Kansas City is Plotting to Take Over the World!

Kansas City is Plotting to Take over the World.

Okay, well maybe not the world. But definitely the MLB, and maybe the NFL too. The city itself is understandably captivated.

Came across this tweet by the Kansas City PD:

Posted on Twitter last night

See? I told you they are all in on this world takeover thing… Cops and robbers working together so that everyone can watch the game… I tell ya, it’s a conspiracy!

On Monday night, the Kansas City Chiefs defense figured out how to scare the bejeezus out of Tom Brady. The end result was a (somewhat unexpected) defeat of the New England Patriots.

Last night, the Kansas City Royals, who I have thought of as fairly weak in prior years, managed to beat the Oakland Athletics in a single game wild card matchup that ended Oakland’s season and sent the Royals to the playoffs. This is the first time Kansas City has made the playoffs since 1985, and their fans were ecstatic and loud and fun.

A bit about the Wild Card games, just as a refresher for y’all. The American League sends four teams to the playoffs, as does the National League. Three of the four teams are the division winners:

American League:

East: Baltimore Orioles
Central: Detroit Tigers
West: Los Angeles Angels

National League:

East: Washington Nationals
Central: St. Louis Cardinals
West: Los Angeles Dodgers

The fourth team to go from each league is decided by a single game played by the teams with the best records who DIDN’T win their divisions.

Click here for a diagram from mlb.com that shows the standings way better than I can.

The wild card teams fought hard and close in their divisions all year, and in a big way, they spurred the division winners to their titles. The Oakland A’s are in part responsible, in my humble opinion, for the Angels’ strong drive at the end of the season. It helps to have something to fight for and someone to fight against. And a team that’s nipping at your heels is a good reminder to never let up.

Anyway, because of its importance, a wild card game can come to hold all the weight and excitement of a game 7. The winner gets to go on and the loser ends the season right there. And that excitement last night resulted in one of the best playoff games I’ve seen in some time.

Kansas City was falling to Oakland. But they came back and tied up the game, which took them to extra innings, and took their fans to the next level of heaven.

My favorite part of the game, and something to watch for as they take on the Angels in Anaheim on Thursday, was their baserunning. Check this out: they had seven stolen bases last night, and one more attempt by Hosmer, who was caught stealing. They had no home runs. And they got the win.

Photo courtesy of: http://wapc.mlb.com/cutfour/2014/10/01/97155418/gif-recap-royals-rally-in-extras-steal-their-way-to-an-al-wild-card-victory

While they won in walk-off fashion, I did find myself wishing at the time that it had ended a little stronger. That ground ball into left field felt like it was fielded slowly, which made it possible for the runner on second base, Christian Colon, to get home. But going back and looking at the video, it was obvious that there was nothing to be done from left field once the ball got there – except watch the celebration.

The bottom line is that Colon would not have even been in scoring position if not for aggressive and smart baserunning. And he had a good enough start from second to make it home easily once the ball was missed at third.

In the regular season, the Kansas City Royals led the league in stolen bases with 153. The closest team to them was the Dodgers, who had 138 – 64 of those belonging to Mr. Dee Gordon alone. They are a fast team, and they make efficient use of their speed in order to score runs.

This is what the Angels will be playing against, so it would be good for them to keep tight on the runners, and try to prevent those runners from getting in scoring position in the first place.

The National League wild card game is tonight at 5 Pacific. San Francisco, the team that battled the Dodgers all season, takes on the Pittsburgh Pirates.

As far as numbers go, the Pirates were third in the league in OBP (On Base Percentage), trailing only the Dodgers and the Tigers. They had the most walks of any remaining playoff team as well, which would indicate that they are patient when at bat; they look for good pitches, and they find a way to get on base somehow.

San Francisco, despite not really shining in any major team batting or pitching statistics, still managed to come into this game with the exact same number of wins and losses as Pittsburgh. They are scrappy, and will put up a fight.

They have Madison Bumgarner, who comes into the wild card game tied for fourth in wins and complete games played. They have Hunter Pence, who is fourth in the league in runs scored. They have… they have…

… they have to be beaten in Pittsburgh so that I do not have to see them in Los Angeles again this year. Just sayin’.

Nothin’ but love for ya, SF, but Go Bucs!

It all adds up to this

Hey all! Can I put into words how nice it is to wake up and see that little “x” right next to the Angels in the MLB Standings? Not sure I can. Congrats to them! Very excited about this postseason. Now the Dodgers just have to do the same thing and the greater LA/OC area will really have some excitement this October. Woo!

This link will take you to the standings list as of this morning.

What the standings won’t show you though is something like this, from Jon SooHoo, photographer for the Dodgers

Photo by Jon SooHoo, Los Angeles Dodgers

This is a team that is having fun playing together. Love seeing that. Look at their bright, shiny smiles, for goodness sake.

Back to the standings though, you might notice all those “E”s. Those are the teams that have been eliminated from the playoffs as of today. But if you are thinking that those “E”s won’t have a role to play, then you are sorely mistaken. Here’s why those teams matter.

As this September starts to wind down (Lord, time flies!), the Dodgers, Giants, Angels and Athletics will be playing a lot of games with teams that could serve as spoilers on the road to October.

I’m focused on those teams because I’m a California girl, but this is going on all over the country. In the NL Central division today, while first place St. Louis is playing third place Milwaukee, second place Pittsburgh gets to play Boston, a team that is out of contention and in a different division altogether. If Boston wins though, Pittsburgh slips.

Another game to watch today is taking place in Baltimore. The Orioles are just one game from clinching the division. Their distant second place division rivals, Toronto, happen to be the team they are playing. So this one win today could give them the division. Exciting? Yes. A sure thing? Not even close.

Drew Hutchison, pitching for Toronto tonight, had an iffy July and early August, but he’s only allowed 5 runs in his last four starts. Baltimore needs to bring it. They need to earn this title, if it is to be theirs.

The Dodgers and Giants are currently fighting it out for the National League West division, with LA ahead by 4 games. But make no mistake, just like Baltimore and St. Louis, there is no “sitting this one out”. There is no gimme game waiting for them.

Or at least, they cannot treat it that way.

The great Tommy LaSorda said “No matter how good you are, you’re going to lose one third of your games. No matter how bad you are, you’re going to win one third of your games. It’s the other third that makes the difference.”

Even teams who seem to be sitting on the sofa of last place, wearing snuggies with little pockets to hold the remote control and some snacks…

You can buy this on amazon, plop down on the sofa, and cheer for Texas – if you want to.

… even those teams win sometimes (like Texas in their last three games).

When it comes to sizing up a ball club, I’m reminded of squeaking wheels and bright flashes of light. You know, the things that everyone can see and measure about a team from the outside. The pitcher who can only go 3 innings is a squeaking wheel that tells people his team is weak. The player who comes up with a grand slam at just the right time – like Trumbo in Arizona last night against the Giants – is a bright flash of light that makes people realize that his team can still beat yours. It happens in real life too.

People can see certain things about you and form an impression of what you are as a person. Sometimes those impressions are right and sometimes not. One thing I know to be true though is that you are never ONLY what others measure you to be.

Being good a percentage of the time and failing at other times is called being human. But the remainder of your time is what makes you unique and what defines your impact on the world.

In this way, people (and baseball teams) remind me of wave functions. It’s a physics thingy, but it basically refers to a thing that’s simultaneously existing in a number of states. When the wave function collapses into one state, that’s when you know where the thing is and what it is. But until the wave function collapses, all you could truly know are what it COULD be and where it MIGHT be.

(That’s totally pop-physics-babble, by the way. I’m not a physicist. But some concepts stick in your brain like chewed gum on a sidewalk. They get flattened and tweaked by pedestrians, but they are still there, waiting to be used in a blogpost THAT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT SPORTS…)

Anyway, the MLB wave function will collapse for real by October and we will know where everyone stands. Until then, we keep on playing.

As far as LA teams tonight, the Dodgers are playing the Rockies again in Colorado at 5:40 Pacific. The magic number for the division is 9. Any Dodger wins plus Giant losses that add up to 9, and they’ve won the division.

The Angels take on the Mariners in the OC at 7:05 Pacific. Even though they are already assured a spot in the postseason, their magic number to win the division is 3. I hear they have already starting hanging things in the clubhouse to protect stuff from champagne and beer showers when they clinch. Anaheim is READY! And so am I.

This photo tweeted by the Angels. Three games to go until the first champagne party of the postseason!