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Championship Series Recap – Saturday, 10/16

Get caught up on both the ALCS and NLCS from yesterday.

Matt Goodwin
We Love Baseball 10/17/2021

There were only two games yesterday because that’s how it works when only 4 teams remain in the quest for 2021’s World Champions. These two games were VERY different from one another, but each had plenty of excitement, especially if you are not a Houston Astros fan.

A little peek behind the curtain at my process: all season long when it was my turn to recap the games, I would follow my Twitter feed pretty closely. I have an account just to follow the news so I can then DM the best content to myself @TheCorkedMatt. Don’t bother looking, you’ll never find the research account. On any given Monday, I would wind up with a fairly long list of Tweets to consider for including in my piece.

Yesterday, I had more Tweets set aside for these two games than I had for a full slate in the regular season. So much happened and so many people had so much to say about it.

And with all of that content, here is perhaps the best Tweet of the day:

Yes, it’s a football Tweet. It still probably wins the internet. Coming in a close second was this fashion choice:

This is a bold choice for me, not only because I am using my own Tweet which seems a bit narcissistic, but also because it’s hiring season at PitcherList and I’m pretty sure I could just lift right out (you should apply).

Besides being a day of two amazing Championship Series games, there were a few other things worth sharing:

And finally, there was this Tweet which, as it turns out, actually won yesterday’s internet:

 

The ALCS (Game 2): Red Sox @ Astros

 

This game featured Luis Garcia (HOU) starting against Nathan Eovaldi (BOS). It did not take long to put up some crooked numbers, but before we go there, let’s check in on Garcia’s windup:

Very good. Almost as good as this defensive play in the top of the first inning with a runner on second and nobody out:

Fast forward a few batters and J.D. Martinez was up with the bases loaded, still in the top of the first:

Red Sox up 4-0 going into the bottom of the first. It remained that way after the Astros failed to plate a run in the bottom of the first frame. Garcia came back out for the top of the second, but:

This meant that Jake Odorizzi had as much time as he needed to get ready. He took all of that time.

Once things got rolling again, Rafael Devers found himself up with checks notes the bases loaded again. This was the second time in two innings that the Sox would load the bases. And also the second time in two innings that this happened:

Sadly, the Red Sox did not hit nine grand slams. But they did score nine runs after this happened in the fourth:

We should have known this was coming:

Here is a stream of Tweets celebrating what Enrique Hernández has done in the playoffs so far:

This prompted a little online competition posed by the Red Sox social media people:

Here’s a good one:

And another:

And one that is actually good:

To avoid the ire of the Astros fan base who I assume are the only people in America rooting for them, it is prudent for me to acknowledge that they did plate 3 runs in the bottom of the fourth making it 9-3:

The scoreboard guy even grabbed a quick pic (or a fan who somehow overpowered security and the actual scoreboard guy – somebody should maybe check on that):

They scored two more in the ninth, but ultimately lost Game 2 9-5:

A couple of footnotes to this one of interest:

And one more with some super futuristic technology:

Game 3 will be tomorrow, Monday, October 18th @ 8:07pm on FOX/FS1

 

The NLCS (Game 1): Dodgers @ Braves

 

This game was not nearly the high-scoring affair that we saw in Houston, but it was every bit as exciting. Perhaps even more so. It started with some social media hype:

There were some moving moments:

I suppose Bob’s Tweet means it may not have happened at all, so maybe do your own research on this one. One thing that turned out to be true was this:

And in the bottom of the first inning, the Braves scored first on a wild pitch from that very same Corey Knebel:

Then, in the top of the second, the Dodgers were able to tie it up:

And in the bottom of the second we got this:

That is some certifiably 1980s hair band hair and maybe it’s the source of the power he used to do this:

Here’s a fun factoid comin’ atcha:

In the top of the fourth, Will Smith got jiggy with it and crushed a baseball to give the Dodgers a lead:

In the name of full transparency, I also made that terrible joke on Twitter, but it autocorrected to “jiggly” and I’m still not sure which one I like better.

In the bottom of that same inning, the announcers were talking about how the Brewers had kept attacking Austin Riley with sliders away, avoiding the inside part of the plate. Right on cue, he was served a fastball in and Mr. Riley did this:

And then MLB sent this out which made me feel better about my “jiggly” with it Tweet:

At that point, the game was tied 2-2 and it would remain that way until the ninth inning. However, before we get to that, we need to set aside some time for Tony Gonsolin’s shoes:

What are you looking at? That is a GREAT question. Let me help with more information on that front:

He was solid on the mound, and even beat out an infield single in the top of the fifth prompting this:

And this:

You can’t make this stuff up. Seriously, if I made that up the editors wouldn’t let it run. In addition to Gonsolin, there were some other solid to really great pitching performances. Here is a sampling of some nice pitches:

This brings us to the ninth inning. In the top, there was a whacky play that may have had some serious repercussions for the Dodgers. A bit of a base-running blunder from Chris Taylor coupled with a great job of charging the baseball by Joc Pederson resulted in this:

And in the bottom of the ninth, Austin Riley came through again to make the Dodgers pay for that mistake with this frozen rope (with a couple of alternative angles for maximum enjoyment):

The Braves now lead the series 1-0 looking forward to Game 2 like Ian Anderson is:

Game 2 will be today, Sunday, October 17th @ 7:37 p.m. on TBS

 

Photo by David J. Griffin/Icon Sportswire | Adapted by Justin Paradis (@JustParaDesigns on Twitter)

Matt Goodwin

Husband. Dad. Teacher. Writer. Podcaster. Baseball Fan. Quippy. Makes up words. FSWA. IBWAA.

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