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There wasn't Indians news over the weekend, but Paul Hoynes answered some mailbag questions, many of which were reasonably intelligent (most, not all). Hoynes speculates that a 2-year deal for something like $16M would bring Kazmir back into the fold. Hoynes also refers to discussing OBP and SLG as "getting all sabermetric," which is kinda funny, considering that those metrics were used on baseball cards more than 25 years ago.
Most of the weekend's news understandably relates to ongoing Division Series action, and I'll get to that in a minute. The biggest non-LDS story was the Cincinnati Reds deciding to fire Dusty Baker, despite winning 90+ games and making the playoffs in three of the last four years. Joe Posnanski looks at Baker and how taking a team from bad to good is never enough for long.
ALDS
The Red Sox are the only team in any of the four LDS that won both the first two games, which puts them in pretty commanding position. I'm not sure why the Rays bothered to beat the Indians, if they were just going to go and get their butts handed to them by Boston. The biggest story to come out of that series has been David Price calling members of the media nerds for questioning his Game 2 performance. Price has since apologized for the comment.
The Tigers and A's are tied at one game apiece with the series moving to Detroit for the next two. It's a series with a lot of former Indians in important roles. Athletics Nation takes a look at Coco Crisp's much improved hitting (Crisp hit a career-high 22 home runs and drew a career-high 61 walks in 2013). Meanwhile, Jhonny Peralta will start Game 3 in left field for Detroit, which should be enough to get you to tune in for a couple innings.
NLDS
The Cardinals made a questionable pitching decision, and (despite a couple questionable decisions of their own) the Pirates won Game 3 and now find themselves up 2 games to 1, a win away from their first playoff series victory since the 1979 World Series. NBC Hardball's Bill Baer looks at one of the most significant midseason acquisitions of 2013, Marlon Byrd, who stakes Pittsburgh to an early lead Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Dodgers took a 2 games to 1 lead over the Braves Sunday night. Carl Crawford made a very nifty catch, crashing into the seats far down the third-base line, and LA now finds itself in the enviable position of needing just one more win to advance, hosting Game 4 on Monday, and having Clayton Kershaw ready to go if a Game 5 is needed.