Beisbol’s Been Berry Good So Far

Baseball’s two leagues are down to two teams each as the four hotly contested Divisional Series matchups have concluded in exciting fashion. The ALDS and NLDS, the Divisional Series playoffs for each (American and National) league that sound like acronyms from the latest syndrome diseases of the month, all were very competitive series that featured interesting match ups and all produced the types of results that make you get up and take notice.

Major League Baseball’s “Final Four” teams are the Toronto Blue Jays and the Kansas City Royals from the American League and the Chicago Cubs and the New York Mets from the National League. Contrary to what happened during baseball’s regular season, one of these four teams will be this season’s World Series champions of baseball. Here’s how the four teams all got to this point.

Toronto

All Toronto did was take the toughest road to get here. The team with thunder in their bats lost the first two games at home to the Texas Rangers. Their ace, trading deadline pickup David Price, was out-pitched by Texas trading deadline pickup Yovani Gallardo. Texas also won game two at Toronto in 14 innings to go up to what should have been an insurmountable 2 to 0 lead with two games at home, but that’s when Toronto picked up its game (and its hitting) to win the next two at Texas. (It should be noted that the Blue Jays picked up key people pitcher David Price and shortstop Troy Tulowitzki at the trading deadline to help them get to here.)

That set up a deciding Game Five, or what should now be known as “another Wild Card Game,” to decide the series. It was a close game until Texas took the lead late after a controversial play where a go ahead run scored after the throw back from the catcher hit the batter’s bat and bounded away to let the runner scored. The umps had to let the play stand and Texas led late in the deciding game until a few Texas errors and a thundering home run (I told you there was thunder in their bats) by Jose Bautista sealed the game and the series by a final score of 6 to 3. Texas goes home and Toronto moves on to the ALCS (another disease of the month acronym?) with a chance to play themselves into the World Series.

Kansas City

The Royals had a tough five game series against the AL Wild Card Game winner and the American League’s most surprising team, the Houston Astros. Kansas City ran the table in the American League last year and went from precarious play in Wild Card Game participant to World Series participant with some excellent playoff baseball in October of 2014. They were battle tested. Houston was probably surprised to be there. They weren’t supposed to contend for another year or two. But they were there.

It went down to a decisive Game Five showdown to see who would advance. A late rally in Game Four got KC into “another Wild Card Game,” and the Royals came from a run down midway through the game and pretty decisively (7 to 2) showed Houston why they weren’t ready for prime time yet and why the Royals seem to have the exact type of team that IS good enough to be there. (the Royals picked up ace pitcher Johnny Cueto at the trading deadline to help THEM to get here) They will go on to play Toronto for the American League pennant.

Chicago Cubs

The lovable Cubbies, who haven’t won a World Series in OVER a hundred years, are one series away from playing in a World Series, after disposing with the team that had the best record in all of baseball this year, their heated rivals, the St. Louis Cardinals. That the Cubs could knock out the consensus “best team in baseball” in four games (after winning the Wild Card Game against Pittsburgh, they didn’t even “need” an extra “Wild Card Game” against the Cardinals), showed just how fast and how far this Cub team has come.

Their master plan was for their architect Theo Epstein (former Red Sox GM guru) to piece together as much young talent as possible, and to mix it with the right amount of a few solid veterans, and then one day, they could contend. While the young players (most of them HIGHLY regarded prospects at their positions) were going to one day probably be really good, no one could see them all kind of coming together THIS year. They are young, they are talented, they are hungry, and they have an ace pitcher in Jake Arrieta. (Note, the Cubs also utilized the trading deadline to pick up starting pitcher Dan Haren to give them more starting depth) These are the numbers, folks. The Cubs were 73 and 89 last year and improved to 97 and 65 this year!! Are you freaking kidding me? That, my friends, is incredible.

The Amazing Mets

This was not supposed to be the year of the Mets. Everyone knew they had some really good pitching, but one of them, Matt Harvey, was coming off Tommy John surgery (but to be honest, who HASN’T had that surgery), but Harvey and rookie Noah Syndergaard seemed to be another year or so away. Their other young pitcher Jacob De Grom has already arrived and is a VERY tough ace to match up against. Great young pitching coming into their prime, all at the same time. If this Met team doesn’t remind you of the 1969 Amazin’s, I don’t know who does. (The Mets also added a key player at the trading deadline with power-hitting outfielder Yoenis Cespedes.)

The Mets ALSO went to a fifth game “Wild Card Game” against the L.A. Dodgers, a team with two great pitchers, Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke and a whole lot of under-performing, high-priced players. It was a tight game, played in Los Angeles. The Dodgers led 2 to 1 midway through the game when they made the kind of mental error that decides close games. With a runner on first and a shift on favoring the right field side of second base, a player walked. The runner on first, seeing the entire Dodger infield shifted AWAY from the left field side of second, just kept racing around to third base. No one on the Dodgers had smart enough baseball IQ to be there at third to
prevent it. The runner that made his way to third scored when the next batter hit a sacrifice fly, thus tying the game.

Either the Mets stole the run (fairly of course), or the Dodgers gave them the run. Either the Dodgers blew it, or the Mets were opportunistic and won the game. What really matters is that the Mets took the game 3 to 2, with that run being the difference in an otherwise close, gripping, decisive/ one run playoff game. The Amazin’ Mets move on to the NLCS to face the “Miracle” Cubs in a series that has two interesting angles to it. Can the Cubs pull off a miracle playoff run and win a World Series every bit as dramatic as the Mets in 1969, or the Red Sox in 2003? Or, can the 2015 Mets be “Amazing” again, just like THEIR 1969 counterparts?

Four teams all want to win this. All think they can win this (they really are pretty evenly matched). Did you notice that EVERY team that is still in this made a key trading deadline acquisition to help get them “over the top?”

What’s going to happen is this. The teams with the better pitching (Mets, Royals) don’t hit as well as the better hitting teams (Cubs, Blue Jays), who don’t pitch as well as the better pitching teams. Something’s gotta give. With seven games to a series now, the better teams really should win. Whatever happens, baseball (or beisbol) has been very good so far in these playoffs.