Kluber with a great performance tonight in Chicago- after giving up 2 homers in the 1st, gone 6 so far with 2 er but 13 k's. Amazingly only 82 pitches thru 6 so he could go real deep in this game. In the tracker, he's got 2.3 points without the win bonus(Cle is up 7-2). a huge 16-18 k game would be huge for him in the Cy Young Race I think.

Nats won tonight 4-3. And Colorado scored 3 in the first. A Dodgers loss and all of a sudden Nats are only 6 back on the Dodgers with 22 to go(with 3 head to head).

Kershaw gives up 3 runs in 3.2 innings. Kind of curious how he actually looked. Saw he gave up 3 runs and 6 hits- 1 hr- with 7 k's though.

Nats make up yet another game tonight on the Dodgers. Now only 5 back of Dodgers with 21 to go. With 3 next weekend head to head. If the Nats could get within I think even 2 by Thursday night- entering the series- the chance to take 2/3 and be only 1 back with 2 weeks to go(with the tiebreaker) is huge.

I think the Dodgers going on the road though may be the best thing for them.

Sale with a good start- 6 shutout innings with 8 k's. He's out of the game. He's got 3.8 points in the tracker tonight before the win bonus.

head to head with Kluber-
Sale- 16-7 2.76 278 k's(assuming win tonight)
Kluber- 15-4 2.56 235 k's

looking here's the remaining starts
Sale
Sep 15 @ TB
Sep 20 @ Bal
Sep 26 Tor
Oct 1 Hou

Kluber
Sep 12 Det
Sep 17 KC
Sep 23 @ Sea
Sep 29 CWS

Sale likely wont make that final start. So he needs 22 k's in final 3 games to get 300.

Going to be an extremely close race I think.

And thank you Atlanta. With their win, the Nats clinch the division...... 1st division champion.

Dodgers losing meaning if that held- Nats would be only 4 games back of the Dodgers for best NL record.

Dodgers losing string continues. Now only 3.5 games up on the Nats- 3 in the loss column.

Although you wonder with how the Dodgers were only 8-11 vs D'backs and 7-9 vs Rockies- if the Dodgers now would be better off seeing those 2 in the LDS or seeing the Cubs(4-2).

Tonight a huge night with the Dodgers I think as Kershaw goes again. He gets lit up I think panic factor for Dodgers goes up considerably.

Initially when MLB added 2 more wild card teams to the playoffs (1 in each league) I was not excited about it and thought that the playoffs were getting watered down like all the other pro sports but this year it has added tremendously to the excitement of the end of the regular season for me as my team has been out of the race fro months (White Sox).

September 12 and 4 AL teams are within 3 games of each other for the 2nd wild card spot. That does not include the Orioles (3 1/2 ) or Tampa Bay which is 4 games back. Twins have the lead for the 2nd wild card spot but are faltering losing 6 of their last 10 games.

Only 4 AL teams have really been eliminated from Wild Card contention, this late in the season, mission accomplished MLB

yeah the playoff format has been really good. NL race is close as well- with St Louis and Milwaukee 3.5 and 4 games back right now as well.

AL has another team 3.5 back for 2nd spot as well- Seattle. So AL with 7 teams within 4 games.

saw 2018 schedule is out. next year is my favorite of the interleague years as it's east vs east, central vs central, and west vs west.

All 30 teams start on same day next year. pretty cool.

it's funny- we've talked so much about the AL Cy Young race- what about the NL-

contenders-
Scherzer 14-5 2.32 178.1 IP
Kershaw 16-3 2.15 151 IP
Gonzalez 14-6 2.50 179.2 IP
Greinke 16-6 2.99 186.1 IP
Strasburg 13-4 2.64 156.2 IP

looking at the tracker-
1 Scherzer 81.1
2 Kershaw 73.7
3 Gonzalez 70.1
4 Greinke 67.2
5 Strasburg 63.5

this will be a fascinating vote I think.

[quote='stever20' pid='14577279' dateline='1505233372']
saw 2018 schedule is out. next year is my favorite of the interleague years as it's east vs east, central vs central, and west vs west.

All 30 teams start on same day next year. pretty cool.
[/qu2-

2018 looks like a great season. I don't believe all 30 starting on the same day has ever happened before

(09-12-2017 01:23 PM)Policiious Wrote:  [quote='stever20' pid='14577279' dateline='1505233372']
saw 2018 schedule is out. next year is my favorite of the interleague years as it's east vs east, central vs central, and west vs west.

All 30 teams start on same day next year. pretty cool.
[/qu2-

2018 looks like a great season. I don't believe all 30 starting on the same day has ever happened before

it's not happened with 30- last time everyone opened on the same day was 50 years ago- 1968 season. With only 20 teams.

well Kluber definitely not making it easy on Sale.... A CG shutout tonight with 0 walks and 8 k's.

Kluber now 16-4 with a 2.44 ERA.
Sale by comparison is 16-7 with a 2.76 ERA.

the innings lead is down to only 11 now. Kluber now with 5 CG and 3 shutouts.

Kluber now since 6/1 is 13-2 with a 1.77 ERA. 202/21 k/bb ratio.

Indians ought to pick up Scott Hatteberg for tomorrow's game, just in case.

(07-22-2017 05:37 PM)flyingswoosh Wrote:  Sale with 6 shutout innings yesterday. He's now 12-4 with a 2.48 ERA and nearly 40 more innings than Kluber. The Cy Young race is over

since this post....
Kluber 9-1 1.93 84 IP
Sale 4-3 3.48 54.1 IP

when 1 of your biggest things is an IP lead, you don't have much. No Cy Young race is ever over in July, no matter who it is. Sale's pitched pretty well, but had his typical poor last third of the season. Kluber has taken advantage of it.

Oh, and looked at the tracker today and lo and behold, Kluber is #1 in both TT and BJ's trackers. Sale may have 1 extra start left but that would be on final day of the season. Kluber has a huge advantage I think in opponents left. Kluber has KC, @ Sea, and CWS. Sale has @ TB, @ Bal, and Tor. He is scheduled also for 10/1 vs Houston, but that's final day of the season where he would be allowed to go at most 3-4 innings you would think, as game 1 of the LCS is only 4 days later- and Sale's the last guy in the world that you'll see starting on short rest.

I think Kluber probably has the award at this point.

just asked Dave Cameron on FG in his chat who the favorite is now for the AL Cy Young. He said Kluber- Narrative + ERA probably gives Kluber the edge. Thought that was pretty interesting.

so Scherzer got lit up bad last night..... really makes things interesting....

contenders-
Scherzer 14-6 2.59 184.1 IP
Kershaw 17-3 2.12 157 IP
Gonzalez 14-7 2.68 184.2 IP
Greinke 16-6 2.99 186.1 IP
Strasburg 13-4 2.64 156.2 IP

looking at the tracker-
1 Scherzer 77.8
2 Kershaw 77.3
3 Gonzalez 68.4
4 Greinke 67.2
5 Strasburg 63.5

The sleeper to me in these is Strasburg. He goes out and has a great start next time out he's going to make up a lot of ground. I think the award goes to 1 of 3 guys- Scherzer, Kershaw, or Strasburg.

saw on BR that this year has already broken a MLB all time record with 750 pitchers used so far this season. It's the 5th straight year that the record has been broken. Before these 5 years- most pitchers ever was 666 set back in 2007. So 84 more than that year even. Since 1st year with 30 teams(1998) the number of pitchers has gone up by about 25%(from 600-750 now).

looking more at the '18 schedule-
they could probably do the little league tie in thing again pretty easily.... lookin at that weekend
Baltimore @ Cleveland
Miami @ Washington
Mets @ Philadelphia

Imagine how crazy the little leaguers would be if it's Stanton/Harper? With Strasburg or Scherzer pitching?

it's funny- saw the stat that might be the absolute craziest with regards to Sale that would be a stat that if I was pushing for Sale I'd be using quite a bit.

Since Memorial Day, he's had only 6 starts at home. Those 6 were against- Detroit(back in June before they got bad), Minnesota, Yankees, Cleveland, Yankees, and Tampa. Kluber by comparison has had 12 starts at home. Given just in MLB this year- home ERA is 4.16 while away ERA is 4.60- I'd say that's a pretty big thing.

While Sale is pretty close to the same pitcher home and away (2.81 home, 2.72 away)- Kluber is not. He's 1.93 home and 3.07 away. Since June 1- Kluber home 1.31 away 2.48.

Now, I don't think it'll matter to the voters- they don't dive that deep. But you can make the case for sure. Oh and BTW- of Sale's 3 likely remaining starts(not counting last day of season)- 2 of the 3 are on the road. And 2 of 3 of Klubers remaining starts are at home.

1 thing that will be interesting is how the 21 game winning streak that the Indians are on will influence the voters. It's literally something we've never seen before.