The Phillies are out of the postseason for the third straight season. It stinks, but baseball will go on and I will be paying attention. It gets started tonight with the American League Wild Card game, or the play-in game. The Kansas City Royals, in the postseason for the first time since 1985, host the Oakland Athletics, a team much more familiar with the postseason in recent seasons but one struggling to leap past the hurdle of the bigger market teams en route to the World Series.
Jon Lester and James Shields bring a certain playoff pedigree to both rosters, and should battle in a good wild card game tonight in Kansas City. If you scan the rosters of these two teams you will find a few former Phillies. Nick Punto, a homegrown Phillies player from 2001 through 2003, is still playing for the A’s. Kansas City has former Phillies catcher Erik Kratz and Jayson Nix, who was in town for a cup of coffee this season. And, of course, Raul Ibanez is on the Royals roster.
This is an interesting postseason for Major League Baseball. Neither New York team reached the postseason, and neither did Boston. There is also no Chicago team in the mix, but baseball does have two Los Angeles teams with the Dodgers and the Angels. As a baseball fan, I always look forward to the postseason, but MLB has to be concerned about the outlook for this year’s postseason TV ratings. Having a number of games airing on cable networks is a new venture, and could prove to be costly at some point. With the only big markets playing on the west coast, how many viewers are tuning in or paying attention could be interesting.
Kansas City. Oakland. Pittsburgh. Washington. Baltimore. All in the playoffs. It’s a new era.
None of that matters tonight to Royals fans. Their team is finally back in the postseason and ready to make a run. They do so at home against one of the most successful “small-market” franchises over the past decade and a half. I have no real rooting interest in this season’s postseason, so I am planning on sitting back, relaxing and enjoying whatever the postseason has to offer.
Let’s get this started.
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
