When major league baseball relented to the siren’s song of fan pressure, which just happened to coincide with incremental ESPN money, to expand the playoff field to include a third wild card and, ultimately, a full best-of-three series for wild card participants as opposed to the college basketball-like one-and-done that had been in place for nearly a decade, they added what they thought was a viable goal in allowing the higher seeds–the division winner in the mix and the best record among the non-winners–to host the entire series. This was driven as much by the need to shoehorn these games into as narrow a timeframe as possible, so eliminating travel was much a concession as it was a reward. And for those fifth and sixth seeds–well, if they actually wanted to give their fans the joy of a home post-season game, they’d have to figure out a way to win at least two more games on the road. Tough noogies for now.
Well, guess what? In the first two years of this format, five of the eight series played to date have indeed gone to the road team, all but one of them a two-game sweep. And yesterday’s quadruplet of contests featured three more road teams drawing first blood.
Lest you think I’m as much as a homer as perhaps some other writers you may encounter in this space, I took as much notice with the games played earlier in the day than the one I will confess to being most interested in. And if you’re a fan of an underdog more than even the game, I’d hope you had been paying attention, too.
MLB.com’s Jason Beck chronicled what went down in Houston:
The Tigers’ pitching chaos can wait. Tarik Skubal brought order to Game 1, even if the ninth inning flirted with anarchy.
The procession of openers, bulk pitchers and specialists that helped Detroit reach the postseason for the first time in 10 years will have two chances to lift the club to its first playoff series win since 2013 thanks to Skubal, whose first career postseason start lived up to the billing. With six scoreless innings and six strikeouts, the American League’s pitching Triple Crown winner humbled a Houston lineup that has made a ritual of October baseball, sending the Tigers to a 3-1 win on Tuesday afternoon in Game 1 of their AL Wild Card Series at Minute Maid Park.
Throw in the delicious irony of former Astros skipper A.J. Hinch now in the opponents’ dugout orchestrating all of this magic, largely with a crop of rookies and inexperienced talent among position players, and it makes for a truly compelling storyline.
Meanwhile, those poor Orioles, who were victimized by eventual World Champion Texas in two straight last year despite a 101-win regular season, are getting a sense of deja vu. MLB.com’s Anne Rogers:
Cole Ragans felt the adrenaline surge through him as he stepped on the mound in the bottom of the first inning Tuesday afternoon and glanced around at a nearly full Camden Yards buzzing with excitement for an Orioles offense that was due to bat. That’s quite a bit of pressure for the Royals lefty making his first career postseason appearance.
Instead of letting the adrenaline rattle him, he let it fuel him. And in the Royals’ first postseason game in nine years, he pitched exactly like an ace.
Ragans tossed six scoreless innings in Kansas City’s 1-0 win over the Orioles on Tuesday in Game 1 of the American League Wild Card Series at Camden Yards, striking out eight batters without a walk.
OK, we’re six hundred-ish words deep, so I think I can be cut a smidgen of slack if I nervously titter at what transpired for a team literally running on adrenaline and fumes which, for the second straight day and in another city, rallied from an early deficit to score eight runs and defeat a determined opponent on the road. Anthony DiComo of MLB.com:
For the first four innings of National League Wild Card Series Game 1 on Tuesday, the Brewers had run wild at American Family Field, much as their manager Pat Murphy promised they would. The Mets never managed to stop them. Instead, they found a different way to counteract all that chaos — by engineering some of their own.
Tyrone Taylor had yet to cross home plate and already Jose Iglesias was beating his chest. This was hustle, plain and simple. This was the Mets fighting fire with fire.
With two men on base and two outs in the fifth, Iglesias hit a sharp ground ball to first base, where Rhys Hoskins smothered it and flipped to pitcher Joel Payamps. That all seemed to happen in slow motion compared to the way Iglesias was sprinting down the line. In his rush to beat a sliding Iglesias to the bag, Payamps momentarily forgot about Taylor, who had rounded third with aggression and was barreling home. By the time Payamps realized his mistake, Taylor was already well down the line with the tying run in what became an 8-4 Mets win over the Brewers.
Now I’m not getting all THAT excited just yet because, after all, the Mets were one of the five home team in a wild card round who lost to an opponent in the only series to date that was extended to a winner-take-all third game. But as Beck reminded:
In the brief history of the best-of-three Wild Card Series, teams that win Game 1 have gone on to advance 14 out of 16 times. Teams that have won it on the road have advanced eight out of 10 times.
I’ll noodle on that as I nervously await what today will bring. Mock me if you choose.
Courage…