HOU 8, SEA 7

Man, based on Twitter, I wish I'd seen any of this one. The aftermath is plenty entertaining, though, so let's get into these points:

Alvarez 7
Tucker 1

Crawford 4
France 4
Haniger 1
Raleigh 1
Rodriguez 5
Suarez 5

The Guards/Yanks on in the background and with Pads/Dodgers about to start, here's where we are:

26 Crase 1
21 Winklepleck 1, Bauer Heart
15 Crase 2

14 Yuhan 2
13 Reid 1, Cameron 1
12 Fell 2, O'Reilly
11 DGB
10 SDB 2, Drake, Rogge

9 Reid 2, Cayenne 2
8 Cayenne 1
7 Bingham 2, Brady

6 Dunn, Quinn, Fell 1
5 JArbour, MArbour 2
4 Bauer Shock, Stempel, Sung
3 Cameron 2, Shotwell 2, SDB 1

0 Tormey, Bingham 1, MArbour 1, Shotwell 1, Winklepleck 2

Lots more shuffling before the day is done, I'm sure, so stay tuned.

PHI 7, ATL 6

I spent several hours in a podcast record and have barely seen any baseball yet today, so I'm going to do this quick update for the first afternoon game and see you later for the rest. And in this first one, Philadelphia flips off the pool by going up 1-0 in the series, but Atlanta did make a dent. 

Points in the NLDS opener:

Acuña 4
Olson 5
Swanson 1

No change to the leaders -- reminder: zombie slates are in italics -- but DGB has sprung up towards the top of the standings. 

21 Bauer Heart
16 Crase 1
15 Crase 2

Yuhan 2 and Fell 2 not far behind.

It does look based on the score like the first ALDS game racked up serious pointage for both sides, so I haven't bothered with a fuller listing, but look out for that in an hour or two.

And in the meantime, good luck!

SD 6, NYM 0; Padres move on

I don't really have much to say beyond what I said on Twitter earlier, to wit: at some point 4-6 weeks ago, a team that had spent the season to that point believing it could always come back and would usually dominate...stopped believing anything like that. Around Labor Day, even a couple of runs' deficit felt insurmountable, and often was (when it wasn't, like, a half-dozen-run hill to climb). 

In any event, although for personal-rooting and pool-health reasons I wish this had gone a different way, it didn't, and I had a feeling it wouldn't. 

The points:

Machado 3

Alonso 1

Leaving us:

Alonso
Canha
Escobar
Lindor
McNeil

Which thereby zombifies two slates before we even get to the LDSes:

Bauer Heart
Crase 2

And a couple others already look pretty frail. But that's why they play the games, as the saying goes. In the meantime, here's the money going into the off day, with walking-dead slates in italics:

21 Bauer Heart
16 Crase 1
15 Crase 2

14 Yuhan 2
10 SDB 2, Drake, Winklepleck 1

9 Reid 2
8 O'Reilly
7 Bingham 2
6 Dunn, Reid 1, Quinn, DGB, Fell 2, and Brady

Everything else basically status quo since the last update. Questions/math errors, let me know!

Here's the schedule for Tuesday 10/11, with play starting at 1:07 ET.

Until then, the comments are here for your reverse jinxes, rending of garments, Gol-Dunn Sombrero predictions, and the rest. Good luck and see you in a couple days!

PHI 2, STL 0; Phillies move on

Welp, this is what happens when you have 12 teams and four rounds of postseason in play, I guess. With the dust not yet settled on the first round, this could have been worse for the pool...but this may yet be much worse for the pool if the curtain goes up on a Guardians/Phils Classic. 

But let's worry about that in a couple of weeks. Today, let's salute the outgoing Cardinals, and in particular

El Hombre 2

Blogspot has not preserved the updates from the very first BPP, probably because if the pool were a kid, it would be old enough to drive, but I won BPP I thanks to a Pujols pick. What a pleasure to watch his final season.

The following picks also leave us:

Arenado
Goldschmidt

Goldie is always a tempting pick, but he can burn you; usually it's by being on a team that gets bounced early. This year he added taking a collar to the list. 

So, a couple of slates already clipped, but nothing's fatal yet. 

The money first; complete standings after the jump:

20 Bauer Heart
16 Crase 1
15 Crase 2

NYM 7, SD 3

Brutal series for Cronenworth so far, Machado somehow managed a rib-eye without a TB, and Jake didn't look great, but he and the Met line-up got the job done. Barely. Take years off your life, "These Mets." 

No points for Padre pickers, but:

Alonso 4
Canha 0
Escobar 1
Lindor 5
McNeil 2

So now your leaderboard looks like this:

20 Bauer Heart
16 Crase 1
15 Crase 2

13 Yuhan 2
10 Drake and Winklepleck 1

8 SDB 2 and O'Reilly
7 Bingham 2

Full standings in the next/last update, but this series resumes at 7 PM tonight; I believe the match-up is Musgrove/Bassitt. Rest up, check math, good luck!

SEA 10, TOR 9; Mariners move on

We stepped away from coverage for like 10 minutes yesterday evening to do other things; the next time we saw a TV, it looked like George Springer was...dying. Then we saw the replay 19,293 times. Truly scary -- and a little hard for me to feel good for the Mariners under the circs, but they did what had to be done, and the Jay bullpen did not. 

The loss knocked out three picks, and started to expose the limitations of picking pre-wild card round, a process a certain Easter-Island-headed gent continued in the night game, so I'll have to marinate on that over the winter. For now, let's pick up all the points that got Oprahed around in this game...

Crawford 2
France 1
Haniger 1
Raleigh 3
Rodriguez 0
Santana 6
Suarez 3

Leaving us, and therefore italicized:

Bichette 2
Guerrero 1
Springer 0

And for the brief time before the next update, here's the money:

16 Crase 1
10 Winklepleck 1
8 Bauer Heart and O'Reilly

And Crase 2 just off the pace, but Mets pickers would like a word in our next update, so stand by.

CLE 1, TB 0 (15) (!); Guardians move on

The big takeaway for me here: Sciambi and Glanville should do the higher-profile games. Yeah, there's some ESPN-iness, but for long stretches, there's also...quiet. I felt informed, but not blathered on. 

The Rays didn't feel great about the day, which was very long and sent them home, but while neither Cleveland pick notched a point, Rozie grabbed one for Cayenne 1 on his way out the door.

Arozarena 1

And that's kinda that. Cayenne 1 is on the board, but down a man; no other change.

That won't be true for long today, as it looks like our friends to the north are throwing a crooked number up the Seattle pen's ass, but I may not have time to update until later, what with the compulsive and useless worrying over which lucky Keith Hernandez shirt to wear and the praying to both deGrom's ancestors and my own. And this is relatively restrained compared to the high holy rituals performed on behalf of Carolina basketball in this house. At least that shit seems to do some good sometimes, sigh. 

...What was I saying? Oh yeah: longer series = better for the pool, so root accordingly and good luck!