Well, frankly, neither one of these teams scare me. The Phillies concern me, but they aren't scary.

I just finished watching one of the worst moments in MLB playoff history, and a great argument for the A.L. designated hitter....bottom of the 8th, bases loaded, the N.L. pennant on the line, and we get to watch the pitcher stand in the box and look helpless. Not the starting pitcher either, who would at least have a few AB's under his belt. No, the closer Wilson, with his goofy ass balck beard and 5 AB's all year. The giants have a chance to bury the Phillies and they are forced to let him hit and hope that he can hold the lead.

I know, the opposite is hoping a PH would plate a run and I don't know the percentages, but man does it make for terrible TV and is a totall buzzkill.

Giants it is. Wow, Citizens Bank Park = polar opposite of TRBIA last night.

Rangers in 5.

I agree. The Giants have pitching, but no offense. We have both.

You have to look at the double switch options here before decrying poor strategy.

Wilson was brought in as the potential #6 hitter the next half inning...that's not bad at all. There is a very small probability that he would come to bat with no runs scored and two outs with bases loaded. Of course at that point, you might wish you handled things differently...but that is hindsight...

I was not arguing the strategy, just how painful it is to watch in such and epic situation. My God, it's one of the worst baseball moments ever. The strategy is what it is. The N.L. do what it do, but in this particular situation, it was a total buzzkill.

"an" epic situation

I'm a semi-reformed purist who will normally agree with you, dub, that seeing a "non-athlete" standing at the plate at any point of a game is harmful to the sport. But I do still hate the DH rule, and 5-man rotations, and the All Star Game counting for anything other than being an awesome spectacle of talent on display.

If Nolan can get his way and increase the number of innings thrown by starters, he ought to be able to get them to make good swings whenever they are in the batters box. I say let's bite the bullet and get rid of the DH rule forever. The pitchers will learn to hit if Nolan tells them to. Let's get Cliff Lee to pitch games 1, 4, and 7 while we're at it.

DH in both leagues. I hste watching pitchers hit. Nolan is not a God or even a baseball genius. He's a good team president, who couldn't hit when he was pitching either. The effect of pitchers hitting is to turn the entire bottom third of the lineup into a total offensive stopdown, as teams pitch around the 7 and 8 holes, counting on their "free" out from the pitcher's spot getting them out of the inning. They added the DH because pitchers couldn't hit "back in the day" either.

I'm with you on the All-Star game and Cliff going 1-4-7, by the way.