Excluding the Brewers and Covid, there have been a lot of other memorable storylines of the 2021 season. The early hubbub was the ball tackiness issue which I touched on a few months ago. Pitch spin rates were at an all-time high and MLB came down hard by banning literally all foreign substances outside of rosin. The fact that we have not heard much about this since the first few weeks of the ban means that either pitches have adjusted and made a lot of stink over nothing, or more likely, they found some way around the system. This will be an interesting issue leading into the CBA negotiations this winter. Shohei Ohtani put up a historic season the likes of which we may never see again - 9 wins, 3.18 ERA, and a 10.8 K/9 rate on the mound, and 46 homers and 100 RBI with the bat. If he doesn't run away with the MVP then there is something horribly wrong. Vlad Guerrero Jr. and Marcus Semien broke homerun records for a historically prolific Blue Jays offense. On the other side of the coin, the Mariners somehow won 90 games despite a -51 run differential. Sadly, neither of those two teams made the playoffs. We had 3 100-win teams (two in the same division!) and 4 100-loss teams which I'm sure has rarely if ever been done in the same season, and just further emphasizes a disparity in team salary that needs to also get addressed in the CBA. Max Scherzer also became just the 19th pitcher ever to record 3,000 career strikeouts and further cemented his hall-of-fame candidacy, and has a good chance of joining Rick Sutcliffe as the only pitcher to win the Cy Young Award after being traded midseason.
This year was not one of my better ones on the predictions front, but if the Brewers win it all I won't really care.
PLAYOFFS START 10/5/21
NL Wild Card - #4 Dodgers v. #5 Cardinals
NLDS - #1 Giants v. WC Winner
#2 Brewers v. #3 Braves
AL Wild Card - #4 Red Sox v. #5 Yankees
ALDS - #1 Rays v. WC Winner
#2 Astros v. #3 White Sox
World Series Prediction: Brewers defeat Rays in 7
Rooting for: Brewers v. White Sox
Preseason Predictions
#1 Dodgers
#2 Brewers
#3 Mets
#4 Padres
#5 Braves
#1 Yankees
#2 White Sox
#3 Athletics
#4 Blue Jays
#5 Angels
Padres defeat Yankees in 6
touch with baseball when his childhood heroes Robin Yount, Paul Molitor, and Jim Gantner retired but the Great Home Run Chase of 1998 reignited his passion. As a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Erik became involved with the campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity. With this group Erik traveled to Portland, OR and Baltimore, MD to work on construction projects and help the group raise $25,000 to partially sponsor a house in Milwaukee. Also at UWM, Erik met Peter Nagel. The two attended their first Brewers game together during Opening Weekend 2003. Despite their failure to ignite the coals at their first tailgate, the two had a blast and were soon making weekly trips to the ballpark. Erik has gone on to several colleges and changed careers several times, and has moved all the way out to New Hampshire, but has always stayed true to his baseball roots by holding part-time stadium usher jobs. To this day he looks back fondly on his incredible cross-country journey.
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