An Ode to October
A Wild Card sweep ushers in playoff baseball (!!)
162 games is a lot, and six months is a long time. I know. Preach.
And I won’t pretend like this has been my most invested baseball season, given the sad state of the Cardinals. With hope of competing goes some degree of interest. At least I admit it, right?
Every year, though, I’m reminded what it’s all about. Why we do this, year in, year out. What we wait for.
October.
There is nothing in sports or much of anywhere else quite like a playoff at-bat with the game on the line. That is some hair-raising, electrically tense shit, and even when I don’t particularly care about the teams, it always delivers.
Take Toronto-Minnesota. Down 1-0 in the series, and 2-0 in the 9th, the Blue Jays had one last shot to make a series of it.
Twins closer Jhoan Duran’s on the mound, throwing gas.
He looks unhittable as he settles in and gets Alejandro Kirk to wave at a splitter.
Then he gives up a first-pitch single to Santiago Espinal, and all of a sudden, the tying run’s at the plate.
Matt Chapman’s not the MVP candidate he used to be, but he’s capable of going deep. This could be actual trouble.
And the beautiful thing about baseball is, you don’t find out all that quickly. The pressure builds.
Duran throws three curveballs in a row, all for strikes, only the first one looking, and Chapman takes a seat. Back to unhittable, and yet, all it takes is one.
The Jays have subbed in Whit Merrifield (sorry buddy, but hilarious name) to pinch run at this point, and he strolls on over to second on — love this term — “fielder’s indifference.” The Twins are just worried about the guy at the plate.
Daulton Varsho (sorry buddy, but hilarious name) is Toronto’s last chance. Solid player. Not an All-Star or anything, but he hit more bombs than Chapman this year, so — danger again.
Minnesota’s on their feet, hoping to win their first playoff series in 21 years. But they’ve been burned too many times to get cocky now.
So what’s Duran do? He throws three fastballs in a row, all over 100 mph, and Varsho swings and misses at each one. Not that it would’ve mattered. They were all strikes.
Game over, series over, drought over.
My, Look at the Time
I wasn’t keeping track, but I can’t imagine all of that took much longer than 5 minutes to happen. Duran only threw 13 pitches.
In the best way, though, it felt a lot longer. It’s the moments between that make playoff baseball such a high-wire act.
And again, I wouldn’t say I deeply care about the Twins, beyond being glad to see anyone break a playoff drought. The buy-in is just a consequence of the circumstances.
Once you know the stakes, how can you not hang on every moment?
This is what I tell people who don’t like baseball, whose broader point I do get. A lot of this game, especially the regular season, can feel quotidian to the point of meandering.
For me, that Baseball: It’s Always On quality is part of the appeal. It makes following a team feel a lot more like following a team when the waits between games are so short.
They’re playing more often than they’re not. You track guys through slumps and hot streaks. You see them joke around in the dugout — they get bored too sometimes — and they start to become your buddies. It all feels more familiar. You make a connection.
That’s not for everybody. I get that.
October, though? That’s where the magic is, and there’s plenty to go around.
Get The Brooms Out
Wednesday was the first time since 1996 that four teams were eliminated on the same day.
To immediately contradict all of what I just said above about stakes and tension, none of the four Wild Card series were all that close.
Minnesota-Toronto was the closest, with the whole thing decided by four runs, but all the losing teams got swept. We wave goodbye to the Jays, as well as the plucky Marlins, the once-mighty Rays, and the pretty-solid Brewers, justly confirming that the NL Central would have no representative going forward.
One other fun callback to 1996 is that two of the teams that advanced that day, the Orioles and the Braves, are the top two seeds in baseball this season.
They haven’t had to play yet, but those two meeting in the World Series is the rare playoff scenario that is both chalk and fun.
We’ll get some good stuff ahead.
Minnesota’s Carlos Correa will see his old pals in Houston, with whom he won one World Series (partly by cheating, lest we forget) and watched from relative obscurity as they won another last year. That should be fun.
The Braves and Phillies are the heavyweight bout, with a ton of pop in each lineup. It’s hard to imagine anyone beating the Braves right now, but Philly looked pretty spicy in that Marlins series, and these two teams know each other well. That should also be fun.
The Orioles have to feel pretty good about getting the Rangers rather than the Rays, but you can’t count Texas out on talent. They’ve got guys. Besides, it’s been good to see Jordan Montgomery’s making more productive use of his time these days. That should, if you’re sensing a theme, be fun.
And then you’ve got the Dodgers, seemingly perennial 100-game winners (despite a slew of injuries), hosting their upstart division rivals. Say it with me: fun!
We’ll check back in on the carnage next week — there could be some wrecked pumpkins by then — but man. Welcome back, October. We’ve missed you.
Also, This:
I am hereby urging Jrue Holiday not to take offense that I did not also put out an emergency post for his move to Boston. For my money, that makes them better than Milwaukee top to bottom, and only Giannis being Giannis stands to complicate that equation, but those two are on a collision course and I’m looking forward to that.
Joel Embiid might be playing for USA Basketball at next year’s Olympics? That bodes well for the center rotation, but he’d have been (as the kids say) a problem had he chosen France, and I kinda wish he did. I like winning as much as the next guy, but this is more fun when more top-flight NBA talent is spread around.
The NFL amended its gambling rules, again, so now you’re gonna get two years for betting on your own team, but the penalties for betting on any other teams have been, I think, defensibly nerfed.
More pertinent to right now, though, Jameson Williams is coming back a few weeks early for the Lions, who handed it to the Packers last Thursday without him. Look out for Motor City.
The Big Ten’s new 2024 schedule, now including Washington and Oregon, is predictably insane. USC at Michigan oughta be fun though.
Tim Wakefield was a legend, and may he rest in peace. There could be no greater tribute than this one from George Kirby: throwing his signature knuckleball.