71Bear said:
heartofthebear said:
Little known fact about the "hot" St. Louis Cardinals, who won 17 in a row.
The best team from Sept. 1 to the end of the season was not St. Louis.
In fact St. Louis was not even 2nd best.
St. Louis was 23-9
#1 was SF Giants at 23-7
#2 was LA Dodgers 22-7
So, technically the Giants and Dodgers are the hottest teams right now.
Of course you don't seem "hot" when you do it all year.
So much for streaky "hot" teams.
It doesn't match up to being the best.
But I wonder, did Bellinger steal the sign for Taylor last night?
Taylor had been slumping badly and did not look good last night.
The Dodgers rarely had anyone on second all night, although Bellinger had been on second two other times and both times the hitter (Mookie Betts) hit the ball hard (single and sharp line drive to center).
I thought I saw Bellinger make a subtle signal shortly before the pitch to Taylor but I could be imagining things.
Taylor smashed that first pitch after the steal for a home run.
There were 2 other times that the Dodgers had guys on second. The first was with the bases loaded in the 3rd and Trea Turner lined hard into an inning ending double play. The second was in the 6th and AJ Pollock hit a weak hit in front of home plate that was fielded by the pitcher for an out at first.
It may be that Bellinger is better at stealing signs than other guys or that they don't do as well stealing the signs until later in the game or that I am full of ****. But, as a Giant fan, I'd rather not have Bellinger at second, which may be hard to do because I think he is finally breaking out of his season long problems and is seeing the ball well.
Players stealing signs is as old as the game. There is nothing wrong with that. If your opponent isn't changing things up when there is a runner at second, too bad for them.
Where sign stealing crosses the line is when technology is brought into the equation.
My apologies if my post sounded disrespectful. I have a great deal of respect for Bellinger either way. He has had a very tough year and has found ways to help the team despite that. He was on base 3 times yesterday and, if he can contribute by stealing signs, more power to him.
I do think that teams are changing it up, which may explain the length of games these days. I mean, despite the efforts of MLB administrators, the games are longer than ever. The length of time between pitches seems to have extended quite a bit, with pitchers taking a very long time getting signs and batters stepping out because of it.
It seems that the time between pitches is averaging more than 1 minute. With nearly 200 pitches pitched per game, you do the math. This doesn't include breaks between innings, trips to the mound etc.
It also seems that I'm seeing more long counts, more foul balls with 2 strikes and more pitching changes. In fact batters are now trained specifically to make the pitcher throw more pitches. I wouldn't be surprised if pitches are well above 200 per game in some instances.
I was at a game in SF this year that went over 4 hours. We left at the 4 hour point in order to catch the train. The game was still in the 9th inning. The final score was 9-6.
Baseball used to be routinely faster than football. But football games have actually gotten a bit faster. Games used to go about 3.5 hours. Now they are closer to 3 much of the time. So actually baseball games are longer than football games now much to the chagrin of MLB and viewers.
