I’ve experienced my nightmare Super Bowl (Pete Carroll vs. the Patriots). Last year I feared that we might get my nightmare NBA Finals (Kyrie Irving and Kevin Durant vs. the Lakers), but instead we got my ideal NBA Finals matchup that didn’t involve the Celtics (Pat Connaughton vs. Monty Williams). Going into last night, my nightmare World Series was a possibility (Giants vs. Astros). I watched Pete Carroll vs. the Patriots because I couldn’t imagine not watching the Super Bowl (although if that happened again or if we got Tom Brady vs. the Patriots, I think I wouldn’t watch at this point). I didn’t watch my almost nightmare NBA Finals in 2020 (Lakers vs. Heat). And I would not have watched the World Series if it ended up being Giants vs. Astros. And I love baseball more than any other sport. It would have been miserable having a World Series that I couldn’t watch.
Last night’s game wasn’t fun. I loved the result, but it was three hours and 26 minutes of stress. My favorite Dodger podcast likened the experience of watching playoff baseball to this line from the best Christmas movie ever made:
Sometimes you get the rare game like Dodgers scoring 11 in the first inning in Game 3 against the Braves last year or the Dodgers beating the Cubs 11-1 in Game 5 of the NLCS in 2017 to go to the World Series and it’s enjoyable, but usually it’s just stressful. But when things end the way they did last year for the Dodgers, it’s all worth it.
I thought the Dodgers winning the World Series last year would make the next time the Dodgers get eliminated easier. And I think it will if the Dodgers lose to the Braves or maybe the Red Sox, but it definitely would not have made losing to the Giants or Astros any easier. I despise those two teams. The Astros are more of a temporary thing because they don’t have that many players from 2017 left. I’ll always despise (from a sports standpoint) Jose Altuve, George Springer, Alex Bregman, Carlos Correa, Yuli Gurriel, Josh Reddick, Marwin Gonzalez, Carlos Beltran, Alex Cora, and AJ Hinch, but I can’t despise the current Astros who weren’t on the 2017 team. But the Giants are a team that I will always despise. They took the number 3 spot on my Sports Hate Power Rankings (much of that is out of date, but the top 7 holds up pretty well). At one point, they showed Barry Bonds on the screen at the game. I thought he was going to inject himself with steroids to pump up the crowd. The second biggest rival for the Dodgers is the Cardinals (none of the other NL West teams have been consistently good enough to matter). Being eliminated by them also would have been miserable, but more because of how silly it was that the Dodgers faced the possibility of being eliminated from the postseason in their first game of the postseason. Instead, the Dodgers have eliminated the Cardinals and the Giants and it has been awesome.
But anyway, congratulations to the Giants on finishing the season with the second most wins in Major League Baseball (the Braves, Red Sox, and Astros have no possibility of catching them) and probably the fewest losses (they are tied with the Dodgers and it’s not that likely that the Dodgers are just going to win their next eight games to finish the season). The Giants were really good. But they weren’t as good as the Dodgers. Yes, the Giants were one game better in the regular season, but the Dodgers had a better run differential by a pretty significant margin (+269 to +210, which were the best run differentials in the Majors) and the Dodgers outscored them 18-10 in this series. That series should have been the NLCS, but I’m glad it’s over. The pitching for the Dodgers was awesome. Mookie Betts has been awesome when the Dodgers are facing elimination or trying to finish off the World Series. Cody Bellinger had a terrible season, but much like Game 7 against the Brewers in 2018 and Game 7 against the Braves last year, Cody Bellinger came through when it mattered most. The Dodgers didn’t get a whole lot from the Turner brothers against the Giants. I just don’t think you’re going to keep them down so that gives me confidence for the rest of the playoffs.
What about the check swing? Yeah, it was probably the wrong call. But there are a lot of things to say about that. First of all, it wasn’t the obvious bad call that the TV angle showed. I’ve always wondered where that camera is exactly. Because if it’s not perpendicular to the hitter, it’s deceptive. And then I saw this picture that you can tell is perpendicular to the hitter and it’s much closer than it seemed on TV:
I’ll give the Giants credit for the way they handled the situation. They were obviously disappointed, but they didn’t blame the umpire for their loss. It was the anniversary of the Steve Bartman incident and they handled it much better than the Cubs did (the Cubs blaming Bartman was absurd, they still should have won Game 6 and they could have won Game 7). But even if it wasn’t ruled a swing, it’s not like it would have been ball 4 with the bases loaded, it would have been ball 1 with a runner on first. Max Scherzer would have just struck out Wilmer Flores on the next pitch. Also, if the Giants hadn’t gotten the benefit of a missed check swing call against the Dodgers in the regular season, Game 5 would have been at Dodger Stadium. If crazy wind didn’t knock down Gavin Lux’s game-tying home run in the bottom of the ninth in Game 3, there might not have been a Game 5. It’s all part of the game.
And maybe it was a way to rectify a 70-year-old injustice. In 1951, the Giants were the Astros before the Astros were the Astros. They cheated to beat the Dodgers to win the pennant. And after the Dodgers lost two World Series against teams that were cheating (they definitely would have beaten the Astros, maybe they wouldn’t have beaten the Red Sox), it’s okay if one call goes the Dodgers’ way.
So the Dodgers are back in the NLCS for the fourth time in five years. In more playoff format silliness, the Braves have home field advantage even though the Dodgers won 18 more games than them because the Braves won a terrible division. But if the Dodgers make it to the World Series, they would have home field advantage against either the division-winning Astros or the wild card Red Sox. The Dodgers should have home field advantage against everybody other than the Giants this season, but whatever. If the Dodgers get to the World Series, there’s nobody I’d want to beat more than the Astros. But of course, the Dodgers could lose to the Braves and I would much rather see the Braves play the Red Sox than the Astros. If the Dodgers do beat the Braves, playing the Astros would be another series just as stressful as playing the Giants. So I’m hoping for a rematch of the 2018 World Series. It would be pretty cool to see Mookie Betts win MVP in the World Series against the Red Sox.
Let’s Go Dodgers!
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