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So the Los Angeles Angels, the team with the best record in Major League baseball over 162 games, are out of the post-season in three games straight, defeated by a team that won nine fewer games during the regular season and didnt clinch a playoff spot until the final weekend of the season. Flames Jerseys 2020 . The Washington Nationals, the team with the best record in the National League this season, are a game away from being knocked out in three games straight by a San Francisco team that won eight fewer games during the regular season and, like Kansas City, qualified via the wild card. But should we really be surprised? The playoffs in baseball are a crapshoot, a combination of who gets hot at the right time, who comes through in the clutch and whose pitching rises to the occasion. And there seems to be no way to predict how and why this happens. But it sure seems as though what wins over the course of 162 games in baseball, when teams are playing with five-man rotations and stretching out their bullpens to last over the course of six months, doesnt translate very well to the post-season. Consider that over the past 34 years of post-season baseball, the team with the best record in the Major Leagues has won the World Series exactly six times, most recently when Boston Red Sox did it one year ago. In fact, last years World Series was a complete anomaly a€“ not just because it featured two teams that tied for the overall best record in baseball over the course of the season but also because it was a rare matchup between the team with the best record in the American League against that with the best record in the National League. Which almost never happens. It would be easy to blame the fact that the team with the best record in baseball rarely wins the World Series on baseballs expanded playoff pool which has gone from allowing four of 28 teams in the post-season in 1993 to allowing 10 of 30 today. And yet from 1980 to 1993, the team with the best record in baseball won the World Series exactly twice over 14 seasons before baseball decided to expand its playoff pool. Since then, its happened four times over 19 years. Baseball is a sport that measures excellence over six months, during which great teams can look horrible in stretches and bad teams can look like world beaters over the course of a week or two. The point here is not to diminish the significance of winning the World Series, but just to understand what it means; that it is not so much symbolic of being the best team in baseball but more of being the one that can seize the moments and etch itself into a place in history. Calgary Flames Gear . Hes the same player he always was, only now his efforts are being rewarded. The rookie manager has made a habit of heaping praise on others when things are going well, and accepting criticism when they arent. But in the case of Hurtado, its what the coach is NOT saying that may be the secret to a superb run of form. Calgary Flames Shirts .com) - The Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings are ready to put all the talk and hype surrounding their meeting at Dodger Stadium behind them. https://www.cheapflames.com/ . - All-Pro quarterback Aaron Rodgers looked spry enough in pregame warmups Sunday for Green Bays divisional playoff game against Dallas.Picking up where they left off prior to the All-Star break, Dwane Caseys Raptors have a firm grip on first-round home court advantage thanks to five wins in their last seven games. The head coach joined TSN 1050 Thursday afternoon to discuss how he thinks the continuing maturatiion of Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan is contributing to the Raptors improved fourth quarter play and the teams mindset heading into their Friday night matchup versus Rudy Gay and the Kings. Wholesale Flames Jerseys. Casey: Maturation of DeRozan, Lowry, JV issues ' ' '