LAD 6, TOR 5 (18) (eeee-yep)

I stayed up for ENOUGH of this one that my eyes feel all gritty today -- but only managed to get to the bottom of the 14th before, well, "Enter Sandman" and all that. I kind of wish I'd managed to watch the entire thing, as a badge of honor...even though a lot of the baseball was weird at best, there was another "bunting is absolutely inexplicable, why would anyone" etc. etc. incident, pinch-runners were in that shouldn't have been, Springer hurt himself mid-at-bat, the determined tag everyone was talking about was glued to Ohtani's nuts, on and on.

But watching my Bluesky feed populate with variations on "what the crispy fuck was THAT" over and over again was a delight for as long as I could keep my eyes open.

Plenty of points on tap, too, although maybe not as many as you'd hope given they, you know, played two full games? But that's part of the story, too, that neither of these bullpens is, er, especially well-regarded, and they both stuck in for another nine.

That's going to have ripples tonight, but for today, the points:

Betts 1
Freeman 5
Hernandez, T 7
Ohtani 12 again (is a thing I get to type)
Pages 0

Bichette 2
Guerrero Jr. 2
Kirk 5
Schneider 1
Springer 0

And with that, the 2025 pool functionally becomes a fight for place and show.

143 Izzo
118 MArbour 1 and Mectomy
117 Bauer Snoozical

113 Quinn 2
110 Dunn 2
109 Mopsiukas 1

Everyone else after the jump...

LAD 5, TOR 1

Tonight's game felt a bit more like a game, versus the barely-controlled bottle rocket of adrenaline of last night's. Good storylines, good performances. 

And the...JoBros? Why does Manfred have to be like this, I'm sincerely asking. There is no halftime show in baseball. Please go run a sport you don't despise.

No great segue from that to the somewhat subdued points, so let's get to those:

Betts 0
Freeman 2
Hernandez, T 0
Ohtani 1
Pages 1

Bichette 0
Guerrero 1
Kirk 0
Schneider 0
Springer 2

As established in my update on the previous post, you should check my math/inputting, but provided I got it right this time, here's the money going into the travel day:

124 Izzo
111 Quinn 2
106 MArbour 1

105 Mectomy 

95 Mopsiukas 1
93 Dunn 2
92 Bauer Snooze
90 Fell 1

And everyone else after the jump!

TOR 11, LAD 4

And we're back! No rust on the Blue Jay bats, that's for sure. The Dodger pen might have been discombobulated by other factors than the usual (and of course you'll join me in wishing the Vesia family the best right now)...or it might be that these Jays can just hit.

Points!

Betts 1
Freeman 0
Hernandez T 0
Ohtani 4
Pages 0

well well well, look who's back and feelin' fine -- Bichette 1
Guerrero Jr. 2
Kirk 6
Schneider 0
Springer 2

The mid-range and one-off picks need to step it up if anyone wants to catch the leader; for the moment, that's...

118 Izzo
110 Quinn 2
105 MArbour

Just off the pace:

104 Mectomy

Still a couple zombies groaning around in the top quarter; everyone else who's still active, after the jump!

TOR 4, SEA 3; Blue Jays move on

I just keep thinking about all the Bsky posts asking plaintively for a Game 8. It was a nail-biter, fun as hell, and I'm happy for the Jays...but man, it would be nice for Seattle to get to a Classic, ever.

And for half the pool not to get kneecapped, but we have to live in this world.

Last LCS points, with knocked-out picks in italics...

Arozarena 1
Canzone 0
Crawford 2
Naylor 1
Polanco 1
Raleigh 4
JRod 6
Suarez 1

Bichette 0
Guerrero Jr. 1
Kirk 1
Schneider 0
Springer 4

MVP for us, unsurprisingly, is Vladdy. LVP...I don't know, I guess Canzone, but if you're looking at expectations vs. performance, you could argue it's Arozarena. (Schneider didn't notch a TB this series, but wasn't getting at-bats; what can you do.) Barger and Clement looking likely for the Victorino if a Dodger doesn't steal it from them.

But that's a problem for the weekend. Now, we're looking at the money. Here again, italics mean the slate has no picks left, and will fall out of the updates going forward.

110 Izzo
108 Quinn
102 Crase AL

101 MArbour 1
99 Mectomy

The rest of us, after the jump...

TOR 6, SEA 2

A number of the serieses in the 2025 postseason haven't lived up to their potential; the ALCS doesn't have that problem. A certain Mets-osity to last night's defense aside, both teams feel pretty locked in -- at just the right time for a winner-take-all game tonight.

Some individual hitters have cooled, but that's what makes things interesting around here. Points!

Arozarena 2
Canzone! 1
Crawford 0
Naylor 5
Polanco 0
Raleigh 0
Rodriguez 0
Suarez 1

Bichette 0
Guerrero 5
Kirk 1
Schneider 0
Springer 0

Vlad Jr. just an absolute monster this past week. You love to see it.

Slight realignment of the money going into Game 7:

105 Izzo
96 Quinn 2
90 MArbour 1 and Crase AL

89 Mectomy
86 Mopsiukas 1
84 Bauer Snoozical

Everyone else after the jump!

LAD 5, MIL 1; Dodgers move on

It's a mitzvah of sorts that Shohei Ohtani had the Ohtani-est, unicorniest postseason game in the history of baseball last night -- not just because we got to watch it (live, and the Bluesky timeline, which was 33 1/3 short variations on "hooooooly crap"), but because, thanks to that, the conversation is about that and not as much about the Crew not really showing up for the LCS. 

Someone made the comment on Bsky last night that the Brewers hadn't seemed "in" any of these games since last week; watching Yelich flapping at garbage sinkers the last couple days, he was overmatched, but also it looked like he didn't want to be there really. How did a team this well-oiled and dominant for six months, with that many big win streaks, just...recede?

Not to take anything away from the Dodger starters, or their professional postseason hitting attack. The team is not the defending champ for no reason. But the Brewers had opportunities and let them starve in a positively Metsy fashion. I'm not a pro athlete and what I don't know is a lot, but this specific instance of a team getting out over the canyon, looking down, and plummeting out of recognizable view is remarkable.

"Great, you've remarked, now get to the points!!" - Ohtani pickers

On it! You know the drill: picks and slates in italics are out. Relatively minor damage compared with what we'll see in a couple days, and lbr, these Brewer picks weren't critical anyway, but:

Chourio 3
Frelick 0
Turang 0
Yelich 0

The Crew's series in a nutshell: Chourio playing hurt but trying to make things happen; Turang and Yelich doing shit-all to help. Frelick does have the fewest TB of the group...but barely, notching 6 to Turang's 7 and Yeli's 8. Yelich looked worse, but I forgot Turang existed for most of the post, so he's the pool's series LVP.

In happier news,

Betts 1
Freeman 1
Hernandez T 1
Ohtani 12
Pages 0

Nobody else among the Dodger picks had as many as 10 TB for the entire LCS. Ohtani is the MVP here, and everywhere else, truly. Best "smelling a fart" faces on the mound? Ohtani. Legend. Kiké, Edman, and Will Smith doing that Victorinoid thing the lower half of the Dodger order always does in October.

All righty: the full standings, which actually complicate things more than they clarify them, because there's a clear leader and then a bunch of people splitting place and show. (And Brady's out; sorry, honey.)

100 Izzo
89 Quinn 2, MArbour 1, and Mectomy
84 Crase AL and Bauer Snoozical

81 Mopsiukas 1

79 Dunn 2
77 Winklepleck 1

Everyone else after the jump...

SEA 6, TOR 2

haha, remember this game? That ended like two hours ago? Although I think even Geno would concede that if your game-winning salami is going to become a footnote barely an hour after it happened, it might as well be because of Ohtani, but we'll get to that guy later. (By which I mean tomorrow morning, I'm afraid.)

The ALCS points:

Bichette 0
Guerrero Jr. 2
Kirk 2
Schneider 0
Springer 2

Arozarena 0
Canzone, painfully 0
Crawford 0
Naylor 1
Polanco 0
Raleigh 6
Rodriguez 0
Suarez 8

Polanco cooling off, Suarez nearly doubling his output, and a couple top performers chipping in mean the money has a new look yet again. A short-lived one, granted, but I'm letting us all enjoy this one until the admin dust settles on the NLCS in the AM.

For now...

89 Quinn 2
87 Izzo
84 Crase AL

77 Winklepleck 1 and MArbour 1
76 Mectomy

73 Fell 1, Yuhan, and Bauer Fun
72 Shotwell 1

69 Bauer Snoozical

This series goes back to T.O., and I would not count the Jays out by any means.

I'll update the NL side tomorrow -- not that many picks out, and I think only one slate got eliminated -- and do the full standings then. Anything looks off in the meantime, LMK!