2017 NLDS: Chicago Cubs vs. Washington Nationals

I miss Plaschke variations.

hmm the cubs are apparently sticking with arrieta too instead of jumping to hendricks. i know bullpenning is getting criticized these days but i'd be ok with hendricks being ready to come out of the bullpen if arrieta starts to struggle. he hasn't pitched a good game in a while.

Dusty goin' Moldy with these Strasburg excuses

Baker: "Alot of my team is under the weather with the change of weather, A/C, hotel...this is the time of year for mold around Chicago". pic.twitter.com/3dalgrTwLW

— Erin Hawksworth (@ABC7Erin) October 10, 2017

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/stephen-strasburg-and-nationals-commit-biggest-error-of-the-season/2017/10/11/fdcab2de-ae81-11e7-be94-fabb0f1e9ffb_story.html?utm_term=.5ee0fb43a5ac

hmmmm

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/try-to-tell-the-difference-between-jake-arrieta-and-tanner-roark/

lol

BREAKING: Stephen Strasburg now likely to start for #Nats today in Game 4, source says. @MLB @MLBNetwork

— Jon Morosi (@jonmorosi) October 11, 2017

jake arrieta just caught a cold

dusty playing the long con

too weak to be a con (even apart from making his star pitcher look like a wimp). it's not like the cubs have to prepare for a different quarterback or something -- they just saw strasburg five days ago, they'll be ready for whomever

if dusty wanted to be vague he could have said 'strasburg has the flu; if he can go tomorrow he will, if not, then roark will.' this was just half-assedness

It's of course a cliche that there's a Trump tweet for every occasion, but this is stretching the genre.... https://t.co/8NELAe0Hiu

— Marc Fisher (@mffisher) October 11, 2017

https://www.fangraphs.com/blogs/if-hes-under-the-weather-stephen-strasburg-shouldnt-pitch/

Nats BA in NLDS: .121 (11-for-91)

Nats expected BA, based on Statcast exit velo/launch angle: .218 (~20-for-91)

9 hits over 3 games

— Andrew Simon (@AndrewSimonMLB) October 11, 2017

Somebody sent Strasburg a sexy-nurse singing-telegram message like in Ferris Bueller's Day Off.

def not looking that sick

batting Werth 2nd is dumb tho

strikes out the side for a SHUTDOWN INNING

nice bunt

batting Werth is dumb

Weather looks nasty

strasburg a True National after all

wowwwww

RIP

Awesome - stoked for Taylor

Threw him two fastballs right down the middle

i like this nats team.

yeah

i like turner, rendon, doolittle and scherzer -- that's pretty much it. and i hate all dc-area teams and their fans

already so tired of the cubs that i guess i'm still rooting for them tho

during climactic Rizzo-Madson faceoff bar was playing Modest Mouse's "3rd Planet"

i like Taylor bcz he looks like Willie McGee/E.T.

and i hate all dc-area teams and their fans

same. nats fans deserve nothing

i live here and if the nats even go to the WS i'm moving away forever

<3 the Expos, you guys are balls.

but qualx, the Homestead Grays don't play there anymore

first off they do second off i don't get the joke

i used to live there but the nats fans were so shitty i had to move away

my mistake!

loved the expos. these are not the expos

i went to a game at nats stadium this year and every single nats fan is an angry rich uncle wearing a fleece LL Bean jacket, and they all looked miserable

i don't want to toot the "my team's fans are better" horn but it was an o's game (the infamous rain makeup) and i had to listen to the people behind me complaining about o's fans acting like actual sports fans and it was the most DC thing ever

it's ok morbs i'm sure it would've been a great burn if was smarter

and homestead is in pittsburgh

the average age difference btwn nats and o's fans must've been about 30 years, and the "young" nats fans were all wearing ties anyway

i never promised u a rose garden, Cal Ripken III

definitively more expos enthusiasts outside of montreal than in (if we count the west island out of the municipality).

i mean at least the nats draw some fans.

I won't defend specific Nat-fan assholes, but Washington, D.C. (considered as a city with actual people in it) has been a favorite punching bag of some of the worst people in the universe. So has its largest employer. Morale is low here.

A little bit of success in a sporting realm would be a helpful tonic for my townspeople.

karl and i have both lived in dc, which is probably why we hate its teams/fans

i don't have anything against the wizards, tho. or southeast jerome

My wife and I are friends with a retired couple who used to live/work in DC and are the biggest Nats fans we know -- biggest fans of a sports team I've ever known. We get together with them for dinner once a month, and tonight's the night for that. If we don't wind up turning the game on tonight I'll be amazed. At the very least, they'll shoo us back home early so they can watch the last half.

FWIW, I wouldn't call myself a Nats fan. I have actively negative feelings about the Football Entity That Shall Not Be Named. All the city's other sports teams, combined, have probably accounted for less than two minutes of my attention over the last 41 years.

That said, one hears so much negative stuff said about this city and her people. Can they not just maybe have this one little thing? A pretty good baseball team succeeding?

I guess it's either Gio or Roarke starting tonight; both may pitch

I'd like to see Kershaw in a World Series, but right now, I'm rooting for an Astros/Nationals match-up--neither's ever won, best hitting vs. best front-three starters, Altuve/Harper.

Gio starts