{"id":12896,"date":"2012-10-15T05:30:42","date_gmt":"2012-10-15T09:30:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.geneveith.com\/?p=12896"},"modified":"2012-10-15T05:30:42","modified_gmt":"2012-10-15T09:30:42","slug":"the-agony-and-the-ecstasy-of-playoffs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2012\/10\/the-agony-and-the-ecstasy-of-playoffs\/","title":{"rendered":"The agony and the ecstasy of playoffs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

The baseball playoffs are on another level of sports enjoyment.\u00a0 These games are not relaxing, as baseball usually is, at least if you have a favorite team in the mix.\u00a0 You find yourselves fixating on every pitch.\u00a0 The games are intense, suspenseful, stressful.\u00a0 To be sure, they are great fun, but they are draining and exhausting.\u00a0 This year, in the first round, every one<\/em> of the best-of-five contests went to five games, the first time that has ever happened.<\/p>\n

I stayed up until well after midnight watching the Washington Nationals play the St. Louis Cardinals.\u00a0 The Nationals, my new home team, jumped to a 6-0 lead after three innings.\u00a0 But the Cardinals chipped away.\u00a0 In the 9th inning, the Nationals led by two points, 7-5.\u00a0\u00a0 With two outs, the reliable closer Drew Storen on the mound, though with the bases loaded, the team and its fans could taste victory, especially after two strikes to low-in-the-batting-order Daniel Descalso.\u00a0 But then he hit a two-run single!\u00a0 The score was tied!\u00a0 Once again, Storen, letting Descalso steal a base so with runners on 1st & 3rd, had the next batter, Pete Kozma, down to the last strike.\u00a0 And he got a hit, putting the Cardinals ahead 9-7 for the win!<\/p>\n

\nIt could have gone so many different ways<\/a>.\u00a0 The Cardinals had two last-bat, last-strike miracles in a row.\u00a0 But then again, this is exactly the kind of things that the Cardinals did last year, over and over again, in the playoffs and then in winning the World Series.\u00a0 So now I\u2019m going to pull for the Cardinals, though I\u2019m not sure how many games I can take.<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The baseball playoffs are on another level of sports enjoyment.\u00a0 These games are not relaxing, as baseball usually is, at least if you have a favorite team in the mix.\u00a0 You find yourselves fixating on every pitch.\u00a0 The games are intense, suspenseful, stressful.\u00a0 To be sure, they are great fun, but they are draining and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[261,2076,2334],"class_list":["post-12896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-baseball","tag-baseball-playoffs","tag-st-louis-cardinals","tag-washington-nationals"],"yoast_head":"\nThe agony and the ecstasy of playoffs<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The baseball playoffs are on another level of sports enjoyment.\u00a0 These games are not relaxing, as baseball usually is, at least if you have a 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