Game Six Postponement Could Potentially Sway Things in Cardinals Favor

MLB’s postponement of game six of the World Series could prove to be the moment during the series that completely changes things, even more so than “bullpen phone-gate,” Derek Holland’s masterful game four appearance or Mike Napoli’s great series.

The postponement, which now seems like it was overkill on the part of Major League Baseball, could wind up having a massive positive effect on the St. Louis Cardinals, down 2-3, and massive negative effect on the Texas Rangers, who on Monday night seemed on the verge of their first ever franchise title.

The postponement of game six due to rainy weather in St. Louis could halt the momentum the Rangers had going in Arlington that might have traveled with them back to St. Louis. The extra day off might help to cool off some of that good jive the Rangers had going for them. It’s a decent concern, but it’s definitely the least concern of them all.

The biggest concerns have to do with the possibility of a game seven, which is why the Rangers better hope their little hot streak of winning two games in a row, the first team to do so in this series, doesn’t cool off.

Of course, all of which I’m about to discuss is irrelevant if game six starter Colby Lewis and the rest of the Rangers can go out there tonight and beat Jaime Garcia and the Cardinals. For their sake the Rangers really need to win this game, because if they don’t I’m pretty confident the series goes back into the upper hand of the Cardinals.

There are two reasons why I think the Cardinals have the advantage if the series goes to game seven, and neither of them have anything to do with home-field advantage.

The first reason is that the rain out on Wednesday gives the Cardinals the opportunity, and one I think they’d definitely take advantage of, of pitching former Cy Young winner and ace Chris Carpenter in game seven on three days rest. Now, you never know exactly what you are going to get with a pitcher, even one as great as Carpenter, on three days rest and historically it hasn’t been very successful, but I think a Chris Carpenter on three days rest beats Kyle Lohse, the original intended game seven starter, on full rest. Carpenter is a bulldog and one tough competitor and I think he’d come out for game seven in similar fashion to his game five dominant performance over Roy Halladay and the MLB’s best Philadelphia Phillies in the National League Division Series. The rain out on Wednesday really sets up the perfect game seven possibility for the Cardinals on Friday if they can get through game six alive.

The second reason that I think the Cardinals would have the upper hand if the series goes the full seven games actually has more to do with Rangers manager Ron Washington’s stubbornness than the rain postponement, though because of the postponement Washington had the perfect opportunity to make what I think would be a better decision if the series goes seven games. The postponement means that Derek Holland, who pitched so brilliantly (really all time great) in game four on Sunday, would be available on Friday for game seven on complete rest. It’s a situation that should prove ideal for the Rangers, but Washington won’t budge on Matt Harrison, whom he’s always said from the start would start game seven. Harrison certainly isn’t a bad choice to start any game, but Holland’s simply been better the second half of the season and was worlds better earlier in the series. While Holland pitched 8.1 scoreless innings of two-hit ball in game four, Harrison only went 3.2 innings in game two giving up five runs. If I were the Rangers skipper this would be a no brainer decision for me … I’d be giving Holland the ball.

Baseball is the sport where a decision by a coach/manager probably means more than in any other sport. I think the combination of luck in the Cardinals being able to throw Carpenter in game seven and the decision Washington is seemingly going to make could really alter this series and have us thinking and talking about it for a long time.

Don't Trade the Farm for a Rental

The baseball trade deadline is just five days away and it’s a nerve racking team for teams and players and fans. It’s the time of year where a team can strike up a deal that could potentially win them the World Series. Unfortunately, there’s maybe more of a chance that a team could severely hurt themselves for the future by trading away valuable prospects for a two month rental.

The worst of these trades in recent years was between the Atlanta Braves and the Texas Rangers. The Braves, thinking they were in playoff contention, traded for Rangers All Star first baseman Mark Teixeira. To land him the Braves had to send the Rangers four of their most valuable prospects: Jarod Saltalamacchia, Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz and Matt Harrison.

Saltalamacchia is now the Red Sox starting catcher, which doesn’t really matter because the Braves have baseball’s best catcher in Brian McCann. However, Andrus, Feliz and Harrison have all become productive parts of a winning Rangers team and the Braves could definitely use all three of those parts right about now.

Teixeira didn’t help lead the Braves to the playoffs that year, despite having a very hot two months with them. He wasn’t just a two month rental either as he was under contract for one more year … but, Teixeira simply became a one year rental as the Braves knowing they didn’t have the money to re-sign him were forced to trade him to the Angels for Casey Kotchmann at the next year’s trade deadline. Kotchmann didn’t do much of anything for Atlanta and Teixeira finished out the year with the Angels before signing a mega-deal with the Yankees as a free agent. The damage was done however as the Braves basically stripped a good part of their future for what turned out to be almost nothing.

Teams should beware that the bright lights of the impending playoffs are not always worth giving away your future.

Baseball Really Isn't More Boring Than Football

It seems I’m constantly having those: “I can’t believe these people” moments. Things always seem to happen that just don’t make much sense to me and I honestly don’t see how they make sense to rational people either. These moments often revolve around sports fans.

The most recent of these “I can’t believe these people” moments has to do with television ratings of a regular season, meaningless NFL week six blowout game versus those of a huge, primetime and big time playoff matchup that turned into one of the greatest postseason pitching performances in baseball history.

According to tvbythenumbers.com, 9.6 million people watched the Tennessee Titans trump the Jacksonville Jaguars 30-3 on ESPN’s Monday Night Football on Oct. 18, while only 8.2 million people watched TBS’s telecast of game three of the American League Championship Series playoff baseball game between the Texas Rangers and the New York Yankees that same night and time.

Now, I know that football is the most-watched sport in this country and that is obvious and has been for some time, but it is still a head-scratcher to me that more people would want to watch a regular season, nothing at stake NFL game between honestly two uninteresting teams than a thrilling pitcher’s duel matchup between Benton’s own Cliff Lee, of the Rangers, and Yankees star Andy Pettitte.

On top of all of that, Lee’s performance against the Yankees, while allowing only two hits and striking out an incredible 13 batters, who aren’t slobs by the way, while shutting them out might be one of the 10 greatest postseason pitching performances in baseball history.

I’ve always wondered why a regular season NFL game would draw more viewers than a tight, postseason Major League Baseball broadcast or even more preposterous why a televised NFL preseason game would out draw a regular season MLB game.

The answers that sports fans have always given me have never seemed fulfilling. The answer is usually as simple as: “football is just better.” Every now and then, I’ll receive the more elaborate: “football is more exciting and just has more action than baseball” or “there is too much stoppage time in baseball or time when nothing is happening.”

Well, the facts are that football honestly doesn’t have any more or less action then baseball. There also isn’t any more stoppage time or time when nothing is occurring.

This is going to sound either funny, stupid or too philosophical to some, but each sport has action except for when there isn’t any.

What I mean by this is that the action in baseball starts with the pitch, which means there is constant action once the pitch is made, even if the ball isn’t batted into play. The action in a football game begins with the snap of the football. The time between the pitch in baseball and the snap in football is what I’m referring to as stoppage time and the amount of time in between the two is roughly the same. In between the pitch and the snap are mind games being played between the pitcher/catcher and batter in baseball and the offense and defense in football, which leads to a different action.

If any argument could be made as far as having less action, it could be made that there is actually less constant action in a football game, because in football you have halftime, which is roughly 20 minutes long, as opposed to the mere two to three minutes in between baseball innings.

Some fans also make the argument that baseball games are longer than football games and that baseball doesn’t fit into the increasingly small attention span of most Americans.

Sure, a baseball game doesn’t have a game clock and could essentially last all day long if it had too, but in most cases a baseball game is three hours long, which is also roughly the same length of a football game with the halftime, timeouts and commercial breaks thrown in.

This probably seems like a lot to think about and many sports fans don’t want a whole lot of thinking thrown into their sports. However, these reasons seem better to me than the ignorantly cliché “football is just better” statement.

When it comes down to it the two sports are similar in the amount of action that actually occurs during the timeframe of the event. This brings back the question: why do more people prefer meaningless, regular season football games over important, postseason baseball games?

The answer would seem to be a subjective one: the majority of sports fans just prefer football over baseball. Each fan will have their reasons why or why not, but one thing is certain in my mind: “just because” just doesn’t cut it.