I’m not at all convinced that sliding is actually slower, since you still need to get your foot down on the plate, not just over it, and there isn’t strong evidence that running through is faster). But these were not mental mistakes, they were hedges that didn’t pay off.
Bo, Springer, and possibly Barger (it’s not clear to me whether Kike faked Barger out by starting deeper in the field and inching in or not) made some incredibly embarrassing mental mistakes on the bases, but IKF’s been getting all of the hate, and I don’t think he deserves it.
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I’m not going to lie: I purposefully chose not to talk about baserunning, because the baserunning that everyone wants to talk about right now is IKF’s in the 9th, and I don’t think there’s any issue with what he did there. He could have taken a slightly longer leadoff. He could have tried running through the plate (though, I’m not at all convinced that sliding is actually slower, since you still need to get your foot down on the plate, not just over it, and there isn’t strong evidence that running through is faster). But these were not mental mistakes, they were hedges that didn’t pay off.
Bo, Springer, and possibly Barger (it’s not clear to me whether Kike faked Barger out by starting deeper in the field and inching in or not) made some incredibly embarrassing mental mistakes on the bases, but IKF’s been getting all of the hate, and I don’t think he deserves it.
I wasnt trying to calling out IKF specifically. There were tons of close calls on bases throughout the series. Just get 1% faster and that’s an extra base here or there. And that’s the extra run that could have won a game here or there
The whole team needs to get faster and smarter on the bases.
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I wasnt trying to calling out IKF specifically. There were tons of close calls on bases throughout the series. Just get 1% faster and that’s an extra base here or there. And that’s the extra run that could have won a game here or there
The whole team needs to get faster and smarter on the bases.
100%. They were sloppy as hell. I just know where all of the attention is right now, and didn’t want to give it any more.
