GDT: 2020 ALDS: (2) Oakland Athletics vs (6) Houston Astros - HOU wins 3-1

[darko]

My guuuuuuyyyyyy, don’t you f***ing get it? If you didn’t make that stupid reply to me, would I have made that Stow comment? Don’t f***ing move the goal post. Of all the things I said in my initial post, all you had was the dumbass “fans will charge the field” joke as if what I said wasn’t true.

I never called them dumbass. Wtf are you talking about?

 

[southsideIrish]

Kinda hoping the Astros win it all for troll factor.

Seeing a lot of that online too. As I said the other day, this sucks because it's getting harder to say they only won in 2017 because they cheated. They slugged 46 hits and 33 runs in four games against a pretty good pitching staff. They won despite no Cole, no Verlander and Greinke hurt or ineffective. With a crappy pen against one of the best pens in baseball.

The troll factor will be entertaining. I said the other day this is a big thumb in the eye of MLB who once they had their villain in Houston, they glossed over Boston's punishment and dropped any investigation into the Yankees or anyone else, even though the original article that outed Houston clearly said the kind of advanced sign stealing they were doing was very widespread in baseball. They had hard evidence on Houston thanks to Fiers's testimony but then in my eyes backed off on seriously investigating anyone else.

If NY rallies and beats TB that will make the LCS fun to watch. There should be plenty of ugliness which I'm surprised was absent from this series. Also I'm assuming he was hurt but I didn't see Fiers pitch at all which was surprising. He wasn't good vs. the Sox but you'd think he'd have wanted to pitch against his nemesis.

 

[Vamos Rafa]

I never called them dumbass. Why you talking about?

The dumbass part wasn’t included there. I called your reply a dumbass joke. That’s why it’s right before the quotation marks.

 

[darko]

The dumbass part wasn’t included there. I called your reply a dumbass joke. That’s why it’s right before the quotation marks.

Exactly. My question was what were Dodgers fans going to do? Any player that is intimidated by the crowd is a mental midget and isn't winning anything. Astros are battle tested, IMO they will be fine.

It was a legit question.

 

[Vamos Rafa]

Exactly. My question was what were Dodgers fans going to do? Any player that is intimidated by the crowd is a mental midget and isn't winning anything. Astros are battle tested, IMO they will be fine.

It was a legit question.

It wasn’t intimidation. When the Astros were being interviewed during spring training about fans heckling them, they were clearly bothered and annoyed. Imagine getting annoyed and having to deal with the media asking the same question all year long.

And All Star week is supposed be fun times for any player. Being in LA for 3 days for an Astros player wouldn’t feel so welcoming. Not to mention they’d have to be part of a parade with their families on board. But like I said, it’s not just the fans. It would be the awkwardness with AL teammates especially the ones that called them out for their fakeass apologies.

You simply just can’t deny the circus that the Astros dodged this year. There’s no way to argue that.

 

[darko]

It wasn’t intimidation. When the Astros were being interviewed during spring training about fans heckling them, they were clearly bothered and annoyed. Imagine getting annoyed and having to deal with the media being asked the same question all year long.

And All Star week is supposed be fun times for any player. Being in LA for 3 days for an Astros player wouldn’t feel so welcoming. Not to mention they’d have to be part of a parade with their families on board. But like I said, it’s not just the fans. It would be awkwardness with AL teammates especially the ones that called them out for their fakeass apologies.

You simply just can’t deny the circus that the Astros dodged this year. There’s no way to argue that.

Fair enough.

 

[jcs0218]

Well team scumbug is in the ALCS ; hopefully the Dodgers will get in and take them out.

That would be perfect justice and redemption.

You know the Dodgers would be highly motivated in that series.

 

[Terry Yake]

Seeing a lot of that online too. As I said the other day, this sucks because it's getting harder to say they only won in 2017 because they cheated. They slugged 46 hits and 33 runs in four games against a pretty good pitching staff. They won despite no Cole, no Verlander and Greinke hurt or ineffective. With a crappy pen against one of the best pens in baseball.

The troll factor will be entertaining. I said the other day this is a big thumb in the eye of MLB who once they had their villain in Houston, they glossed over Boston's punishment and dropped any investigation into the Yankees or anyone else, even though the original article that outed Houston clearly said the kind of advanced sign stealing they were doing was very widespread in baseball. They had hard evidence on Houston thanks to Fiers's testimony but then in my eyes backed off on seriously investigating anyone else.

If NY rallies and beats TB that will make the LCS fun to watch. There should be plenty of ugliness which I'm surprised was absent from this series. Also I'm assuming he was hurt but I didn't see Fiers pitch at all which was surprising. He wasn't good vs. the Sox but you'd think he'd have wanted to pitch against his nemesis.

fiers is a fly ball pitcher prone to giving up HRs. sooooo yeah....you can see why he didn't pitch this series

wouldn't call the A's staff "good" at all. they were extremely inconsistent all season long. the bullpen was lights out but of course, folded when it mattered most aside from hendriks

 

[c9777666]

If game 5 last week goes the other way, could the White Sox have fared any differently vs HOU?

 

[c9777666]

When is the ALCS slated to start?

 

[Terry Yake]

If game 5 last week goes the other way, could the White Sox have fared any differently vs HOU?

not with the way houston was hitting

 

[Quid Pro Clowe]

Thanks and honestly with all the homeruns, got to be juiced balls right???? If it was,yeah even for both teams but I think it would have been a completely different story. Astros went from struggling to score runs to being capable.

The balls are definitely juiced. The Astros hitters got healthy at the right time. The A's pitchers made a lot of bad pitches in this series and to Houston's credit they didn't miss many. Thinking a lot of that had to do with their hitter rattling them and making them think of hitting the perfect spot instead of trusting their stuff.

90 degree weather is also perfect hitting weather.

 

[Quid Pro Clowe]

If game 5 last week goes the other way, could the White Sox have fared any differently vs HOU?

I don't think a team with less pitching depth would have done better against Houston under the same conditions.

 

[darko]

If game 5 last week goes the other way, could the White Sox have fared any differently vs HOU?

No.

 

[southsideIrish]

Springer is a great player. Getting out of that Asterisk jersey would only help him improve his image. That’s why guys like Marwin Gonzalez and Dallas Keuchel don’t get any hate.

Sorry I missed your response earlier. Yeah see that's one thing I don't get, why those guys don't get scorn or hate. Just cause they changed jerseys shouldn't matter. But maybe I didn't see many games but I didn't see much hate in this series. In fact Houston had all the swagger really excpet for Laureano's outburst in Game 3. If Baker doesn't arguably Baker and leave James in too long it's arguably not only a sweep but an ugly sweep. Oakland had a chance to make a real statement but instead the reverse happened.

I'd take any of those guys in a heartbeat. Regardless of what happened they're all extremely talented and I firmly believe the kind of thing they were doing was happening a lot across baseball, they just got caught. I'd take Hinch to manage the Sox too, there's already rumblings Detroit and some other teams are looking at him.

 

[southsideIrish]

I don't think a team with less pitching depth would have done better against Houston under the same conditions.

Agree, maybe Giolito could have gone long against them but that's it. They would have pounded the Sox.

 

[Quid Pro Clowe]

Agree, maybe Giolito could have gone long against them but that's it. They would have pounded the Sox.

I have no doubt Giolito could have shut them down for his start, but after that I'm not sure. Sox would have scored 6-7 a game no doubt, but they'd probably give up around 9-10 on average.

Funny seeing 2-bit players like Maldonado and Garneau getting on twitter as soon as the game ended. Enjoy your series win. No need to act like people not liking your team isn't justified. Their stars are so good they should just let their play do their talking.

 

[Terry Yake]

I have no doubt Giolito could have shut them down for his start, but after that I'm not sure. Sox would have scored 6-7 a game no doubt, but they'd probably give up around 9-10 on average.

Funny seeing 2-bit players like Maldonado and Garneau getting on twitter as soon as the game ended. Enjoy your series win. No need to act like people not liking your team isn't justified. Their stars are so good they should just let their play do their talking.

can't blame them after all the talking the A's did about how they wanted to play them

just funny seeing how much hate their fans still have towards fiers. "how dare he reveal to the world we were cheating!"

 

[Quid Pro Clowe]

can't blame them after all the talking the A's did about how they wanted to play them

just funny seeing how much hate their fans still have towards fiers. "how dare he reveal to the world we were cheating!"

They were asked about playing Houston by the media. They didn't just hop on their phones and tweet that they wanted them.