Butterfly effect... And had that situation not been totally ****ed up, who knows what would have happened? But that is certainly when the Royals 100% lost it mentally!

The situation would have been different, if Aoki would have stopped being a dumbass, and think out of his brain (or Ned for that matter) that he should had bunted over Dyson to give the R's a RISP, with only one out. It would had stretched the game out longer, to annoy the SF pitcher and make it more tougher on them.

Instead, Aoki hits it right at the 1st baseman, pulls off a double play. Bam. I just knew.

Then SF just went ape shit after that.

What would had happened if Aoki would had bunted over Dyson to 2nd? We'll never know. But I would almost bet money that KC would have gotten the lead back, because Escobar was having a solid World Series.

You are basically saying momentum exists because you know it exists.

Well, it doesn't. If magical thinking makes you feel better, have at it.

You are more likely to split back to back games than win both of them. So whoever wins game 5 is just more likely to win the series.

Yeah, I remember when the Cardinals had all the momentum after Pujols put Brad Lidge into a sanitarium for three years.

What happened during the next game?

Oh, yeah. Roy Oswalt raped and murdered Busch Stadium.

Bottom line is we have a very average to below average middle relief. Its been that way all year and it finally bit us in the ass.

Appreciate it. Thanks

JFC, are these guys going "Lil' Chiefy" on me?

Impossible to quantify this, but to claim that psychology has no role in sports, which is what you're essentially doing, is incorrect.

I don't believe in "clutch," but I believe in choking. Emotions and psyche affect the game, for better or worse.

correct. he has pitched like shit at home this year.

This is no guarantee.

That is not what is commonly referred to as momentum.

Pointing out a critical play in history that would have changed the strategic implications of later plays which then would have changed what the manager would have done is not momentum.

Yeah, I don't think there is such a thing as momentum from game-to-game in baseball. Doesn't work like that.

In-game? Yes, I believe in that.

I remember when Jayson Werth walked off Lance Lynn in the 2012 LDS too. Then the Nationals went up 5-0. They ran away with the momentum on that one...

I also remember when the Astros walked off in the '04 LCS to go up 3-2 after winning three straight at Minute Maid. Cardinals folded up shop after that one.

tomorrow is all about Shields. Nothing more.

uh, no?

Two evenly matched teams fighting for a title. This is how legends are made.
If the Royals win, they will be remembered for ever as being a team to beat the "big boys.'

If the Giants win they are a modern dynasty.

its epic.

I'll clarify. The effect of "momentum", especially in the world series, is so small that it may as well not exist.

It might be more of a thing in the dog days of August for a terrible team or for a team well ahead and coasting.

Perhaps that's a bit dramatic, but momentum is 95% mental (hardly voodoo), doubt creeps in, and too many players start over playing.

I'm sure you played sports, but that's what momentum is, mental... And usually a bad mental state meeting-up with a good mental state, and resulting in the bad mental state players playing scared and trying do things they shouldn't, and the good mental state players having the confidence they need to get the job done and playing withing their limits.

Its true. Its very true. The Giants have to get on him early. Even though the Royals didn't win game one, they hit madbum very hard in game one.

Shrugs.

There is one type of momentum in baseball that I believe in: when a pitcher is shitting his pants.

Well, I believe my evidence is very strong.

Had Don Denkinger called out instead of safe, St. Louis would had most likely won the game. Instead, St. Louis lost it shit, and blew the game. The aftermath was in Game 7, St. Louis got their shit kicked in.

Had Steve Bartman didn't do a dumbass catching the ball, and if Alou would have caught that, the Cubs would have most likely been in the World Series. Instead, he ****s up the play, frustrated the Cubs/fans/players, etc, and the Marlins took advantage of "Oh, we got a lucky break". It definitely impacted the game. The aftermath, the Cubs lose Game 7.

I can go on and on and on, but I'll just say, momentum do exist in sports, either you agree with it or not.

Maybe we can get more than 1 hot inning out of the bats too?

That was just an excellent defense play. A double play to the left side with Dyson running is pretty much one hell of a play.

That is not momentum.

Things like baseballs, players, and bats have mass and velocity. The product of mass and velocity is momentum. Therefore momentum exists in the sport of baseball.

This. MadBum is an average pitcher when he gets little to no run support. Shields...get it, boy.

I don't think it's affecting "effort" in the slightest bit. But the influence on confidence is huge.

And I appreciate the counter-argument to suggest that confidence has no effect on outcome, and this is wrong in baseball. Quantifiable? Again, probably not. Not sure how or what that metric would be.

Does it exist? Yes.

ROFL true

was that better than Dyson's catch?

I still cant believe that he caught that.

Unfortunately, the bats are the bats. They are streaky. The pitching has to keep us in the game. period.

I think so. How many double plays do you see hit to the right side of the infield, especially to the first baseman. Its just unnatural type of play. You see way more diving catches in the outfield.

Here's what the math says about team's getting hot:

"...my conclusion is there may be a very weak positive correlation between pairs of consecutive games, and less probably a weaker correlation with a length of three games, but certainly no correlation on a timescale of more than three games."


http://spiff.rit.edu/richmond/baseba...orr/delay.html

This game has me feeling like the subject of Ice Cube's No Vaseline.

Starting to wonder if our resident expert ever played sports. I knew momentum existed when I was 12, and I pitched through college, and absolutely momentum exists in baseball in my opinion.

In my opinion momentum is at the heart of sports, an in tonight's game we all knew the momentum shifted out of our favor the moment they turned the dp on aoki.

Arguing momentum doesn't exists in baseball, and its akin to voodoo magic. I don't know man... :)

Momentum is directly tied to confidence, and confidence or lack-there-of can exist in anything.

If your team has a lead and it suddenly becomes tied, are you suddenly going to be..... somehow.... magically.... worse than you would have if your team still had the lead?

No, you wouldn't. If things don't go well and you lose, you'll look back and think thats the time you lost the "momentum". If you score and win anyway, you are not going to go back and think "gee I thought there might be momentum at the time, but I was wrong".

Its confirmation bias. Its the same reason why people think they are unlucky or hit all the red lights. They don't remember when good unlikely things happen or when it was all green.

Momentum led you to applebees.

Can you please do that again tomorrow?ROFL

I think momentum can exist inside of games... although it really might just be a term used for overall team confidence. Carrying it over from game to game in baseball is tough because the next day you could be facing a lights out starter, or you may be running a below average starter out there, etc.

**** that. =(

If momentum existed, we'd have won game 1. Or SF would've won games 2&3. Or us tonight. Wait. This is confusing

Again, I'm not talking about butterfly effect or time travel types of scenarios when you can look back, and point out that an event had an impact on later decisions in the game, that likely would have resulted in a different outcome had the event not happened.

I'm talking about this belief that you suddenly can do no wrong or that you "just know" you are now going to lose.

If momentum didn't exist, the Giants would have stopped scoring?
Wait,... what?

Pressure effects people, and positive/negative actions/results can release/increase pressure. As the pressure is increased or decreased the positive or negative effects are increased or decreased exponentially. Not magic, momentum.

We were loose going in! But then we were supposed to be tight game 2. Then we had "momentum" today. Now we don't.

It's all so confusing

The impact that this has on the game is so small that it may as well not exist, especially in the world series.

Its probably more of a thing when teams are more likely to be demoralized or more likely to coast, like if you are terrible and playing out the string or up by a ton of games in late August.

But baseball is the most chaotic of the major sports. Look at the ball Pence hit to drive in the third run. If he puts his bat through the zone about five milliseconds sooner he hits it right at Escobar and that threat is over with the game being no worse than 4-3.

If Morse hits that ball five milliseconds later yesterday, the Giants probably win that game. You can't attribute events with such strong variance to momentum.

It helps us provide order to things that often defy description, but it's also not supportable by looking at the evidence.

@BlairKerkhoff: Yost: Herrera would have thrown 7th if tied or down 1. Once Giants got 3 in 6th, no. #Royals

@rustindodd: Eric Hosmer: "If we win tomorrow, we have the ability to go home and basically win one of two and we’re world champions."

Gents I understand your arguments, but the momentum on any given at bat switches by a called ball or strike by as much as .70 batting average points. a 2-1 count versus a 1-2 count changes everything, including the at bats momentum. It may be overstated, and I would guess it is, but to say its non-existent is naïve at best.

This is not momentum.

The batter has a different approach and a different goal based on the count. That is from a logical, strategic approach to hitting.

The last time the Royals lost a WS game by 6 or more runs they won the next 2.... Just saying let's Repeat History #KC

Here's an example to illustrate what people are saying is momentum.

You are a hitter leading off in the 7th inning, and you are tied 4-4. You were winning by 4-1, but you just lost the lead in the 6th, and now you need to get the lead back.

Meanwhile, in a parallel universe you are the exact same player in the exact same situation in the exact same game facing the exact same pitcher (who just came into the game in both universes), but in this universe you were losing 4-1 in the 6th inning and you tied it up in the 6th. Now its the 7th and time to grab the lead.

Believers in momentum would argue that the 2nd player would do better than the first player.

I don't follow. If Morse hits it out we still lead 3-2. Morse doubled in the run and subsequently scored. Not sure on your logic

You're right. For some reason I remembered him hitting later in the game and it being closer.

Yep, had him on the ropes a couple of times and they got off.

ROFL

But so true.

Stop moving the goal posts, you clearly compared momentum to voodoo magic, and were condescending to those that suggested otherwise in the process. There is no doubt you know baseball, and generally I enjoy reading your posts and interacting with you. But it's ok to disagree, and for people to come to different conclusions, right or wrong.

I was definitely referring to a very real thing called psychological momentum, that you can see in players body language, and often their performance. Bill James disagrees, but Bill James knows numbers, not pressure situations on the mound or in the batters box.

Here's an excerpt from someone far more intelligent than I at least defining the topic at hand, "We know it as the "Big Mo", the "Hot Hand", and being "In The Zone" while the psychologists call it Psychological Momentum. But, does it really exist? Is it just a temporary shift in confidence and mood or does it actually change the outcome..."

As Jeff Greenwald put it in his article, Riding the Wave of Momentum, "The reason momentum is so powerful is because of the heightened sense of confidence it gives us -- the most important aspect of peak performance. There is a term in sport psychology known as self-efficacy, which is simply a player's belief in his/her ability to perform a specific task or shot. Typically, a player’s success depends on this efficacy. During a momentum shift, self-efficacy is very high and players have immediate proof their ability matches the challenge. As stated earlier, they then experience subsequent increases in energy and motivation, and gain a feeling of control. In addition, during a positive momentum shift, a player’s self-image also changes. He/she feels invincible and this takes the "performer self" to a higher level."

http://www.science20.com/sports_are_...m_sports-33165

You're talking about confidence. Not momentum

In sports, I think these kind of work hand-in-hand.

But in the end this is all just based around personal opinions because it cannot be proven as fact.

Good lord. I looked at the final score and said to myself, "did they bring Alex Smith in"?

I wasn't moving the goalposts, I'm not sure if you understood what I meant in that quote. People were pointing out events that had a strategic impact on the game, as in, since this happened the manager had to do that.

Anyway, the impact that what you are talking about has, especially in the world series, is so small that it may as well not exist.

No, this is pretty close to what I was talking about. These are not mentally fragile children who wilt when something bad happens, at the MLB level these are seasoned pros who have spent a lifetime keeping cool, blocking the world out, and playing their game. Whatever you may have felt or was thinking about a minute ago, at the moment of performance all of that stuff leaves your head and all you see is the ball or the glove.

The idea of momentum in sports is an incredibly interesting one, and certainly won't be solved on a message board so I'll step away from the keyboard and move on to the task at hand, beating the Giants in game 5 today.

To get some Royals mojo going, I'll start by throwing on my lucky Royals cap. We have a flawless record when I've worn it in the postseason, and that Al is some voodoo magic I can believe in.

:cool:

I meant to say, "did they bring in Alex Smith to do something of importance"?