Are you a baseball fan? I was a real fan all my life. Well, until this year. It was a combination of things; the Cincinnati Reds were awful (not full of awe but bad) and awfully sad. The fact that their games were televised on Bally Sports Ohio turned me off.
Well, the season is grinding to an end. The World Series is going on now. It happens to be very interesting. The Houston Astros threw a combined no-hitter at the Phillies on Wednesday night. I saw a no-hitter in the World Series when I was 11 years old - never thought I would see another.
The game has changed and keeps on changing every year. New rules are used for extra innings - yuk! Pitchers don't hit - we knew this was coming. Relievers have to pitch to three batters. These things were suppose to speed the game up. I guess it hasn't worked well enough; I hear they're putting a time limit on pitchers next year.
No one tries to hit anything but a homer, but not that many are hit. Kyle Schwarber led the National League with 46 dingers (he has 5 more in the post season). Batting averages have fallen - only three players hit over .300 in the NL this year. You would think that the pitchers had taken over but they haven't. Only one hurler posted 20 wins. It's the relief pitchers that have taken over. The root of that is analytics. The science of the game, probabilities and statistics as determined by computers, is controlling everything.
Here's a test to see how closely you've been paying attention this year. These are the names of the players who let the National League is pitching and hitting statistics this year. Do you really recognize them? I'm skipping Schwarber, Freddy Freeman who is a repeater and Pete Alonso; each who you may have heard of.
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