Baseball in October???

Sunday's game: Jim Joyce sucks. The best thing you can say about him is that his strike zone is equally mysterious for both teams. Granted, I'm not going to watch a Tigers game and be completely impartial, but there were a lot of pitches called in a way that demonstrated that Joyce understands even less about the strike zone than the average major-league umpire.

Some people believe that this gives baseball character, the fact that for this umpire, a pitch four inches outside is a strike, and for this one, a belt-high pitch is a ball. I think it's a crock. It's one of the ways in which Bud Selig's lack of leadership is palpable. MLB needs consistent officiating more than the other sports because there are so many isolated calls that need to be made, calls in situations where the wrong call is easily identified.

At some point, umpires will be forced to use some kind of system to help in calling balls and strikes. I don't know if this is a recent development, or if it's always been this way and we just never noticed as much, but it's clear that umpires can't call strikes on all sides of the zone. Something has to be done to help them.

Tuesday's game: Yuck. Well, hey, the whole postseason is a bonus. Most people are in agreement that the Tigers will be solid next year, although you wonder if maybe they need another bat (and please, not a current or former cheater: you know who I mean). Still, I'd rather be losing to the A's than the Yankees.

But really, if you look at the field, the Twins can't win outside the bubble (and apparently can't win a postseason game in it), the A's can't win in the postseason, and the NL? Whatever. So it looks like it might be yet another Yankee title. Great.

It still doesn't erase 2004, though. Hee hee!