Halladay throws 2nd postseason no-hitter in history to beat Reds in Game 1

[westofyou]

I love me some "baseball history."

I loath being on the side that loses in said "baseball history."

I never wish to be the bottom in any contest, it's bad karma.

[blumj]

You can make this same argument for millionaire MLB hitters. The top success rate for them is hitting the ball and reaching base is 30% of the time. Using your argument since all a MLB player does is get paid millions to hit a ball he should reach base 100% of the time. If we expect 100% perfection out of umpires then we should expect 100% perfection out of the players also.

Hirschbeck called a good game. No it wasn't a perfect game but certainly a game he should be proud about. Also the point made that umpiring is alot harder than it looks is very valid.

Right, if a pitcher can deceive hitters into seeing a ball as a strike or a strike as a ball, he's going to deceive HP umpires to some extent, too, sometimes when he wants to and sometimes when he doesn't want to. Human eyes are always going to be imperfect at judging whether a fast-moving in lots of directions ball goes through an imaginary box or not.

And, FWIW, the camera angle the network is using may not be the camera angle you're mostly used to watching through, and their little pitch zone box probably isn't especially accurate.

[Roy Tucker]

Didn't mean to start a firestorm. I never meant that being mad or embarassed was a rational thing or made logical sense

Its just that its bad enough to get your butt kicked no matter how skillful your opponent is. On an abstract level, sure, I can appreciate it. Its just that its my beloved *Reds* that got their butt kicked and did so in a historical way splashed all over news pages.

I was rooting for the no-hitter to get broken up. Halladay was a buzzsaw and was awesome but I didn't want the added onus of being no-hitted. It's a pride thing for me.

[VR]

I hate Cowherd these days....but he did make 1 good point (and about 15 bad ones) about the Reds yesterday being polite and reverrent towards the veteran Phillies.

They looked like they were scared to death from the get go....all except Wood.

[bigredmachine1976]

Didn't mean to start a firestorm. I never meant that being mad or embarassed was a rational thing or made logical sense

Its just that its bad enough to get your butt kicked no matter how skillful your opponent is. On an abstract level, sure, I can appreciate it. Its just that its my beloved *Reds* that got their butt kicked and did so in a historical way splashed all over news pages.

I was rooting for the no-hitter to get broken up. Halladay was a buzzsaw and was awesome but I didn't want the added onus of being no-hitted. It's a pride thing for me.

No firesotrm, you just started a good conversation. Hopefully know one gets mad because someone else disagrees with them.

I'm thinking the players on the field wanted to break it worse than I wanted them to. No one in the dug out wanting to witness history from that side. I can't seperate my love of the reds from my love of the history of the game. everytime I see Fisk hit that stupid home run in game 6 of the 75 series I say show game 7, but they seldom do. Hopefully this absurd pitching performance will have the same outcome, and exciting moment for the losing team.

[bigredmachine1976]

I hate Cowherd these days....but he did make 1 good point (and about 15 bad ones) about the Reds yesterday being polite and reverrent towards the veteran Phillies.

They looked like they were scared to death from the get go....all except Wood.

Wood looked pissed he was not the starting pitcher.

[REDREAD]

Volquez let the team down. Sure, the defense could've stepped it up a notch and minimized the damage, but Volquez just fell on his face.

If we win game 2, we are still very much in it.

The sky is not falling yet.. Wait and see if we lose game 2 before panicing

[bucksfan2]

Wood looked pissed he was not the starting pitcher.

Wood has moxie. I think its the biggest difference between Wood and the likes of Volquez and Cueto. Volquez clearly was off last night and I think the "big game" atmosphere played a large role in that. Wood came in and didn't seem phased at all. I think I am higher on Wood than anyone else on the Reds staff.

[George Anderson]

Wood has moxie. I think its the biggest difference between Wood and the likes of Volquez and Cueto. Volquez clearly was off last night and I think the "big game" atmosphere played a large role in that. Wood came in and didn't seem phased at all. I think I am higher on Wood than anyone else on the Reds staff.

Volquez had a "deer in the headlight" look going on.

[westofyou]

Wood looked pissed he was not the starting pitcher.

Maybe he had gas?

[macro]

Luis Tiant of the Red Sox dominated the Reds in Game 1 of the 1975 World Series, a game the Reds lost 6-0 and collected five hits.

In the 1990 NLCS, the Reds blew a 3-0 lead and lost 4-3 to the Pirates in Game 1.

These Reds aren't the 1975 Reds and these Phillies are a lot better than the 1990 Pirates, but at least there's hope, I guess.



Can anyone pull up a stat that shows the percentage of Game 1 winners that go on to win the series, in MLB history? or at least back to a certain point?

[Roy Tucker]

Wood has moxie. I think its the biggest difference between Wood and the likes of Volquez and Cueto. Volquez clearly was off last night and I think the "big game" atmosphere played a large role in that. Wood came in and didn't seem phased at all. I think I am higher on Wood than anyone else on the Reds staff.

I love a baseball post that uses the word "moxie".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moxie

Wood looked cool as a cucumber during his whole stint and was nails against the Phillies lefthanders.

[OnBaseMachine]

See, I was hoping the Reds would win.

Yeah, me too, and there is no way I would ever pull for the Reds to get no-hit.

[REDREAD]

Main thing for the Reds in the next game is not so much to win, because it is not a must-win game, but to show they belong. They've got to demonstrate to themselves that they can play some baseball against the Phillies.

I picked the Reds to win in 5 on the poll thread, but honestly, I'm thrilled they made the playoffs this year. Huge step forward for this franchise. A glimmer of hope.

It would be nice to win at least 1-2 games vs Philly, but even if we get swept, there is no shame in this season. The Reds franchise is relevant again.
Getting swept by clearly the most superior team on paper (the Phils) is nothing to be embarrassed about. It took the Phils many years to get this dominant. Hopefully, this is just year 1 of our team being relevant, and there are more enjoyable years ahead.

[bigredmachine1976]

I like the fact that Wood looks more concerned about his pitching than the flatness of the bill of his cap.