{"id":544,"date":"2013-09-30T16:43:08","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T23:43:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=544"},"modified":"2013-09-30T20:20:14","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T03:20:14","slug":"live-blog-game-163","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/?p=544","title":{"rendered":"Live Blog: Game 163"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mavericks shortstop Elvis Andrus<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Tonight, the Rays and Rangers will play a tiebreaker to determine the second AL Wild Card participant.\u00a0 By league rules, this game will count towards DTBL stats since it is an official MLB regular season game.\u00a0 That means we have one more day of drama remaining in the 2013 championship season.\u00a0 The Kings enter the night with a two point lead over the Mavericks.\u00a0 This isn’t quite like last year with five teams still in the mix with a full slate of games on the final day, but it still should be very interesting.\u00a0 I will write occasional updates throughout the game, updating you on category point changes that may or may not occur, which could ultimately swing the title.<\/p>\n

Although the Kings are in pretty good shape, this thing is far from over.\u00a0 Before we get this game started, here are some categories that are still in play for the Kings to lose points or the Mavericks to gain points.\u00a0 By my calculations, there are four categories to watch:\u00a0 runs, stolen bases, ERA and wins.<\/p>\n

Runs is the category I’ve been focused on all week since the Mavericks have had an opportunity to catch the Kings for an immediate two point swing.\u00a0 However, that is not looking very likely at the moment.\u00a0 The Mavs trail by four runs and have only Elvis Andrus playing tonight.\u00a0 It would be quite a feat for him to erase this deficit, especially since the Kings have their own player going tonight too in Ben Zobrist.\u00a0 So I’ll label this one as a remote possibility, but obviously would be a game changer if it happened.\u00a0 Stolen bases is very much in play tonight for both teams.\u00a0 The Kings are currently tied with the Moonshiners, so 1\/2 point could easily be lost here, especially since the Moonshiners have a bunch of players in this game:\u00a0 Alex Rios, Ian Kinsler, Desmond Jennings and Matt\u00a0 Joyce.\u00a0 Jennings is nursing a hamstring issue though, so he may not do much running tonight.\u00a0 Rios and Kinsler are certainly possibilities though.\u00a0 The Mavericks could also pick up half a point in SBs if Andrus steals two bases tonight.\u00a0 That’s not totally unrealistic.\u00a0 ERA is probably the most likely category for the Kings to lose a\u00a0 point.\u00a0 They just passed the Naturals yesterday to increase their overall lead by a point, but the Naturals could get that point back with David Price on the mound tonight, and possibly Jake McGee as well.\u00a0 By my calculations, Price and McGee need to allow two runs or fewer for the Kings to lose a point.\u00a0 If they give up zero or one, the Naturals will almost certainly pass the Kings.\u00a0 Two runs will require the Naturals pitchers to account for about eight innings of work.\u00a0 Three or more runs means the Kings point should be safe.\u00a0 Finally, there is only one win up for grabs tonight, but it could be big if it goes to a pitcher out of the bullpen.\u00a0 The Kings are currently tied with the Moonshiners, so if Moonshiners relievers Joe Nathan or Fernando Rodney (or Jeremy Hellickson since all hands figure to be on deck for this one) vulture another win, then the Kings would drop a half point.\u00a0 The Mavericks could also gain a half point in wins if they get a win out of this game.\u00a0 That’s not likely though since Alex Cobb and Matt Garza are two starters who aren’t likely to be used in relief tonight.<\/p>\n

In my opinion, the Mavericks best chance at the title is for David Price to shut down the Rangers, costing the Kings a point in ERA, while Andrus grabs a pair of steals and one of the Moonshiners steals a base as well.\u00a0 The chances of all of these things happening?\u00a0 Probably not good.\u00a0 But after what we saw a year ago, and what I experienced just yesterday in another league I’m in (along with Marc and Nick), almost anything can happen.\u00a0 Check back throughout the night for updates.\u00a0 Enjoy the game!<\/p>\n

8:30 pm EDT<\/strong><\/p>\n

Through one inning, the Kings continue to sit in good shape.\u00a0 Elvis Andrus walked, but was picked off, costing the Mavericks a shot at a much needed SB and R.\u00a0 I think we can rule out any change in the runs category tonight.\u00a0 So that leaves SB, ERA and W.\u00a0 Kings lead is 2 points.\u00a0 Rays lead the Rangers 1-0 through 1.<\/p>\n

9:12 pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

It appears David Price is just going to go ahead and pick off every base runner that the Mavericks need to steal.\u00a0 This time it is the Moonshiners’ Ian Kinsler.\u00a0 Evan Longoria’s two run home run is irrelevant for the championship race, but did shift 1\/2 point (RBI) from the Naturals to the Demigods.\u00a0 Kings still up two points through three innings.<\/p>\n

9:42 pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Price has now allowed just one earned run in five innings, which is enough to edge the Naturals ahead of the Kings in ERA.\u00a0 The Kings lead is down to just one point.\u00a0 But the other categories aren’t looking great for the Mavericks at the moment.<\/p>\n

10:10 pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Now things are getting interesting!\u00a0 Andrus singled, stole second and scored a run, opening up some possibilities for the Mavericks.\u00a0 They are now just one steal shy of gaining 1\/2 point.\u00a0 However, the bad news for the Mavericks:\u00a0 the earned run allowed by Price has moved the Kings back ahead of the Naturals in ERA.\u00a0 The Kings lead is back to two points.<\/p>\n

10:39 pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Two innings to go and the Kings still lead by 2 points.\u00a0 The Mavericks need Price and\/or McGee to pitch at least 2\/3 of an inning without giving up a run to cost the Kings an ERA point.\u00a0 But where that second point will come from is not obvious.\u00a0 On a non-DTBL note, instant replay can’t get here quickly enough.\u00a0 The umpires botched a trapped ball which cost the Rays at least 1 run.\u00a0 4-2 Rays after 7.<\/p>\n

10:59 pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

Price gets through the eighth without allowing a run, so the Naturals are back ahead of the Kings in ERA again.\u00a0 The Kings lead is down 1.\u00a0 But the great play Price made to rob Andrus of a hit removed another steal possibility.\u00a0 It is starting to look like the Kings will win the title by one point, but we’re not quite done yet.<\/p>\n

11:18 pm<\/strong><\/p>\n

For the third time in the last four years, the DTBL Championship has been won by a point or less.\u00a0 The Mavericks were unable to close the gap in any other category, so the Kings just lost the one point in ERA.\u00a0 Unless I have seriously overlooked something, the Kings are the 2013 DTBL Champions, besting the Mavericks by a single point.\u00a0 The official final standings will be updated at 8:20 a.m. EDT tomorrow.\u00a0 Thanks for following.\u00a0 Much more to come later this week.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tonight, the Rays and Rangers will play a tiebreaker to determine the second AL Wild Card participant.\u00a0 By league rules, this game will count towards DTBL stats since it is an official MLB regular season game.\u00a0 That means we have one more day of drama remaining in the 2013 championship season.\u00a0 The Kings enter the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kings","category-mavericks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":549,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions\/549"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dreamteambaseball.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}