Thank You For Some Good Old Fashioned Baseball

Like everything else, baseball  evolves. That especially seems to be the case this postseason. 

Starters are pulled early in games while relievers are being asked to get more outs than they’re typically asked to during the regular season. 

We also saw Willson Contreras make what used to be a great baseball play by blocking home plate. Except now it’s a bad play because Buster Posey, who had horrible positioning on the play, got hurt. 

Instead, Charlie Culberson joined Chase Utley as a Dodger rewarded a base on replay despite his never having actually touched the base. 

Meanwhile, over in Houston, we got to see some good old fashioned baseball from the Astros in a classic 2-1 victory. 

The game was 2-1 mostly because of the great defense of the Astros with them playing in the right position, taking the extra base. and hitting the cut-off man. 

In many ways, Josh Reddick was the star of the game. First, he robbed Chase Headley of a homer: 

Later in the game, he chased down what should’ve been a Brett Gardner triple, and he helped turn it into a out. How?  He hit the cut-off man Carlos Correa, who made a great throw:

Speaking of Correa, he very well could’ve been the player of the game with that throw, a solo homer, and the game winning double. 

On that game winning double, Jose Altuve just busted it from first base all the way home. Should he have scored?  No, but he did because Aaron Judge, Didi Gregorious, and Gary Sanchez didn’t execute well. If even one does, Altuve is out. 

Of course, none of this would’ve been possible without Justin Verlander. 

Verlander had one of those throwback types of performances. In his complete game win, Verlander threw 124 pitches. In the complete game victory, he only yielded one run on five hits and one walk while striking out 13. 

This is the type of start you used to expect from a team’s ace in the postseason. He was supposed to be the guy who took the ball, pushed his limits, and dominated thereby giving your team a chance to win. 

This was the type of game, type of execution, and type of pitching performance that you expect to see from the best teams in baseball. As we’ve seen all postseason long, this isn’t always the case. Instead, what the Astros do is actually the exception. 

There was a time it wasn’t. That’s what makes how the Astros play all the game all the more enjoyable. 

  • October 15, 2017
  • permalink
  • Musings
  •   no tag
  • Comments Off on Thank You For Some Good Old Fashioned Baseball
page top