CAROLYN MULLARKEY
Special to The Leader
It is officially October, and that is music to any baseball fan’s ears because that means it is officially playoff season.
It kicked off last week with Brewers at Nationals for the first wild card game.
The Brewers might have had a great record during the regular season, despite losing Christian Yelich. Had he not gotten injured, the result of this game could have been extremely different.
The game started with a quick lead in two innings by the Brewers 3-0. The Nationals managed to score a run in the third inning, making it 3-1 for the majority of the game. It appeared the Nats were buried and the Brewers would proceed on to the NLDS. It was the fatal mistake of rookie right fielder, Trent Grisham, that allowed a 3-run hit off Juan Solo to bring the Nationals up 4-3 at the bottom of the eighth. It was on a 1-1 pitch in which Solo ripped a line drive directly to RF. Solo was tagged out, but not before the Nats took the lead. The only thing standing in their way of advancing was three more outs, and they succeeded in securing their Wild Card winner title.
It is the first time in five tries since they’ve moved to D.C. that the Nationals have won an elimination game.
The homefield team for the Wild Card game has always been at a disadvantage, but the Nats have now joined the Diamondbacks (2017) and the Pirates (2013) as the only NL teams to have won a home field Wild Card game.
The Brewer’s season is officially over, and they will now prepare for the upcoming off-season.
The second Wild Card game was between the Rays and the Athletics. This game wasn’t nearly as close or as much of a shock and did not have nearly as much excitement. The Rays almost shut out the A’s with a final score of 5-1.
Their bullpen was no match for Oakland and erased their chances of advancing.
Thursday’s games consisted of the Cardinals at Braves and Nationals at Dodgers.
Game one of Cardinals vs. Braves had Atlanta favored by about 51%, so it was a pretty even match which led to a close game, and was just shy of going into extra innings. It was 1-1 at the top of the fifth, both teams scoring in the first few innings. The Braves picked up 2 more runs in the bottom of the sixth, holding a lead of 3-1 for a solid two innings. The Cardinal’s first baseman, Paul Goldschmidt, hit a home run in the top of the eighth and additionally, shortstop Paul DeJong scored, bringing it back to a tie at 3-3. The ninth inning was nothing short of electrifying. It truly captured the essence of the October baseball feeling. The top of the ninth, the Cardinals scored four runs, making it 7-3. It appeared to be over for the Braves at this moment, but they did not go quietly. Ronald Acuña, Jr. hit a HR (455ft.), bringing in a score by him and Billy Hamilton.
Shortly after, Freddie Freeman got another HR, making it 7-6 in the final inning, but they could not get that extra score to bring it into extras.
It was a complete shutout for the NLDS opening game between the Nationals and Dodgers with a final score of 6-0, Dodgers prevailing. Walker Buehler and Max Muncy dominated for the Dodgers at both mound and at plate. Beuhler allowed only one hit over the course of six innings and Muncy brought in three runs.
What also contributed to L.A.’s dominance was the team effort, Gavin Lux and Joc Pederson’s collective two HRs, and primarily, capitalizing on all of the Nats mistakes.
Friday was quite the day for baseball.
There were four games, including game two of both previous nights’ games and opening games of the Twins at Yankees, the Rays at Astros.
Continuing on with game two of Nationals at Dodgers, the Nats surprisingly came out victorious after getting swept the previous game. Washington got the headstart and was up 3-0 in the first two innings. The Dodgers had an opportunity for a comeback and finally, at the bottom of the sixth, Justin Turner hit a sacrifice fly ball to right field so Matt Beaty could score a run, getting them back in the game. The next inning, Muncy did as Muncy does and hit his first postseason home run and 36th HR this year. The Dodgers were only behind by one with the score at 3-2.
Finally, in the top of the eighth, Ryan Zimmerman, the Nat’s first basemen, scored a run off of a single hitter and secured the Nats with winning game two, 4-2.
The Braves brought it back to tie it up, sweeping the Cardinals 3-0 in game two. Ozhaino Albies scored off of Josh Donald’s single in the bottom of the first and, later on in the bottom of the seventh, Adam Duvall hit a HR to CF and brought in Braves’ catcher, Brian McCann.
The opening game of Twins vs. Yankees is the standard postseason story involving both teams.
The Twins had a false hope head start in the first three innings, leading 2-0. The Yankees started bringing it back at the bottom of the third. DJ Lemahieu proved once again that he is a bad man with a bat. He hit a home run in addition to bringing in four runs. Not only did the Yankees have a great night at bat, Judge made two amazing diving catches.
The final score of game one was 10-4, Yankees win.
In game one of the Rays/Astros series, it was a slow start with no runs scored until the bottom of the fifth. The Astros scored and were up 4-0. By the bottom of the sixth the score was 6-0 and the Astros pretty much secured their win, despite the Rays scoring three runs in the top of the eighth, making the final score 6-3.
The Ray’s manager, Kevin Cash, had only one comment after the game: “We got Verlander’d.”
Going into Saturday, it was game two of Astros at Rays and Twins at Yankees.
Game two of Astros/Rays was completely dominated by Gerrit Cole, having 15Ks. Alex Bregman managed to score two runs, including one homerun, and with Yuli Gurriel scoring off of Martín Maldonado’s single, made the Astros win 3-1 having to play serious defense in the ninth, giving up only one score by Austin Meadows.
Game two of Twins at Yankees wasn’t even fair.
Early into the bottom of the third, the Yanks were up 3-0.Gardner, Judge and Lemahieu all scoring. Then, Sir Didi Gregorious sent the Bronx fans into an uproar. With the bases loaded, he hit a grand slam, bringing in Encarnación, Torres and Sánchez. The Yankees were now up 7-0 in three innings with still one more score to be made, making the final score at the bottom of the third 8-0. The Twins did not even go down fighting. They only scored two runs for the rest of the game while the Yankees remained at 8.
The final score was 8-2.
Sunday Night Baseball consisted of game three of both Braves at Cardinals and Dodgers at Nationals.
At the bottom of the second, Cards were up 1-0. This carried on throughout the game before the Braves rallied to comeback in the ninth. Hamilton, Ortega and Swanson all scored, bringing the Braves the W, 3-0.
They are now leading the NLDS 2-1.
The Dodgers won game three of the NLDS and are also now leading 2-1 against the Nationals with a score of 10-4.
They are favored to close out the series in four. Patrick Corbin revived their defense in game three, and if they remain that way, could definitely pull it off. This would be the fourth year in a row for L.A. to advance to the NL Championship series, closing a best in five series in just four games.
*Due to printing, Monday and Tuesday’s games could not be recapped, but the rest of the week is looking as follows:
Wednesday (10/9)
Game 5 – Nationals at Dodgers (if needed)
Thursday
Game 5 – Cardinals at Braves (if needed)
Game 5 – Twins at Yankees (if needed)
Game 5 – Rays at Astros (if needed)
Friday and this weekend’s games can not be predicted at this time, but Friday marks the start of the league championship series.