A Longer Shrift

Whatever a "shrift" is, we had a short amount of it for baseball in my "Play-In Tournament" posting.  Yes, I was in a hurry to get it out, and I wanted to mention briefly baseball's season just beginning.  However, I failed to mention among the "aspiring" teams two or three that I should have noted.  Two are Toronto, always a little more than just average, and Minnesota, who can win their AL Central division anytime they get adequate pitching, and theirs has been more than adequate so far.   

The main omission, though, was the Tampa Bay Rays, who were 10-0 at the time.  They made that 13-0 before losing, tying the major league record for consecutive wins at the start, and then, once the streak ended, redoubled their success.  At this point, approximately 20% of the regular season completed, they are still on record pace, and now appear to be at least co-favorite to win the AL championship.  

In a short playoff series, surprises should be expected--as with the Phillies' run to the World Series last year--but the Rays' success in playoffs would be more like fulfillment of long-held expectations than a surprise.  They have a relatively low budget among contenders, but field a well-rounded, balanced team that produces plenty of runs, led by the underrated Randy Arozarena.  He had a huge playoff run a couple years ago, but we'd sort of forgotten how good he can be, until now. 

Of course, regular season brilliance can be easily wiped out by an early playoff loss, as we have seen recently with the first-round loss of the NBA's best regular-season team, the Milwaukee Bucks, and also with that of the NHL's record-breaking regular season team this year, the Boston Bruins.  My solution:  raise the relative payout for regular-season success in relation to playoff success, and introduce firm penalties for bad standings results.  Tanking must go!  

I have no clue which NHL team will win the Stanley Cup:  my standard answer is "the team with the hottest goalie".  With regard to the NBA Finals, I should be humble, but I will go with Boston over Denver.  It's not a hard-and-fast rule, but the team with more playoff experience tends to win out, and in that match, it would the Celtics, as the Denver Nuggets have never made the NBA Finals, while the Celtics were there last year.   In making those picks, I am looking past the 76ers, who have not been able to press the advantage of a road win in Game 1 vs. Boston; past the Miami Heat, who should defeat the Knicks, and who cannot be dismissed while Jimmy Butler is on the court; past the Phoenix Suns, who are currently showing against Denver the limitations of a team with two stars and a thin bench (with Chris Paul out); and in particular I am looking past the Golden State Warriors and Los Angeles Lakers, two star-studded teams beating each other up in an unprecedented second-round matchup of the #6 and #7 teams. 

Back to baseball, I am very much encouraged by the early season look of the game.  The dramatic preseason tourney of the World Baseball Classic (final:  Japan defeats the US behind Unicorn Ohtani) was a good omen, and the quality of play in the majors has noticeably improved from this fan's perspective.  Apart from the welcome reduction in the length of games, there is more hitting, more stolen bases, more scoring, but the top pitchers are still able to dominate. I am not a fan of the new rule prohibiting the extreme infield shift--it basically gives advantage to left-handed hitters, who are already advantaged.  I am a fan of the larger bases--as I suggested, it provides a larger target for a runner sliding into second or third, thus basically eliminating the odious play where the fielder holds the tag on the runner if he leaves contact with the base for a moment.  Maybe even more significant, though, is the rule limiting the pitcher's chances to throw over to hold the runner to two times between pitches.  It was added to help shorten the game and remove boring non-events, but once the pitcher's thrown over once, the edge goes to the potential runner. 

As for my Cincinnati Reds, they look somewhat improved, though pitching in the Great American Ballpark (which I will soon attend for the very first time) remains a challenge.  They may yet overtake their chief rival for third place, the Pittsburgh Pirates, who started off way better than they should be. (I assume the St. Louis Cardinals will get it together after a slow start and pass both of them).

Finally, I feel duty-bound to mention that my team in the English Premier League, the Chelsea Football Club, has finally won a match, for the first time in months.  I want to thank the interim manager, one of the Blues' alltime heroes, Frank Lampard, for his service.  The 3-1 win over Bournemouth was played without the downpour which accompanied the grievously-dubbed King Charles III's ascension to the throne of Great Britain.  Although Chuck is best seen as a transitional monarch, presumably to his more propitiously named son, who would then be William III, I'm thinking Charley will be the last before Scotland decamps from that once-great-Empire.