Houston wins a 4-1 snoozer in NLCS game 2.
Houston (yawn) beat St. Louis (yawn) in the second game (yawn) of the NLCS. This was a boring game to watch. And I like baseball. A lot.
Why on earth does Fox bid on the MLB post-season broadcast rights? I’d rather hear two beer-drinking fans in the stands than the Fox crew. I think Steve Lyons said that Reggie Sanders “forgot to put his feet down” when he fell trying to catch a fly ball. Yeah, I’m sure that’s what is was.
I have always followed the American League closer than the National League, in part because I am a Red Sox fan and in part because I like American League baseball better than National League baseball.
I first started watching baseball in the early 1970s when the DH was a new invention in the AL. Self-proclaimed baseball “purists” hate the Al and prefer NL-style baseball, where the pitcher bats for himself. The NL proponents will tell you that there is more strategy with NL-style baseball, since you have to consider when the pitcher will be batting, when you should pinch-hit for him, when to pull double switches, and so on. I’ll tell you what takes strategy: trying to figure out how to pitch to David Ortiz and Manny Ramirez back to back. Double-switch that!
As pitchers age, then tend to end up in the NL (which is aptly nicknamed the “senior circuit”) because they have to (get to?) pitch less in the NL. In the NL, a pitcher can be removed from a game for “strategic reasons” when his team needs a key hit, plus he only has to pitch to eight real hitters. So a National League pitcher’s ERAs and other pitching stats will be better than their AL counterparts, who have to face nine real hitters (one of whom may be named David Ortiz). This may explain whey the AL has dominated the NL in recent years in the World Series, inter-league play, and the All Star game.
