MLB Bullets Is Looking To Close Things Out

Happy Halloween from MLB Bullets. I know that's tomorrow, but I don't publish again until Monday. And it's the final weekend of the year in baseball.

• Up two games to none in the World Series, Jayson Stark wonders if the Kansas City Royals are an unstoppable force.
• Will Leitch says there's no secret to the Royals success: they're just really good at making contact and getting hits.
• Craig Calcaterra concurs on the making contact thing, adds in comments on the Royals pitching and says that Kansas City is just making the game simple.
• Brian Kenny believes Mets manager Terry Collins erred in leaving Jacob deGrom in the game too long.
• Ken Rosenthal thinks the workload might finally be getting to the young Mets starters. You mean to tell me the workload couldn't get to them last week???
• Owen Watson looks at Jacob deGrom and finds evidence that he is "hitting the wall" so to speak.
• Jon Paul Morosi says the good news for the Mets is that the Royals won't have the DH for the next three games.
• Ross Benes explains the odds against the Mets at the moment.
• Despite the odds, Ian O'Connor still thinks the Mets have a chance to come back and finish off a magical season.
• To do so, the Mets had better start hitting, writes Mark Townsend.
• The Royals' Ben Zobrist says he won't leave the team if his wife goes into labor.
• David Schoenfield examines the pros and cons of robot umpires after the strike call on Ben Revere in the ALCS.
• Ed Sherman has a profile of Tom Verducci, who is both calling the World Series in the booth and reporting on it for Sports Illustrated.
• Rob Neyer has an oral history of the 1975 World Series.
• And Anna McDonald has an oral history of the 1985 World Series.
• Thomas Neumann checks in on 1985 hero Buddy Biancalana in a "Where are they now?" segment. And I'm including it just so I can mention Biancalana, who fell a mere 4143 hits shy of Pete Rose's record. And yet, he never gets any support for Cooperstown.
• And I know this thanks to Baseball-Reference.com and to its founder Sean Forman, who is profiled here. Go fellow Hawkeye.
• Al has touched on this already, but with the off-day yesterday, a lot of stories about managerial hires leaked. Bud Black is the new manager of the Nationals.
• Getting Black's old job with the Padres is Diamondbacks third base coach Andy Green.
• And in the worst-kept secret around, Don Mattingly is the new manager of the Marlins.
• David Schoenfield compares Mattingly to Ned Yost and thinks that the Marlins could be a good fit for Mattingly.
• Bob Nightengale thinks that the meddling of owner Jeffrey Loria makes the Marlins' managerial job the worst in baseball. Or the best, if you don't mind making big money for not working for three years like Ozzie Guillen has.
• Speaking of which, the Marlins just fired Dan Jennings for the second time in a month. First he was fired as manager and now he's out as general manager.
• Alex Anthopoulos has declined to stay on as Blue Jays GM with diminished responsibilities under new team president Mark Shapiro.
• This happened on the same day that Anthopoulos was named "Executive of the Year" by The Sporting News.
• Israel Fehr says Anthopoulos' departure means that the Blue Jays are going to go in a different direction under Shapiro.
• The Rangers have "parted ways" with pitching coach Mike Maddux. His brother Greg will be leaving the organization as well. Neither will be unemployed long.
• Here's good news. Tigers pitcher Daniel Norris has announced that he's cancer-free.
• The Rockies declined the option on Justin Morneau, making him a free agent.
• A list of all the players who have qualified for "Super-Two" arbitration eligibility this winter. Justin Grimm is the one Cubs player on the list.
• Meg Rowley has some great moments from this October that might be forgotten.
• The top 25 goats in World Series history.
• Jerry Crasnick looks at "dead money" going to players who no longer play for the team that's paying them.
• Johnette Howard has a nice history of the Mets' Home Run Apple at Shea Stadium/Citi Field.
• The TV ratings for this World Series have been the best since 2009, although that will probably change if the Royals win Game 3.
• And finally, this is embarrassing. Well, it would be embarrassing if it had happened to me, but it didn't so it's funny. A local reporter interviewed the brother of Johnny Cueto thinking he was Johnny. To be fair, they do look quite a bit alike, although Johnny is taller and in better shape.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster.