Week In Review
Monday, July 26, 2010
Positives: Winning, simple as that. The Fish needed a huge run after the all-star break to remain even near contention and they have delivered so far going 7-3. This week featured four walkoff wins. When you're getting game winning home runs from Donnie Murphy, you know things are going well.
Negatives: Oh boy has the bullpen been bad. The pen blew a lead in the 8th inning or later five times this week including the epic blowup of the 8-run eighth inning on Saturday to spoil a shot at a sweep of the Braves.
Line of the Week: A tip of the cap to Leo Nunez, who has been the only consistent arm in the pen. Here are his numbers in his five appearances since the break.
1-0, 3 Saves, 5 IP, 0 R, 4 H, 2 BB, 9 K's
Highlight of the Week: You could really pick your own from the lot of walkoff hits (or other great plays) this week, but the home run by Donnie Murphy surely takes the cake.
Looking Ahead: The club travels west this week for a four game set in San Francisco followed by three in San Diego.
5 comments:
In the pennant race league Florida is in the 1st Tier, 2 1/2 games behind divsion leading Atlanta.
What do you think of a two division NL with no wild card safety net? More interesting? More intense?
I like the idea, although the logistics would be a bit tough. I guess Houston, Chicago, and St. Louis could move to the West. Cincinnatti, Milwaukee, and Pittsburgh could move to the East. Top two in each division make the playoffs? Sounds great, unlikely though.
You can see this in action at my blogif you like.
No wild card. 1st team in each division goes to play-offs. In regular season everybody focuses on pennant races and finishing in the 1st Tier.
Top 4 finishes in East play only the top 4 finishes in the West next season. Same with bottom 4.
I've studied this for years and believe Pennant Races and Tier Chases to be better than wild cards for attendance and media, for fans of individual teams and for baseball as a whole.
For now I'm interested in starting a discussion in the BBA community. If there's some thinking that this is a good idea, who knows where it might go.
Thanks
Cliff, what's your blog URL?
Ted,
Sorry about that, it's:
http://www.pennantracebaseball.com
By the way, most of the division assignments are as you indicated. Houston and Kansas City
are currently in the East because I needed to make the divisions 8/6 and 8/8 based on current scheduling.
If my plan is put into affect my preference would be to move Houston and KC to the West. To make up the imbalance I'd move Arizona to the AL West. I'd also like to see regional rivalries established by switching Washington and Tampa Bay.
You'd then need to put a team in the AL and NL East, which I would accomplish with a last round of expansion. You then have a long-term alignment of 4 8 team divisions.
Catch you laterf!
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