potentialities

I'm not going to lie, I was a little concerned on Tuesday when the Yankees remembered how to hit. Not that Dave Roberts didn't do the right thing in game four—given the very limited pitching that he had to work with, he was 100% correct not to spend any of his high-leverage arms there, and it's easy to swallow a loss when you're up three games to none. Still, when the balls really started flying and the Yankees started feeling themselves, I could see where this might escape the confines of game four and spill over into games five+.

Fortunately, although the Yankees may have remembered how to hit, they fully abandoned all ability to field. I have never experienced anything quite like watching that fifth-inning five-run game-tying disasterclass meltdown. It reminded me of Hosmer's mad dash from the 2015 World Series, another clinching game five for the away team in New York City, except that it was a series of three increasingly baffling defensive miscues where what should have been routine became impossible. I didn't need the Dodgers' scouts to tell me that the Yankees don't prioritize defense when either selecting or preparing their players because I've watched them play and I have eyes, but stringing errors together like that is a whole other level of anti-clutch.

Before the fifth inning, I was still pretty sure that the Dodgers were going to win the series, but after the fifth inning, I was pretty sure that Dodgers were going to win the series in this game, which indeed they duly did. Even when the Yankees were up 6-5, I was like, yeah, nah. Bringing in Walker Buehler to close is the kind of bold move that has become low-key routine in the playoffs, so I wasn't particularly surprised when it happened—if I had been familiar with the backstory of how he'd been pitching himself to Andrew Friedman and Dave Roberts as an option out of the pen all day and getting the brushoff until his teammates played themselves into the exact unlikely scenario that required him to be in the bullpen and sent himself there, I would have been even more impressed.

A few minutes later Prior called Buehler on the bullpen phone.

“How do you feel? Did you throw today?” Prior asked.

“Yeah,” Buehler said. “I feel good.”

“I lied,” Buehler said. “I hadn’t thrown yet.”

He's ridiculous. If that was his last appearance in a Dodger uniform, it was 100% peak Walker Buehler and it was beautiful.

Freddie Freeman as the World Series MVP was obviously a given and could hardly have happened to a nicer person, but I absolutely can't believe that it turned out that he was secretly nursing even more injuries than the ones we already knew about. Absurd. I kind of wish he hadn't barely missed that home run in the last game to keep the streak alive as a cherry on top, but you can't have everything.

I love this time when the championship is decided and it's all celebrations and post mortems and inside stories, but I also really miss baseball already.

I definitely feared the worst when Shohei Ohtani was lying on the ground in pain last night after attempting to steal a base, but luckily he just subluxated his shoulder and it’s not impossible that he will actually be completely fine?? The day off today and the 2-0 series lead are both helpful. Get well soon, Shohei!

Edit: Dave Roberts is already saying that Shohei will definitely play tomorrow. Seems early, but okay!

The parade experience was pretty amazing. Parts of it were amazingly awesome, whereas other parts were amazingly…other things.

We hadn't had one of these things in thirty years, so I suppose it's not surprising that everyone was a little out of practice. A lot of people who heeded the call to use Kansas City's public transportation ended up waiting for hours and/or not getting transported anywhere, which is not surprising considering that Kansas City's public transportation is not very good at the best of times. On the other hand, a lot of people who didn't take public transportation ended up doing crazy things like ditching their cars by the interstate to walk, which is also pretty suboptimal. My mom and I avoided both of these scenarios by dint of arriving at 8:30 AM for the 12:00 PM parade, which allowed us to park in an actual parking garage for a mere $10 and do all of our hours of waiting after we had secured spots separated only from the barrier lining the street by a group of tweens, who were short and easy to see over.

The parade itself was a lot of fun. We cheered and waved and took lots of pictures and videos, while the honorees smiled and waved and took pictures and videos of us in return, which I thought was pretty adorable. The whole front office got to march in the parade too, and they rounded it out with a few local high school marching bands and giant baseball floats. Everyone was so happy and excited and the atmosphere was great. There were tons of kids everywhere, unsurprisingly since I think every school for miles around was closed.

After the parade had passed us, we tried to get to where they were holding the rally by taking a straightforward route from point A to point B, with no particular indication that as we approached Union Station from the north we would end up penned in by barricades. We could see the blue and white sea of people, many of whom had apparently skipped the parade altogether to secure good places to watch the rally, from where we were standing at this barricade, so I suppose they didn't exactly have a lot more room for us. It was unclear what was supposed to happen, none of the police officers or parade staff on the other side of the barrier could or would answer our questions as to what was going to happen, and it was pretty frustrating, although I have to say the people we were barricaded in with were still pretty jazzed about being there overall, and we bonded over our adversity and attempts to decide what our next move should be.

They did eventually reconfigure the barricades so we could get through, and we squished just far enough into the crowd that we could see the giant video screen. I mean, we were actually very close to the stage! Just off to the side where we couldn't actually see anything that was going on there. But we could hear and sort of see everything, so that was pretty good.

They're estimating about 800,000 people were there, and I have no idea how sound their methodology is but it certainly seems plausible to me. Now we just need to host a bunch more World Series parades so we can master the logistics…

I'm disappointed in Thor, TBH. Who starts a game by throwing at someone's head for no reason at all? Uncool.

Baseball bats aren't like Mjolnir though and you don't have to be worthy to swing them.

Chris Young, man. By all rights he shouldn't even exist. No other team wanted him at all this year. Certainly no other team dreamed that they could take him all the way to the World Series where he would get the win in game one, and yet there he is. (I thought that was fitting, since he couldn't get the win in game four of the ALCS because they went to the bullpen early to play it safe while it was still a closely-fought game, even though it ended up being a 14-2 blowout. This time he was the one who bailed the bullpen out.)

So far it seems like the oddsmakers and various baseball pundits had the right idea when they said that this was going to be a very even matchup. I feel like the Mets and their fans got a pretty good crash course in the crazy things that could possibly happen in a game with the Royals, starting with that preposterous inside-the-park home run on the first pitch. (But seriously, who throws Alcides Escobar a fastball over the plate on the first pitch? Do you even scout, bro?) It certainly wasn't boring, unless you count the part where play was stopped due to technical difficulties.

I am looking forward to seeing Jacob deGrom pitch tonight, even though he is apparently burdened by his glorious hair and plans to cut it after the World Series. How could he do such a thing? His hair is a national treasure.