MLB Wild Card Round Takeaways

Photo by Jeff Roberson from the Associated Press

This weekend was the beginning of the MLB’s new version of a Wild Card round.

The higher seeds hosted the lower seeds in a best of 3 series, and we’ve already lost four playoff contenders.

Here’s what we’ve learned heading into the Divisional Series’.

Guardians sweep Rays 2-0

I said this when I wrote my post about how teams win in the postseason.

Pitching, pitching and pitching.

Are the Guardians the most talented team in the postseason? No. Not by a long shot.

But they had unbelievable outings from their pitching staff to hold the Rays to 1 run over the course of 24 innings, including shutting them out through 15 innings in game 2.

The bats will need to wake up eventually, but that level of pitching can have the Guardians going far.

Mariners sweep Blue Jays 2-0

Managers matter.

I’m not going to go crazy about John Schneider. He’s the interim manager. I’m not sure if he’s the long term answer or not.

But the Blue Jays led 8-2 in the 6th inning of game 2 with Kevin Gausman pitching fairly well.

And with two men on and two outs, Schneider decided to pull Gausman.

The Jays bring in Tim Mayza, he gives up a 3 run home run to Carlos Santana and the Mariners comeback gets underway, as they would come all the way back to win 10-9.

Gausman didn’t have his best stuff Saturday, but surely you have to trust your starter to get one out in an 8-2 ball game.

Schneider didn’t, and it cost the Blue Jays their season.

Phillies sweep Cardinals 2-0

I said last week that the Phillies had the hitting and pitching to go far, but the fielding would potentially sink them.

So, you can imagine my surprise when, up 2-0 in the 9th inning, it was the Cardinals defense that failed them instead of the Phillies.

Add in a combined 1-15 from Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, and it was a disastrous couple of games from the Cardinals.

The Phillies are now an NL East team with a mediocre overall record getting hot at the right time.

Where have we heard that before…

Padres defeat Mets 2-1

It’s good to have superstars in baseball. In any sport, really.

You still need them to show up.

The Mets bats were a complete disaster, and they got off to a terrible start to the series due to Max Scherzer’s rough game 1 outing.

The Mets became the first team to win 101 games and not make the divisional round, and the Braves keep locking up core members that will keep them as a dominant team for the future.

The Mets have a lot of soul searching to do this offseason.