I'm just gobsmacked by how much this team has regressed mentally. It's 2016 again.
Expecting another title is silly. It's hard every year, but especially tough this year with a league this top heavy. There are so many things that can go wrong:
1. Injuries.
2. A few bad breaks in a short postseason series.
3. A better team showing up and beating you.
But there was one thing, after what they did last year, I thought was absolutely, positively off the table:
4. Failing because the stage is too big for you.
And suddenly we're seeing signs of that, and it's still the regular season. Close games, and clutch situations late in those games, are a total mystery to these guys. Yeah, they won some that are technically, mathematically close, but that's mostly games when Verlander or Cole or whoever goes nuclear and they blow out the other team 2 - 0.
