MLB Playoff Takeaways: Wild Card Round

Photo by Patrick McDermott from Getty Images

The talk of the town this past week was that the Wild Card round is a waste of time.

I’m not so sure. I thought it was pretty good!

Here’s what we learned from the week.

Tigers defeat Astros 2-0

I said it in my playoff preview.

Confidence is key.

The Tigers rode a great performance from likely AL Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal to a game one victory, which isn’t exactly shocking considering the season he’s had, but then they had to face the Astros at least one, maybe two more times.

And game 2 was going pretty well! The Tigers did a bullpen start and had a 1-0 lead before the 7th inning when it started to fall apart.

The Astros used their insane star power to get a 2-1 lead, and it looked like we were destined for a game 3 on Thursday.

But then Andy Ibanez, who is hitting .241 on the year, had a pinch hit three run double to get the Tigers in front and sweep the Astros.

This team is not star studded. They do not have players other than Skubal who will be winning awards.

But they are legitimate World Series contenders.

Simply because they’re confident.

Royals defeat Orioles 2-0

And here, we see the flip side of that.

The Orioles were one of the best teams in baseball, and then a midseason slump just kept going, and going, and going.

And it kept going all the way into the postseason.

The pitching was great. They only allowed one run in game 1, and two runs in game 2.

But they only scored one run overall, a Cedric Mullins home run.

Gunnar Henderson had no hits. Adley Rutschman had one. Anthony Santander had one.

The bats died halfway through the year, and never came back to life, even against a weak Royals bullpen.

If the O’s don’t re-sign Corbin Burnes, who would likely be the Cy Young winner in a world where Tarik Skubal doesn’t exist, this season could go down as a massive missed opportunity.

Padres defeat Braves 2-0

To be honest, there’s not much to take away from this one.

The Padres are a good baseball team with lots of star power that’s clicking right now.

The Braves are a slumping baseball team with star power that is either hurt or slumping.

These games weren’t close.

Mets defeat Brewers 2-1

This was setting up to be so, so Mets.

A dominant game 1 win, followed by a game 2 lead in the bottom of the 8th inning. It was going to be an easy sweep.

And then they gave up a tying home run to 20 year old Jackson Chourio to tie it, followed by a two run home run to Garrett Mitchell to lose.

In game three, back to back pitches led to back to back jacks from Jake Bauers and Sal Frelick and a Brewers 2-0 lead going into the bottom of the 9th inning.

It was the usual Mets collapse. It came down to Pete Alonso, in his possible last at bat as a New York Met to pull them out of this.

He stepped up to the occasion.

They added one more for insurance, and closed it out in the bottom of the 9th to get the win.

The team that rose from the dead mid-season, rose from the dead mid-postseason as well.

These Mets might just be different.