A Look Ahead at the Championship Series to the American and National Leagues
The NL was a total shock but the AL will feature the top two teams from the regular season
I wanted to write about the shock I felt when I realized that the National League was featuring two wild-card teams in the Championship Series after the Philadelphia Phillies took out the defending World Series champion, Atlanta Braves in shocking fashion in the division series. Then the bigger story came later that night when the San Diego Padres took the Major League Baseball best Los Angeles Dodgers out in four games. I just had to wait an extra day first for the Yankees-Guardians series to complete.
The thing is that most people expected one of the best regular season teams of all time who won 111 games in the regular season and had a near-historic run differential to be there in the end. Even I, who wrote an article earlier in the season when the Padres gained some talent in a trade that made them seem more geared to compete with these very same Dodgers, was shocked when the Padres actually upset this historic team. I thought that the Dodgers would give them more of a fight and that the talent on the team would rally them back. The Padres’ bullpen was just way too good to allow it to happen though.
This proves that even if you have a superior regular season record, the only play that ultimately matters is the play of the teams within each series. Sure, you could say that the playoffs are broken allowing something like this to happen. They’re definitely not. The team that is playing well at the right time most certainly deserves to be in the most important games at the end.
At least the Yankees were able to come back down from a 2–1 deficit in the series against the Guardians. The Guardians were the third-best team in the American League this year and didn’t strike out often and also found ways to get on base and score despite the lack of power on the squad. The Yankees with their loaded lineup led by Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, and Gerrit Cole were enough to rally the team back to ultimately win a contested series.
Then there was the Astros-Mariners series. Sure, the Astros swept the Mariners but it wasn’t as easy as it looked. The Mariners were ahead in Game 2 and ultimately the Astros rallied to win that game in dramatic fashion. Then there was the final game in Seattle when it took a record 18 innings to score a single run and the Astros definitely ground out a win there. They were a 106-win team this year, finishing second overall only to the Los Angeles Dodgers.
The Yankees-Astros series will most likely finish as an instant classic. Their series starts today. I expect that series to go the distance. I’m going to say that I think that the Astros have the advantage since they have a home-field tilt but anything can happen. In the Padres-Phillies series, the Phillies already took a 1–0 lead on Tuesday over the Padres in Game 1 but I still think that this series is competitive. If I had to venture, I’d say that the Padres take this series in seven.
I had the Padres as the team to beat this year when they acquired Juan Soto. My expectations were tempered a bit when Tatis was suspended for PED use shortly after but this team shocked me as they played well down the stretch even without him. If I’m expected to make a prediction for the World Series this year, it’ll be a Houston-San Diego World Series. Considering that it’ll be the latest World Series ever played in the history of the game potentially ending on November 5, it’ll be awesome if all the games are played below the Sun Belt.
Honestly, a New York-Philly or any combination of the other two teams getting to the World Series would almost guarantee a few delays and cancellations due to weather. I’m not saying that it should be rigged to make it a warm-weather World Series going into November but the stars may have aligned and the talent will most likely line it up that way. Once the World Series starts, I’ll do another in-depth analysis of the two teams up and down the roster, but for now, I can’t wait to enjoy some more exciting October baseball as we are down to the final four teams remaining.
