2022 Baseball Post-Season

[Mister Tee]

Indeed a wild day, one I wish I could have enjoyed more, but...you know. I'll get to that further on.

Phillies/Braves turned out no contest in the end. The Phils got a 3-run homer off Charlie Moreton in the 1st. Arcia homered for Atlanta, a run quickly offset by a J.T. Realmuto inside-the-parker (he might have scored anyway, but the run was assured when right fielder Acuna Jr. -- who had a brutal day in the outfield -- stood spectator-still on the play.) Matt Olson brought it to 4-2, but the Phillies put it away with 3 in the 6th; solo homers from D'Arnaud and Harper were all the scoring that remained. Philadelphia won the final two games, over a seemingly far better team, by a combined score of 17-4.

So, the two 101-win teams from the NL East are gone, and the 87-win Phillies -- the last post-season qualifier; wouldn't have been in the game under last year's rules -- have a 50/50 shot at going to the Series.

The Mariners were weighed down all day by their 0-2 status, but they really worked hard to lose this one. An 18-inning game that was scoreless through 17 means Seattle came to bat 8 separate innings where all they needed was 1 measly run to extend the series. Three times, they left a runner on 2nd, meaning all they needed was a bloop single to win -- the sort that, you know, the Guardians get routinely. Excruciatingly, one of those men at 2nd, rookie Julio Rodriguez, got there via a ball that missed clearing the wall by maybe a foot or two. Eventually -- inevitably -- Houston got a home run off Pena, and will continue their WWF villain tour. If the Cheatin' Astros become the only bye team to survive the first round, it will be a pretty strong argument there is no god.

I was so disheartened after my own game that, seeing the Dodgers up 2-0 in mid-innings, figuring they'd carry the series back to LA and win there, I opted to watch the Marsha Hunt doc off my DVR. Imagine my shock at returning to the game afterward and seeing the Dodgers trailing 5-3 in the 8th. I wish I'd seen the 7th inning, where the Padres must have shocked LA to its core, putting together a 5-run rally. After that, it was the superior San Diego bullpen putting batters away, and ending the Dodgers' hopes for a legendary season.

It really suggests something is just in the air this year -- the gods intervening for sport or something. 3 teams that won 100 games in the NL are going home, while the pennant will be contested among teams with 89 and 87 wins: the two worst qualifiers in the league.

It's too soon to know if my own team will join the how-the-hell-did-that-happen? caucus tonight, but it's hard to be optimistic after last night's outcome -- maybe the cruelest loss I've ever endured as a fan. If you weren't watching the game, the Yankees seemed fated to lose early, as Luis Severino was giving up hit after hit -- 6 in the first 2 innings -- and only surviving (limiting it to 2 runs) by the skin of his teeth. Given that Cleveland starter McKenzie had shut out the Yankees on 1 hit in July, even those 2 seemed potentially fatal. But Judge -- widely spotlit for 8 strikeouts in the first two games-plus -- tied the game with a 2-run homer, Oswaldo Cabrera obliterated a pitch for 2 more runs, and Bader capped it with a solo shot in the 7th. Severino, meantime, righted himself, and lasted into the 6th, only adding one more run to his line (and that one let home by reliever Trivino). The Yankee bullpen got through the 7th and 8th cleanly, but the roster of relievers has been thinned by injury -- key pieces Effross and Marinaccio IL-ed literally in the last days of the season -- and, on this night, for reasons that remain murky, most-times closer Holmes was deemed unavailable. This caused Aaron Boone to push Wandy Peralta -- who'd been brilliant so far -- into an unusually long outing. It seemed it'd go okay, as he retired the first batter. But then, the Guardians got ANOTHER how-did-that-fall-in? bloop -- in almost the exact same spot as Friday's extra-inning fiasco -- and followed it up with as long a string of soft singles as I think I've ever seen in one inning. Even with that, the Yankees held the lead with 2 outs and 2 strikes -- at which moment, Gonzalez hit another single to win the game. If you can point out a harder-to-take loss, let me know.

Of course, the series is not done. Gerrit Cole goes tonight and is perfectly capable of pushing the team to a deciding game back in the Bronx. I know teams can rally from even such devastating losses -- I've seen the Yankees do it all season, and, in post-season, can recall the team doing it against this same (if renamed) team in the 2017 ALCS. But the karma feels all off; it's like being pregnant with a dead baby -- like the season is over and we just don't know it yet.

Of course, I'll watch and root for the best. But it won't be much fun to watch. And if they lose, my interest in post-season will take a giant dive -- at that point, it'll simply be rooting for the Not-Astros, which is not my favorite way to follow the game.

[danfrank]

So THAT was quite the baseball day. It was a day of colossal bullpen losses, most dramatically by the Yankees giving up 3 in the bottom of the 9th (that one had to hurt, Tee), but most consequentially by the Dodgers giving up a 5-spot in the 7th against the Padres and also giving up—yet again—their chance for a legitimate World Series title. We had an 18-inning marathon (reminiscent of the 18-inning LDS game my Giants won against the Nationals in 2014), knocking out the Mariners, who just didn’t have that something extra to beat the formidable Astros. The least dramatic game was Phillies/Braves, with the Phillies picking the right time of year to be consistently crushing the ball.

No reasonable person would have predicted a Phillies-Padres NLCS, but baseball once again proves itself unpredictable, which is why it’s such a compelling game. There’s still a chance for a more predictable Astros-Yankees ALCS, but the Yankees have to dig deep.

[Mister Tee]

Before we get too deep into today's games, a status report:

Thanks to East coast rain, there was only one game on Thursday, the second meeting between Houston and Seattle. Though there were far fewer runs scored than in Game 1, the rough outline was the same: the Mariners led much of the way -- this time thanks Luis Castillo pitching, rather than slugging -- until a Yordan Alvarez home run put the Astros in front to stay. Houston is the only team to go 2-0 in a series, and can wrap it up in Seattle this afternoon.

My Yankees/Cleveland was the rain-deferred match-up, played yesterday afternoon. It was a tight game -- 2-2 by mid-innings -- that, in the end, turned on luck. Twice, in the 3rd and 8th innings, the Yankees had runners on 2nd and 3rd/2 outs, and got line drives that landed in gloves (the first to the outfield, the second to the third baseman). With the game thus still tied. they went to extras, and Cleveland got two incredibly unlikely bloops -- one that went in and out of left fielder Cabrera's glove, another that just eluded Rizzo's glove in a Luis Gonzalez flashback -- that provided the game-winning runs. Yankee fans of my online acquaintance are certain this spells doom -- many Yankee fans are a weird mixture of entitled ("Only a Series win is a successful season") and fatalistic ("We'll be knocked out in the first round") -- but this is the sort of game even the spectacular first half team would lose (low-scoring and tight) and quickly come back from. I won't be worried unless Game 3 goes south, as well.

If you're looking for evidence a series CAN go south, even against a manifestly inferior team, look no further than the two NL match-ups, which both sit in unexpected-to-shocking positions right now. Atlanta took a bit of a chance in starting just-off-the-IL Spencer Strider. He got through the first two innings, but the 3d was his downfall. The key moment came when the Braves opted to walk Kyle Schwarber (despite his then 0-for-the series) and pitch to Rhys Hoskins. Hoskins responded with a home run that put the Phils up 4-0 (he also capped it with a showy bat-spike that will be considerably less popular with Braves players than with Phillies fans). The inning wasn't yet done...though Strider was, soon after. His replacement, Dylan Lee, was no help, serving up a 2-run shot to Bryce Harper, after which it was all over but the crying. The defending World Champs find themselves in a 2-1 hole to an 87-win team, and can be sent home as early as this afternoon.

Which is slightly less shocking than seeing the 111-win Dodgers in precisely the same position vis a vis the 89-win Padres. LA was in a weak spot as regards starting, having to put together a bullpen game, but their pitching wasn't deeply at fault, surrendering only 2 runs. The problem for them was, they were facing Blake Snell. Those with acute memories may recall then-Tampa Bay Ray Snell facing the Dodgers in the ultimate game of the ersatz 2020 Series, and holding the team to 2 hits (following which manager Cash pulled him for the bullpen and may have blown the championship -- but that's old news). Snell wasn't as squelching last night -- he allowed 5 hits and a walk through 5 1/3 -- but he held the mighty Dodger offense to 1 run on a Mookie Betts sac fly, and the impressive Padre bullpen only allowed 1 more base runner the entire evening. Yes: the juggernaut team from LA now has to face match point, possibly twice, against a team barely in their NL West rear-view all summer. Proving, as Yankee announcer John Sterling so often says, You Can't Predict Baseball.

Just as I'm typing this, the Phillies have managed a 3-run homer off Charlie Moreton, and the Atlanta team is starting to feel the shadows creeping in. 7 innings to go, but, tick...tick.

[Mister Tee]

I can't say I gave major attention to tonight's games (and they were both night affairs, as the 4:30 PM scheduled start for Phillies/Braves was pushed by rain till almost 8 PM). A friend in from out of town occupied most of my attention. However, by osmosis, I've picked up this rough summary:

That Phillies/Braves matchup was what you'd have to call a pitchers' duel, as, thanks to Zach Wheeler and Kyle Wright, there was no early scoring and practically no base traffic: 2 hits and a walk for the Phils, 1 hit for Atlanta. That changed in the bottom of the 6th, when Wheeler, all.after 2 outs, allowed a hit batsman, a walk, and 3 straight singles, adding up to 3 Atlanta runs. After which, the teams reverted to quiet mode -- the Braves relievers we remember so well from last October allowed only one more Phillie to reach base, a number matched by the Philadelphia relief corps, and the game ended 3-0. Atlanta is spared the freakout of going down 0-2 in its own park, and we now have a best-of-3.

My instinct about the Padres -- that their getting back into the game late in Game 1 might serve them well tonight -- was well-founded. They showed no sign if being intimidated by the great Kershaw, as Machado homered off him in the very first inning. The lead didn't last long, as Freeman hit an offsetting homer off Darvish in the bottom of the frame. It was a seesaw battle in those early innings, no team ever leading by more than 1, and the teams entered the 6th tied at 3. Kershaw was by now gone (the Padres had done a good job running up his pitch count), and replacement Graterol was Ill-served by a Trea Turner boot of a ground ball, which led to the go-ahead run. Darvish and the San Diego bullpen made it stand up, though Cronenworth made their task easier by hitting an insurance-run homer in the 8th.

So, the Dodgers are not quite the invincible juggernaut one might assume from their regular season, and the Padres aren't just easy prey. It'll be interesting to see what happens when the teams relocate further south this weekend.

[Mister Tee]

With an hour before the games resume, some quick thoughts about the first day of the Division Series.

The first two games on the schedule raised the question, Was that five-day layoff for the bye teams an asset or a handicap? Max Fried in Atlanta and Justin Verlander in Houston had atrocious starts, giving up 6 runs apiece, neither lasting as far as the 5th inning, putting their teams in deep holes.

As it happened, both home teams mounted furious late rallies. The Braves, who trailed 7-1, scored 2 in the 5th and then 3 more in the 9th to bring it up to 7-6...but that's as far as they got, meaning the underdog Phils snatch game 1 of the 5-game set.

The Astros made noise earlier in their game, making it 6-3 by the 4th, and then 7-5 after 8. The ending of the game was a huge celebration for the home squad --a 3-run 9th inning walkoff homer by Alvarez -- but will perhaps be remembered just as much as a "what was that strategy?" moment for Seattle manager Scott Servais. Servais' closer, Paul Sewald, had got two outs but had put two runners on (via single and hit by pitch) -- not exactly an unheard-of circumstance for a proven closer to work out of. Servais opted to replace him with starter Robbie Ray, who served up the gamer on his second pitch. Servais, in his post-game, said they'd literally gamed out that scenario, and going to Ray had always been the plan, which isn't a particularly satisfactory answer, but there you are.

A lot of people are ready to declare the series over -- and, good god, I'm not saying the Mariners aren't crushed. They threw away a chance to steal a game from the likely AL Cy Young winner, they were underdogs to begin with and now have to win 3-of-4 from a 106 win team. But I can recall similarly devastating blown games -- the Red Sox over Tampa in 2008 ALCS, Cleveland over the Yankees in 2017 -- where the crushed team somehow regrouped and won the series. So, let's not declare a fait accompli just yet...just acknowledge the odds.

Speaking of Cleveland...they of course arrived in the Bronx last night to begin the series that interests me most. Yankee starter Gerritt Cole has been taking shots from dissatisfied Yankee fans all year, for not being the Koufax-every-day pitcher they feel his contract requires. But, on this night, Cole had the best start of any in the 4 series -- though it didn't start out that way. Cole gave up a solo home run in the third, and, when he followed that up with a hit batsman and double, the "Not an ace!" crowd started warming up for their solo. The volume rose when infield-in Rizzo's throw to the plate on a grounder somehow failed to record an out, as the runner scampered back to 3rd. But Cole bore down -- got another infield grounder, this one registering the out at the plate, and struck out the final batter, despite the late umpire missing one earlier pitch that should have been strike three. Cole cruised from there...not only keeping it scoreless beyond the 1 run, but pitching efficiently enough he made it into the 7th inning. Like I say, best start of the day.

The Yankees tied the game quickly on a home run by Harrison Bader (himself a controversial roster presence, as he was traded for the popular Jordan Montgomery, and spent all but the last 2-3 weeks of the season on the IL). The team looked like they'd blown a chance to go ahead when Josh Donaldson (and his first-base coach) thought a ball had gone over the wall; when it instead bounced back in, Donaldson was thrown out during his trot. But IKF followed with called-a-single/more-like-a-double/got-to-3rd-on-a-brutal-misplay-by-the-right-fielder, and scored on a deep sac fly by Jose Trevino. Aaron Judge, otherwise quiet, led off the 6th with a walk, stole 2nd and went to 3rd on the bad throw...but would have scored without any of that, because Rizzo hit a ball into the second deck. The 4 runs were plenty for Cole and the makeshift bullpen that followed him, and put the Yankees 1-up in the best of five. Game 2 is scheduled for tomorrow, but all forecasts say rain will push it to Friday...at which point we can see if the even longer layoff will hurt Nestor Cortes on the mound.

I can tell you least about the Dodgers/Padres game: it began before mine was over, and I opted for the Yankee post-game rather than switch over. When the Dodgers ran out to an early 5-run lead, I figured San Diego was predictably turning back into a pumpkin. However, their bullpen held the Dodgers scoreless the rest of the way, they got 3 runs in mid-innings, and ended up bringing the tying run to the plate in the 9th, so it wasn't anything like a runaway. Remembering how the Padres threatened late against the Mets last Saturday, than came back strong on Sunday...I'm intrigued by what will happen in Game 2, which will start in a few hours.

[Mister Tee]

OK, a quick update as we head into the first official post-season round (though now that the Wild Card Game has been inflated into the Wild Card Series, it's the second round, no matter how they spin it). Seeing most of us bet wrong on first round outcomes, beware risking anything on my projections. I'd never have expected the only remaining Wild Card in the AL would be the one NOT from the AL East. Nor that the surviving Wild Card from the NL East would be not the one with 101 wins, but the one with 87. As Yogi once said, predictions are hard, especially about the future.

As a result of Sunday night's outcome, the behemoth that is the Dodgers will face, instead of the 101-win Mets, the 89-win Padres. The won-loss difference between them is a massive 22 (in the same division), but, hey: by run differential, it should be 30 -- so, yay? And the Dodgers beat them head-to-head 14 of 19 times. The only reason to expect the Dodgers not to barrel through this round is either 1) dumb short-series luck; 2) Dodger post-season ineptitude; or 3) thinking San Diego is a better team narrowed to its top 3 pitchers and having Juan Soto aboard for every game. Picking the Padres is strictly for long-shot players, but plenty of us will root for it.

Atlanta, too, gets to play a division-mate in this round, the 87-75 Phillies. The head-to-head was a less-than-decisive 11-8 Atlanta; still, it's hard to see the Phillies being as fortunate for a second round as they were in the first -- though there's always irrational playoff luck to account for. Most likely, the Braves will face off with the Dodgers (second year in a row) for the NL crown,but we'll watch the games just in case history has something flukier in mind.

Houston finished 16 games ahead of Seattle in the regular season, and won 12 of 19 in head-to-head matches. The only real arguments for Seattle winning this series are 1) they only found themselves mid-season; 2) Luis Castillo was an August addition; and 3) a team on a hot roll from upsetting a favored opponent can get high on its own supply. I see Seattle as a wild card in the more traditional sense of "can't prove it on paper, but they feel lucky", and this series could be interesting.

The Yankees are the only team not facing a division opponent this round, so the head-to-head comparison is more limited. However, 5-1 on the season is pretty strongly in NY's favor, and the full-season record disparity, while a bridgeable 7 in the won-loss column, is a more impressive 18 by run differential. Add in the fact that Cleveland ran up its numbers against the perennially weak AL Central, while the Yankees played the ferocious East, and that NY outscored the Guardians 38-14 in those 6 games...you can't escape the feeling the Yankees should be favored. The flip side: the Yankees didn't see that much of Cleveland's 3-man rotation (only 2 of the 6 games were against Quantrill/McKenzie; none against Bieber). That, and the usual "you can't predict baseball" caveats apply.

Let more games begin!

[Mister Tee]

The Mets have had horrible seasonal collapses (2007 will live forever as a definition of choking, the team blowing a 7 game lead with only 17 to play), and they've had grisly elimination games (Game 7 of the 1988 NLCS was over after the first inning, with Ron Darling surrendering 6 runs and only getting 3 outs). This year, they evidently decided to merge the two -- topping their blow-the-division regular season with a non-competitive elimination game that, like the 1988 finale, finished 6-0, but felt like 100-to-0.

I'm a Yankee fan, and should be impervious to bad feeling about this -- that, or actively enjoy it -- but it's pretty heart-wrenching to watch, even from safe distance. It brings a reminder that "the agony of defeat" is not entirely hyperbole. A whole set of players, and the far greater universe of their fans, have spent an entire summer thinking they were some sort of special bunch -- that this could be the year something magical happens for them. Instead, they're forced to deal with the fact they've failed, in a particularly miserable way, right in front of the whole world, and they now wonder what the point was of even caring to begin with. Why do I, not a Met fan, feel this so keenly? Because I know a variation on this fate awaits all but one of the teams still standing. This bell tolls for thee.

To step away from this psychic pain element, and deal with the game as simply a game: As in 1988, it was over early, though we couldn't know for certain at the time. The Padres scored 2 runs in the 2nd, on a Nola 2-out bases-loaded single -- first such hit in the series for the team, according to the broadcast (all those Friday runs came on home runs). Not the last, though, as the Padres got another in each of the the 4th and 5th...but those -- and a late 2-run single by Soto off Edwin Diaz -- were redundant, because Joe Musgrove was as close to untouchable as anyone so far in post-season. He had a perfect game through 4 innings, and ultimately surrendered just one single plus a questionable walk over 7 innings (the Mets did hit two balls quite hard to the outfield, but both safely landed in gloves). The Mets, who'd thrilled their fans with many late comebacks over the summer, simply fell impotent at the plate, at the worst possible time.

Clearly in frustration, Met manager Buck Showalter went to the umpires at the top of the 6th and demanded Musgrove be inspected for the forbidden sticky stuff. The men in blue did a remarkably thorough job, checking glove, shoes, even ears -- I seriously wondered if they were going to make him drop trou, right there. But nothing was found. Musgrove resumed pitching, continued to mow down batters, and gave something of a Bronx salute to the Met dugout as he left the mound. Really a bush-league play, beneath the organization. And fruitless, as Musgrove and two relievers kept the Mets off the bases right to the end.

So, a 101-win team is going home, and their 89-win opponent will play on, against the behemoths in LA. More about that, and the other narrowed-down series to come. Tomorrow's an off-day, plenty of time to look ahead.

[Mister Tee]

A lot less time will be wasted tomorrow: Mets/Padres, late afternoon from what I hear.

In case anyone was using me as their TV guide, this has been changed to a 7PM start.

Which annoys me: I was hoping to finally have time for the near 3 hours of Blonde tonight.

[Mister Tee]

A day of baseball that had something for almost any kind of fan -- except, of course, zealous supporters whose teams suffered sudden, sometimes agonizing defeat. As dan notes, three of four series wrapped up in the minimal two games -- with the one still alive not the one I'd have expected. It was a wild, hectic day, and the gamut of emotions was covered -- boredom, excitement, ecstasy, agony, nostalgia. Not bad for an opening round.

I'm retroactively less impressed by Shane Bieber's pitching on Friday, because, based on today, damn near anyone could have kept the Rays at bay. Not that the Guardians were a whole lot more impressive: the two teams together went 14 1/2 innings before scoring, and that doesn't begin to cover their mutual offensive ineptitude. Between them, they only had 11 hits -- 6 for Tampa, 5 for Cleveland -- and 8 walks, which isn't a lot of traffic over 15 innings. The one thing they were good at generating? -- strikeouts, a massive 39 between them (20 Tampa, 19 Cleveland). There were one or two scoring opportunities along the way -- a bases-loaded/no outs 6th which Cleveland managed to squander, and a Rays man-at-third in the 12th foiled by a very close out at 1st -- but the game was finally settled by a bottom 15th home run from rookie Oscar Gonzalez.

The Seattle/Toronto game, over which okri has expressed such angst, might as well have been a different sport. Run-starved crowds in Cleveland could see on the scoreboard that the Jays had run off to, first, a 4-0 lead, then an 8-1 seeming blowout. The latter score was helped along by an intentional walk, something Bill James has long preached is stupid strategy, a premise borne out today. It didn't seem it would matter, however: despite a mid-innings Seattle home run, the score stood 9-5 Toronto going into the bottom of the 8th.

Blue Jay manager Schneider tried to get a few outs from middle reliever Bass before going to his ace closer Romano, but Bass didn't cooperate, giving up a quick 3 hits and a run. Romano had to come in anyway for 6 outs, and he compounded the problem by giving up a single of his own -- making it bases loaded, no outs, the go-ahead run at the plate. It seemed he might escape, after consecutive strikeouts of Santana and Moore. But Crawford then floated one of those "headed to no man's land" pop-ups that led to a nasty collision between Bo Bichette and (more seriously) George Springer and, more important for game purposes, all 3 runners scoring, tying the game at 9. Romano got out of the inning without further damage, but the Jays did nothing in the bottom of the inning, and Romano, by now exhausted, gave up two doubles in the 9th, creating the run that won the series for the Mariners. I can only imagine how devastated fans are in Toronto -- a season for which they had such hopes ending with a kick in the stomach. (And the Seattle players, quite gracelessly, rubbed it in by doing a circle dance on the Rogers Centre field. Save it for the clubhouse, guys.)

It's amazing to me that two AL East teams are now out of the running without winning a single game between them. I said I thought this series had some upset potential -- and I greatly wonder how Seattle will perform against Houston -- but you never expect a day like today.

The Mets didn't get a great start out of deGrom -- he gave up two 1-run leads over the first few innings -- but he went 6 innings of only two runs...far better than Blake Snell, who couldn't finish off Met at bats with any kind of efficiency, and was out with over 90 pitches by the 4th. His successors were considerably more generous to Met batters, surrendering 4 runs in the 8th, making it a seeming blowout...except Buck Showalter rather ineptly deployed his bullpen. He'd had closer Edwin Diaz pitch the 7th (heart of the order was coming up), then took him out after the lead was extended, only to find 9th inning man Ottavino ineffective, giving up a run and loading the bases. They got out of it, but it didn't seem the sort of game where the tying run should get to the plate.

I said from the start I thought the Mets should definitely win this series, and I still expect that outcome tomorrow. But, between the big win last night and the late rally tonight, the Padres have won my respect, and it's not impossible they have a surprise in them.

It turned out the Cardinals/Phillies series was over after that shocking 9th inning rally on Friday, simply because the Cardinals never put another run across the plate. The Phillies didn't exactly hammer the ball themselves -- they got one run on a Harper homer, another on a Schwarber sac fly -- but that was plenty. The only thing positive to say about the game is that both Pujols (in the 8th) and Molina (in the 9th) got hits in their final St. Louis plate appearances, a nice send-off for the (now) stars of yesteryear. The problem was, the putative stars of today, Goldschmidt and Arenado, were absolute no-shows, especially in those final innings, and that's why the team is (unexpectedly) going home early. I don't know that I'd go as far as dan, thinking of it as the shocker of the tournament to date. But it certainly isn't how I saw things going.

A lot less time will be wasted tomorrow: Mets/Padres, late afternoon from what I hear. Then it''s on to series with more meat on them.

[danfrank]

Wow, 2 days in and 3 teams already eliminated. I would not have bet on Seattle over the Jays but that’s a minor upset compared to the Phillies eliminating the Cards in 2 Games at Busch. If the Padres had beaten the Mets tonight that would have been the ultimate collapse, but I’m glad it didn’t happen. I’m looking forward to that particular Game 3.

[Okri]

Crushing defeats.. it's the Toronto DNA.

[Mister Tee]

A full day of baseball; you couldn't watch all of it, even if so inclined, as games overlapped. This summary is based some on watching, some just catching up. Having all three games at home seemed like a huge advantage for the top seeds (weird, to have that NCAA term make its way into baseball), but today wasn't much support for the notion, as three road teams triumphed, some in shocking ways.

I stepped out to the store during the Tampa Bay/Cleveland opener, and managed to miss all the action: a Tampa Bay home run in the top of the 6th from Siri (yes, I checked: that's actually his name), an offsetting 2-run shot from Jose Ramirez in the bottom. The rest was Shane Bieber (with late help from closer Clase) slightly outpitching Tampa's McClanahan. Cleveland's top offensive and pitching stars combined to make Cleveland the one successful home team on the day.

Starting pitching was also excellent in the Cardinals/Phillies game, with Zach Wheeler and Jose Quintana putting up zeroes inning after inning. The game seemed like it'd turn on a pinch-hit 2-run homer by St. Louis' Tepez off reliever Alvarado in the 7th. But the St. Louis closer, Helsey, who'd been brought in to get the last 2 outs in the 8th, seemingly ran out of gas in the 9th. After a walk, two singles and a hit batsman brought a run home, Pallante relieved him, but failed to do the job -- only really surrendering one infield-in hit, but a subsequent fielder's choice, a second ground ball (ruled a single but should have been an error on Arenado, who "ole!"-d it), and a Schwarber sac fly made it 6 runs in the inning, from which the Cards couldn't recover. They said on the broadcast it was the first time St. Louis had blown a 9th inning lead of 2 runs or more in its entire proud post-season history.

Pitching was again the story on one side in Toronto, where Mariners starter Luis Castillo (someone the Yankees coveted) pitched shutout ball into the 8th. His Seattle teammates had staked him to a 3 run lead in the very first inning, and added another in the 5th -- more than enough for reliever Munoz to wrap up the game.

One pitcher again shone brightly in the Mets/Padres match-up, but it wasn't veteran Max Scherzer, who looked off from the start: surrendering home runs in the 1st and 2nd that gave the Padres a 3-0 lead, then totally collapsing in the 5th, giving up two more long balls to make the score 7-0. Opposite number Yu Darvish had sticky situations in the first two innings, while it was still close -- both times, the Mets got a runner to 3rd with 1 out -- but in each case, Darvish escaped via strikeouts, and he cruised from there.

3-game do-or-die series are pretty scary things, and each team that lost today has reason to be scared -- Met fans are panicking, very wary of what deGrom has to offer just now -- but things can just as suddenly flip: win the next game and it's sudden death for everybody, with home teams regaining their advantage for that rubber game. Tomorrow tells us just how interesting these series get.

[danfrank]

Beautiful summary, Tee. Thanks for that.

As you mentioned, my Giants had a precipitous drop this year. There’s no good explanation for it except regression to the mean. With pretty much the same players (save Posey, not an insignificant factor) and the same managerial strategies, this year’s model just couldn’t reproduce the magic of last season, when everything just seemed to click. The truth is the Giants don’t have the star players that you can count on. They have a lot of money to spend this offseason; the trick is convincing sluggers to come to a pitcher’s park.

Like most even casual baseball fans, I was following Aaron Judge with great interest. His season was just incredible. Everyone gets excited about home runs—and what’s not to like about that kind of display of power—but Judge did so much more than hit it out of the park. Of course he came closer to winning that elusive triple crown than anyone since Cabrera won it a decade ago. It would be easy, however, to construct another type of triple crown from among other important stats. A quick perusal of this year’s final stats on baseball-reference.com shows that though Judge had JUST the second-best batting average in the AL, he was first in home runs, rbis, OPS (the granddaddy hitter’s stat, IMO), slugging, on-base percentage, walks, runs scored, times on base, total bases, extra base hits, and WAR. He’s also good defensively, and by all counts a nice guy. Add to his appeal he grew up in Northern California rooting for my Giants. The Giants would love to spend all their money on him, though I doubt that anyone will outbid the Yankees. He has the opportunity to be a Yankees legend (like Mantle and Jeter, as you mentioned, Tee) and why would anyone want to give that up?

As for the postseason I don’t have any great guesses though I would say watch out for the Braves again. That may be wishful thinking as I really don’t want the overstuffed and cocky Dodgers to win. In the AL I’ll root for one of the underdogs, the Rays or Mariners, to go as far as possible. Regardless, it will be fun to watch. Lots of great stars on display this year.

[Mister Tee]

After two kind of funky seasons -– COVID and its variants eliminating most of one, playing havoc with schedules/players in the next –- baseball got back to fans-in-the-stands-normal all year (albeit a week or so late, after a lockout barely settled in time for an abbreviated Spring Training). With now yet a third Wild Card added to the mix, pennant races in the way we old-timers remember them don’t really exist –- waiting to see which team just misses the sixth spot, often barely over .500, isn’t exactly a thrill. And even division races were decided pretty comfortably and early -– with the exception of the NL East, the last-minute reversal of which has caused much NY angst. Some teams we’ve grown used to seeing in recent post-seasons have qualified once again, though a few shockingly declined, and one team –- the Mariners -– made the playoffs for the first time since their 116-win 2001, apparently the longest drought of any current team. On individual levels, several superstars switched teams (Freddie Freeman and Max Scherzer over the winter, Juan Soto mid-season); Shohei Ohtani continued to deliver his one-of-a-kind two-way play; two aging veterans hit career milestones (Miggy Cabrera 3000 hits, Albert Pujols 700 home runs – plus 3 more for good measure). Oh, and one local fellow broke a record you MAY have heard a bit about in the last 48 hours.

All of which leads us to the season’s ultimate raison d’etre, the now-even-longer post-season derby, which begins tomorrow with 4 best-of-three-rounds.

The NL all-Wild Card round will feature the now-Soto-possessing Padres in three games at Citi Field with the “how did we blow a 10-game division lead?” Mets. The Padres suffered a big early blow when Fernando Tatis Jr. was booted from the roster for steroid use; they tried to offset this by trading much of their farm system for Juan Soto at the August 1 deadline, but Soto has had disappointing numbers in the past two months. Nonetheless, with help from Manny Machado and Yu Darvish, the team managed enough wins (89) to snatch the second Wild Card.

The Mets had an altogether different season. Despite (as usual) losing Jacob deGrom for a significant stretch -– and also missing addition Max Scherzer some -– the team racked up a huge mid-season lead, largely thanks to infielders Alonso, McNeil and Lindor. They maintained this lead well into September; in fact, they carried it into this past week -- when they went into Atlanta, got swept, and essentially gave away the division. Given the new set-up, this means that, rather than taking a four-day break, they have to win 2-of-3 from the Padres just to qualify for the rest of the tournament.

The Mets ought to at least get past San Diego. They’re 12 games better over the season, and all three games are at Citi Field. But, as we’ve seen throughout baseball history, and especially in recent years, anything can happen in a short series.

The other NL series is between the year’s worst qualifier (by W-L), the Phillies, and the Central Division winner Cardinals. The Phillies got a great (46 homer) year out of Kyle Schwarber, and solid seasons from Bryce Harper (when he played) and J.T. Realmuto, but they were never close to the division hunt, and mainly took the final spot because last year’s NL Central-winning Brewers stumbled badly over the last two weeks.

The -Cardinals – who, remember, finished extremely strong last year -– took over their division for good in late summer and just kept extending the lead down the stretch. The team got stellar seasons from Paul Goldschmidt and Nolen Arenado (interesting, the number of teams whose offensive stars are on the infield), but probably took more joy from the late-career resurgence of homegrown Albert Pujols. The lasting image of the team this year should be Pujols, Yadier Molina, and Adam Wainwright leaving the field together in their final home-park regular season game. Pujols came into the season announcing it was his retirement year, and the team probably thought it would amount to fan-service/giving him an occasional at bat -- but he had different ideas: running up better numbers this year than in any season during his free-agent years in Anaheim. This is something of a St. Louis tradition: Lou Brock, in his announced retirement year, finished with his best numbers in several seasons.

The Cardinals certainly ought to win this.

Over in the AL, the all-Wild Card round features two teams quite close in record, though there may be some deception to those numbers.

The Blue Jays came into the season thinking division crown. Hell, a Yankee site I frequent predicted them, unanimously. If we don’t remember, the team last year missed the Wild Card by a mere 1 game, and that was with under-performing their run differential by 8! They brought back the same powerhouse line-up (MVP runner-up Vlad Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, George Springer) and got a great year out of pitcher Alek Manoah. Yet they fell well behind the early-season juggernaut Yankees, and, while they made up ground and managed to finish second, it was by a fairly wide margin -- the Yankees’ clincher coming with over a week left in the season.

The Jays will face the Mariners, who won the exact same number of games as they did last year – though, to remind you, last year, run differential said they’d overperformed by a staggering 14 wins, where, this year, the numbers say they more or less deserved their position. The Mariners -– who won their clincher with a walkoff home run -– got a big lift from rookie centerfielder Julio Rodriguez, and gave away the farm to acquire Reds’ pitcher Luis Castillo at the trading deadline.

The deception I mentioned: Toronto, of course, plays in the AL East, and AL East teams play a FAR tougher schedule than the other two divisions. 8 AL teams played .500 or better this year, and 4 of them play in the East. The 5th AL East team, Boston, would also have topped .500 if not for the bad losing record against the Jays and Yankees…and they still have a better record than 6 of the 7 other non-qualifiers from the Central/West. Toronto has played 23 more games against .500-or-better teams than Seattle, and seems overall a better team. Having all 3 games in Rogers Centre should give them an advantage. But this is one series where I think an upset is possible, and it bears watching.

The newly-christened Cleveland Guardians were rewarded for their step away from team-name racism with a largely unexpected division crown. Most came into the year expecting the talented White Sox to repeat their 2021 run, with the Twins the more likely runner-up. The White Sox got a solid year out of Jose Abreu, but had disappointing results (and much IL time) from Tim Anderson and Yuan Moncada… but it’s hard not to think the appointment of way-over-the-hill Tony LaRussa as manager was the truly fatal error. LaRussa pulled out for health reasons late in the year (and is now retired fully), but the damage was done by then. The Twins got a batting title out of Luis Arraez, and decent seasons from infielders Correa/Miranda/Urshela, but not much out of their pitching staff. Their hopes mainly rested on no one taking hold of the division, and the Guardians foiled that plan. Cleveland has a genuine star in Jose Ramirez, well-above average players throughout their line-up, and a couple of strong pitchers in Bieber, McKenzie and Quantrill, and will have home field throughout this first round.

Their opponent will be the Tampa Bay Rays, who continue to make the playoffs every year on a limited budget. They were hobbled some by the poor attendance record of shortstop Wander Franco –- their best player when fully healthy -– but got plenty from their line-up of Mike Zunino, Brandon Lowe, Yandy Diaz, etc. The record says they were 6 games worse than the Guardians, but run differential says they’re closer to even, and, once again, you have that playing-in-the-AL-East handicap -– the Rays played 17 more games against .500-or-better teams. I wouldn’t be surprised by either outcome of this series.

After the Wild Card round, the 4 best-record division winners will join the party.

The World Champion Braves, as noted in the Mets’ section, started the season sluggishly –- 10 games behind by June -– but, from that point on, had the majors’ best record. The team lost its MVP to the pilfering Dodgers, but replaced him pretty well with Matt Olson; had an abbreviated but solid season from Ronald Acuna Jr.; and got generally top-notch performances from unheralded players like Austin Riley and Michael Harris, as well as excellent pitching from Max Fried and Kyle Wright. No one should under-estimate their potential in the post-season.

The Dodgers once again fattened up on other teams’ MVPs (Freddie Freeman joining Mookie Betts), adding to their traditional stellar pitching, and ended up shattering their team record for wins (111 -– with run differential saying it should have been 116!). This time around, there was no contender threatening to overtake them, as the Posey-less Giants dropped a startling 26 wins from last year, falling behind even the Padres, and finishing out of the money. We’ve of course grown well-used to seeing the Dodgers in post-season this past decade, but also used to their falling short in the end (with the exception of 2020’s ersatz tournament). I think the pressure on them will be enormous this year to be the 1998 Yankees, and not the 2001 Mariners.

The dastardly Astros, still unpunished, came back for another excellent season, propelled by familiar names –- Altuve, Bregman, Alvarez -– and a pitching staff led by the extraordinary Justin Verlander, who, uncannily, came back from Tommy John surgery at retirement age, and had a likely Cy Young season. (The shame of the Astros is they’ve had a ton of talent throughout this era, and didn’t need to cheat.) They finished with the best record in the league, though that’s somewhat enabled by playing in the AL West -– 57 games against the dismal Angels, Rangers and A’s gives quite a leg up. But no one under-estimates them.

Which brings me, at last, to my team, about which I’ll have a bit to say. (And yes, I’ll be mentioning That Guy.)

Yankee fans of my acquaintance grumbled mightily when the team didn’t do a huge free agent upgrade pre-season. Re-signing Rizzo at 1st was viewed as the cheap option, with Olson and Freeman available. People looked at the starting rotation and freaked out – how much could you expect out of TJ-recovering Severino? Who knew if Nestor Cortes was a fluke last season? Gary Sanchez was traded to the Twins for Josh Donaldson and a mystery infielder named Isiah Kiner-Falefa, leaving catching in the hands of former back-up Kyle Higashioka and (after an instant injury to expected second banana Ben Rortvedt) emergency pick-up Jose Trevino. DJ LeMahieu and Gleyber Torres were coming off very disappointing seasons (Gleyber two in a row, counting the brief 2020), and many were ready to cut bait on them. As noted above, most Knowledgeable Fans picked Toronto to take the division, with not a few slotting the Yanks third or fourth.

Almost from the start, the team proved them wrong. After a lackadaisical 5-5 start, they took off. An 11-game win steak put them at 18-6. They got to 52 wins before they notched 20 losses. Despite a dip just before the All-Star break (created chiefly by four 1-run losses in 6 games, a trend that was to continue), they went into the hiatus a spectacular 64-28, which projected to 113 wins. Nestor, it turned out, hadn’t been a 1-year illusion. Severino was, indeed, back. Rizzo was at least in the ballpark of Olson/Freeman numbers. Gleyber and DJ were hitting like themselves again. Stanton was having, by his standards, a soft year, but still made the All-Star roster, and maintained a stunning ability to seemingly flick his wrists and generate opposite-field home runs. That throw-in catcher, Trevino, was not only a master framer (highest rated in the league), but a surprisingly clutch batter who delivered multiple walk-offs. Matt Carpenter, out of baseball for two years, was reborn, delivering over and over, especially with power to Yankee Stadium’s fabled short right field porch. Clay Holmes, last year’s set-up man, took over as closer in Chapman’s absence, and delivered Mariano Rivera-worthy numbers…while Mike King came along to take over that set-up slot, and be close to untouchable. The rest of the bullpen was almost as dominant; according to stats guru Katie Sharp, the Yankees were, through that first half, the team least likely to surrender a lead, and the most likely to overcome one. (On that score, the team could count dealing Blue Jay closer Jordan Romano his first blown save –- a 3-run 9th inning homer by a player to be named later –- and two late comebacks against the Astros ending in walk-offs.) There were disappointments –- Kiner-Falefa (instantly christened IKF) wasn’t a vacuum cleaner at short, and, despite some key hits, a mediocre bat; Josh Donaldson was short of his MVP form, and Joey Gallo and Aaron Hicks well worse than that. But, with everything going so well -– a lead up to 15 games in the division, best record in baseball -- people barely noticed.

Things started south literally during All-Star week: Stanton was MVP in the game, but put onto the IL immediately after, a place he remained till September. Clay Holmes hit a perhaps inevitable extended bump (and did a brief IL stint himself). More damagingly, Mike King had something pop in his arm, and walked off the mound, done for the year. Carpenter suffered significant damage to his foot, and was gone by late July (expected to return only for the playoffs). Severino, coming up against an innings limit, felt soreness, and was bumped to the 60-day IL; Nestor also was IL-ed. Trade deadline moves backfired, as pitcher Frankie Montas and outfielder Andrew Beintendi were first largely ineffective, then lost to injury. Rizzo also spent significant time unavailable. Because bad news multiplies, both LeMahieu and Gleyber had their offensive production fall off a cliff (for 6 weeks, late July to September 1st, Gleyber had the worst OPS in baseball). The team’s record suffered significantly -– they went 9-20 over this stretch -– though some of that was the afore-mentioned ill luck in close games: according to run differential, the team played 7 wins below expectation. Only the won-loss record counts, though, and, heading into Labor Day, the Rays had closed to 3 ½ games, with the Jays not far behind. The most pessimistic fans had visions of replicating the Red Sox’s infamous 1978 collapse.

It didn’t happen. Nestor came back. Gleyber returned to life, as if those 6 weeks had been a bad dream. A rookie, Oswaldo Cabrera, came up and energized the team at multiple positions. Stanton finally made it back, and his very presence (more than his iffy production) lifted the team. From August 20th till the night they clinched, the team went 22-11 (16-5 post-Labor Day). It wasn’t pretty for a while there, but they won the division comfortably.

What was pretty -– all season, including/maybe especially during the worst stretch, and undoubtedly during the nail-it-down period -– was (yes, I’m finally going to mention him) Aaron Judge. Judge has been beloved of fans from his rookie season, but this year he’s ascended to Jeter/Mantle level: the old “he could run for mayor and nobody’d beat him” thing. From early on, he was putting balls out of the park at a prodigious level, and, even by mid-season, people were starting to project forward, think about some sort of record-setting season. This while he was maintaining the highest batting average of his career (he ended up .311, second in the league), and playing centerfield for a significant portion of the time. During that late-July-to-late-August stretch, when the line-up could barely muster a quorum of major leaguers, let alone all-stars, Judge kept the team aloft, shooting his numbers even higher than they’d been. This culminated, of course, in the home run chase. As I said, fans had begun to murmur about a run at the Ruth/Maris numbers fairly early on, but, at the same time, dreams of a 120-win season were being entertained, and that didn’t turn out so well. This part of the fantasy, however, didn’t desert us. Over Labor Day weekend, Judge hit his 52nd and 53rd -- which had special resonance for me: my first-ever trip to Yankee Stadium, with the Cub Scouts, came on Labor Day weekend 1961, when I saw Maris hit 52 and 53. This was getting close enough to taste. The pace continued: numbers 54 and 55 against the Twins, numbers 56 and 57 in Boston, 58 and 59 in Milwaukee. And then, back at the Stadium, against Pittsburgh, number 60.

I guess I need to pause a moment here and address the elephant in the room. In look-it-up-in-the-book terms, the literal record at stake here was somewhat small potatoes: the American League or Yankee team record -- hardly worth the intense national coverage it received from that night on. Clearly, many viewed this as something more. The home run record, from the time Ruth set it in 1927, has been the ultimate baseball shiny object, and, unhappily, each of the times it’s been broken, there have been contextual issues surrounding it that caused controversy. In 1961, Maris bested it with 61, but, as was widely bandied about at the time, didn’t do it till Game 162 -- 8 more games than teams had played in 1927. When Mark McGwire shattered that mark in 1998 – and when Bonds topped that in 2001 – there was acceptance at first (the Maris family turned up and honored McGwire when the deed was done). But, when the steroid scandal broke wide open -- and people looked back and said, Hmm, come to think of it, numbers for those years look wildly out of whack with reality -- there was an ex post facto shroud of doubt thrown over any numbers above 61 (the fact there’d been 6 of them over a 4-year period probably should have roused suspicions earlier, but that’s another issue).

In any event, with no such suspicions hovering over Judge (and please, don’t let there ever be), that meant, in the eyes of many, when he hit number 60 in Game 147, he was the first player to actually match the Babe, without assistance from extra games or chemicals. And, surely, he’d crash right through both the Ruth and Maris records… Except, of course, baseball isn’t that easy. Pitchers -– especially Red Sox pitchers -– suddenly became extremely reluctant to throw strikes to the guy. No home runs in 6 straight games – but his on-base percentage in those games was close to .600, from all the walks. (Home fans began booing as soon as a pitcher went 1-0 on the guy.) Finally, in Game 155 –- up in Toronto, one game too late for besting the Babe on his own schedule -– he got to 61. Then went through another drought (by then he was getting pitches, but was so out of sync from being pitched around, he wasn’t capitalizing at his early September rate). At last, though, he knocked out number 62 on this past Tuesday night, to general euphoria. Is it the Real Record? I look at it as something of the opposite of 1961: there, the record was broken numerically, but Commissioner Ford Frick’s asterisk meant there’d always be doubt in people’s minds; here, the number was clearly not breached: Bonds’ 73 remains in the books and unreachable. But a lot of people are applying asterisks in their minds, and are celebrating Judge as the real thing. Work it out for yourself.

Anyway -- to finally wrap up this elaborate post: the Yankees, thanks vastly to Judge, finished with 99 wins -- 7 fewer than the Astros, but run differential says the two teams should have identical records (and the Astros, once again, play a much easier schedule -- the Yankees played 25 more games against .500-or-better teams). Many see the two as inevitably squaring off in the ALCS…but we, of course, have no idea if either team will get that far. I’ll speak more of this when the teams have played some games.

It all begins tomorrow.