Baseball 2016 Discussion Thread

[phelps 7,670]

[phelps 7,670]

first news on this thread, of course, are about the Major League Baseball and their final showdown, the World Series...

 

Everything is set, in fact, for the 2016 grand final of the main Baseball Championship in the World...

next Tuesday the Cleveland Indians (that surprisingly won the American League, defeating Toronto 4 games to 1 in the ALCS) and the Chicago Cubs (4 games to 2 over the Los Angeles Dodgers ) will start their battle for glory...

the Cubs are quite heavily favourite (they've been the best team in the league throughout the whole season), but the Indians in the playoffs played so well that they could even upset their rivals...

pitching, as always, but this time more than usual, will be the key to success...

and, whoever ends up with the title, it's gonna be a great party, because Cleveland are waiting for this since 1948, meanwhile Chicago have been now waiting for 108 years!

[phelps 7,670]

in the meantime, the second most important Baseball league in the World (NPB, Japan) is also currently playing the Final Series, named Nippon Series...

 

the defending champions, Hiroshima Toyo Carp, are already 2 games to 0 ahead in the best-of-7 series, having won both yesterday and today's home games against the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters from Sapporo with the same score of 5-1...

now the series move to Sapporo, before possibly come back to Hiroshima for games 6 & 7...but it would be a huge surprise if this trip to the North of the Country isn't also the last stop for this year...

[phelps 7,670]

the Cleveland Indians won the first game of the World Series...

helped by a stunning performance of their starting pitcher Cory Kluber, they smashed the Chicago Cubs 6-0...

tonight there will be game #2 (again in Ohio)...starting pitchers will be Trevor Bauer for Cleveland and last year's Cy Young Award winner Jake Arrieta for Chicago...

 

in the meantime, in Japan the Nippon-Ham Fighters from Sapporo surprisingly won the first 2 games on home ground and tied the series against the Toyo Carp from Hiroshima...

tomorrow there will be a pivotal game #5, still in Sapporo...

[mrv86 3,138]

Looks that Cubs took a little revenge on the 2nd game, winning 5 runs to 1.

[phelps 7,670]

11 hours ago, mrv86 said:

Looks that Cubs took a little revenge on the 2nd game, winning 5 runs to 1.

 

yes...basically it was the same kind of game we saw in the first match, but with reversed roles...

the team getting the first lead always win...so, game over after just a couple of innings...

I hope to see some more exciting games in the next few days...

 

meanwhile, on the other side of the Ocean, the Nippon-Ham Fighters from Sapporo upset for the third time in a row the Toyo Carp Hiroshima and took a shocking 3-2 lead in the Japan Series 2016...

Now the Carp must win both the 2 remaining games at home on Saturday and, if needed, on Sunday to keep their title...

[kungshamra71 892]

What? The Cubs are in the final??  

If they win, it will be a very close prediction by the "Back to the future" movie!   (the movie sets on the "future" 2015)

 

[phelps 7,670]

On 27/10/2016 at 18:13, kungshamra71 said:

What? The Cubs are in the final??  

If they win, it will be a very close prediction by the "Back to the future" movie!   (the movie sets on the "future" 2015)

 

 

naaa...they should have won last year to match that prediction...

 

moreover, quite a few other details there predicted are also far away from reality (you can't have WS between the Cubs and the Marlins, since they are in the same League nowadays and we're not arrived to a best-of-9 series yet...we're still at the good old best-of-7 format and so on)...

so, basically the movie hasn't got that close to the real 2015 (and 2016) situation...

[phelps 7,670]

by the way, the Cleveland Indians yesterday had another outstanding performance by their pitching staff and won game #3 (the first in Chicago) by the minimum score of 1-0...

now they lead the best-of-7 series by 2 games to 1...

game #4 is scheduled for tonight (first pitch at about 2 a.m. CET)...

and Cleveland are going for the jugular vein of the Cubs, giving the start to their iconic pitcher Cory Kluber (even if he normally isn't that good in socalled "short rest")...

risky move by the Indians manager Terry Francona...but if it pays off tonight, the Cubs will be in big, big trouble...

 

 

in the meantime, on the other side of the Ocean, the great upset has been completed...the Nippon-Ham Fighters from Sapporo won the 4th consecutive match (this time on the road) against the heavy favourite Hiroshima Toyo Carp by a score of 10-4, thus conquering the NPB Japan Series Title 2016 (succeding just to the Carp)...

congrats to them...

[kungshamra71 892]

1 hora atrás, phelps disse:

 

naaa...they should have won last year to match that prediction...

 

moreover, quite a few other details there predicted are also far away from reality (you can't have WS between the Cubs and the Marlins, since they are in the same League nowadays and we're not arrived to a best-of-9 series yet...we're still at the good old best-of-7 format and so on)...

so, basically the movie hasn't got that close to the real 2015 (and 2016) situation...

 

I don't know, if Cubs would won the World Series, a team that doesn't won this title for more than 100 years, and if they won it just one year after the "Back to the Future"'s 2015 "prediction", I think is not only close enough, it's really fantastic