Final Thoughts on 2011 MLB Season: That One's Gonna Hurt

I debated just putting this image, but felt the need to try and create sort of a collage here of a couple of those unmistakably ugly moments of this year's World Series. When I consider that I was bitching last year about the number of early ends to series in the postseason, I can issue no such complaints this year. Of the 41 possible games in baseball's playoffs, 38 got played. And no, not all of them were pretty. But we still got more than our fair share of genuinely tension-filled moments that are only possible in this game.

Thanks in large part, I assume, to an instant epic Game 6 that sort of embodied everything awesome and awful about the entire postseason, the title to my post for the incorrect pick went from looking like a possibility to being a pretty good-size hit. Good for baseball.

Of course, that sixth game pretty much made an immediate claim to legendary status just for the dramatic moment after moment after moment that unfolded at the end. And the pain that any Rangers fan is feeling today is one that puts the rest of the 29 teams to pretty sever shame. I've harped enough about the Atlanta and Boston failures this season, but right now it's pretty clear that as long as we're talking about who should be hurting the most, I don't know that I've ever seen a team come within one strike twice.

And I'm wondering when they're going to start getting really bitter.

Final Thoughts on 2011 Atlanta Braves: I'm over it

As I said in my World Series pick this year, the nine lives of this year's St. Louis Cardinals have now helped me get over the fact that a Braves team that had been widely assumed to be the National League Wild Card this year instead came up one game short of getting into the playoffs. A late-surging team didn't just come in and swipe the final playoff spot from the Braves and then fold. No, instead the Cards are actually about six four innings away from possibly winning the World Series.

And their run has been every sort of improbable, capped off, no less, by a Game 6 that some are calling the greatest game they've ever seen. (I'm not going that far.) People will remember that for years. St. Louis accomplished something.

Now what about that other league's wild finish? The Red Sox suddenly appear to be a still-sinking ship with both Theo and Terry fleeing town, and the Rays that took the Wild Card from them quickly fell to Texas. So, years from now, that's still going to be remembered more as a Boston disaster than a Tampa Bay accomplishment.

And this year's Braves? Oh, sure ... they blew a pretty good size lead in the division too. But like I said, St. Louis was red hot when Atlanta could barely manage to win any series. And when you compare not getting into the playoffs to the many, many painful season-ending losses that actually occurred in postseason games not so long ago, this year isn't going to hurt near as much as the 1991 finish. Or 1996. Or 1998.

No, Braves fans should be saying this ranks among those. Yeah, it's a new kind of "suck," but we've been through worse. The way this season ended was irritating, but I don't think it's going to be terribly haunting.

2011 World Series Prediction: Lowest Rated Series Ever?

We knew Fox couldn't have been pleased as soon as the first round concluded, and alas, here we are with a Fall Classic featuring the markets of Dallas and St. Louis.

Hmmm ...

They were pondering this thought on the radio today, and I have a hard time believing this year's World Series will hit a new record low. All it really has to do is go more than five games, and I'm sure it will avoid that dubious honor. It might not miss it by much, but I don't think it will set any new records. Albert Pujols will draw some casual viewers. And what will it be up against, anyhow?

Did basketball start? Do I have another preview to do? No, of course not. Whatever anyone else might say, I think this postseason's been better than usual. I can only hope the last series ends the playoffs with a bang.

2011 League Championship Series Predictions: Off to a good start

The one series I picked last round to go the maximum five games instead ended up being the only one that didn't go five games. Don't get me wrong; so far, the baseball postseason is shaping up to be some pretty gut-wrenching October fare. The good kind of gut-wrenching, of course. Not every game has been of the must-watch variety, but certainly more than usual. Consequentially, I'm fairly optimistic about what's to come.

No matter what I'm about to pick for a World Series, Fox cannot be terribly pleased with any of the remaining markets. Three Central teams and a Dallas market that might as well be the Central, but that would only leave the American League West with three teams. No New York, no Boston, no Philly this year.

Again, considering the nature of what we've seen so far, it's not necessarily a bad thing. At this point with four teams left, I can't entirely dismiss the plausibility of any of the four World Series scenarios.

The Braves' Fourth Quarter: "A tremendous disappointment"

Such were the words of Chipper Jones, and really, how else are you supposed to describe what just happened? Incredibly, just a few months after what I titled one post, I'm actually thinking that right now somebody from Boston can probably relate pretty well. Actually, this Braves fan is particularly grateful that the Red Sox have received far more national attention for their failure. That's a small comfort, though.

In the end, the disbelief is still settling in. I typically do a post I refer to as "My Final Thoughts" when one of the Four B's seasons ends, and ever since I started regularly doing these posts, they always made the playoffs.

But seeing as there won't be any more games played after I post this, what would the Final Thoughts offer any additional dwelling on? Maybe somebody will get fired?

In case you couldn't tell, this particular quarterly update is easily the worst I've ever had to reflect on.

2011 Division Series Predictions: Minus my pick and my fave

I suppose I'll be elaborating more on what transpired last night, an admittedly exciting finish to the regular season, when I write up the sad conclusion to a certain team's certain fourth quarter. Of course, seeing as this is also when I typically reflect on how I did at predicting back before the first pitch was thrown, I suppose the good news would be this: I improved to a dozen teams correctly placed this year. I ended up with only four of the playoff teams correct (it would have been six had two certain teams not, you know ... oh, God), two in each league, and had three of the division winners correct. So once again, nothing terribly admirable.

But now we shift into the baseball playoffs, and I'll obviously be a little less giddy this year, seeing as the Bravos will not be playing. I have no real vested interest in the "toldja' so" sense because the Red Sox collapse also eliminated my supposed World Series winner this year. Nice.

I don't know who I'll be rooting for, in all honesty. Right now, I suppose I'm leaning heavily toward a Milwaukee-anybody but the Yankees Series.

The Braves' Third Quarter: Can't whine too much

The Braves season actually passed this point on August 15, the day after the last time I posted here. I recognized the date then, but knew I'd probably end up running a little late with this post. Seeing as I haven't altogether quit the restaurant gig I was working before starting the new Monday-Friday gig, I still have not had an entire day off work ever since then.

I'm still waiting tables tonight, so tomorrow's going to be a big day when for the first time in ... what, three weeks? I'm going to have a whole day free from having to report somewhere for work.

I won't lie ... The new job more or less involves many hours of blogging every day. Even just now, typing on my own where I'm free to say whatever I want, I still found myself wondering if I was adhering to style requirements. It's somewhat difficult for me to now spend eight hours a day at the computer and then come home and add a couple more hours to write something like this. Don't get me wrong; I really like the new job. It's the restaurant I want to drop, but I'm sure that I'm letting a fear of "leaving money on the table" prevents me from working a few more hours a week.

I'm saying that now to justify that most of the posts I made regularly scheduled things here at BMC are probably bound to change again. Life can sort of get in the way like that, but it's not as though a little lack in the frequency here necessarily equates to a bad thing. When you consider how often I have used this space to bitch and moan about lack of work, any further near-grumbling about working too much risks making me sound ungrateful. And we certainly wouldn't want that.

After all, we've probably got playoffs to look forward to this year.

The Braves' Second Quarter: Excuses from the author

While my quarterly thoughts for all Four Bs typically follow the same format, I'm regrettably going to be keeping this update on the Atlanta Braves' past 40 games to much more of a minimum. While I did go and find an image from this gallery to create the annual graphic, I can not in all honesty pretend to have followed this part of the baseball season as closely as I will/have for any of the other three quarters of the season. Part of this can be blamed on the attention I gave priority to the NHL and NBA playoffs, and part can also be blamed on the weeks devoted to the out-of-state move that occurred during that time—not to mention the majority of time spent after completing said move being primarily devoted to looking for a job, securing a job, and then stressing about keeping said job. 

I suppose that from what I've been able to catch of Braves baseball this past quarter, there's still plenty to be optimistic about with the performances the team has gotten from all over the pitching staff. The offense, however, remains underwhelming and inconsistent, so I certainly won't be surprised if come third quarter of the season, I'm busy reacting to a move made at the trading deadline to try and bolster some run production.

I only wish I had been able to better document even the presumably paid online positions that had failed to update Atlanta's record the day after they'd officially arrived at the halfway mark of this 2011 season. While I'd made a mental note of it, when trying to confirm that I had the number of games correct in both our morning newspaper and online at the Sports Illustrated site I use to screencap the standings at that point, both publications had forgotten to do so. As a result, moments after completing a sweep of the Seattle Mariners, I saw the Braves somehow go from 45-35 that morning to 47-35.

Fortunately, the MLB site does allow you to go back to a specific day, and for posterity's sake, here's where the Bravos were situated when they finished playing the first half of this year's regular season schedule:

I'm hoping to be back to regular, die-hard fan form by the next quarter's end in late August.

The Braves' First Quarter: Even better than last year! (Technically.)

Indeed, Braves fans (and any other reader). This year's team is a full game better than the start they got off to last year. So certainly this means they should at least be able to force a deciding fifth game in the Division Series this year—once those Marlins cool off, of course.

While it's hard for me to read too much into how the season has started for some clubs (The Indians are 11 games over .500? Tampa Bay is leading the American League East?), the standings in the National League East look pretty much like what most people expected. There were some who felt the Braves could be surprise contenders for the division this year, and while Atlanta isn't out of the race by any means, the season so far has seen the team hovering around .500 most of the year.

However, the Braves began May by winning the first six games they played to start the month and there's plenty of reason to believe the Fredi Gonzalez era can begin can go into October.

2011 MLB Predictions: Just get to the inevitable already

Opening Day is in March this year, but I was among the many who pretty much came away from this off-season's transactions basically concluding 2011 would be recorded as a Phillies-Red Sox World Series before it had even been played. If Cliff Lee had indeed gone to the Bronx for eleventy billion million dollars like we all assumed he was going to, then maybe we'd be wondering who the Yankees would be beating.

Of course, last year was another fairly pathetic showing for my own predictions—not that many people probably had the Giants beating the Rangers in the World Series. While I had four of the eight playoff teams correct, I only called a single division winner correctly (nailed the whole AL Central, actually) and had 10 of the 30 teams correctly called in their eventual final spots. Anyway, I need to get ready for work soon, so forgive me for rushing through these guesses a bit (I'll fix the layout issues later, I swear). At least we won't have to endure having Fox News on the television screens this afternoon: