Going into the World Series, our forecast model offered up a rare prediction: a perfectly 50-50 championship tossup between the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves. Atlanta disrupted that balance with a 6-2 win in Game 1, overcoming the loss of starting pitcher Charlie Morton (whose leg was fractured on a comebacker in the second inning) […]
A year ago, the Houston Astros and Atlanta Braves came oh-so-close to meeting in Arlington, Texas, for MLB’s COVID-19-bubble World Series. Both teams took their respective league championship series to do-or-die Game 7s, but each fell short. This time around, nothing could get in their way: The Astros turned around the ALCS in a hurry […]
Just a couple of days ago, the Houston Astros were in big trouble. Luis García and José Urquidy — the starting pitchers for Games 2 and 3 of the ALCS — got roughed up in consecutive outings, as the Boston Red Sox crushed three grand slams and narrowly missed a championship-series record, with 21 runs […]
Not long ago, Boston Red Sox center fielder Enrique (Kiké) Hernández was a defensive nomad. After being acquired by the Los Angeles Dodgers in a six-player deal in December 2014, he spent six seasons in Dodger blue, and he played at no fewer than six different positions in any one of those years. Hernández garnered […]
This year’s San Francisco Giants-Los Angeles Dodgers division series was billed as a historic clash of dominant regular-season teams, with the two clubs combining to win a record 213 games over the preceding six months. By and large, it has lived up to that expectation: Every win by the perhaps-still-underrated Giants has been followed by […]