Hi Everyone —
Before we get to things, a couple of programming notes.
One, we are heading to London this week. There are no events planned this time around — this is fun family stuff — but if you see someone walking Brick Lane wearing a Kansas City Royals shirt, it’s probably me. Or Paul Rudd. But probably me.
This also means that for a few days, well, I don’t know what JoeBlogs will be. I’m sure I’ll write because I can’t help it, but we’ll see how it plays out.
Two, Molly Knight and I will be doing a special PosCast Playoffs episode at noon today. I don’t know if we’ll go live on YouTube with it — you can subscribe if you’re interested — but either way, we would love your questions. Just send them along (quickly) to [email protected].
Let’s get to some stuff before I have to start packing!
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(Aaron Gash/MLB Photos via Getty)
What’s this? A complete game? What?
Yoshinobu Yamamoto did something on Tuesday night — in the Dodgers’ bludgeoning 5-1 victory over Milwaukee — that, honestly, I wondered if we would ever see again: He threw a complete game in the postseason. How did it happen? Well, it really was a perfect storm.
Yamamoto was absurdly dominant — we’ll talk about the Brewers, hitting woes in a minute, but Yamamoto was unreal.
He kept his pitch count relatively low; he went into the ninth having thrown just 97 pitches.
He had never thrown an MLB complete game, no, but he did it all the time in Japan.
He got through the ninth inning 1-2-3 — I imagine if he’d allowed a baserunner, he would have been pulled.
The Dodgers bullpen is break-glass-in-case-of-emergency terrible.
Anyway, this was the first postseason complete game since 2017. I remember that game well; Justin Verlander threw a 13-K complete game against the Yankees in the ALCS. I wondered even then: Will we ever see this again? Verlander was already a dying breed, one of the last pitchers left who could still DEMAND to stay in the game. I suppose Tarik Skubal or Paul Skenes or Blake Snell or one of those types of guys have the kind of gravitas where they COULD demand to stay in the game. But that’s just not the world they grew up in.
There have been five postseason complete games in the last decade — three of them were in 2016, when the game was different. Here are the complete games by 5-year increments:
2021-2025: 1
2016-2020: 4
2011-2015: 8
2006-2010: 7
2001-2005: 14
1996-2000: 16
1991-1995: 15
1986-1990: 20
1981-1985: 31
Someone told me this the other day: A Silicon Valley start-up has come up with an astonishing new invention that’s going to change the way people live. They’re still working on a name for it, but if they can perfect the technology, it will be a wonder, a sensation. We’re talking about an all-in-one product that will provide a comprehensive look at yesterday’s local news, national news, world news, entertainment, sports, arts, books, and business. It will include beautiful stories about remarkable people, fascinating stories about folks in your neighborhood, and infuriating tales of those trying to rip you off. It will tell you what movies are playing at your local theater, what’s on television, what your horoscope is, and what Garfield the cat is up to. If you are house hunting, it will tell you what’s for sale. If you want to buy a lawnmower, it will tell you who’s out there selling one. If you want the water levels for fishing, it will have that, and if you want to find a job, it will have listings for openings. It will keep tabs on important stuff you don’t want to think about, like what the sewer commission is doing. It will predict the weather too.
And someone will deliver this daily miracle TO YOUR HOME every single day.
Oh, can you imagine such a thing?
I think about that gag today because this postseason has been utterly filled with amazing starting pitching performances — Blake Snell, Cam Schlittler, Tarik Skubal a couple of times, Garrett Crochet, Trey Yesavage, Tyler Glasnow, Logan Gilbert, Gabin Williams, Max Fried. What if, and I’m just spitballing here, teams could find those kinds of starting pitchers, BUT they didn’t have to take them out of the game? Like they would pitch all nine innings? Think about how that would free up roster spots! Think about how much better the flow of the game would be! Think about how much more entertaining that would be for fans!
It could be the new Moneyball.
Lost: Brewers offense. Last seen a week ago. Please call.
On October 6th, the Brewers banged out 11 hits and scored seven runs against a beleaguered Cubs pitching staff, and the word of the day was: Relentless. Yes, these Brewers were relentless. They didn’t have a Shohei or a Big Dumper or a Vladdy Jr., no, but they would come at you again and again, like Paul Newman in Cool Hand Luke, just a bunch of Chourios and Turangs and Yeliches and Vaughs picking and poking and pecking teams. They finished second in the league in runs scored this year by knocking out more singles than any team in baseball. It was a throwback. It was lovely.
Here’s what has happened since then.
October 8 vs. the Cubs: 7 hits, 4 singles.
October 9 vs. the Cubs: 3 hits, 2 singles
October 11 vs. the Cubs: 6 hits, 3 singles
October 13 vs. the Dodgers: 3 hits, 2 singles
October 14 vs. the Dodgers: 3 hits, 2 singles
Yuck. There was a stat going around that the Brewers' 15 hits in the last four games are the lowest total for a four-game span in team history. That’s not exactly true — from April 26-29, 2018, the Brewers had a four-game series at Wrigley and knocked out just 14 hits — but it’s true in spirit. This is historic stuff for the Brewers. And it’s coming at exactly the worst time.
How much of this is just running into incredible pitchers? Well, sure, that’s a lot of it. The Dodgers have thrown $507 million of starting pitching at them the last two days, and they’re hardly the first team to flounder against Blake Snell and Yoshi Yamamoto. I mean, Yamamoto was crazy good on Tuesday. He had it all working — he got 15 swinging strikes — eight on his splitter, four on his fastball, two on his curve. and one on a cutter. This guy’s stuff is ungodly.
But, yeah, you expect to face pitchers with ungodly stuff in October, and what was striking about the game was how easily the Brewers seemed to go down for the second straight day. No lineup looks good when it’s not hitting, but there has been a decided lack of energy that feels very un-Brewers-like. Yamamoto retired the last 14 batters he faced. Snell retired 18 in a row. At one point, sideline reporter Lauren Shehadi — who is, I believe, the best sideline reporter in baseball right now — asked Brewers manager Pat Murphy if the team needed to do SOMETHING to disrupt Snell’s rhythm.
Murphy said, um, yeah, they needed to do something.
They never did anything, though.
Let’s be honest: When the Brewers finished the regular season with the best record in baseball, the general vibe I picked up around the game was: “Yeah, whatever, it’s the same old Brewers, they’ll flame out in the postseason.” That’s not fair, but the only way to change that narrative is to, you know, change that narrative. In two home games against the Dodgers, they knocked six hits and scored two runs.
That’s not going to convince anybody.
A few random thoughts …
We’ve had four games now in the Championship Series, and the road team has won all four of them. The home-team Brewers and Blue Jays scored a combined six runs.
Speaking of Yamamoto’s dominance, how about this Sarah Langs gem? — Yamamoto pitched a complete game and did not face a single batter with a runner in scoring position. That hasn’t happened since Roy Halladay’s postseason no-no in 2010.
I imagine you haven’t been following Cleveland Browns drama, nor should you — Brilliant Reader John suggests that I start doing a different team diary every week, based on reader responses, and I might just do that — but this is very funny: Steelers coach Mike Tomlin absolutely ripped the Browns for trading Joe Flacco to Cincinnati. This is obviously self-interest (the Steelers play the Bengals this week), but it’s also totally right: Who trades the quarterback they started Week 1 to a beleaguered division rival? This team is just endlessly weird.
The lead story over at ESPN right now — on October 15 — is an NFL mock draft. I don’t have any comment; I just wanted you to know.
How wild is it going to be in Seattle tonight? I mean, this is the closest the Mariners have ever been to the World Series. And yes, I saw a couple of comments from folks saying, uh, no, technically, it’s not the closest, the Mariners have been two wins away from the World Series before. But that’s just being cute. They were up 2-1 against Cleveland in 1995, yes, but had to win two of the next four — and they did not come close to doing so (they scored two runs in and lost three straight). And in 2000, they were down 3-2 to the Yankees, which meant they had to win both of the final two games at Yankee Stadium.
This is different. They’re up 2-0 with the next three games in Seattle.
They still have to do it. But this is the closest the Mariners have been.
