This Week In Baseball

One can only assume that somewhere out in the far reaches there lies an uncharted island of stranded baseball fans.  (One can only assume.)  Those baseball fans would be quite upset if they knew what they’ve been missing this week.  The national pastime has a way of being comically unpredictable, and its pure awesomeness this wek is difficult to convey in words.  But nonetheless, try I shall.

This year, 2012, year of the apocalypse, marks the first time that all four Division Series went to a decisive, winner-take-all game.  With the new Wild Card format, that makes six do or die games, for twelve teams in just over a week.  I really don’t know where to begin, so we’ll jump around from last night all the way back to The Infield Fly Call (yeah, that was just a week ago).

The Washington Nationals took a 6-0 lead in the third inning of Game 5 against the Cardinals.  They possessed the best pitching staff in the NL this regular season.  They lost.  The St. Louis Cardinals–the same Cardinals who were down to their last strike in Game 6 of the World Series twice last year–were down to their last strike on four separate occasions.  They scored once for each occasion and made everyone in baseball remember why they like absolutely love baseball.  The game had more ups and downs and improbables than any Hollywood movie would dare squeeze into a script.  The Nationals home crowd made living rooms across the country feel the energy.  Game No. 22 of the 2012 postseason couldn’t have been better.  Still, to fully understand what we have to look forward to in the ALCS/NLCS, let’s take a brief moment to breath deeply and process what just happened outside of the craziness in Washington.

On the AL side, we had two matchups of teams that really shouldn’t have been in the playoffs.  The Oakland A’s put together a surprising incredible run through the AL West behind an all-rookie rotation.  They then proceded to lose the first two games against the Detroit Tigers (those Tigers of a Triple Crown winner and the best pitcher in baseball), and the magic seemed to be gone.  As only the A’s could, they mounted a comeback in Game 4 against crazy/crazy-talented Tigers closer Jose Valverde.  As Coco Crisp looped his double down the right field line to score two and put the A’s ahead in that Game 4, all the momentum in the world seemed to belong to Oakland and their magical season.  Justin Verlander had other ideas.  He dominated Game 5, putting the team on his back, tossing 9 full, and moving the Tigers to the ALCS.

Then there’s the Baltimore Orioles who had already advanced past the Texas Rangers in the one-game playoff (in Texas) and got the lucky draw of playing the 27-time World Champion New York Yankees.  The O’s and Yanks had a series for the ages.  They played 23 times this year, New York won 12, Baltimore 11.  The games were close, scoring differentials were close, and extra innings occurred in both Games 3 and 4.  The postseason pressure saw Alex Rodriguez melt again (more on him later this week to be sure), while Chris Davis proved that he really should be a household name.

The Orioles’ incredible year came to a close as Jim Johnson, on whom they had leaned so heavily, faultered in the late innings of Games 1 and 3.  Mr. Raul Ibanez became every Yankees fan’s favorite player after belting solo shots in the 9th to tie and 12th to win after pinch hitting for the Alex Rodriguez in Game 3. Again, we saw a Game 5 where the ace of the staff, in this case CC Sabathia, put the team on his back with a complete game, and ushered in another ALCS appearance.

I still haven’t gotten to what may have been the most incredible, unpredictable series of the young postseason.  The Cincinnati Reds took the first two in San Francisco even though their ace and Cy Young candidate failed to get more than one out after suffering an injury.  They were sitting pretty coming home, needing only to take one of three games, while the Giants were poised to start Ryan Vogelsong and Barry Zito.  The games were tense, play was elevated, and ultimately, as seemingly only happens in baseball, the less-talented Giants came out on top.  In the decisive Game 5, Buster Posey hit an early grand slam off of Game 1 hero Mat Latos only to have the Reds claw back and put the tying run on first base with two outs in the bottom of the ninth before Sergio Romo struck out Scott Rolen to end it.  The series was baseball at its finest, even without a walk-off hit.

I haven’t yet gotten to the Braves-Cardinals game after which the definition of the Infield Fly Rule was revisited by baseball minds across the country.  Opinions vary on the propriety of the call, but the controversy gives Braves fans a reprieve from the memory of Chipper Jones’, Dan Uggla’s, and Andrelton Simmons’ respective errors.  It seems the Cardinals kept a little of that fairy dust in reserve ti use after Jayson Werth’s 13-pitch walk-off-holy-crap at bat.

There have been 22 postseason games to this point, 14 of them have been decided by either one run or as a function of a winner-take-all game.  The drama has been immense.  One supposes that Bud Selig couldn’t be happier with the drama created by his new playoff system.  For baseball fans, we couldn’t either.

Enjoy the rest of the Postseason.  Game 1 of the ALCS is tonight.

-Sean Morash