{"id":48144,"date":"2021-10-19T01:04:48","date_gmt":"2021-10-19T05:04:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=48144"},"modified":"2021-10-19T01:04:48","modified_gmt":"2021-10-19T05:04:48","slug":"the-2021-mlb-playoffs-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=48144","title":{"rendered":"The 2021 MLB Playoffs post"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"border-image alignnone wp-image-48145 \" src=\"http:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/NLDS_braveswin.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"530\" height=\"309\" srcset=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/NLDS_braveswin.jpg 885w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/NLDS_braveswin-300x175.jpg 300w, https:\/\/totfc.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/NLDS_braveswin-768x448.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 530px) 100vw, 530px\" \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Part of the challenge of trying to write posts from the past is that sometimes, there are particular topics that end up being more time sensitive than others, on account of the fact that they\u2019re things like sports or live events to which if too much time passes, then the impetus for the original posts could become invalidated, and therefore useless to try to even bother writing about, retroactively.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">That being said, I\u2019m skipping the queue a little bit, and ultimately just going to make a singular post about the 2021 MLB Playoffs, because zero people who read my shit will give two shits about baseball playoffs, and the likelihood of me revisiting this topic with the time that I don\u2019t have is pretty much not going to happen, but I wanted to put down some words that were going through my head before time passes and then I won\u2019t be able to.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">At the time I\u2019m writing this, the National and American Leagues have both advanced to their respective championship series.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The Boston Red Sox vs. the Houston Astros in the American League, and in the National League, a rematch from last year &#8211; the Braves vs. the Los Angeles Dodgers.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>In fact, the Braves have a 2-0 series lead on the Dodgers, to which where me simply acknowledging such a fact is condemnation for a repeat of last year, where the Braves Atlanta\u2019d away their favor, and watched as the Dodgers went onto win a very winnable World Series.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">To say that my excitement for the Braves having a 2-0 on the defending world champions is non-existent would be an understatement.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Last year proved that there is absolutely no reason to be excited for the Braves to actually succeed, as they pissed away both a 3-1 series lead, as well as killed all momentum for my theory of baby luck, and even though I could say baby luck is most certainly in play again this year, I learned my lesson last year to hold hopes that any Atlanta team could hold true to any superstition other than their inexplicable ability to choke no matter the circumstances.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Frankly, it\u2019s a Christmas miracle and simply the crapshoot logic of divisions, rules and alignment that the Braves are here in the first place, and part of why everything is just so hilarious with the way things are standing right now.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">The Braves won 88 games, which makes them literally the worst team in the entire playoff picture.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>The Red Sox, Yankees, Cardinals and Dodgers, who were all the wild card teams who had to scrap for the ability to play in a play-in game to see who got to get into the real playoffs, all had more than 88 wins.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>In fact, the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners who both missed the playoffs had 90 wins, but by virtue of the fact that the Braves played in the most putrid NL East division, and won it with 88 wins, they avoided the play-in game, and most hilariously, are considered the \u201chigher\u201d seed in the match-up against the 106-win Dodgers in the NLCS where they did their job and capitalized on the opening two games at home in Smyrna.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">Now one thing I would stated that\u2019s now been invalidated by the passage of time, is that the St. Louis Cardinals made the playoffs, and they are whom I would\u2019ve bet the farm on going al the way, because as much as I hate the Cards, they\u2019re just that one charmed team that always goes all the way if they can just get their toe into the door.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>But they ran into the aforementioned 106-win Dodgers team, but not for lack of effort, considering the Cardinals deadlocked the Dodgers pretty much the entire game and it took a walk-off to send them packing.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">I\u2019m actually not that surprised that the Braves beat the Brewers in the NLDS.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>If there were any team that I would\u2019ve wanted the Braves to match up against, it would\u2019ve been the Brewers, and most definitely not the Giants or Dodgers.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Had it been either of those two teams, the Braves would\u2019ve been bounced from the first round like they do every other time they\u2019ve made it into the playoffs.<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">And back to present time, where the Braves are up 2-0 on the Dodgers, and I still have 0% faith that they\u2019re actually going to seal the deal, mostly on account of the fresh history of last year.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Furthermore, with the Red Sox and the Astros duking it out in the AL, MLB is salivating over the potential narrative of the Dodgers versus either one of those teams in the World Series, considering both teams were basically found out to have cheated against the Dodgers in prior World Series in 2017 and 2018. <span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><span style=\"font-size: 12pt;\">With the potential revenge storyline on the table, I wouldn\u2019t put it past MLB to low-key sabotage the NLCS in favor of the Dodgers, and maybe we\u2019ll see some more wonky check-swing strikeouts called by the umpires against the Braves, or maybe we\u2019ll just see the Braves be the Braves and just implode on their own.<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">\u00a0 <\/span>Either way, no matter that nobody will admit it, the Dodgers being in the World Series is what will be decided to be best for business, and what I\u2019d expect to be the case by the end of next week when the pennants should be decided.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Part of the challenge of trying to write posts from the past is that sometimes, there are particular topics that end up being more time sensitive than others, on account of the fact that they\u2019re things like sports or live events to which if too much time passes, then the impetus for the original posts &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=48144\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The 2021 MLB Playoffs post<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[196,62,66,100,83,4,99,58],"class_list":["post-48144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-barves","tag-baseball","tag-braves","tag-comparison","tag-observations","tag-programming","tag-reminiscing","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48146,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48144\/revisions\/48146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}