In a win-or-go-home game that finishes 9-8, there are going to be a lot of important moments. Big plays made or not made by players. Important decisions made or not made by managers. Huge calls made or not made by umpires. We never want to focus on the umpires if at all possible because it takes away from the more important and more entertaining aspects of the game. At some point, however, it’s impossible to omit them from the conversation.

In the top of the fifth inning of last night’s deciding Division Series game between the Cubs and Nationals, the visiting team had runners on first and second base. With two outs and an 0-2 count, Max Scherzer threw Javy Baez a pitch in the dirt. Baez swung and missed for strike three, but the ball got past Matt Wieters, allowing Baez to run to first base. During Baez’s backswing, his bat made contact with Wieters’ helmet.

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The Cleveland Indians’ season concluded on Wednesday night. The team that had thrilled fans with their September winning streak and entered the postseason as the oddsmakers’ favorite to win the World Series was eliminated by a very good New York Yankees team. You can argue how fair it it that the Indians, by virtue of being the best team in the American League this year, had to face the Wild Card-winning Yankees, perhaps the second-best team in the the American League. In any event, that’s the way the playoffs are set up: the Yankees won and the blame game can begin.

People will look to the young star hitters Jose Ramirez and Francisco Lindor, who combined to reach base at a .227 clip, strike out 13 times, and record just a single extra-base hit over the five games. Others will (foolishly) question the Indians’ mental fortitude after dropping six consecutive potential series-clinching games in the past two years. And yes, many will place blame at the feet of Indians ace Corey Kluber, who was as rough in this year’s playoffs as he was brilliant in last year’s.

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Back when he was a minor leaguer, Didi Gregorius hit a combined total of 26 home runs. Gregorius is now the regular shortstop for the Yankees, who are a major-league franchise, and last week, he hit his 26th home run of this year alone, off of Ervin Santana. In Game 5 of the ALDS, Gregorius hit home run number 27, off of Corey Kluber. Two innings later, he hit home run number 28, also off of Kluber. Gregorius hits for power now, and while this feels like a fairly sudden development, it hasn’t been so sudden that Gregorius hasn’t been able to perfect the subtle bat flip. By now, Gregorius has hit enough home runs that he knows what they feel like right away.

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In one of the craziest, weirdest, most bizarre baseball games anyone has ever seen, the Cubs beat the Nationals 9-8 tonight, advancing to the NLCS. The game had everything you could think of and then some: catcher’s interference, RBI strikeouts that maybe shouldn’t have counted, Max Scherzer hitting a batter to force in a run, and Michael Taylor hitting a bomb on a pitch at his eyes. But, unfortunately, the lasting memory of this game might just be that MLB’s replay rule on slides into a base still sucks.

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Episode 775
All of baseball’s division series are complete or nearly complete. Managing editor Dave Cameron discusses them exclusively or nearly exclusively.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

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Audio after the jump. (Approximately 43 min play time.)

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CLEVELAND — In a spartan, fluorescent-lit conference room adjacent to the home clubhouse of Progressive Field sat Corey Kluber early this morning. The night before, he’d started — and lost — Game 5 of the ALDS to the Yankees. It was clear as Kluber pitched on Wednesday that something wasn’t right. It hadn’t been right in his Game 2 start on Friday, either.

Surrounded by a swelled press corps containing local and national reporters, he was asked what was wrong, what had gone wrong. Inevitably, the topic of his health arose. Despite producing a Cy Young-caliber season, Kluber had also visited the DL from May 2 to June 1 with a back strain.

By the end of the series against New York, Kluber had allowed nine earned runs and 13 baserunners — including four home runs — in 6.1 innings over two starts. Two of the home runs he’d conceded were off his curveball. He’d allowed only two homers off the curve all season, a sample of 811 pitches.

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