Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Does The Second Wild Card Prepare You For October?


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 :)