The Miami Marlins haven’t had a winning season since 2009, and coming into the year, there was every reason to think that the club’s playoff drought would eventually extend into a second decade. But with an expanded field, key contributions from rookies, and unexpectedly solid play around the infield, Miami slipped past the velvet ropes for the first time in 17 years.

Amusingly, the Marlins are the only franchise in baseball to never lose a playoff series. After a 5-1 victory in Game 1 of the Wild Card round, they’re just one win from extending their perfect record.

The importance of any one playoff game underscores how differently most of us watch them than regular season fare. Granular events — a single at-bat, a pitch even — take on much more resonance. In the regular season, a failure to execute in the early innings will be forgotten minutes later. Watching closely though, you recognize how missed opportunities shape a game every bit as much as the highlights shown on SportsCenter. Viewed under the microscope, baseball becomes a game of chances taken and chances missed.

For the Marlins, the early part of the game was dominated by the latter. Take Garrett Cooper’s at-bat in the fourth. With one out and a runner on third, Cooper had a great opportunity to plate the game’s first run. On a windy day, against a pitcher with below-average strikeout numbers, this was an opportunity to hunt for a ball he could hit in the air. Instead, he swung at the first pitch and grounded to third. Jesús Aguilar couldn’t advance, and was ultimately stranded after another ground out.

An inning later, the Marlins spurned another chance. With two on and nobody out, light-hitting Chad Wallach was ordered to bunt. The run expectancy table suggests swinging away is the better option here, but it’s very close, and given Wallach’s weak bat and the quality of his opponent, the bunt seemed like a reasonable option. He couldn’t get it down though, and eventually tapped into a rally-killing double play. Read the rest of this entry »

Our preview of the Braves-Reds series, which ran yesterday, closed with the following words:

“This one looks fun, and it should ultimately come down to which team pitches best.”

This afternoon’s Game 1 neither proved nor disproved that prediction. In a matchup of two National League Cy Young contenders, both pitching staffs flat out shoved. Trevor Bauer and Max Fried combined to go 14 2/3 scoreless — with 17 strikeouts and no walks, no less — and the relievers that followed them to the mound were every bit as good. In the end, Atlanta prevailed 1-0 on a walk-off single by Freddie Freeman off Amir Garrett in the 13th inning.

Both teams came out swinging. Three pitches into the game, the Reds had runners on the corners, courtesy of base knocks by Nick Senzel and Nick Castellanos. The aggression-fueled early scoring opportunity went for naught. Fried proceeded to record three outs on six pitches, with an Eugenio Suárez liner to short sandwiched between a pair of harmless ground balls. Read the rest of this entry »

The comments will tell you that the victory is worthless. The division was bad. The Diamondbacks, the team they overtook, the team they just beat to win the title — bad. These guys, I mean, how long has it been since these guys won anything, since they got anywhere? Three years, four? Twenty? There are few fans in the dark stadium seats to see this victory, dappled in weird midday light.

But the young closer, so dominant this season, retires the final batter, quick and easy, the final score set at 7-6. And then they, the visitors, pour out of the dugout, the fans who have traveled to see this happen beaming above them — running, hugging, jumping, all happiness gravitating around that spot on the field where the closer stands, even as the scowls come from the other dugout, the home team exiting, heads down and deflated.

You have to slow it down, all the spinning celebration, to see him: the pitcher, one of the first blurry figures over the dugout fence, sprinting at full speed, there a moment and then gone into the grey-blue heart of the celebration. He is the best player on this team. He is the best pitcher in baseball. Right now, though, he is not a singular figure. You can make him out, but you have to squint. He is absorbed in the dynamism of joy.

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It took a few days longer than it did last year. But they are at home, the towering curves of the stands filled with people, all of them standing. The pitch — the ball, grounded into the infield — the twirl, the spin, the out recorded just in time, even though the stakes are so low, the score is 9-1, the celebration only waiting to happen. And the camera knows to focus on him this time, the first out of the dugout again. Like a kid: a broad, open-mouthed smile as the fireworks burst, as the foundations shake and the lights flash and everything spills into everything, all motion, all joy. He puts on his hat and grins for the cameras.

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By the time Shane Bieber recorded his first out in Tuesday night’s American League Wild Card Series opener, the Yankees had already done what teams failed to do in seven of the 25-year-old righty’s 12 starts in 2020: score two runs. With a DJ LeMahieu bloop and an Aaron Judge blast, the Yankees staked themselves to an instant lead, and they continued to beat up on the presumptive AL Cy Young winner, cuffing him for seven runs before chasing him in the fifth inning. The marquee matchup between Bieber and Yankees ace Gerrit Cole turned into a one-sided rout, with the Yankees rolling to a 12-3 win in Cleveland.

Bieber, for as otherworldly as he was this year — he not only won the AL pitching triple crown by leading the league in wins, strikeouts, and ERA, but also led in FIP, WAR, K%, and K-BB% — did allow seven home runs, as if to hint that he was merely human. Two of those were on fastballs, one in the center of the strike zone, hit by the Reds’ Eugenio Suárez on August 4. In fact, that was the only hit out of the 28 fastballs Bieber threw down Broadway, just 11 of which were put into play. Judge didn’t have to know how rare it was for Bieber to leave one there to do business with it:

The home run — 108 mph off the bat, with an estimated distance of 399 feet — was Judge’s first since August 11, the same day on which he strained his right calf muscle. To that point, he led the majors in homers, but he landed on the Injured List a few days later, and re-injured the calf in his first game back on August 26. Since the initial injury, he hit just .205/.326/.231 in 46 plate appearances spread out over 47 days. While his exit velocity remained respectable, he didn’t elevate the ball with the same consistency, or come close to doing the same kind of damage:

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Tampa Bay Rays left-hander Blake Snell’s start in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series against the Toronto Blue Jays began so well it may have made even his own manager sweat. Snell hadn’t thrown more than 5.2 innings in any of his 11 starts this season, and he wasn’t expected to pitch far beyond that point on Tuesday. But then five innings came and went in the blink of an eye, and Snell looked untouchable. After just 65 pitches, he had eight strikeouts against just two walks and hadn’t allowed a single hit. Every projectile hurled from Snell’s left arm seemed to send shivers down the Blue Jays’ spines, but every impotent whiff also threatened the always-scientific Kevin Cash with a serious conundrum: How long could the Rays manager allow himself to stick with his starter in a 1-0 game before interrupting a playoff no-hitter himself, a sin many of his team’s fans may find unforgivable?

Alas, that breaking point never arrived. Rookie sensation Alejandro Kirk lined a single through the right side of the infield to lead off the sixth inning, and two batters later, Cash got to remove Snell more or less right where he wanted to — after 5.2 shutout innings and 19 batters faced. Snell finished with nine strikeouts for his troubles, a Rays playoff record, and his bullpen turned in a typically strong performance en route to securing a 3-1 victory. Top-seeded Tampa Bay can advance to the ALDS with a win in Game 2, which begins Wednesday at 4:07 p.m. Read the rest of this entry »

Game 1 of the American League’s Nos. 3/6 seed matchup between the Minnesota Twins and Houston Astros was a microcosm of what may define this year’s Wild Card round, one in which a three-game series can be swung by chaos and randomness. Lady Luck had a hand in Houston’s 4-1 win in Minnesota, especially in a defining three-run Houston ninth.

All four of Houston’s runs came after a series of tough-luck hits and poor Twins defensive execution. After pitching a clean sixth inning and beginning the seventh with a pair of outs, Twins reliever Tyler Duffey gave up a shift-beating single to Josh Reddick and an infield single to Martín Maldonado, who hit a ball that was too hot for Marwin Gonzalez to handle at third base despite coming off the bat at just 79 mph. They were followed by a George Springer single off a first-pitch breaking ball to score Reddick, but Maldonado was thrown out by 30 feet while making an ill-advised attempt to advance to third. That tied the game at one.

The ninth inning was the death blow. Astros first baseman Yuli Gurriel reached into the left-handed batter’s box to poke a Sergio Romo slider into the outfield for a flare single, and Carlos Correa followed with a bloop hit of his own. Romo retired the next two hitters, bringing Springer to the plate in yet another big spot. He hit a weak one-hop liner to the left of shortstop Jorge Polanco that seemed likely to end the inning, but Polanco’s throw the short way to second base was off the bag and second baseman Luis Arraez was unable to handle it while holding the base, allowing Springer to reach and load the bases. None of the Houston baserunners put a ball in play in excess of 81 mph. Read the rest of this entry »

OAKLAND — As he stood in right field to warm up before the first playoff game of his career, Lucas Giolito looked nervous. One of his first throws off of flat ground went right over the bullpen catcher’s head and into the stands. A few throws later, he spiked one five feet short. He shrugged, bemused. There was no crowd around to heckle him, but who could blame him for feeling a little tight?

If that was a sign of anxiety, the first inning didn’t help matters. He started the game off with a ball low and in to Tommy La Stella, then reached three-ball counts against Robbie Grossman and Marcus Semien. He retired all three — most plate appearances end in an out, after all — but 14 pitches, seven of them balls, didn’t bode well for the White Sox ace going deep in the game.

Fortunately for Giolito, though, past performance isn’t a good indicator of future results. He came out for the second inning, now with a one-run lead, and put his foot on the gas — three up, three down, highlighted by a lovely changeup that turned Matt Olson from a professional hitter into a man fruitlessly attempting to swat a fly. It took another 14 pitches — a deep trip into the game looking less and less likely — but the jitters seemed gone.

This is a game recap, not a teen sports movie, but if it were the latter, this is where the montage would cut in. Giolito powered through the middle innings with increasing confidence, pouring in strikes and daring an overmatched Oakland team to do something about it. The A’s responded appropriately, swinging early and often, but they might as well have kept the bats on their shoulders. Mark Canha and Jake Lamb made good contact in the fifth inning, but both drives were hit in the general direction of Luis Robert, which is another way of saying they were both caught. No one else even troubled the defense. Read the rest of this entry »

My favorite part of the animated series Attack on Titan, in which a race of giants appears out of nowhere and starts feasting on humanity for no apparent reason, is watching the humans try to assess and exploit the giants’ vulnerabilities more quickly than they’re being consumed. It’s analogous to any series against the juggernaut Los Angeles Dodgers, a club coming off a major-league best 43-17 regular season and the presumptive National League favorites to advance to the World Series. Do the Dodgers have a weak spot, a thread on which the limping Milwaukee Brewers can pull and unravel their season? Read the rest of this entry »

The Atlanta Braves and Cincinnati Reds are set to play each other in a three-game postseason series beginning on Wednesday. But before we break down that matchup, let’s start with how they got here.

The Braves were projected to go 33-27, and they finished just above that at 35-25. Meanwhile, the Reds were projected to go 31-29 and hit that mark exactly. Does that mean both teams saw their seasons — COVID-19 permutations excepted — pretty much go as expected? Not in the least.

The NL East champs persevered despite the decimation of a starting staff that was supposed to comprise some combination of Mike Foltynewicz, Max Fried, Cole Hamels, Felix Hernandez, Sean Newcomb, and Mike Soroka. Between injuries, ineffectiveness, and King Felix’s opt out, that sextet combined for just seven wins. All were credited to Fried, whose spotless record was augmented by a sparkling 2.25 ERA.

Fried will be joined in Atlanta’s opening-round rotation by youngsters Ian Anderson and Kyle Wright. The duo exudes potential — each is a former first-round pick — but to this point in time they’ve combined to make all of 18 big-league starts. It’s hard to imagine either having a particularly long leash in the days (and possibly weeks) to come. Read the rest of this entry »

Seventeen years ago, the Cubs and Marlins met for the first and, until now, last time as postseason opponents in the 2003 NLCS, a series that then-Florida took en route to its second World Series title after a grisly Game 6 collapse by Chicago. The goat will always be Steve Bartman, who even in a Wrigley Field devoid of fans will be mentioned on the series broadcasts somewhere between 15 and 20,000 times, but plenty of players deserve a fair share of blame for the way the Cubs’ dreams of ending a long championship drought fell apart.

But that was then, and the failings of Mark Prior and Kerry Wood and Dusty Baker and Alex Gonzalez have little to do with whatever happens between these iterations of the Cubs and Marlins. The former are here by virtue of winning the NL Central, a mud fight of a division with four playoff teams that Chicago led virtually wire-to-wire; the Cubs are seeking to reverse a run of diminishing October returns. The Marlins, however, are here as predicted by roughly no one — literally no one, in the case of your humble FanGraphs staff — and thanks in large part to the rest of the National League East, the Braves excepted, being the equivalent of a stopped toilet. Even a long stoppage of play caused by over a dozen positive COVID-19 tests and the loss of nearly half the roster for multiple games wasn’t enough to slow down the Marlins, who snapped a playoff drought stretching back to that fateful 2003 season. (Fun fact: Every year the Marlins have made the playoffs, they’ve won the World Series, so get your bets in now.) Read the rest of this entry »