MLB Bullets moves to the next round

No one seems to be talking about the Astros, who are not only the defending World Series champions, but to me, they’ve looked like the best team in the playoffs so far.

• I’m going to give the Astros lead billing because no one else seems to be doing it. Gabriel Baumgaertner breaks down the Astros sweep of the Indians in the ALDS.
• Jeff Sullivan notes that the Astros sweep of the Indians was perhaps the biggest beatdown playoff history.
• Brian McTaggart has five things that we learned about the Astros after their destruction of the Indians. Like, they’re good?
• Michael Baumann profiles Astros third baseman Alex Bregman, who has become the charismatic villain that MLB needs right now.
• Astros reliever Ryan Pressley got into a spat with a fan who was heckling fellow reliever Roberto Osuna over his domestic violence charges. This is not the hill to die on.
• R.J. Anderson writes that the ALDS made it clear that the Indians need to completely remake their bullpen this winter.
• Indians pitcher Mike Clevinger went nuts on social media about MLB Network host Robert Flores. Flores says the two have buried the hatchet.
• The Indians went down to an ignominious defeat while wearing Chief Wahoo for the final time on Columbus Day, which is also all kinds of wrong. I’d like to give them more credit for belatedly dumping Wahoo, but they only did it under hard pressure from commissioner Rob Manfred.
• OK, now on to that Red Sox/Yankees ALDS that everyone wants to talk about. The Red Sox won the series 3 games to 1, in case you hadn’t heard. The Red Sox’ Brock Holt hit for the first cycle in postseason history in game 3. Of course, the home run was hit off catcher Austin Romine, so it wasn’t exactly a clutch home run.
• Craig Edwards outlines exactly how unimpactful Holt’s cycle was in the Red Sox blowout win. He also looks at all previous “close calls” on cycles in postseason history.
• Jeff Sullivan points out that Holt was one of the best hitters in baseball down the stretch this season.
• Jeff Passan gives the story behind Holt and his surprising season.
• Here’s more things you may not know about Holt, including that he’s the best musician on the Red Sox.
• Everything went wrong for the Yankees in game 3 and it may have started before the game even begun. DId Yankees starter Luis Severino not know when the game started and did Severino get a late start warming up?
• Bill Baer thinks that Aaron Boone did a poor job handling his bullpen in the critical fourth inning of game 3.
• Jay Jaffe agrees that Boone did a bad job with his pitching staff in game 3.
• Zach Kram piles on Boone’s poor managing job.
• One person who had a worse ALDS than Boone was umpire Angel Hernandez, who was overturned on three calls in the first four innings of game 3. He was also overturned once in game 2. (Hey, he was upheld once!)
• Stephanie Apstein looks at Hernandez’s problems and wonders why he’s an umpire in an important postseason game.
• Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia agrees, saying of Hernandez: “He’s absolutely terrible” and that he shouldn’t be umpiring playoff games.
• Mike Oz notes that Yankees outfielder Giancarlo Stanton had a terrible ALDS in his first time in the playoffs and that Yankees fans are already grumbling about it.
• Jeff Sullivan writes that Hernandez’s poor performance shows how ridiculous his lawsuit against MLB is.
• More examples of Yankees fans behaving badly as Red Sox closer Craig Kimbrel narrowly missed getting hit with a beer can that was thrown from the stands at Yankee Stadium. Although maybe the fan just wanted to buy Kimbrel a beer and didn’t know how to go about it.
• The Dodgers put away the Braves to win the NLDS and Dayn Perry credits the players that LA picked up in trade during the season.
• The Braves season may be over, but Grant Brisbee thinks the future is bright in Atlanta.
• Mike Petriello looks at the trades that built the Brewers.
• Petriello also has some suggestions on how the Brewers should deploy their pitchers against the Dodgers in the NLCS.
• Brewers skipper Craig Counsell hasn’t named a starting pitcher for game 1 yet and admits that facing Clayton Kershaw is going to be a challenge for Milwaukee.
• Adrian Gonzalez hasn’t played since the Mets released him in June but Gonzalez says he intends to play in 2019 and won’t retire.
• To no one’s surprise, Tigers broadcasters Mario Impemba and Rod Allen will not return in 2019. If you don’t remember why, just click on the link.
• Sheryl Ring writes that the federal investigation into the Dodgers and their international dealings could end up being very serious. Ring speculates that RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations) charges could be forthcoming. If you don’t know, RICO charges are what they use to throw mob bosses away for decades.
• Twins third baseman Miguel Sano will not face charges in connection with his traffic accident in the Dominican Republic.
• The Rays have extended the contract of manager Kevin Cash through 2024.
• The Padres fired hitting coach Matt Stairs.
• Rustin Dodd checks in with Bill James and his life today now that his analytic approach (The Athletic sub. req.) to the game that he revolutionized in the late-’70s, early-80s is now mainstream.
• Earlier we had Yankees fans behaving badly. So how about equal time for Yankees fans behaving well? Filip Bondy profiles a Yankees fan who methodically keeps score by his one good hand from the bleachers in every game.
• And finally, do you remember that Athletics fan who got beer dumped on him at the Wild Card game? He’s made up with the guy who dumped the beer on him. In fact, the two have become friends and the Yankees fan brought the A’s fan to game 4 of the ALDS as his guest.

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