The MLB Playoffs. One of the most exciting things in baseball. You watch it, you enjoy it, and sometimes, you get a little mad. Let’s dig deep into the playoffs of baseball and see how one team won it all this season.
In the Major League Baseball playoffs, there are four types of stages. There is the Wild Card, the Division Series, the Championship Series, and the one that most people know, the World Series. In the MLB, there are two leagues, the American League (AL) and the National League (NL), and in each league are three separate divisions: East, West, and Central.
Let’s talk about the Wild Card stage first. The top three teams that don’t get first place in their section, get one more opportunity to play against each other to go to the next stage. This year, in the NL, the Milwaukee Brewers played against the New York Mets, and the San Diego Padres played against the Atlanta Braves. The Mets beat the Brewers in three games, as the Mets star first baseman, Pete Alonso, hit a go-ahead three-run homerun in the top of the ninth inning put the Mets on top 4-to-2 to clinch the ticket to the NL division series and play the Phillies. The Padres beat the Braves in two games, putting up the sweep with their catcher, Kyle Higashioka, hitting a solo homerun to start what was a five-run rally giving the Padres the lead and leading them to the NL division series against the Los Angeles Dodgers.
In the AL, the Detroit Tigers played the Houston Astros and the Kansas City Royals played the Baltimore Orioles. The Tigers defeated the Astros in two games when Andy Ibanez doubled in the top of the 8th, and led the Tigers to defeat the Astros 6-to-2 to move on to the division series against the Cincinnati Guardians.
Now, let’s move on to the Division Series. Here, the teams that win their wild card round face off against the top two teams from each division. Let’s see who will keep moving on to the Championship Series, then the World Series. In the NL, the sixth-seed Mets, with their energy all charged up, played the second-seed Phillies to move on. For the other bracket, the first-seed Dodgers played the fourth-seed Padres. The Mets started out the series with a lot of energy. They won their first two games in a row. Looking to go for the sweep, the Phillies took that personally. They decided to at least win one game, which they did, 7-to-6. The Mets were ready to take the title and go to the Championship Series. Mets star shortstop, Francisco Lindor, hit a grand slam in the bottom of the sixth, to put the Mets in a winning position and clinched the NL division series to go to the Championship Series.
The Dodgers also won their first two games, but the Padres didn’t want to lose in this California showdown. They went on a comeback run, eventually tying the series up 2-to-2. Game five would decide it all. In the bottom of the second inning, Enrique Hernandez hit a bomb to left field, putting the Dodgers up 1-to-0 early in the game. The Dodgers pitching was showing up, and then again in the bottom of the seventh, the Dodgers struck again as Teoscar Hernandez hit a home run to let the Dodgers clinch the NL Division series, with the Dodgers and the Mets facing off to determine who would go to the World Series.
Now let’s talk about the AL. The first-seed Yankees played the fifth-seed Royals, and the second-seed Guardians played the sixth-seed Tigers. For the Yankees, they were coming into these sets of games prepared. They easily beat the Royals in game one but were defeated in game two. In game three, they showed the Royals their skill and they were moving on to game four, the final game of this series. Gerrit Cole, the Yankees’ ace, shut the Royals down with one earned run, four strikeouts, and seven innings pitched. That led the Yankees to victory.
The Guardians played the Tigers for the second spot in the ALCS. It was a tough battle between the two rivals. They won games back and forth, but eventually, in game five, Lane Thomas stepped up to the plate with the bases loaded against the Tigers’ ace, Tarik Skubal. In the bottom of the fifth, he hits a deep fly ball to left, and it’s a grand slam. The Guardians defeated the Tigers in five games with a game-saving homerun.
Now, we talk about the Championship Series. In these battles, the best two teams from each league that won their division series get to move on to the championship series where they face off in a seven game series. In the NL, we’ve got the Dodgers against the Mets in a coast to coast battle.