This Houston event needs it's own thread:

Many Rice mentions via Anthony Rendon, including quote from Wayne Graham speculating on greatest Rice MLB baseball player ever: Will have to play longer (than Berkman), but will certainly be the highest paid.

One of many

Free agents

3B matchup

Not Rice related, but I like this article from the Austin American Statesman about how

Quote:The American League is being represented by a team in a city long associated with the National League. And the National League is being represented by a team in a city long associated with the American League.

https://www.statesman.com/news/20191021/...texas-team

I was thinking the same (NL/AL). As some may know, Houston was a St Louis farm team forever, so the NL ties go back to the 1921 (when per Wikipedia-how did we live without Wikipedia and IMDB?-when the cardinals bought a controlling interest in the Buffs). And obviously Washington was an original AL team until they moved to Minnesota, then there was an expansion Senators who moved to Dallas as those awful Rangers.

Guess it's worked out ok, but still hate Bud Selig......

Anyone know where this billboard is in Houston? I guess it's a good idea if AR is generous to Rice with his pending free agent contract. But I hope it doesn't annoy the Astros at the same time.

BTW, one interesting element to this Series is it shows you how incredibly deep and talented the 2011 MLB draft was.

Gerrit Cole #1 overall pick
Anthony Rendon #6 overall pick
George Springer #11 overall pick

Other prominent All-Stars in the 1st round include Trevor Bauer, Francisco Lindor, Javier Baez, the late Jose Fernandez and Sonny Gray. Also, Mookie Betts was a 5th round pick.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Major...ball_draft

I wonder if any recent draft has come close to this one?

Four players with CUSA ties in this year's World Series:

Nationals:
Anthony Rendon (Rice)
Brian Dozier (USM)
Daniel Hudson (ODU)

Astros:
Justin Verlander (ODU)

The big pre-story yesterday was the pitching matchup - as it should be: Great pitchers to highlight game 1. The reality was both pitchers looked human. Scherzer struggled more than Cole, but ended up with the win.

Again today the story will be the two starting pitchers, Strasburg and Verlander. Will be interested to see if we see another game 1 or a real pitchers duel.

The odds that the Nationals would win the WS were slim. A friend paid $100 to win $2900 if the Nationals win. After last night, maybe the odds have evened a bit.

Nats making the Astros look like Rice football so far - close, but can’t find a way to win.

Well, now not even close.

And it got even worse. Ugly effort from the Astros.

94 rockets

(10-23-2019 11:26 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  94 rockets

Astros fans can only hope.

Good luck except when he plays the Astros. Astros are my AL team and the Nats are my NL teams.

(10-22-2019 03:48 PM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  

Anyone know where this billboard is in Houston? I guess it's a good idea if AR is generous to Rice with his pending free agent contract. But I hope it doesn't annoy the Astros at the same time.

Wayne Graham is going to be on MLB radio, Sirius XM, starting around 2:35 today.

Rendon of course

Home field advantage seems to be nonexistent in this series.

Tonight is the first game Washington has probably been favored for the whole series. If Houston wins tonight, momentum clearly swings back to them. Both of the 3B have been kind of meh in this series (Rendon has hit the ball harder than Bregman, but neither have shown signs of what they're capable of). You still kind of think that one or both of them are going to have a big game one of these nights.

(10-26-2019 09:42 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Tonight is the first game Washington has probably been favored for the whole series. If Houston wins tonight, momentum clearly swings back to them. Both of the 3B have been kind of meh in this series (Rendon has hit the ball harder than Bregman, but neither have shown signs of what they're capable of). You still kind of think that one or both of them are going to have a big game one of these nights.

Bregman scores first here - 3 for 5 with a grand slam and 5 RBIs. According to the factoid presented on the TV broadcast, that's the most RBIs ever by a third baseman in a World Series game.

It's hardly a surprise that the Astros have come back to tie the series. Game 2 ended 12-3; one team had an expected batting average (xBA) of .360 in that game, and the other's was .225. If you said the team with the higher xBA got the 12 runs, you'd be wrong. In fact, the Astros xBA of .366 in Game 4, which they won 8-1, is only slightly higher than their Game 2 xBA (and the Nationals' xBA of .250 in Game 4 is higher than their Game 2 total, although they scored 11 fewer runs). What this shows is that the Astros had been having bad luck hitting (and the Nationals had better luck), but now the teams are reverting to their means.

This brings up another point: momentum is for suckers. You make your own momentum on each and every play in each and every game. If momentum really meant that much, the Astros would've rolled over and died after dropping the first two games at home to the team that had won eight straight postseason games and 18 of their past 20 games overall. The fact that the Astros now have won two in a row on the road to even the series is meaningless in regard to the series' eventual outcome. I don't expect the Nationals now to roll over and die any more than I expected the Astros to do so two games before, although I do think the Astros are the better team and more likely to win.

(10-23-2019 11:26 PM)texowl2 Wrote:  94 rockets

Astros close to making you look prophetic.

Finish it Astros!

(10-27-2019 02:20 AM)Jonathan Sadow Wrote:  

(10-26-2019 09:42 AM)Fort Bend Owl Wrote:  Tonight is the first game Washington has probably been favored for the whole series. If Houston wins tonight, momentum clearly swings back to them. Both of the 3B have been kind of meh in this series (Rendon has hit the ball harder than Bregman, but neither have shown signs of what they're capable of). You still kind of think that one or both of them are going to have a big game one of these nights.

Bregman scores first here - 3 for 5 with a grand slam and 5 RBIs. According to the factoid presented on the TV broadcast, that's the most RBIs ever by a third baseman in a World Series game.
It's hardly a surprise that the Astros have come back to tie the series. Game 2 ended 12-3; one team had an expected batting average (xBA) of .360 in that game, and the other's was .225. If you said the team with the higher xBA got the 12 runs, you'd be wrong. In fact, the Astros xBA of .366 in Game 4, which they won 8-1, is only slightly higher than their Game 2 xBA (and the Nationals' xBA of .250 in Game 4 is higher than their Game 2 total, although they scored 11 fewer runs). What this shows is that the Astros had been having bad luck hitting (and the Nationals had better luck), but now the teams are reverting to their means.
This brings up another point: momentum is for suckers. You make your own momentum on each and every play in each and every game. If momentum really meant that much, the Astros would've rolled over and died after dropping the first two games at home to the team that had won eight straight postseason games and 18 of their past 20 games overall. The fact that the Astros now have won two in a row on the road to even the series is meaningless in regard to the series' eventual outcome. I don't expect the Nationals now to roll over and die any more than I expected the Astros to do so two games before, although I do think the Astros are the better team and more likely to win.

Momentum is as good as your next day's starting pitcher.

Rendon just hit a 2-run homer to give Washington a 5-2 lead in G6 after one of the crazier plays in WS history. Rendon's having a good G6 with two hits and three RBI.

As to the controversy (Turner being called out for running inside the basepath), that was probably a bad call but I'm guessing wasn't reviewable? I don't know - it took awhile for New York to review it and they haven't had the official word yet on what was being reviewed.

Ironically, if the play had stood for Turner, Rendon likely would have been walked (after an Eaton popout) and perhaps Washington doesn't score? Tough to say for sure, but baseball sure is a strange game at times (and I suspect they will be able to review plays like that in the future if that was the problem tonight)??

I'm not a rules expert, but I don't get it. The runner didn't take a single step inside the lane, and he ran into the first baseman's glove before he could catch the ball. Isn't that interference?

Is there some nuance to the rule I'm not aware of?