The A’s fortunes take a downturn and I stop posting for a few days. \u00c2\u00a0Mere coincidence? \u00c2\u00a0Mmmm, not really!<\/p>\n
I’ve been in a mild sulk to be honest. \u00c2\u00a0Getting past the Twins was a great achievement but, as Eric Chavez said himself,\u00c2\u00a0losing in the first round the last four times isn’t as painful as losing in the ALCS. \u00c2\u00a0It’s a case of being so near yet so far from the ultimate prize. \u00c2\u00a0Just like losing an FA Cup semi-final, losing in the big event is extremely tough but at least you made it to the event at all.<\/p>\n
Still, I’ve got no real complaints about the A’s being 3-0 down. \u00c2\u00a0The Tigers have simply been the better team in all three games. \u00c2\u00a0Their hitters in particular have shown a hitherto unknown amount of patience at the plate, waiting for the Oakland pitchers to make a mistake and then capitalising on it. \u00c2\u00a0We all know it is possible to come back from 3-0 down in the ALCS, but it’s not probable. \u00c2\u00a0Jeremy Bonderman was originally drafted by the A’s and it would be a typical sports story if he was the guy who ended our season. \u00c2\u00a0Danny Haren will be looking to start the fight back and can only hope that he gets some run support.<\/p>\n
While the ALCS has the look of inevitability regarding its outcome (here’s hoping I’m wrong!), the NLCS is wide open. \u00c2\u00a0Tom Glavine continued his play-off heroics in game one (despite what Albert Pujols may say), but the Cards fought back in a cracking match-up yesterday. \u00c2\u00a0Scott Spiezio made Tony La Russa look clever (not an easy feat if you ask me) coming through with a couple of crucial hits in a spot start in place of Scott Rolen. \u00c2\u00a0Everyone decamped on mass to St Louis straight after the game, with the initial game one rain out taking away the scheduled travel day. \u00c2\u00a0The Cards will head home with a spring in their step, while the Mets may feel they let slip a good chance of taking control of the series.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0I’m sure I am hardly the only person looking forward to a game seven decider.<\/p>\n
Finally, I can’t let the moment pass without expressing my condolences to Cory Lidle’s family (how many other British baseball fans have been tut-tutting at news readers referring to Cory “Liddle”?). \u00c2\u00a0I mentioned earlier in the week that it would be an interesting off-season in New York, but no one could have imagined that the\u00c2\u00a0initial interest would be caused by such a\u00c2\u00a0tragic\u00c2\u00a0event.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The A’s fortunes take a downturn and I stop posting for a few days. \u00c2\u00a0Mere coincidence? \u00c2\u00a0Mmmm, not really! I’ve been in a mild sulk to be honest. \u00c2\u00a0Getting past the Twins was a great achievement but, as Eric Chavez said himself,\u00c2\u00a0losing in the first round the last four times isn’t as painful as losing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[553],"class_list":["post-75","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mlb-2","tag-mlb-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=75"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4233,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75\/revisions\/4233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=75"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=75"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=75"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}