On this past Friday edition of the Sports Time Radio podcast I said that I thought the St. Louis Cardinals needed to win Game 1 of their National League Championship Series against the Washington Nationals. I felt that if the Cardinals didn’t win Game 1 there would be a very good chance that they’d get swept.
Well Game 1 ended up being won by the Nationals 2-0 and the rest of the series went as I said and with last nights 7-4 Washington victory the Cardinals where swept out of the playoffs.
There’s an old baseball adage that says good pitching will beat good hitting and the Nationals used very good pitching to lock down their first ever trip to the World Series.
Patrick Corbin made the starts for the Nationals last night and while he wasn’t as dominant as the other Washington starters where in this series he got the job done. Corbin pitched 5 innings giving 4 runs on 4 hits while walking 3 and striking out 12. Even though Corbin gave up those 4 runs the Nationals had already posted the 7 runs they needed to win this game.
Washington scored all of there runs in the first inning off of Cardinals starter Dakota Hudson. Officially Hudson pitched just 1/3rd of an inning. He was charged with 7 runs; 4 of which where earned on 5 hits and 1 walk.
As the Nationals head to their first World Series a major contributor to their offense was 36 year old veteran Howie Kendrick who was name MVP of the NLCS. Kendrick is in his 14th season, but just like the Nationals he’ll be making his first trip to the World Series. Kendrick went 5 for 15 in the series against the Cardinals with 4 doubles and 4 RBI’s. Kendrick’s big game was Game 3 when he went 3 of 4 with 3 RBI’s. All 3 of Kendrick’s hits in that game where doubles. Kendrick became the fourth player in LCS history to have three doubles in a game.
With the Nationals locked into a World Series spot the question becomes; who will they play?
Last night the Houston Astros took a two games to one lead on the New York Yankees with a 4-1 win in Game 3 of the American League Championship Series.
Gerrit Cole made the start for the Astros and while he wasn’t as dominating as he was against the Tampa Bay Rays in the American League Division Series; he made it through 7 innings without giving up any runs. Cole threw 112 pitches in his seven inning outing. He gave up 4 hits while walking 5 and striking out 7. Cole picked up the win for the Astros.
Luis Severino made the start for the Yankees and pitched 4 2/3rds innings. Severino gave up 2 runs on 5 hits while walking 3 and striking out 6. Severino ended up throwing 97 pitches in his outing.
Both starters had to sit through a 16 minute delay as there was a change in home plate umpires.
Jeff Nelson was behind the plate for Game 3, but after getting hit by a foul tip off the bat of Yuli Gurriel in the 3rd inning and then in the 4th inning another foul tip this time off the bat of Martin Maldonado caught Nelson; he exited the game after the 4th inning with a concussion.
Houston was leading 2-0 when the delay occurred as Kerwin Danely who was umpiring at 2nd base went back to the umpires locker room to change into his gear to work behind home plate.
Mark Carlson went from 3rd base to 2nd base while Marvin Hudson came in from leftfield to umpire 3rd base. There are 6-man umpiring crews in the post season instead of the 4-man crews that work regular season games. The two extra umpires are positioned down the left and right field lines.
Since there was a delay and it was the Yankees that where in the field Severino was given additional time to warm up.
Game 4 is scheduled to be played tonight in New York, but there has been a lot of talk about what the weather will be like tonight as there is rain in the forecast. If the game does end up being rained out tonight it would just be pushed back one day to tomorrow and it would eliminate the off day the teams would have.
I’m not sure if this is because of the weather or if the teams have or had another season for doing it, but either team has announced their starter for Game 4. I guess if it is played tonight will have to wait and see who each team goes with.
There aren’t a ton of trades made in the NFL during the regular season. It’s not only tough to switch teams, but then you have to learn a new playbook as well as everything else that goes along with being traded. Even with all of this in mind it didn’t stop the Los Angeles Rams from making three deals yesterday.
The Rams started there trading frenzy by dealing their top cornerback Marcus Peters to the Baltimore Ravens. In return for Peters the Rams received linebacker Kenny Young and an undisclosed draft pick which is believed to be a 5th rounder.
After dealing away one cornerback the Rams went out and acquired another cornerback. The Rams sent a 1st round pick in 2020, a 1st round pick in 2021 and a 4th round pick in 2021 for Jalen Ramsey.
Ramsey has been disgruntled as a member of the Jacksonville Jaquars and hasn’t played since Week 3. He had been demanding a trade, but Jacksonville’s owner Shahid Kahn had been hoping to work thing out with Ramsey and get him to say. Reports say that Khan had a heart to heart with Ramsey yesterday and after that meeting Khan agreed to trading Ramsey and now he’s with the Rams.
In their final deal of the day the Rams added some offensive line depth acquiring Austin Corbett from the Cleveland Browns for and undisclosed 2021 draft pick. Corbett has played in three games for the Browns this season mostly on special teams.
If Peters and Ramsey can get up to speed expect both of them to either be I the starting line up or play a significant amount of snaps for their new teams.
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