View from the catwalk: Bullpens and starters in the playoffs

There was one outstanding baseball game yesterday, and one, relatively boring game that had a few outstanding performances.

First off, the Brewers went with a bullpen game, and their very excellent bullpen was spotless, until Jeremy Jeffress blew the save. Undaunted, the walked it off in the tenth. Here’s the recap from Ben Reagan at Brew Crew Ball.

The other National League game was not a bullpen day. It was a Hyun-Jin Ryu day. True Blue LA recap by Ryan Walton. Walton also wrote about Ryu’s excellent comeback season.

Rays Links

• There’s a funding gap right now between what the various parties say they’re willing to contribute for a new Rays stadium in Ybor, and what it will cost to build one. John Romano wrote about the gap.
• Joey Wendle is on the Baseball America all-rookie team. Ryne Stanek is not. Seranthony Dominguez is the only relief pitcher on the team, and Dominguez is very good, so I guess my only gripe is that in the modern game, you could honor a couple more relievers.

Other Links

• Roger Cheng wrote about how one might go about actually building a robot ump.
• Craig Edwards looked at which excellent players, on the remaining playoff teams, have yet to win a World Series. Curtis Granderson on the Brewers is an easy veteran to root for. Is it possible to root for Andrew McCutchen without rooting for the Yankees? For Brandon Phillips without rooting for the Red Sox?
• Jeff Sullivan took a close look at Dellin Betances, who was once very good, then got wild, and is now good again.
• Baseball America thinks Shohei Ohtani should win Rookie of the Year, because this is obvious, Yankees fans. Good full article, lots of quotes from people around Ohtani.
• Additional quotes about Ohtani, that didn’t make the cut on the first article.
• A useful rundown from MLBTR on where every major league 40-man roster now stands (they’ll need to be trimmed to 40 in November).