World Series Recap: I Blame C.J. Wilson

The Texas Rangers were one strike away from winning the World Series in the ninth inning of Game 6.  They blew that lead.  They were one strike away from winning the World Series in the tenth inning as well.  That lead also went poof.  In Game 7, they were 25 outs away from winning the World Series before blowing that lead.

You can say the Rangers lost because David Freese happened.  You can say they lost because the Cardinals had just watched the 1986 World Series DVD as an educational video.  You can say many things about why the Rangers lost.  I'm blaming C.J. Wilson.

 You can't hide from us, C.J.  We know it was your fault the Rangers lost the World Series.

Nelson Cruz had hit his record-tying eighth home run in the 2011 postseason, a shot off designated intentional walker Lance Lynn.  That blast gave the Rangers a 6-4 lead in the seventh inning of Game 6.  Cruz later misplayed David Freese's line drive to turn a World Series-clinching out into a World Series-tying two-run triple.  Blame Nelson Cruz all you want.  I'm blaming C.J. Wilson.

The Texas Rangers pitching staff allowed 41 walks over the seven games, breaking the old World Series record of 40 set by the 1997 Florida Marlins.  Alexi Ogando, who was a strong Rookie of the Year candidate until the Mets beat him up in late June, allowed seven of those 41 walks in only 2 2/3 innings.  Despite his erratic arm, Rangers manager Ron Washington brought him into six of the seven games, where he also gave up seven hits in addition to his seven walks.  It would appear as if Alexi Ogando or Ron Washington would be culpable for this.  I'm blaming C.J. Wilson.

The bullpen of Mike Adams, Neftali Feliz, Mike Gonzalez, Scott Feldman, Alexi Ogando, Darren Oliver and Mark Lowe combined to pitch 19 2/3 innings in the World Series.  After an impressive regular season, ALDS and ALCS, the relievers faltered in the World Series, combining to post an 8.24 ERA and 2.34 WHIP.   The lowest ERA of the Sad Seven belonged to Adams, who led the bullpen with a 4.50 ERA in two appearances.  Blame the bullpen coach or any member of the Sad Seven.  I'm blaming C.J. Wilson.

Ron Washington should have continued to pitch batting practice instead of letting his relievers do so during the actual games.

In Game 3, Albert Pujols went 5-for-6 with three home runs and six runs batted in.  In the other six games, he went 1-for-19 with no RBIs.  However, that one hit came in one of his many "this could be his last at-bat for the Cardinals" plate appearances in Game 6.  Pujols' one-out double into the gap in left-center set the stage for Freese's ninth-inning heroics.  Because of Pujols' reputation as the best hitter in the league and that ninth inning double, the Rangers decided to issue one of the aforementioned 41 walks to Pujols in the tenth inning when they were one out away from becoming World Series champions.  Oops.  Lance Berkman followed El Hombre's intentional walk with an RBI single, sending the game into the 11th inning.  Blame pitching coach Mike Maddux or Albert Pujols' aura.  I'm blaming C.J. Wilson.

C.J. Wilson started two games of the World Series.  After an excellent regular season in which he went 16-7 with a 2.94 ERA, Wilson actually had a lower ERA in the World Series.  His 2.92 ERA in two starts and one relief appearance helped keep the Rangers in the series.  It was Wilson's effort in Game 5 (one run allowed in 5 1/3 innings) that set the stage for Mike Napoli's go-ahead two-run double in the eighth inning, a hit that propelled the Rangers to a 3-2 series lead.

It looks as if C.J. Wilson did everything he could to help the Rangers win the World Series.  So why am I blaming him for the World Series loss?  Because the seeds for this loss were planted in Arizona in mid-July.

 The Fall Classic was lost during the Midsummer Classic, thanks to C.J. Wilson.

During the Midsummer Classic, the American League led 1-0 when manager Ron Washington (maybe I should blame him too) brought in C.J. Wilson to pitch the fourth inning.  Wilson allowed a leadoff single to then-Met Carlos Beltran, followed by a line drive single to Matt Kemp.  He then allowed a titanic three-run homer to Prince Fielder (see photo above), which gave the National League a 3-1 lead.  The American League would not score again in the NL's 5-1 All-Star Game victory.

Prince Fielder's bomb off C.J. Wilson essentially gave the National League home-field advantage in the World Series.  Hence, that is why the wild card-winning Cardinals were able to play Games 6 and 7 at Busch Stadium instead of having those games played in Arlington, home of the division-winning Rangers.  Had Game 6 been played in Texas, the Cardinals would not have gotten a last chance to tie the game in the ninth and tenth innings and could not have possibly won the game in walk-off fashion.  It might have been the Rangers celebrating a World Series championship instead of the Cardinals celebrating an improbable comeback victory in Game 6.

So blame Ron Washington, Mike Maddux, Nelson Cruz or the entire Texas Rangers bullpen.  They might share in the blame for the Rangers' seven-game World Series loss to the Cardinals, but I'm blaming C.J. Wilson.  Had he been able to keep one ball in the park in July, the Rangers might have been having a ball in their park in October as first-time World Series champions.

Don't drop the ball, C.J.  Oh, wait.  Never mind.  You already did in the All-Star Game.

Hey, Kids! How Do You Like The World Zzzzeries?

Despite the "Hey, Kids!" in the title, I'm going to start this post by asking a question to our older readers.  Tell me, my friends.  Do you remember when you were in school and you rushed home every October to watch a World Series game at home?  How about the times when your teacher would occasionally bring a TV or radio into the classroom so that you could watch or listen to the game in class?  No?  Well, it used to happen (unless if my father lied to me, which he would never do).

Unfortunately, like closers pitching three innings and Jason Bay being a major offensive threat, those things just don't happen anymore.  This year's World Series between the Cardinals and the Rangers will have all its games starting at 8:05 PM Eastern Daylight Time (7:05 PM local time in St. Louis and Texas).  While this is an improvement over the old 8:29 PM (or later) start times, it's still not early enough for kids to watch.

Let's take Saturday night's Game 3 for instance.  The Cardinals outslugged the Rangers, 16-7, to take a two games to one edge in the World Series.  The game, as with all World Series games this year, started at 8:05 PM (actually, the first pitch was thrown at 8:06 PM because ceremonial first pitch chucker Dirk Nowitzki needed an extra minute to warm up his seven-foot frame).  However, with all the runs and pitching changes, the game took four hours and four minutes to play.  That's what happens when you get 23 runs and six pitching changes in the middle of an inning (four made by Tony La Russa and two made by Ron Washington).  Even with the "earlier" start time, the game ended at 12:10 AM on Sunday morning.

You don't need a rocket scientist or a flux capacitor inventor to figure out that World Series games take longer to play than regular season games.  Managers tend to yank their starting pitchers at the first sign of trouble, and this usually will occur during an inning rather than after it.  Also, there will be more trips to the mound to talk to rattled pitchers and these trips will occur earlier than they would in the regular season.  And of course, there are the commercial breaks.  Having the games in prime time generates more money from advertisers, which means FOX has to squeeze out every penny from said advertisers.  Simple translation:  There are more commercials per break in the action than you would see from April to September.

This is not something new.  In 2000, when the Mets played the Yankees in the World Series, no game lasted less than 3 hours and 20 minutes, with every game starting after 8:00 PM.  Game 1 (a 12-inning game) was nine minutes short of a five-hour game.  On average, each game in the five-game series lasted 3 hours and 46 minutes.  Take out the extra-inning affair in Game 1 and the other games, all of which lasted nine innings, took an average of 3 hours and 30 minutes to play.  There was no plethora of pitching changes and the games were relatively low-scoring (the Mets and Yankees combined to score 35 runs in the five-game series, an average of seven runs per game between the two teams).

I wonder how many kids stayed up to watch Roger Clemens as he thought he threw the ball towards Mike Piazza in Game 2 of the 2000 World Series.

Do you remember when the last day game was played in the World Series?  That was in 1987, when the Twins forced a seventh and deciding game against the Cardinals by defeating them in Game 6, an early afternoon start in Minnesota.  Even so, that game was played on a Saturday, when kids would have been home from school anyway.  The 1984 World Series between the Tigers and the Padres also featured two day games in Games 4 and 5, but they were also weekend affairs.

To find the last weekday day game in World Series history, you have to go back nearly four decades.  On Friday, October 20, 1972, the Cincinnati Reds defeated the Oakland A's in Game 5 of the Fall Classic.  The Reds' victory in Game 5 sent the series back to Cincinnati, where the A's would win their first of three consecutive championships in Game 7.  It would also mark the final time that lights were not needed during a World Series game that took place while kids were still in school.

Television ratings for World Series games have been in a steady decline for quite some time now.  People have more choices when it comes to what they watch on TV at night, especially since the advent of cable television.  There is nothing that seems to suggest that this trend won't continue over the next few decades.  And who is going to be watching those games in the next 10-20 years?  That's right, my friends.  Today's children are going to be the adults of tomorrow who would be watching those games.  Unfortunately, if the games start too late for children to watch in 2011, then how will they develop an interest in the Fall Classic that would make them want to watch in 2021 and beyond?

Major league baseball doesn't have to start their World Series games at 1:00 PM like they used to in the pre-cable days.  They can start them at around 5:00 PM, when children would be out of school.  Parents would be home from work before the games would end and they could watch the best teams in baseball competing for a championship together.  Since World Series games take longer to play then regular season games, these earlier starting games would still run into prime time (which normally starts at 8:00 PM), so FOX can still generate ad revenue from their sponsors at that time.  Since more people tune in to games in at the end, when the game might have the most drama and suspense, more people would be watching those ads between 8:00 and 9:00 PM.

It seems so simple, really.  A late afternoon start time for World Series games would be beneficial to everyone involved.  It would allow for kids to watch entire games without having to worry about games finishing past their bedtimes.  It would allow for parents to watch the games with their kids, which would create more of a mutual love for the game, and it would allow the networks to not only generate more revenue from their sponsors during the most exciting moments of a game, but would also allow them to air their regular programming after the games end.  Assuming games don't go into extra innings, starting them at 5:00 PM would almost always allow the networks to broadcast their regular fall lineup at the conclusion of each game.  After all, who really wants to watch the Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror episodes after Halloween?

For over two decades, Major League Baseball and television network executives have turned the World Series into the World Zzzzeries.  It's time for baseball to use common sense and think of the long-term effects of starting World Series games at such a late hour.  The future of the sport depends on it.

A Curious Stat About '80s World Series Champions

In 1983, Eddie Murray and Cal Ripken Jr. helped lead the Baltimore Orioles to the World Series championship, their third since moving to Baltimore from St. Louis in 1954.  At the time, the Orioles were one of the best teams in the American League.  From 1966-1983, no team in baseball won more pennants than Baltimore's six.  Not the Yankees or the Big Red Machine (they each won four).  Not the Dodgers (they won five pennants, but only one championship).  Not even the Oakland A's dynasty (three titles) could surpass the pennant-winning success of the Baltimore Orioles for an almost two decade span.

Murray and Ripken probably expected more championships following their 1983 title, but in the past 28 years, the city of Baltimore has been left without a World Series championship or an American League pennant.  In fact, they're not the only team to win it all in the '80s and then win nothing since then.

Following the Orioles' run to the championship, the Detroit Tigers spent every day of the 1984 season in first place in the American League East, culminating their spectacular season with a World Series championship.  The Tigers won another division title three years later (1987), a pennant in 2006 and another division title this past season, but have not given Motown another championship since '84.

After Detroit's championship in 1984, the Kansas City Royals were the last team to spray champagne in 1985, albeit with a little help from Don Denkinger's blown call in Game 6 of the World Series.  The 1985 campaign marked the seventh playoff appearance for the Royals in ten seasons, but they have not sniffed the postseason since their one championship season.

We're Mets fans.  We know what happened in 1986.  We also know that the Mets haven't won another World Series in the past quarter century.  We can move on to the next team now.

The 1987 Minnesota Twins finally broke the streak of four consecutive World Series winners in the '80s who have failed to win it all since then.  The Twins repeated as World Series champions four years later when Jack Morris (a key member of the 1984 World Champion Tigers) pitched ten shutout innings in the seventh and deciding game of the 1991 World Series against the Atlanta Braves.  But we can talk about that '91 Twins team later (and we will).

The 1988 Los Angeles Dodgers rode on the coattails of Orel Hershiser's arm and Kirk Gibson's bat to stun the Mets in the National League Championship Series and the trying-to-start-another-dynasty Oakland A's in the World Series.  Unfortunately, the Dodgers have failed to reach the World Series, let alone win it, since then.

Mets fans should remember these faces very well, even if they'd rather forget the 1988 season.  (Photo of Orel Hershiser by Tom Gannam/AP; Photo of Kirk Gibson by Steve Dykes/LA Times)

Remember those "trying-to-start-another-dynasty" A's from the last paragraph?  Sure you do.  Well, they did follow up their loss to the Dodgers in '88 with a championship of their own in 1989, defeating their Bay Area rival San Francisco Giants in four games.  The World Series that was known for the devastating earthquake prior to Game 3 would also be known to A's fans as the last one they would win.

Even after the 1980s ended, the curious stat concerning World Series winners failing to win another title continued.  The 1990 Cincinnati Reds shocked the A's in that year's World Series, sweeping Oakland in four games.  The Reds have failed to win another pennant since then.  The following year, the Minnesota Twins won their second title in five seasons.  Although the Twins have won six division titles in the past decade, they have yet to win the World Series that has eluded them for twenty years.

The 1992 Toronto Blue Jays did win another championship following their six-game defeat of the Atlanta Braves in that year's Fall Classic.  However, that title came the following season (1993).  Toronto has failed to return to the postseason since their mini-dynasty ended.

The 1994 strike killed that year's World Series, but did not kill the streak of World Series winners failing to return to glory following their championship seasons.  That streak had one more season left in it, as the 1995 Braves won their first and only title in Atlanta, defeating the Cleveland Indians (who themselves have not won a championship since 1948, the longest title-less drought in the American League) in six games.

Seriously.  This is a Mets site.  Who authorized the use of this photo?

When the Yankees won the World Series in 1996, it ended a stretch in which ten teams won their final World Series championship in 12 seasons (not including the 1994 season, which had no World Series).  Only the 1987 Twins and 1992 Blue Jays were able to win another championship during those dozen seasons, and both of them have now gone approximately two decades since their last title.

For all the talk about parity in baseball in the 21st century, what with teams like the Texas Rangers, San Francisco Giants and Tampa Bay Rays all competing for World Series championships over the past few seasons when very few experts predicted them to reach the Fall Classic, the real time for parity happened a generation ago.

One-third of the teams in major league baseball all won championships from 1983 to 1995.  None of those teams has been able to scale that mountain again.  It's a curious stat that has been overlooked over the past 20-30 years.  It makes you wonder if the teams that are winning championships now will go that long in search of their next title.

Joey's Soapbox: Top Ten Reasons Why The Texas Rangers Will Win The World Series

Greetings, everyone!  Can you believe the baseball season is coming to an end?  In two short months, it'll be winter and I'll be counting down the days till pitchers and catchers report while wondering how to unfreeze my behind from the frozen ground.  (I should probably wear pants under my Mets hoodie.)

Oh, who am I, you ask?  I'm glad you asked!  This is Joey Beartran, your fav'rit inanimate prognosticator.

In case you missed it, over the past month I've given you my Division Series predictions and my League Championship Series predictions.  I fared quite well with my first round picks, correctly picking the winner in three of the four series.  However, I didn't do as well with my LCS picks, losing both series.  Some of you might #BlameBeltran but I choose to place the blame on my excitement because both the Phillies and Yankees were eliminated within 24 hours of each other in their respective Division Series matchups.

So that brings us to the grand finale, the be all and end all, the salsa on the chicken nachos.  It's World Series time!  This year's Fall Classic will feature the two-time American League champion Texas Rangers and the St. Louis Cardinals, who have won more pennants and World Series titles than any team who doesn't play in the House That Juice Built.

Instead of doing my usual prediction, I'd like to do something different in this piece.  I'm going to tell you who's going to win first (the Texas Rangers in 6) and then I'll give you my top ten reasons why they'll win.  Ready?  Let's go!

Top 10 Reasons Why The Texas Rangers Will Win The World Series

10.  The Rangers are the fifth team in the past 20 seasons to reach the World Series in consecutive seasons.  Each of the last four teams who have appeared in back-to-back World Series has won at least one title.  The '08-'09 Phillies (boo) won back-to-back pennants, winning it all in 2008.  The '98-'01 Yankees (double boo) appeared in four consecutive World Series, winning three of them (triple boo) from 1998 to 2000, before losing to Arizona in 2001 (ha ha).  The '95-'96 Braves also won two straight pennants, being crowned in 1995, and the '92-'93 Blue Jays had a mini-dynasty, but because Canada uses the metric system, it was actually a much longer dynasty than you originally believed it to be.

9.  The actor who played Rangers manager Ron Washington was really funny in Moneyball.  Cardinals skipper Tony La Russa has never been funny a day in his life.  Funny = Championship.  Just look what humor did to the Cleveland Indians in the first Major League film.

8.  Tony La Russa overused his bullpen (ya think?) in the National League Championship Series.  He plans to outdo himself in the World Series by using a different pitcher every time Nelson Cruz comes to bat.  After the first four homers, he'll make a pitching change after EVERY PITCH to Cruz.

7.  The Texas Rangers have never played a game in St. Louis.  Ever.  Their only interleague matchup against the Cardinals was in 2004, when St. Louis took two out of three from Texas at the previous Busch Stadium.  Who was the losing pitcher for the Rangers in the rubber match?  None other than R.A. Dickey!  The Rangers will adopt a "Do it for Dickey!" rallying cry in the World Series and exact their revenge on the Cardinals.

6.  The Cardinals need a rally squirrel to help them win ballgames.  The number one pastime in Texas after Cowboys football, college football and high school football is hunting.  That squirrel doesn't stand a chance.

5a)  This was our view in Texas:

5b)  This was our view in St. Louis:

5c)  The view in Texas was far better than the view in St. Louis.

4.  Chris Carpenter is 2-6 with a 7.26 ERA and 1.87 WHIP in 12 career games (11 starts) against the Texas Rangers.  It's his highest ERA and WHIP against any team (min. 50 IP).   He is also the only Cardinals pitcher to ever lose a game to the Rangers, losing to them in the middle game of their only interleague series in 2004.  (Do it for Dickey!)  In case you hadn't heard, Chris Carpenter is starting Game 1 of the World Series against the Rangers.

3.  The 21st century has been full of cities and/or greater metropolitan areas holding multiple championship parades for their victorious teams.  It happened in 2002, when the Lakers won in June and the Angels won in October.  The Boston area repeated the feat in 2004, with the Patriots winning the Super Bowl in February and the Red Sox reversing the curse in October.  It happened a third time in 2009, when the Steelers took home the Vince Lombardi trophy in February and the Penguins won the Stanley Cup in June.  The Dallas Mavericks won the NBA championship this past June.  The Rangers play just a few miles away in Arlington.  That's the definition of a greater metropolitan area, my friends.

2.  The American League and National League have alternated winning the World Series every year since 2005, with the White Sox (2005), Red Sox (2007) and Yankees (2009 - boo) taking home the trophy in the odd-numbered years and the Cardinals (2006), Phillies (2008 - hiss) and Giants (2010) taking that final champagne bath in the even-numbered years.  2011 means that it's time for the American League to pop the cork.

And the number one reason why the Texas Rangers will win the World Series is...


Two words:  Nolan Ryan.  It's been 42 years since he won his first World Series ring.  It's time for him to win a second after coming within three wins of doing it last year.  Tony La Russa has won six pennants (three in Oakland and three in St. Louis) and two World Series championships (one with each team).  He's got his rings.  Now Nolan gets his.  Period.


Enjoy the World Series!

...and do it for Dickey!