I love the wild card game. Maybe you don’t! That’s fine, baseball has room for diversity of opinion, but me? I love it. Tuesday’s contest between the Yankees and Twins was a reminder of why I feel this way about MLB’s most recent postseason innovation.
Long live Baseball Thunderdome
Wednesday’s Say Hey, Baseball focuses on the AL and NL Wild Card games.
Photo by Elsa/Getty Images
It’s Baseball Thunderdome. It’s chaos contained within a three-hour* stretch guaranteed to begin with glee and end with heartbreak. The Twins were the underdogs, and they literally came out swinging, kicking off the postseason with a Brian Dozier leadoff dinger. Another homer followed, and Yankees’ starter Luis Severino was chased from the game. That would be about all for the Twins, though: that early glee led to heartbreak, just like it was supposed to, and the better team ended up advancing.
*Well, hypothetically. That’s what the TV listings say, anyway.
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The Twins have nothing to be ashamed of. They were one-and-doned, sure, but they lost 103 games in 2016, then made it to the postseason. The wild card isn’t some easy way to make the postseason anymore: you might be able to sneak yourself a chance without winning 90 games, as the Twins did, but you still have to earn your way in and pay a price with this brief, win-or-go-home gatekeeping round. And, as Grant Brisbee wrote following the AL iteration of the wild card game, that’s a positive.
The best part? We get to do it all over again tonight. The Rockies can be a real good team sometimes, and they can also be a middling one. If they get hot at the right time, they have as good of a chance as anyone in the postseason to win it all. They’ll take on the Diamondbacks, who would have won the NL West a year ago with their 2017 record. It’s a clash of the kind of wild card the new system allows vs. the one the initial wild card let in, just like Twins-Yankees happened to be.
And just like Twins-Yankees, this one is going to begin with hope and optimism and glee and devolve into heartbreak for one side, too, all in a matter of a few hours.
- The Yankees had to pay a price in order to advance to the ALDS, as they were literally one out away from having their bullpen pitch the entire wild card game. That’s just one of the reasons Brisbee also loves the wild card round, though.
- Obviously there were plays more important to the conclusion of the AL Wild Card game than this one, but this is the one everyone is going to remember thanks to the look on David Robertson’s face when he realizes his catcher took a baseball right to the beans.
- Las Vegas native Chasen Shreve threw out the ceremonial first pitch prior to Tuesday’s game as Yankee Stadium, honoring the victims of this week’s tragic mass shooting.
- Here are all the most important stats from the AL Wild Card game.
- And here is your ALDS schedule, now that we know which team the Indians will be facing.
- ESPN accidentally made art with a graphic.
- Zack Greinke is here to reminder reporters that winning is good and losing is bad.
- J.D. Martinez hit 29 homers for the D-Backs. Martinez joined the D-Backs in July.
- Derek Jeter’s office has two iPads and hand sanitizer and Charlotte Wilder has questions.
- MLB is partnering with YouTube and their streaming TV service for the World Series, because even MLB is aware they need to figure out non-cable means of keeping up their revenue streams if they are to keep the bubble from bursting.
- Sam Miller is doing the important work: grading every postseason teams’ meme.
- The 2017 season was an unintentional success for the Tigers.
- This series doesn’t start until Thursday, but Craig Kimbrel’s usage will be key for the Red Sox against the Astros.
- Here’s a preview of the NL Wild Card game from the D-Backs’ perspective, and one from the Rockies’ point of view.
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