We’re willing to admit it. Sometimes baseball is downright boring.
Between the two teams, twenty men were left on base, and hitters went 2-17 with runners in scoring position. Hardly playoff baseball. Good pitching isn’t an excuse, Gio Gonzalez and Adam Wainwright are no slouches, but leaving this many runners on base is bad for business – bad for baseball.
With the advent of MLB’s postseason.tv, viewers can watch the game from several different angles simultaneously. At given points throughout the broadcast, fans in Busch Stadium were shown reading the newspaper, clipping their nails, or playing Sudoku on an iPhone. One random segment from the live feed captured a hipster couple in their early twenties arguing in front of the ladies bathroom.
It’s said that good baseball teams start with good pitching, and that’s hard to debate, but good baseball games need more than 11 total hits, and less than 3 errors. Games that end this way often leave both groups of fans with confused emotions.
Happy we won the game, but scared for the future. Conversely: Sad we lost the game, but hopeful.
Adam Wainwright struck out 10 Nationals to add to a St. Louis total of 13 batters fanned. Gio Gonzalez K’d 5 in his 5 innings pitched, with the Nationals relievers getting another three.
Cardinals fan Dale Schoener, who drove all the way from Perryville, MO with his wife and three children commented after the game,
“Yeah, I mean, I’m glad we hung in there ’til the very end. I mean, I love baseball ‘n such. It’s a great time. It’s just too bad we didn’t get to meet the mascot. The girls were really looking forward to that. My cousin Susie gave us these tickets.”
Unfortunately for fans like Dale Schoener, meeting the mascot might have been the silver-lining on, well, a boring game.
The game’s highlight – Tyler Moore‘s two run single in the 8th gave the Nats the lead for good. Problem is, bloop singles don’t make the best highlights.
Game 2 of the NLDS will have to feature something more than runners left in scoring position, wild pitches and bloop singles if ratings are going to climb.
Otherwise, Bud Selig may have to stick the game on MLB Network where nobody can see it.
