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The Washington Nationals defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers, 7-3, in 10 innings in Game 5 of the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium on Wednesday night. Washington advances to the NL Championship Series to face the St. Louis Cardinals. The Nationals fought their way back to take the lead after they entered the ninth inning tied 3-3.

NLCS on TBS ALCS on Fox Not really fair for those without cable!

It will be a team of destiny facing a team of density, the Dodgers having packed their roster so thickly with heroes that a closer was hiding in their starting rotation. The Dodgers used every bit of that and more Thursday night – a closer pitching in the seventh inning, tag-team starting pitchers, backup catchers pinch-running and pinch-hitting – and finally turned to Clayton Kershaw to close it out after Manager Dave Roberts said he would “absolutely not” do that, not even for one batter. They somehow managed to both come-from-behind and hold on for their dear lives, beating the...

Mets looking for their 5th NL Pennant. Cubs looking to avoid elimination on the day they wre supposed to win the World Series (Back to the Future II)

The Mets beat the Los Angeles Dodgers, 3-2, on Thursday night in Game 5 of their division series to advance to the National League Championship Series. In a much-ballyhooed pitching matchup between the young Mets right-hander Jacob deGrom and the Dodgers ace Zack Greinke, deGrom pitched through a great deal of adversity and hung on for a gritty six innings to earn the victory. He gave up six hits and three walks, but struck out seven and allowed only two earned runs.

Walk off home run by Belt.

Major League Baseball announced the 14 umpiring assignments for the League Championship Series round Thursday, and many of the boys in blue selected didn't have the best of seasons calling balls and strikes. According to rankings published by Bloomberg Businessweek, the crew chief for the ALCS, Joe West, was the second-least accurate umpire behind home plate during the 2014 season. By percentage of correct calls, West was 83rd out of 84 umpires who made at least 1,000 total calls. West was right 83.91 percent of the time. The best umpire who made at least 1,000 calls was Paul Schreiber at...

Come Sunday, the St. Louis Cardinals will be out west to take on the San Francisco Giants in the National League Championship Series. It's an interesting match-up, pitting the last two world champions against each other. On its face, this would seem to imply that both team are even. Not so fast, Fred Merkle Breath. The Cardinals clearly have the edge over their upcoming competitors. And if I may, allow me to explain with these seven reasons. Reason No. 7: Venues

The Milwaukee Brewers, with apologies to Dave Anderson, died with their boots. They were buried at the mercy of the St. Louis Cardinals’ seemingly bottomless bullpen. The officiating minister was a fellow who once seemed so burned out by baseball that he thought a ring on his cell phone while sitting in a Burger King, buried in the San Diego organization, informing him he’d been traded to the Cardinals, was a practical joke, at first. Nobody’s laughing at the Rev. David Freese now. But everyone except citizens of Milwaukee might be laughing with the National League Championship Series’s most valuable...

This is how charmed this theoretically motley collection of San Francisco Giants---their own manager calls them the Dirty Dozen---just so happens to be while holding the National League pennant in their happy hands: They beat the big, bad Philadelphian Goliath in spite of being outscored in the League Championship Series by one run. These Giant Davids beat the big, bad Philadelphian Goliath with a less-than-Bunyanesque eighth-inning home run that came through the courtesy of Phillies manager Charlie Manuel leaving in a righthanded reliever to face a shortstop who'd hit all but two of his 24 regular season bombs against righthanded...

A second baseman by trade playing third base for the San Francisco Giants like . . . a second baseman by trade, and it caught up to him early and often Sunday, helping cost his team a run at the outset and putting them in jeopardy enough otherwise. A pitcher reaching base to lead off an inning and running the bases for the Philadelphia Phillies like he has a hellhound on his trail, or at least a swift center fielder ready to cut him down, then scoring the first of a five-run inning that put the Giants away for keeps...

Postseason play turns the unlikeliest of men into the least likely of heroes against the least likely of victims. Who figured Saturday that the first hit Roy Halladay would surrender on the postseason would fly out of the yard off the bat of a guy Bruce Bochy didn't want to play until what everyone else had figured out about his prime choice in left field became obvious to him? Who figured Saturday that Cody Ross, who had hit three home runs in the final five weeks of the regular season, would come up in the top of the third, amidst...

ALCS and NLCS 2010 live thread Yankees vs. Rangers--TBS Phillies vs. Giants--Fox World Series will be on Fox

With the Rangers' win over the Rays in Game 5 Tuesday night, we've got the next round all sorted out. Assuming a slightly different format: Friday, Oct. 15 ALCS Game 1: Yankees @ Rangers, 8:07pm ET, TBS Saturday, Oct. 16 ALCS Game 2: Yankees @ Rangers, 4:07pm ET, TBS NLCS Game 1: Giants @ Phillies, 7:57pm ET, FOX Sunday, Oct. 17 NLCS Game 2: Giants @ Phillies, 8:19pm ET, FOX Monday, Oct. 18 ALCS Game 3: Rangers @ Yankees, 8:07pm ET, TBS Tuesday, Oct. 19 NLCS Game 3: Phillies @ Giants, 4:19pm ET, FOX ALCS Game 4: Rangers @ Yankees,...

Environmental activist Wendy Van Asselt was at the World Resources Institute in 2003 when officials from the Wilderness Society made her an offer she couldn’t refuse. They wanted her to lead a huge project to remove 26 million acres of federal land in the National Landscape Conservation System (NLCS) from oil and gas production, grazing, timber harvesting, mining for strategic minerals, off-road recreation, and providing rural jobs.

The 1989 movie “Field of Dreams” was about an Iowa farmer, Ray Kinsella, who was supernaturally commanded to build a baseball field on his farm. Once built, the 1919 Chicago White Sox were reincarnated to play on it. There is a Field of Dreams in Philadelphia – like the movie, this field also has reincarnated a past team - because the 2009 Philadelphia Phillies seem to be a reincarnation of the 1929 Philadelphia Athletics. They have several things in common. The 2009 Philadelphia Phillies ...

PHILLIES WON!!!!

A thread for the remainder of the 2009 ALCS (Angels, Yankees) and NLCS (Phillies, Dodgers)

ALCS Yankees-Angels Sat night, NLCS Phillies-Dodgers Sat night. Talk about 'em here. Going in: Yankees lead Angels 1 game to none, Phils and Dodgers are tied at a game apiece. From 40 degree (wind chill 25) NYC to 93 degree LA, it's baseball's league championship series.

...Game 1 of the NLCS pits Cole Hamels and the Philadelphia Phillies against Clayton Kershaw and the Los Angeles Dodgers in a match-up of dynamic young lefties. Both teams boast powerful offenses to challenge those starters. ... Two big questions loom over Game 1, and in this series: Will Joe Torre do what Jim Tracy wouldn’t? Ryan Howard went 6-for-12 vs right-handed pitchers and 0-for-4 vs. lefties in the Phillies’ first-round series. Over the course of his career, he’s put up Hall of Fame numbers vs. righties and utility-infielder numbers vs. lefties. Yet time and time again, Rockies manager Jim...