October is well underway! As the division series wrap up, we have seen lots of great playoff baseball. The wild card round ended with the Kansas City Royals sweeping the Orioles in dominating fashion, winning two pitching duels 1-0 and 2-1. The season ends in a disappointing way for the Orioles, who didn’t seem to have the same team chemistry as last year.
The Detroit Tigers “Cinderella run” continued with a massive upset in a sweep of the Houston Astros, who were the heavy favorite. The Tigers, who won 3-1 and 5-2, were as many as 9.5 games back of the wild card, went on an amazing run, winning 9 of their last 10 games to knock out the Twins and get themselves a playoff spot. The Astros just couldn’t put it all together against a hot Tigers team, leaving the bases loaded to lose one of the games.
On the other side of the MLB, the Mets triumphed over the Brewers in a 2-1 series win. This rivalry has been developing since the very first day of the season, in which a Brewers player slid into Mets second baseman Jeff Mcniel. This was definitely the most exciting series. With the series tied 1-1, and the Mets down two runs in the 9th inning against one of the top closers in the MLB, Pete Alonso hit a go-ahead 3 run homer to give the Mets the lead, and eventually win the game.
In the last wild card series, the San Diego Padres crushed the Atlanta Braves in a 2-0 series sweep. The Braves, who are now headed home, have been hindered with injuries the whole season. They have lost MVP Ronald Acuna Jr., Cy Young candidate Spencer Strider, and All-Star third baseman Austin Riley. In my opinion, the fact that they even made it to the playoffs was incredible, hats off to the Braves for fighting this whole year.
With the division series currently underway, the Mets pulled off another upset, shocking the Philadelphia Phillies in yet another exciting series. The Mets were ahead by one game going into game two, seeing a walk-off from the Phillies, tying the series at 1-1. The Mets won the series though, in dramatic fashion once again. Shortstop Fransico Lindor hit a go-ahead grand slam in the 6th inning to give the Mets the lead. The Mets held on through the rest of the game, and have now advanced to the National League Championship Series (NLCS) for the first time since 2015.
With the rest of the division series still currently in progress, we will update you with next month’s edition.
