Wild Card Series' Day 1: Who You Came For

 

The Tigers have a lot to prove since blowing the divisional race to Cleveland, and I think starting their Wild Card series by putting their ace out there and shutting the Guardians down was the correct course of action.

Everyone's expecting this series to be close. Judging from the fact that Gavin Williams was similarly working, aside from his run, it's going to be. If Skubal didn't show up in this first game and give the Tigers a head-start, this wasn't gonna be productive at all for Detroit. That's the one one-up card they have, if that fails there's no point. Skubal went 7 and 2/3rds, struck out 14 and only allowed 1 hit. It's a truly sensational opening performance from THE guy for the Tigers, and it speaks louder than the small ball that ultimately won it.

I'm intrigued to see how the Guardians do against a pitcher that isn't Skubal tomorrow. I'm guessing the playing field will have been evened.

The combination of a Wrigley home crowd and a pitcher who's notoriously worse on the road spelt doom for the Padres immediately. Nick Pivetta against the Cubs faithful was gonna lead to an outcome like this. And though the Padres bullpen did their best to work around it, it's clear this Padres team cannot outhit the Cubs this year.

The Cubs got production from Seiya Suzuki and Carson Kelly, and power production at that, in addition to contact dominance from Nico Hoerner. They outpowered San Diego, the better power team who got nothing done against Matthew Boyd. The only Padres run was scored on a PCA error. Boyd himself kept the balls close and didn't overheat. I did not think this Padres team could be contained this easily, but there you have it. What's more, the team's usual closing option, Daniel Palencia, was in to relieve Boyd in the fifth, meaning the save went to Brad Keller, which was a pretty cool touch. 

Look, man. I don't care who you are. If your goal is to hit two different lefties throwing 100mph for 9 innings, you can't get too mad if you're not able to. That's insanely difficult. The Yankees have struggled against Crochet all year, and they haven't had much luck off of Chapman either. I applaud them for even being able to get hits off of Crochet at all, and the AV homer was a very big moment. Now...that was the extent of it, and there was a lot of guys left on, which is infuriating, but...Chapman's tough, man. He used to get bases-loaded saves with the Yanks all the time. Just give you the sliver of hope and then go in for the kill. 

The Yankees tried. But this game was gonna be the tough one, even with Max Fried having a similarly strong night. They figured out the flaws in the bullpen, and Yankee-killers like Masataka Yoshida and Alex Bregman found those puncture points. I can't say much else, man. We knew our weaknesses, and they knew 'em, and they found 'em and won. All you can hope for is that it doesn't happen again. 

This is the kind of playoff game you'd have expected from the Dodgers going into the season, with no knowledge of how disappointing much of the season would be. A huge offensive explosion against a great pitcher, double-homer days from both Ohtani and Teoscar Hernandez, some full-lineup padding, even bit players like Rortvedt and Call getting in on it, and a masterful ace performance from Blake Snell. This is what the Dodgers wanted this season to lead to, and the fact that they got a game like this even after the tumultuous year before it speaks so much to their organizational depth and forward thinking. They can build a great team and it'll be so great that even injuries can't kill it. That's the Dodgers.

Snell, by the way, erased any angst from his mostly-lost season by being his usual, dominant self, going 7 strong with 2 earned runs and 9 Ks. This is the Blake Snell that the Rays loved giving the ball to back in 2020, and the Blake Snell that eventually became a hero for San Diego. And here he is, doing exactly what he's supposed to.

The Reds did show some fight late, which makes me think Game 2 could be a little closer, and the Dodgers' very atrocious bullpen did nothing to especially quell things. But if the Dodgers start rolling now I don't know if anyone will be able to stop them.