I have been watching these postseason games this season, and
honestly that is something that I rarely find myself doing unless the Yankees
are involved, and I have been utterly amazed. The Kansas City Royals and
Oakland Athletics Wild Card Playoff game was something for the ages and it
hasn’t stopped there for Kansas City. San Francisco also won their Wild Card
Playoff game blowing out the Pittsburgh Pirates and taking that momentum with
them to Washington. Neither team was especially hot or far from the hottest
team going in so does the second Wild Card spot actually prepare you better for
October?
With the Baltimore Orioles being the exception, and for a
good reason that I will get to later, the teams that coasted into the
postseason have struggled this far this October. Baltimore is fresh off a sweep
of the Detroit Tigers but you have to remember that O’s manager Buck Showalter
is a spiteful old man that played his regulars against the Yankees as he tried
to eliminate the team from playoff contention. Teams like the Los Angeles
Angels of Anaheim, the Washington Nationals, and the Los Angeles Dodgers really
had nothing to play for in the final weeks but best record positioning and I
think they have truly struggled because of this.
While the higher ranked teams coasted into the postseason
you had teams like the Royals and the Giants who had to scratch and claw their
way to the postseason holding off a slew of teams chasing them. Kansas City and
San Francisco has been playing playoff baseball for the last month already as
their teams struggled to secure the final playoff spots in their respected
leagues. Because of this these two teams both have a legitimate shot at
representing those respected leagues in the World Series, something I truly
chalk up to the second Wild Card.
I may have been against the second Wild Card when it was
first put into play and I am still not crazy about an uneven five teams per
league making the playoffs but it has definitely prepared these teams for the
postseason this year and made these games fun to watch as a fan. I guess that’s
all that matters in the end, right?
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Sorry for the Capatcha... Blame the Russians :)