Do you ever wonder if Major League baseball and the television networks that cover them are trying to find a way to have the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees meet I the World Series even though both teams are not only in the American League, but in the same division.
I had to work this morning, but I got home just in time for the 9:00 a.m. Sportscenter and I was surprised that they started off with highlights from the Red Sox/Yankees game. I actually found it hard to believe that they open the show with this and there was some actual coverage of it. They not only showed important highlights from the game, but then they did a breakdown of the game and it’s important moments and ever went into some analysis for Game 2.
I have to tell you I was almost in shock especially being that it was a Saturday and normally college football is the feature sport on Saturday.
Of course my surprise didn’t last very long as ESPN went right back to being the network I’m use to.
As they went into highlights of the Los Angeles Dodgers/Atlanta Braves game things got back to the way baseball is covered on Sportscenter. There where two highlights of Clayton Kershaw striking out Braves batters. Then they showed the Manny Machado home run which was caught by a kid in the stands. They replayed the home run, but instead of going into any kind of game breakdown they teased the fact that they would be having the kid who caught the baseball on live later in the show.
They moved on to the Milwaukee Brewers/Colorado Rockies game. It was more or less the same set up for this game. There where maybe two or three highlights from the game and then they showed a graphic of how bad the Rockies offense has been. That was it for that game.
Then it was time for highlights from the Houston Astros/Cleveland Indians game. Now at least they did show highlights of all three of the home runs the Astros hit. There was also a shot of an upset Corey Kluber walking in the Indians dugout, but I don’t think that counts as a highlight.
What got off to a good start quickly turned into something that I was disappointed that I watched, but it could’ve been so much more and I just don’t get it.
The first segment was insightful and one of the best baseball segments I had seen on a Sportscenter in a very long time. I just don’t understand why they didn’t give as much attention to the other three series as they did the Red Sox/Yankees series. They had an opportunity to give people a chance to see quality baseball played by teams that aren’t on the east coast, but they chose to follow the standard quo and have an east coast bias. I know baseball wants to be a national game, but unless you can get the networks that cover the game like it’s a national game it will always be looked at as a regional game.
I know there where some questions when the Dodgers made the decision to go with Walker Buehler as their starter for Game 163 over Clayton Kershaw. Then the Dodgers turned to Hyun-Jin Ryu in Game 1 of the division series.
Ryu responded with a strong outing giving the Dodgers 7 innings without giving up any runs. Ryu allowed just 4 hits and struck out 8 in his start as the Dodgers won Game 1.
Now with a game in hand the Dodgers turned to Kershaw last night and he delivered with what was probably the best post season outing in his career. Kershaw pitched 8 innings for the first time in the post season and while he only struck out 3 batters he didn’t allow any runs and only gave up 2 hits to the Braves as the Dodgers picked up a 3-0 win in Game 2.
Over the 18 innings played in this series Dodgers pitching has allowed 0 runs on 9 hits while striking out 15. The most interesting part of the Dodgers pitching stat line is the fact that they haven’t walked a batter over those first 18 innings.
Now the Dodgers aren’t the only National League team with a 2-0 lead in their National League Division Series.
The Milwaukee Brewers have won the first two games in their series with the Colorado Rockies.
It took extra innings, but the Brewers found a way to get a 3-2 win in 10 innings in Game 1. Milwaukee was in control of the game until the top of the 9th when Colorado got back into the game with 2 runs off of Brewers close Jeremy Jeffress to tie thing up and send the game into extra innings.
It only took the Brewers one extra frame to pick up a Game 1 win. Joakim Soria sent the Rockies down in order in the top of the 10th inning setting up the Brewers with a chance in the bottom of the inning. Christian Yelich drew a walk to start the inning and advance to 2nd on an Adam Ottavino wild pitch. After Ryan Braun Struck out swinging Travis Shaw was intentionally walked to set up the double play. Curtis Granderson pinch hit for Soria and grounded into a fielders choice moving Yelich up to 3rd base. Mike Moustakas singled to rightfield to drive Yelich in and give the Brewers a 3-2 Game 1 win.
Last night in Game 2 the Brewers took a 3 games to 0 lead in the series with a 4-0 win over Colorado.
It was a 1-0 game until the Brewers scored 3 runs in the 8th inning off of the Colorado bullpen. Harrison Musgrave gave up a run without being able to record an out and then the Brewers added 2 runs off of Seungwan Oh who managed to get just 1 out before Chris Rusin came in and ended the Brewers threat. Jeffress worked 2 scoreless innings to seal Game 2 for Milwaukee.
The National League series are off today as the teams travel to Atlanta and Colorado respectively for a pair of Game 3’s tomorrow.
Can the Braves and the Rockies get back into these series with home games? Or is being down 2-0 to much to over come in a best of 5 series?
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