MLB Bullets Is In 7th Heaven

Queens, here we come. I have no doubt the team in blue will win the World Series this year.

• The big news was the seventh inning of Game 5 of the Blue Jays/Rangers game. In case you want to relive it, Grant Brisbee walks you through it.
• Brisbee also thinks that Game 5 was one of the weirdest and greatest games ever.
• Rob Neyer marvels at the rarity of the Shin-Soo Choo incident and agrees that the umpires got the call right, eventually.
• Ben Lindbergh has an "oral history" of the seventh inning if you want a light-hearted take on the whole thing.
• Al has already given his take on the "bat-flip" controversy. Sam Dyson said Jose Bautista does not respect the game. (sigh.)
• Dave Cameron says that there is a time and a place for displays like Jose Bautista's, and that was both the time and the place.
• Will Leitch is upset with people who are trying to turn this bat-flip controversy into some sort of battle between good and evil.
• Patrick Dorsey breaks down the Bautista bat flip, frame by frame.
• Aaron Gordon traces when people started getting upset by bat flips.
• But if you want a "real history" of bat flips, Nick Pants has a history of Canadian bat flips dating back to Leif Eriksson.
• The other display of emotion in the seventh inning came from the fans, who had protested the Shin-Soo Choo decision by throwing things on the field. Ken Rosenthal says this kind of fan behavior cannot be allowed to happen again.
• A fan who threw a beer on a baby in the front row has been arrested. That's good, although I did like the dark humor of some fan on Twitter who said "Great. Now I have to throw a beer on a baby every game."
• I think we're used to this by now, but the best interview in baseball, Munenori Kawasaki gave another great interview in the Blue Jays postgame celebration.
• Mark Simon points out that the two eliminated Texas teams, the Rangers and the Astros, are used to heartbreak.
• Jon Paul Morosi writes that the 21-year-old shortstop Carlos Correa showed great maturity in handling the Astros defeat.
• Tim Kurkjian previews the ALCS.
• The Royals and the Blue Jays had some bad blood during the regular season, but the Royals don't expect anything to come of it in the ALCS.
• Royals catcher Salvador Perez was quite sick during the ALDS.
• This is about the Cubs, but I don't think anyone will mind. Cardinals fan Will Leitch explains why it was so painful to lose to the Cubs: because they were just the better team.
• Yadier Molina had thumb surgery yesterday. He'll be back for spring training.
• There have been a lot of defensive shifting in the playoffs so far and Alec Dopp says it's been working.
• Because of the Astros playoff schedule, they will not have the time to remove Tal's Hill from Minute Maid Park so the hill will remain through the 2016 season. So the Cubs will get one final chance to break a leg on Tal's Hill next September.
• Russell Carleton examines the consequences if MLB abolished divisions.
• Doug Glanville reviews the Chase Utley take-out slide and wonders what role instant replay could play.
• The Padres turned Petco Park into a golf course.
• Bud Black is emerging as the favorite for the Nationals managerial job. Drat. I hoped they'd hire a bad manager again.
• Larry Bowa has interviewed twice for the Marlins managerial job. Although I'm betting Don Mattingly gets it now. I expect he could be fired by the Dodgers by the time you read this.
• The Angels fired pitching coach Mike Butcher and hitting coach (and former Cubs manager) Don Baylor.
• In a nice gesture, the Astros bullpen catcher gave away all his equipment to Royals fans in the stands after the team was eliminated.
• The Mets celebrated eliminating the Dodgers with a beer slip-n-slide.
• And finally, everyone knows that Back To The Future II predicted a Cubs World Series in 2015. The star of that film, Christopher Lloyd, said it would be cool to throw out the first pitch at a Cubs World Series.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Except for the Mets.