What you missed over the weekend

Did you know that there is a 100% correlation between watching football and death? Really, every single person who has ever watched a football game has either died or will, without question, die in the future. Stop the dying, people. Stop watching football. It’s for your own good.

In case you haven’t decided to turn your life around and drop the demon pigskin, here’s what you missed this past weekend on HBT. First, the playoff action:

The Cardinals stunned the Nationals in the ninth inning late Friday night.
But don’t worry, the Nats will be OK long term.
Still, OK or not, until they win a World Series, their legacy will always be that of the team that tempted fate and paid the price.
Meanwhile, the Giants watched and waited on the tarmac.
The series may have already started, but our ALCS preview and NLCS preview are still worth your time.
Over in the ALCS, Raul Ibanez played the hero again, but it wasn’t enough.
And losing the game wasn’t even the worst part of it. And the playoffs won’t be the same without Captain Jetes.
For the Tigers, their closer’s ninth inning meltdown was a blessing in disguise.
Stay classy, Washington: rooting for the Cardinals gets a Washington Wizards player threatened.
All the talk about Alex Rodriguez struggling when, actually, Robinson Cano has been worse.
And the umpiring has been even worse than Robinson Cano. And Joe Girardi is all over it.
Not Jose Valverde comes through.
The Cardinals beat the Giants, and it’s all on Madison Bumgarner.

Meanwhile, in non-playoffs news:

Jaime Garcia needs surgery.
Mixed signal theater: Bud Selig wants more instant replay. Yet his deputy, Joe Torre dismissed the botched Omar Infante call yesterday as just one of them things that happen. Get it together, baseball.
Oh, and Joe Torre is probably not gonna manage again. If he did, I presume that he’d change his tune about replay.
Jason Giambi a serious candidate to manage the Rockies? OK.
Tragedy struck the Carlos Corporan family.
The Dodgers dumped their hitting coach.
The Mets are going to talk to David Wright about a contract soon.

Wow. This time next week we’re gonna know who’s in the World Series. Nifty.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reports that former player and manager Mike Redmond is among those who has interviewed for the Orioles’ open managerial position. Those others include Mike Bell, Pedro Grifol, Chip Hale, and Brandon Hyde.

Redmond, 47, spent 13 years in the majors as a player from 1998-2010. He took over as manager of the Marlins in 2013 but had a short and unsuccessful stint. The team went 62-100 in his first year, 77-85 in his second, then went 16-22 to start the 2015 season before he was fired. It was hard to put too much blame on Redmond, though, considering that the Marlins have nearly perpetually been non-competitive over the last eight years.

Redmond has served as the bench coach with the Rockies for the last two years.

Whoever becomes the Orioles’ next manager will be taking over a team that went 47-115 in 2018. It was the first season in franchise history and one of the worst seasons of all time. The Orioles traded Manny Machado during the season to help facilitate a rebuilding process that will likely take a few years.

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