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Three Up, Three Down: Dodgers finish Cubs while Astros find pain in the Bronx
Clayton Kershaw celebrates in the clubhouse after defeating the Chicago Cubs 11-1 in Game 5 of the National League Championship Series at Wrigley Field.  Jamie Squire/Getty Images

Three Up, Three Down: Dodgers finish Cubs while Astros find pain in the Bronx

Welcome to this week's edition of Three Up, Three Down — your weekly catch-up of the three best highlights (and lowlights) from around the league. We're here for all of the cheers and the jeers, because it's baseball. You can't have a winner without someone losing along the way.

Up: Dodgers make their long-awaited return to the Fall Classic

For the first time in nearly 30 years, there will be World Series baseball being played at Dodger Stadium. Thanks to two early home runs from Kiké Hernandez and a typically dominating performance from Clayton Kershaw in Game 5, the Dodgers were able to knock the Cubs out of the playoffs and punched their tickets to the World Series in emphatic fashion.

If you had told baseball fans over the summer that the Dodgers would have easily rolled their way into the World Series, it wouldn't be too much of a shock. After all, they were on an incredible run during that time and it was tough to envision anybody beating them. However, after the calamitous September that they had, some doubts had to have crept into minds. However, they've silenced all doubters and they look like the team to beat, no matter who comes out of the ALCS.

Down: The Legend of Joe Maddon took a hit in the NLCS


Jim Young-USA TODAY Sports

Joe Maddon has rightfully earned a reputation for being one of the best managers in baseball. He's earned that rep thanks to both on-field success and the idea that he's also a tactical mastermind when it comes to the game. While it's difficult to argue the accolades when it comes to a manager who somehow won a pennant with the Tampa Bay Rays and helped end the most famous curse in baseball, it's safe to say that in this particular series he was out-managed by Dave Roberts.

All of the mistakes that Maddon got away with in the NLDS against the Nationals, he got punished for when his team was facing off against a clearly superior opponent. Granted, it was always going to be difficult for the Cubs to overcome a Dodgers team that had regained their form, but Maddon's choices didn't help matters. In fact, Maddon's decision to go with the homer-prone reliever Hector Rendon with the season on the line, only to see Rendon give up the death blow Grand Slam to Kiké Hernandez summed up just how rough of a time Maddon had in this one.

Up: Yankee Stadium has become a fortress again


Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports

Meanwhile in the American League, what was looking like an open-shut case for the Houston Astros has suddenly turned into the boys in blue-and-orange having to return to Houston with their backs against the wall. That's because the Astros have learned what Cleveland learned in the ALDS: Yankee Stadium is back to being an utter fortress. The Yankees are now one win away from one of their most improbable World Series appearances ever after they took all three of the games set in the Bronx.

Games 3 and 5 were blowouts in favor of the Yankees, and Game 4 saw New York snatch victory from the jaws of defeat with a two-run sixth inning and a four-run seventh inning. The exploits of Aaron Judge, Todd Frazier, Didi Gregorius, and the rest of the Baby Bombers have helped revive Yankee Stadium and turn the current incarnation into the feared October venue that its predecessor was for so long.

Down: All of a sudden the Astros can't hit


Houston Astros center fielder George Springer hits a single during the third inning in Game 5, a rare bit of contact as the 'Stros' bats have gone cold.  Adam Hunger-USA TODAY Sports

One of the most concerning parts of the ALCS for the Astros has been the fact that, win or lose, they've struggled mightily to put runs on the board. Even in their two wins in Houston, they only just scraped by with two runs in each of their wins. As a result, this has put even more of a burden on the likes of Dallas Keuchel and the rest of Houston's pitching staff to be better than usual or else they risk falling behind when it comes to New York's high-powered offense.

That was also what made their loss in Game 4 hurt so much. The Astros finally found a way to break through and score more than two runs, only for the late-game collapse to basically render their offensive output null-and-void. With the exception of Jose Altuve, the Astros have been anemic at the plate – they've hit .147 as a team through the first five games, and they'll have to step it up from here on out, or their run at the AL Pennant will come to an end shortly.

Up: Yasiel Puig makes Keith Olbermann look silly


Dennis Wierzbicki-USA TODAY Sports

In the process of the Dodgers' march to the World Series, Yasiel Puig has been playing some pretty good baseball. He's been mashing at the plate and also contributing with some solid baserunning and dependable defense as well. He's been contributing in all facets of the game, and in typical Puig fashion, he's been having plenty of fun as well. However, this is baseball which means that if you have too much fun, somebody's going to get mad.

That particular "somebody" ended up being Keith Olbermann. Olbermann is known for his intense love of baseball while moonlighting as a political pundit, and he was not pleased with Yasiel Puig extreme bat-flipping during the NLCS. Olbermann took a beating on social media, but Puig himself didn't pile on. Instead, Puig continued to have fun, and this particular tweet was enough to get Olbermann on Puig's side. Puig is your friend, Puig is Olbermann's friend, Puig is everybody's friend.

Down: TBS's tiny score bug will not be missed

I'm going to start this off with a bit of positivity when it comes to TBS and their coverage of the playoffs so far. I'm a huge fan of their studio show, and any chance that we can get to hear Pedro Martinez talk about baseball for an extended period of time, it's a good time. With that being said, TBS could use some work when it comes to their presentation, and the biggest issue had to be their tiny score bug.

TBS apparently took the complaints about their huge score bug from the 2016 playoffs a bit too much to heart, because they responded by making the scoreboard as tiny as it could possibly be while still being barely legible. The obvious hope is that by 2018, TBS will come up with a happy medium for their score bug and it'll be something that they stick with for the foreseeable future. But until then we were all stuck with a score bug that Derek Zoolander would describe as being "for ants."

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