We’re through the wild-card round and almost through the division series. A brief snapshot of some of the more notable performances is after the jump.
Wild Card
Three of the series went the distance and the fourth was, as expected, a bit of a mismatch.
The Guardians made an historic late season charge to overtake the faltering Tigers, a run that included winning 5 of 6 against Detroit. Their reward for claiming the AL Central title – one more series against the Michigan side. When it mattered most, the Tigers arrested their swoon to advance to the division round.
- Tarik Skubal‘s 14 K’s in game 1 set an MLB record for a wild card game and tied Joe Coleman‘s Tiger record for any post-season game. The Tigers capitalized on Guardian errors for their two runs, but Cleveland failed to do so when a Tiger 9th inning miscue put the tying run at 3rd with nobody out.
- Cleveland blew open a tied game with a pair of eighth inning homers to take game 2, the kill shot a 3-run blast by catcher Bo Naylor; it was the Guardians first ever 3 or 4-run homer in the 8th inning or later when facing elimination. For the Tigers, it was a case of deja vu, as the Guardians also beat them with a monster blast (Lane Thomas‘s grand slam) to clinch Cleveland’s triumph in game 5 of last season’s ALDS.
- Despite his top bullpen arms being used in both of the preceding games, Guardian manager Stephen Vogt had a quick hook for Game 3 starter Slade Cecconi, pulling him from a scoreless game with one out in the 3rd and runners at the corners. The game stayed close until the 7th when Cleveland’s Hunter Gaddis, pitching for the third straight day, couldn’t get out of a bases loaded, one out jamb, allowing three straight knocks to plate four and send Detroit to the ALDS.
The Yankees and Red Sox renewed their perennial rivalry, meeting for the 6th time in the post-season, and the second time in the wildcard round. The teams split the first two games, both tight and low-scoring, with the Yankees claiming the rubber match with a 4-0 whitewash.
- Staff aces Garret Crochet and Max Fried dueled in the opener, with Fried leaving after six innings with a 1-0 lead. But, three batters into the 7th and that lead was gone, as Boston rallied against the Yankee bullpen for a 3-1 win. Crochet’s 11 K’s and zero walks marked just the third post-season start against the Yankees with double-digit strikeouts and nary a walk allowed; curiously, all three games were series openers at Yankee Stadium.
- Jazz Chisholm Jr. channeled his inner Enos Slaughter, scampering home from first on a long single to break an eighth inning 3-3 tie, as the Yankees evened the series with a taut 4-3 win.
- The finale matched two starters making their post-season debuts, the third such winner-take-all game, but the first in which those pitchers were both rookies. Boston’s Connelly Early (the only major leaguer with his first and last names both ending in “ly”) didn’t make it out of the 4th inning, as four hits, a walk and an error in that frame plated four for the home side. Yankee Cam Schlittler shut down the Red Sox over eight innings, whiffing a dozen with nary a walk or run allowed to tie the post-season record for strikeouts in such a start.
In a series with only eleven runs scoring in three games, the Cubs prevailed over the Padres, by 6-5 in runs and 2-1 in games, to advance to an NLDS matchup against the division rival Brewers. Batters were mostly subdued by bullpen arms, as only one of the six starters lasted even five innings, with the Padre bullpen covering 15⅔ of 25 innings in the series, and Cub relievers pitching 17⅔ of 27 frames.
- Back-to-back jacks leading off the fifth inning put the Cubs ahead 2-1, en route to a 3-1 victory in the opener. That start to an inning was a post-season first for both clubs.
- The fifth inning again proved decisive in game 2, as a two-run blast by Manny Machado extended the Padre lead to 3-0 and ended scoring for the game. With that result the Padres recorded their fourth consecutive wild card series with a team shutout.
- In the finale, the Cubs jumped out to an early 2-0 lead, and the teams exchanged leadoff home runs late for a final 3-1 tally. Alas, the key play in the game may have been made by an umpire. After Jackson Merrill‘s leadoff jack in the 9th put the Padres on the board, Xander Bogaerts next worked a full count before getting punched out on a dubious 3rd strike call by home plate umpire D.J. Reyburn. Had a ball been called instead, and the inning played out as it did, the Padres would have tied the game with two out and the go-ahead run in scoring position.
The best-of-three wild card format was adopted to prevent a one-and-done matchup between two mismatched opponents, as had occurred in 2021 when the 106 win Dodgers faced the 90 win Cardinals. So, this year the 93 win Dodgers had to twice beat the 83 win Reds, which they did with dispatch in a pair of one-sided contests.
- Five Dodger blasts powered the home side to a 10-5 victory in the opener. Included were two apiece by Shohei Ohtani and Teoscar Hernandez, the Dodgers’ second post-season game with two players having multi-home run games. But, it was the first time for any team with two such players in the opening game of any post-season series.
- In game 2, the Reds scored the first two and last two runs of the game. In between, LA plated eight, led by three doubles from Mookie Betts, tying the NL post-season record now shared by 13 players. (Quiz: which player holds the AL record for doubles in a post-season game?) The Reds issued intentional walks to three different Dodger hitters, tying the post-season record for games with the DH rule in effect; the only other such game in which a team has clinched a series was Jack Morris‘s 10-inning shutout of the Braves to win the 1991 World Series for the Twins.
Watch this space for a future recap of the four Division series.
