Best of the Worst

BY KEVIN KERNAN

The essential lessons of the game don’t change. Make sure to tell the Nerds.

Woe to those who think they can reinvent baseball with gimmicks, pumped-up statistics and pumped-up radar guns, bullpen games, second-inning hooks of “aces’’ and playing the game on iPads.

Here is some general advice from BallNine:

Get off the iPad fellas and get on the field. Take some popups, work on fielding the ball in the outfield. You know, basic Little League stuff. Throw strikes.

It always comes down to fundamentals.

Pitchers, lock down PFP, pitching fielding practice, the Mets and Luis Severino did not do that on Wednesday night when the Dodgers scored twice in the second inning on their way to an 8-0 beatdown of the Mets at Citi Field to take a 2-1 lead in the NLCS.

Yes, MLB is getting closer to the dream marketing matching: Yankees vs. Dodgers. East Coast vs. West Coast. Shohei Ohtani, who homered Wednesday Night, against Aaron Judge, who homered Tuesday night.

But don’t let all that blind you to what is really happening here.

Outfielders, use your glove to pick up the ball on the grass, you’re not playing third base. Catchers, at least try to make an attempt to block pitches in the dirt even if you are one knee down. Pitchers, throw the ball 60 feet, six inches.

Most of all, starting pitching will forever be the bedrock of every winning team, no matter what the Nerds say. In their first seven games of this postseason, the Dodgers utilized two bullpen games and on Wednesday night their starter Walker Buehler only went four innings.

Too much nibbling, not enough attacking with the fastball.

In the three games the Mets have walked 22 batters. This is more like spring training than October.

Pitch selection trickery is all the rage.

I used to think that reading a batter’s swing was a lost art, but it’s not that, they see the swings, they don’t want to read the swings, they want to trick you. It’s become part of the new pitching DNA.

The Mets were burned in the sixth inning too, when after Enrique Hernandez had an emergency hack at a high fastball, reliever Reed Garrett hung a splitter. Much like sweepers, splitters go a long way when they don’t split and Hernandez had another big postseason home run.

I used to think that reading a batter’s swing was a lost art, but it’s not that, they see the swings, they don’t want to read the swings, they want to trick you. It’s become part of the new pitching DNA.

Buehler threw 90 pitches in only four innings. Severino threw 95 in 4.2 innings.

As a former longtime pitching coach told BallNine Wednesday night: “That’s not attacking the strike zone. Too many 0-2 pitches thrown throughout the count.’’

It’s the New Way, the new pitching DNA.

In this case though, DNA stands for Do Not Attack.

Now for the hitters: Use the entire field.

That’s a lesson the Phillies learned the hard way in their NLDS loss to the Mets as the Mets did exactly what I said they would do, beat the Phillies with well-located fastballs, especially high fastballs.

Try that with the Dodgers, too Mets, you know it works.

And now for the real LCS nightmare; Hello Cleveland!

It is great to win 92 games like the Guardians did in the regular season, but don’t forget, eight of those wins game against the White Sox. The Guardians have become the new version of the Twins.

The Yankees beat the Twins/Guardians, no matter what, and no matter how many mistakes the Yankees make, like having both Jazz Chisholm Jr. and Anthony Rizzo caught off second base in the same inning, it doesn’t matter.

The Guardians can’t get out of their own way as they trail 0-2 with the ALCS resuming Thursday night in Cleveland. The good news if this game is as bad as the other two, there is Thursday Night Football.

This postseason has been a postseason of The Best of the Worst.

Which brings me to the most important word in baseball, the F word. No, not that F word, not the Kiké Hernandez F word, this F word.

F as in Focus.

Perhaps the Guardians will regain their focus now that they are at home at Progressive Field. But I doubt it. Yankee Stadium shook the Guardians/Twins to their core in losing the first two games. In Game 1, the catchers couldn’t catch and the pitchers couldn’t reach home plate. In Game 2, shortstop Brayan Rocchio couldn’t catch that sky-high popup and right fielder Will Brennan thought he was playing third base, botching a play and allowing Anthony Volpe, who had stopped at third base to skip home with a key run.

On top of all that, Nervous Nellie manager Stephen Vogt is pulling too many strings.

“He’s managing every game like it is the seventh game of the World Series,’’ one top talent evaluator told BallNine. Guardian ace Tanner Bibee was out of Game 2 after only four outs, even though his defense let him down. It was a perplexed Bibee that walked off the mound at Yankee Stadium. The Guardians used five pitchers in their Game 1 loss and eight pitchers in the Game 2 defeat. Not exactly Jack Morris (10 innings) vs. John Smoltz in a real Game 7 in the 1991 World Series.

How is that baseball? How is this bastardized style of play showing up in the biggest time of the year?

Here at BallNine we’ve been trying to warn baseball for a long time what the game is doing to itself to destroy the game.

Do you see what you are turning the postseason into?

Sure there is some great action, it’s not all destructive, but the game, the drama, the energy could be so much better if the game is played well in October, if fundamentals are executed.

“A lot of these games are flat-out embarrassing,’’ noted one scout.

But baseball continues on its merry way, destroying the game from within, destroying organizations from within. I was told this week that the Marlins, who were in the postseason in 2023, just got rid of 70-plus people in their organization.

Now some more ALCS facts.

In the first two games the Guardians were 1-for-11 with runners in scoring position. That’s what happens when you try to do too much in October. Same thing happens in the field.

Ray Knight offered up one of the greatest quotes ever about getting it together mentally as a ballplayer.

I offer this advice to all players at any level. It’s simple but effective.

“Concentration,’’ said the 1986 World Series winner, “is the ability to think about absolutely nothing when it is absolutely necessary.’’

In October it is absolutely necessary.

Concentrate. Every pitch. Every play.

In so many ways, that baseball Ray Knight wisdom is Yogi Berra-like, and Yogi was a guy who sure knew what October was all about. It’s not totally these ballplayers’ fault. They are playing the role management wants and asks them to play.

You see, when the value of fundamentals is put down by those in charge of the game, the Worldwide Nerd Network, the game suffers.

When the value of starting pitching is put down by those in charge of the game, who needs a starter to go seven innings, we have a full bullpen every night, the game suffers.

When scouts and development people are tossed aside by those in charge of the game, and may I note, those at the extreme top of the game, the game suffers.

When hitters can’t put the ball in play, the game suffers. The Guardians have not had a hit this postseason from a catcher. Imagine that. All the catchers of the final four teams are struggling.

It’s not like Victor Martinez is back there for Cleveland, back when the Indians were an offensive force.

Yankees Game 2 starter, ace Gerrit Cole could not make it out of the fifth inning, having allowed 10 baserunners. The Yankees are fortunate they are playing the Guardians, a team that has not won a World Series since 1948, and one of the weakest teams to ever make it to the ALCS.

You play the team they put in front of you, so this is not a knock on the Yankees. And by having three teams from the AL Central in the postseason, I believe that is actually a huge advantage for the Yankees.

The Royals and Tigers also made the playoffs, in part because they were able to beat up on the inept White Sox, and that created a golden path to the World Series for the Yankees because all they have to do is beat the Royals (done in four ALDS games) and the Guardians to make it to the World Series for the first time since 2009. Who knew the road to the World Series went through the AL Central. It’s actually a blessing for the Yankees. No annoying Astros this time around.

If I’m a Yankee fan, I’m saying, “Heck yeah, let’s have three AL Central teams in the postseason every year, thank you White Sox for being so crappy.’’

It also helps that the analytically driven Red Sox aren’t even trying to win anymore with John Henry not spending big market money to get better. This is sure not like 2004 when yes, the Yankees blew a 3-0 lead in the ALCS, and I was there, but those Red Sox were a dynamic, super-talented, mentally and physically tough team that came back from the baseball dead.

If the Yankees don’t get two more wins to make it to the World Series, this will be one of the biggest failures in Yankee postseason history. Perhaps the biggest, considering the competition.

Another playoff lesson being driven home is that you can’t just turn it on when you want to turn it on. The Mets were playing tremendous team baseball for months. The Phillies allowed themselves to be ambushed. In the other NLDS, the Padres thought they were home free after their Game 3 victory that put them one win away from the NLCS. They believed their own hype and as a result did not score a run the final two games, making that much worse was one of those games was a bullpen game but the Dodgers beat them, 8-0.

Again, it comes back to fundamentals, the Padres spent much of the season hitting the ball to all fields and then suddenly became “MLB The Show ‘24’’ Padres, swinging for the fences as Fernando Tatis Jr. fell back into some nasty habits and Manny Machado disappeared.

It was a choke job and just like that, the Padres were done.

Will lessons be learned?

Will any of these teams learn?

Come on baseball, this is your time of year to be the best you can be, figure it out.