Two series down and the final two to be decided tonight. What an LDS round we have had:

• first time all series have gone the distance
• first comeback from 0-2, having to win every road game
• most strikeouts in an LDS series (Justin Verlander‘s 22 Ks)
• most game 5 LDS complete games (two; tied with 1981)
• two HR performance by a pinch-hitter, for a 9th inning tie and an extra-inning win
• melt-down by a closer (actually, make that two melt-downs) with a 2-run lead and 3 outs to win the series
• four walk-off games and counting, already the most ever in an LDS round (thanks to ATarwerdi96 for confirming this)
• a chance for both wild cards (or neither) to advance (both advanced to LCS in 5 out of 6 seasons from 1999 to 2004, but in no other year)
• the league’s highest paid player (I think that’s still true) benched for the deciding game (that’s actually happened before, in the LCS round)

Enjoy the games and tell us what catches your attention.

As the Tigers celebrate their ALDS victory, news comes (thanks to HHS reader Steven for this alert) of the passing of a former fan favorite in the motor city, albeit in a brief stint with the Tigers.

Champ Summers (so nicknamed, according to Wikipedia, by his prize-fighter father who remarked at Champ’s birth that he looked like he had just gone 10 rounds with Joe Louis) came up with Oakland in 1974 and, through 1978, bounced between the majors and minors with the Cubs and Reds, being used with the big club mostly as a pinch-hitter. His fortunes changed early in the 1979 season with a trade to Detroit where, under new Tigers manager Sparky Anderson, Summers finally got to play on at least a semi-regular basis.

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Four more games today, including two winner-take-all contests.

The early game is in the books, with the Giants completing their comeback from 0-2, the first team to do so with three straight away wins in a 5-game series.

Washington survived with a walk-off win (the third in less than 24 hours) on a Jayson Werth homer, to pull even with the defending champion Cardinals and force a deciding game tomorrow.

Tell us what’s caught your attention today!

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US PRESSWIRE

I don’t have time to write a proper post, but here are some quick notes on last night’s performance by the man Lou Piniella used to call “Rawl EYE-buh-nez”.

• His 2-homer game carried the 5th-highest Win Probability Added in playoff history.
• It was the 2nd-highest WPA by a non-starter (behind you-know-who)
• It was only the 5th playoff game in history where a non-starter had 2 extra-base hits. He’s the only guy to have both be homers. Amazingly, also yesterday was the 4th such game, a few hours beforehand, when Joaquin Arias came in as a sub and hit two doubles.
• Ibanez has had only 2 regular season games with greater WPA. Number 1 on that list is a game from a few weeks ago where he also entered as a pinch-hitter and ended up with 2 homers.
• Ibanez had another pinch-hit game-tying 9th-inning homer against the Red Sox less than 2 weeks ago.
• And courtesy of our friend Sean Forman at Sports-Reference, Alex Rodriguez is the greatest player to ever be removed for a pinch-hitter in a clutch post-season moment.

For a personal project, I’ve been searching for royalty-free images of baseball players. I’ve come across a goldmine on Flickr. A huge collection by Boston Herald-Traveler photographer Leslie Jones is here, courtesy of the Boston Public Library. The collection is simply amazing. I just had to share some of my favorite photos.

When I first saw this photo, it looked fake. But going by their listed heights, Eppa Rixey (6’5″) stands a full foot taller than Rabbit Maranville (5’5″). While Maranville was small for his era, Rixey must have been considered a giant.

That’s 1,345 wins in that photo (Smoky Joe Wood—117, Cy Young—511, Lefty Grove—300, and Walter Johnson—417). Continue reading →

Nobody got swept, so we’re still in business with another quad-play day.

Let us know what grabs you about today’s games.

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Or not.

Given the ridiculous amount of debate and discussion the 2012 AL MVP race has given us, I felt it was only appropriate to hand out a few offbeat awards of my own. Of course, the floor is open to all suggestions for awards, as long as we don’t take ourselves too seriously. Leave ’em in the comments section, kids.

Anywho, without further ado: here are a dozen awards I’m proudly giving out.

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Former major league pitcher Jim Kaat is providing the TV color commentary for MLB Network coverage of the Tigers-Athletics series. In an HHS reader discussion of that series (and others), a side discussion arose on Jim Kaat’s HOF credentials, during which I offered up the unusual factoid that Kaat’s “historical span” (for want of a better term) covers some 69 seasons of major-league baseball, from 1939 to 2007. This notion is based on the fact that Kaat pitched to both Ted Williams and Julio Franco.

HHS reader RJ thought this might make an interesting blog topic, so let’s find out.

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Is Bryce Harper pressing, or is it too soon to judge from 10 ABs (6 Ks)? Am I crotchety to be irked by headlines focused on Carlos Beltran’s 2 HRs, when the score was already 7-3 in the 6th before he got going? Do you, too, feel younger seeing Andy Pettitte on the mound with his cap pulled low? Who knew that Ichiro could breakdance? These and other matters are officially open for discussion!

Yankees 7, @Orioles 2: It was close all the way, and then it wasn’t. Jim Johnson, the MLB saves leader who had never allowed a HR to any current Yankee (127 PAs), hung a 2-0 pitch to Russell Martin leading off the 9th, and the dam burst, washing away all prior impressions of what had been a close-fought game. But some memories of exciting plays and interesting decisions seeped back the day after:

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