The Houston Astros are the 2022 champions, and they won in 2017 as you may recall. Dusty Baker has his second World Series ring, and this one has most certainly punched his ticket to Cooperstown.

Is this not the matchup some of us anticipated, and some of us dreamed of, when the post-season began? On the one hand, a powerhouse that comfortably cruised to the the best record in the league, facing off with a squad whose season didn't take off until they replaced their manager halfway through?

And then there were four. Astros and Yankees, Phillies and Padres.

And then there were eight. First team to win three games advances.

Let's sail the windy seas of Accountancy, and crunch a few numbers.

This is now the Boss Thread, at least until I drop the Report Card. Like an anvil on my foot.

The Buffalo Bisons began their final series of 2022 with a loss in Moosic, Pennsylvania.

I can't remember a year when we've talked so much about the fourth outfielder. For the life of me I don't see that there's a whole lot of difference between Raimel Tapia and Ezequiel Carrera, who didn't seem to inspire nearly as much excitement. So I thought I'd wander through the years and see what we've had here all along.

The Baltimore series thread is up to 350 plus comments. Mercy! Skip past the stuff on the silverware if you like, and feel free to discuss the State of Things here! Better for everyone...

Let's talk about general managing.

Chavez Young got things started by homering in the first at-bat of the Buffalo game. Nick Podkul liked that so he homered twice. That's a win for the Bisons. New Hampshire went to the bottom of the ninth tied thanks to an eighth inning home run by Zach Britton. John Aiello liked that so he walked it off with along ball in the bottom of the ninth. Vancouver played two. Game one went to ten innings and Vancouver got the walk-off win. Jommer Hernandez hit a three run home run in the sixth in game two to help the C's sweep the doubleheader. Dunedin also played two and split. Gabriel Martinez hit his eleventh homer and hit four balls at 94.5 mph or higher.

Hitters are streaky. Your favourite slugger seems to go 3-for-5 with a double and a home run every game for a week, and then they'll go hitless for three straight games. This is normal: there are peaks and valleys to everybody's production. What separates a hitter like Mike Trout from a hitter like Santiago Espinal is how cold "cold" gets.

Now that the wheeling and dealing is done, here's an overdue thread for the post-mortem. Because you're still talking, and the original now stands at more than 300 comments, which is pretty Unwieldy.