MLB Playoffs 2013

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Yasiel Puig’s exuberant bat flip triple was what we needed

This was wonderful to see.

This was wonderful to see.

Remember when I was praising Johnny Manziel for being this over the top wild horse that has people all wild up? I am officially proclaiming Yasiel Puig as baseball’s Manziel.

I know, I know Carlos Beltran. You want him to tone it down a notch.

“As a player, I just think he doesn’t know [how to act],” Beltran said via ESPN. “That’s what I think. He really doesn’t know. He must think that he’s still playing somewhere else.

“He has a lot of passion, no doubt about that — great ability, great talent. I think with time he’ll learn that you’ve got to act with a little bit more calm.”

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The A’s will overcome their past postseason failures tonight in Game 5

The New York Times chronicled the Oakland Athletics’ past postseason failures. It sucked reading it. But I am the ever optimist.

I believe they will break it. I believe they will win Game 5 and move on. I believe in this team.

And that’s me as a fan. Until that 27th out is recorded, there is a chance.

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If I understand the rules correctly, umpires made correct call on controversial home run

Was this a home run?

Check out the above GIF from SB Nation.

My initial thought told me that this was a blatant interference and that the home run should not have counted.

I even dug into the MLB rule book to make sure. The rule comes from section 3, article 16.

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The conversion from baseball to football at O.co Coliseum

Normally this process takes 24 hours but the crew had less than that to work with. Pretty good considering the circumstances last night.

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Who is Sonny Gray? People on Twitter wanted to find out

Out-pitching Justin Verlander, striking out nine batters is a pretty impressive debut in the postseason for rookie Sonny Gray. Because he is a rookie, this is likely most baseball fans’ exposure to Gray.

With his impressive performance throughout the evening, people went to Twitter to ask about the rookie. They would know his name after the game.

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Josh Reddick and Sean Doolittle aren’t fans of the Red Sox beard obsession’s attention

Getting a little beard up in here.

As some of you may or may not know, the Red Sox players have been growing beards. It’s become such a thing that each beard has a name and even Sports Illustrated did a story on it.

It’s fine and all and this isn’t the first time the Red Sox have grown hair as a team. Their “idiots” identity from the 2004 team was well-documented too.

However, all this attention on the Red Sox has left a couple Oakland Athletics players wondering about another East Coast bias situation.

Outfielder Josh Reddick and reliever Sean Doolittle both have been growing beards before this Red Sox phenomenon took place, yet they are left wondering how come there isn’t a story on them. In fact, Reddick is in a national “beard off” with wrestler Daniel Bryan.

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New Era and MLB find new ways to market merchandise you don’t need

This was something that I feared but kind of expected when I saw that the postseason patches would be applied onto the batting practice cap. Now with images surfacing of teams going through practice, it shows that New Era and MLB are finding new ways to market their products.

I don’t even know why a postseason patch would be applied to an article of the uniform that won’t be used during the game. But I suppose if anyone sees these before the game, that will embed in their minds to get one. After all, applying a patch to anything makes it a new product, right?

Last year, MLB added the postseason patch to caps for the first time ever. This year, they’re adding postseason patches to the jerseys. What’s next? Postseason patches to the batting helmets? Wait, maybe they’re already doing that. Either way, their new marketing ploy is here and I bet someone will buy it. It’s not really new, but it’s different enough where you might think about getting it.

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Game 163: One of the best phrases in sports

Growing up as a kid, I would remember hearing and witnessing all the Game 7s in sports. The term “Game 7” is such a great term in sports. It’s the finality of something. It’s the last battle for the championship. Just by saying “Game 7,” the gravity of the situation is understood.

But right behind it, in my opinion is “Game 163.” It holds a different meaning but it still holds a lot of weight. For Game 163 means that we have to go one more step to find out who is worthy to enter combat. It means that the battle has been so great, that there needs to be one more fight to determine the victor.

Tonight, we get Game 163 between the Texas Rangers and Tampa Bay Rays.

These games have always turned out to be exciting games and the idea of a one-game playoff to determine who makes it into the postseason is pretty neat. And as Marty McFly would say, it’s pretty heavy.

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The Oakland Athletics have what it takes to win it all

The A’s are on a roll!

Last season, the Oakland Athletics needed all 162 games of the regular season to capture the American League West Division crown. They did it with miracle walk-off wins, stellar rookie performances and the chance of the Rangers losing steam towards the ends.

This season, the Athletics ran away with the division title and in doing so, have convinced me that they are the best team in the American League.

This may be me being biased, but it’s hard for me not to think the Athletics are the best. Their pitching has driven them to this amazing September run and their offense has shown a consistency that was unimaginable when the season began. More importantly, the Athletics are just putting together great at-bats and stellar performances out on the defensive end.

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