World Series Recap

To say that I am disappointed in this World Series is an understatement. First off, congrats to the Philadelphia Phillies, you definitely played better than the Rays for 5 games and have consistently been one of the better teams in Major League Baseball all season long. But, I have to say there are a ton of things that really bothered me in this series so I made a list, I checked it twice, and for a change on my blog this won't be nice.

1) Umpiring was horrific - It truly was! From game 1 to game 5! No calls on balks, to strike zones disappearing than reappearing, the tag..umm...no tag on Jimmy Rollins, to Rocco Baldelli's no swing, and J-Rolls hit by pitch that wasn't seen. I am all for letting things pass because of human errors do occur, but come on! The ball and strikes situations pissed me off the most. Very, very inconsistent. Bascially I found that the strike zone got much small from the regular season to the post season. Then, it changed again...then again. All that MLB has to do is get 7 of the best umpires in the league that end up being held responsible for one foul line, one base, or balls and strikes and they did not find the correct 7. These are suppose to be professional umpires and I really had to question too many calls on too many occasions for a World Series.

2) Rays starting pitching - No shows in my opinion. Yea, Jason Shields pitched ok for a little more than 5 innings. Scott Kazmir, continued to get behind the batter every single inning. This guy is one of the longest tenured Tampa Bay Rays and he did not step it up. If Lou Pinnella was managing this team he would have lost his hair with all the balls being thrown by the starting pitchers. I said it once and I'll say it again, offense wins games and pitching will always win championships.

3) The weather sucked - I can't throw any of the blame for this on anyone but mother nature. But, you could tell that the weather in Philly was bothering both teams. And bothering me because of the sloppy play that was caused from it. Having a day and a half between game 5 was absolutely brutal.

4) Where was the clutch hitting? - Wasn't found until game 5, at least by both teams. I just found it to be very piss poor that these players from both teams just didn't have it in them to perform on the big stage. The stats that we find at the bottom of the boxscore that indicates LOB, needed extra room on the page to list the astronomical numbers after it. Not scoring with zero or one out with a runner on third base is unacceptable. The Phillies got it done in game 5 and they are very much deserving to where a ring for accomplishing that.

5) Management of MLB/Umpires/Groundscrew in Game 5 - Awful, awful, awful. Are the only words that I can come up with. It was one thing to start the game, but for this game to be played at anytime in the 5th and to top things off make the Rays bat in the 6th basically telling them that if they don't score the game will be called and the Phillies will win. How sh!tty is that! O.k. here's what they should have done. After the 20 minute delay, allowing the groundskeeping crew to throw some quick dry down and rub it into the dirt (by the way, I do this for a living now, even if they had the best quick dry sand in the world it does absolutely nothing if it is pouring with rain out while applying it) they should have had the lead off batter step to the plate take one pitch, then call it. The Rays have gotten to this point in the season because of their ability to run the bases and hit the long ball. Luckily for them B.J. Upton was able to still steal second and score, but to take away the biggest threats for a World Series team and force them to score 1 run in pouring rain, puddles in the infield, and cold wind blinding the batters or they were going to lose the World Series is absolutely, positively wrong!

So as much as I am sad to see the baseball season come to an end. I am extremely disappointed on how it ended.