Well, so, the Dodgers losing streak continues to 10. Fortunately for them they’re heading to San Francisco, where the Giants are continuing to redefine the word “hapless”. So the streak will likely end here.
It’s been fun while it lasted, though.
Ryan Vogelsong is going to get to retire a Giant.
If a middling pitcher retires at the end of a terrible season of meaningless Giants baseball, does anyone but his mom care?
On August 25th, Washington was 14.5 back of the Dodgers who were going to easily cruise to the best record in baseball and maybe history. After losing to the Giants at 2 AM left coast time, the Dodgers are now only 3.5 up on the Nationals (4 up on the Indians) and play 3 in DC this weekend.
Some good news for Dodger fans: they can clinch a playoff berth today (win or Cardinals loss).
Cleveland is compiling just incredible numbers during this streak. The one that really jumps out at me is the run differential during these 19 games: 132 - 32. Wowza!
So now let’s test how jinx proof this streak is: Their chances of matchng the A’s 20-game streak tonight look pretty good as Corey Kluber gets the start.
I occasionally have to remind myself that the Tribe has pulled off this winning streak with 2 current and 1 former All Stars on the DL (Andrew Miller, Michael Brantley, and Jason Kipnis).
Kluber vs Matthew Boyd, Tribe at home, Detroit playing out the string to the end of the season.
Too easy, so of course the Tigers are going to win 8-5.
Was personally expecting the callup making his first MLB start to be the one to end it last night, because baseball. Regardless of how long the streak goes I hope they can carry whatever they figured out for a couple more months. Video game numbers on both sides of the ball.
The one that blows me away is that they have hit more HRs in this streak (38) than the total opponents runs scored (32) That of course correlates to your stat but it kind of exemplified how they are completely thumping the opposition. Cleveland has a real good shot at the record especially when you consider they are right now playing against a farm club.
Not sure what team you root for (Twins, maybe?), but someday, maybe, your team will be lucky enough to draft a guy who isn’t the greatest (but was an All-Star), who didn’t stick around forever (but came back in memorably gutsy fashion - winning the team-voted award for ‘most inspirational’), who refused to sign with your team’s arch-rival (if any other team rates yours highly enough to consider them an arch-rival), who helps your team win two World Series. Maybe then you’ll understand that it isn’t just all about the superstars…
Vogelsong was an All-Star? Fair enough. My only real exposure to the guy is being annoyed when my fantasy team sucked enough to have to start him.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go put on my Brad Radke jersey…
He had one or two All-Star caliber seasons after 10+ years bouncing around as a middling pitcher. What makes the story good is that he was drafted as a Giant, wasn’t very good, bounced around the majors and minors and finally after getting another chance with the Giants, bounced back for a few good seasons. Good enough to capture the hearts of Giants fans (and one All Star appearance).
Didn’t Vogy also turn up his nose when the Dodgers offered him a deal for more money a few years ago, saying he could never play for them? That’ll endear you to Giants fans in a big way.
He did turn up his nose at the Dodgers, and yeah, maybe that was a little red meat in his “re-sign me” campaign, but Giants fans are helpless in the face of it. He loved the Giants for giving him a starting spot after bouncing around the minors and Japanese baseball for several years.
Calling him “middling” is mostly accurate, but it doesn’t really capture how unexpected and brilliant his performance was in 2011 and 2012…especially the 2012 WS run. He gave up 3 earned runs over 24 innings in a rather memorable post-season with a lot of must-win games. He was a stopper.
So, yeah, he was middling most his career, but there’s a reason Vogelsong is a beloved in San Francisco.
Since he last played for the Pirates, how is Vogelsong retiring as a Giant? Is he signing a one day contract with SF or something? That’s what Mike Sweeney did a few years ago to “retire” as a Royal.
As for the Dodgers, their 11-game losing streak matches their 11-game win streak earlier this season. I wonder how often that happens. A cursory googling reveals the '91 Mets were the last team to have both winning/losing streaks of double digits in the same season. And no team has ever won the World Series with a regular season losing streak of more than 9.
The last time the Yankees lost at least 10 in a row? Over a hundred years ago, when they lost 13 straight in 1913.
Yeah that’s common practice for when a player wants to retire for a certain team. I don’t think he even has to pitch (but he will have to be on the 25 40 man roster for a day).
I guess Cleveland’s not really much of a baseball town. Only 24,000 showed up to watch them tie the record…which they just did by the way.
Pretty sad showing, Cleveland.
Eh - it’s a weird town. The attendance is actually up by about 5k per game from last year, and that was up about 2k per game from the year before. Right now, it’s more of a basketball town with a diehard Browns fanbase. However, local TV ratings for the Tribe are quite exceptional: trailing only the Royals in percentage and in 5th in pure number of households, despite being in a much smaller market than many other teams. In short, people really want to watch the team, but they don’t want to visit to the ballpark to do it. This issue has been an ongoing quandary for upper management, and they’ve been sending out numerous surveys and holding focus groups. Of note, they still make plenty from advertising dollars thanks to that strong viewing audience, but of course attendance is the crown jewel of fan participation from a business perspective.
If only it were possible for billionaire owners to fund stadium construction or renovation. Alas, these poor civic minded souls must throw themselves on the tender mercies of a cold and callous bureaucracy and the unfeeling electorate that feeds it.
Someone’s gonna sign Lance Lynn in the offseason, and they’re gonna get baseball’s own Ron Swanson. (You kind of have to know Lance. He’s being straight…but maybe with some tongue in cheek. He’s hilarious.)