Long Division

So much to recap, so little space. Actually that's not true. It's the Internet! Join us on a 10-day, 19-game whirlwind tour of the Division Series (and those pesky Wild Card games too). We'll be nice and give you jumps to each series, but we've had so much fun #bullpenning this postseason that you know you want to read them all.

Jump to a series:
ALWC...NLWC...LAD/ARI...HOU/BOS...CHC/WSH...NYY/CLE


That Escalated Quickly

Five pitches into the postseason, while we were (really) still adjusting the volume to resolve the delay between radio and television, former New Britain Rock Cat Brian Dozier put the Twins up 1-0 in the AL Wild Card game with a leadoff home run.

Not only was it the first leadoff homer in Twins/Senators postseason history, it was the first time ever that the first batter of the entire postseason went yard. Coco Crisp of the Athletics came close in 2012, homering as the first batter of the first Division Series game, but alas, that was the year MLB added the Wild Card games which had been played the day before.

Three batters later, former New Britain Rock Cat Eddie Rosario made it 3-0, marking the first time the Twins/Senators franchise had ever hit two 1st-inning bombs in the same postseason game. It was their fifth such game this year, one of just five teams to do it that many times (the Orioles led MLB with seven), and the team's most since 1964. The last time Minnesota had two 1st-inning taters against the Yankees, in any game, was July 9, 1965... by Don Mincher and Harmon Killebrew.

After two more hits, Luis Severino was promptly knocked from the game, although Chad Green got two strikeouts to stop the bleeding. Sevy would become the first starter to get only one out in a winner-take-all game (which the Wild Card is) since Gil Heredia of the Athletics did so against the Yankees in the deciding Game 5 of the 2000 ALDS.

Meanwhile, four batters into the Yankees' side, Severino was suddenly off the hook when Didi Gregorius clobbered a three-run homer. Only one other pitcher in postseason history had given up 3 runs on 1 out in a winner-take-all game and not lost it; that was Vic Aldridge for the Pirates in 1925. The Senators scored 4 runs in T1 (including one on a bases-loaded catcher's interference!) but rallied to win Game 7 and the series 9-7.

Brett Gardner then homered in the bottom of the 2nd to give the Yankees a 4-3 lead which they would not relinquish. It marked the second time that the Bronx Bombers had gone deep in the 1st and 2nd innings of the same postseason game; the other pair was Bernie Williams and Darryl Strawberry in Game 4 of the 1996 ALCS.

Ervin Santana needed 64 pitches to get through those first two innings and did not reemerge for the 3rd. Combined with Severino, it was the second "Game 1" in postseason history where neither starter went beyond 2 IP, and the other wasn't because of ineffectiveness. It was the famous suspended ALDS game between CC Sabathia and Justin Verlander in 2011; that contest was halted by rain in the middle of the 2nd inning, and was the first (and so far only) to be suspended-- not wiped out and started over-- under Bud Selig's "must play all 9 innings" rule that he made up during the 2008 World Series (later codified).

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Threes Are Wild

Those 1st-inning homers-- and starters going only two frames-- were just a foreshadowing of things to come. (By the way, in that 1925 Pirates rally in Game 7, Walter Johnson threw an 8-inning complete-game loss and gave up 15 hits.) In the NL Wild Card game the next day, history very nearly repeated when Paul Goldschmidt hit a 3-run homer in the 1st inning. Goldy also batted third, making him the sixth player ever to hit a 3-run homer as the third batter of a postseason game. Josh Hamilton in 2010 had been the most recent. Three batters later, the Diamondbacks' 1st inning ended exactly as the Twins' had: A 3-0 lead, second and third with one out, and then two strikeouts. However, when Jon Gray gave up two more hits, including a Ketel Marte triple, in the 2nd, his night was done early also. The 1⅓ innings were the shortest start of Gray's career, an "honor" which had been held by his fourth career game, a 7-run, 5-out escapade against the Mets on August 21, 2015.

Marte would go on to hit another triple in the 4th inning, but was unable to score after two balls to the infield. He became the first player with a pair of three-baggers in a postseason game since Mariano Duncan did it for the Phillies in the 1993 NLCS. And the last player with three total hits including two triples was Reds pitcher Dutch Ruether in 1919. That, of course, was the "thrown" World Series against the White Sox, so you can speculate about how, um, aggressive the Chicago defense was in trying to get Ruether out.

Although the Rockies clawed back to within 1 run twice, the D'backs held them off with even more triples-- two more, in fact, each of them scoring two runs. And thanks to every team going to the "bullpen" so early, one of those was hit by none other than pitcher Archie Bradley who ended up having to bat for himself. He thus became the first relief pitcher ever to triple in a postseason game, and the sixth overall (joining Dontrelle Willis, Tom Glavine, the aforementioned Dutch Ruether, Babe Ruth, and Cy Young).

By knocking in two runs, Bradley also became just the fourth reliever ever to record two RBIs in a postseason game. Michael Jackson of the Reds (1995) and Johnny Sain of the Yankees (1953) each hit doubles, while the Giants' Wilfred "Rosy" Ryan did it in 1921 while becoming the first pitcher to homer in a World Series.

When A.J. Pollock hit the final three-bagger in the 8th, it marked the first four-triple game in Diamondbacks history, and just the second in MLB this year (Cardinals at "Triples Alley" San Francisco, September 1). And only one other team in postseason history had hit four triples in a game; the 1903 Red Sox (actually still called the Americans then, to distinguish the American League team from the Braves) did it twice in the first World Series. Games 5 and 7 of that series were both played at Exposition Park in Pittsburgh, and at least one of them had such an overflow crowd that some fans were positioned behind ropes in the outfield. It's likely some of those triples were "automatic" based on the ground rules of the time about a fair ball going into the crowd.

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Snake Charmers

The Diamondbacks' number was certainly three when they moved to the Division Series against the Dodgers, but unfortunaely, that was the number of games they had left to play as Los Angeles swept the best-of-five.

Justin Turner duplicated Paul Goldschmidt's feat of hitting a three-run homer as the team's third batter of the game; he's the first Dodger to join that postseason club. Yaisel Puig's double then gave the Dodgers their first-ever 4-run 1st inning in a playoff game, and essentially knocked Taijuan Walker out of the game (though he ended up striking out the side before getting lifted). Walker was the seventh starter in D'backs history to give up 4+ runs while getting only three outs, but just the second pitcher in the last 35 years to get all three of those outs via the K. Justin Verlander did that against the Pirates on August 11, 2014.

Walker's replacement, Zack Godley, would give up three more runs and create a hole that even four Diamondbacks homers couldn't dig them out of. (It didn't help that all four were solo shots either.) They became the first visiting team ever to hit four dingers in a postseason game at Dodger Stadium, and as an added bonus, all were off Clayton Kershaw. The only other 4-HR game of his career was back on June 19 against the Mets, and he became the first pitcher in postseason history to allow four longballs and still get the win. Combined with that Mets game, he joins Ralph Branca as the only pitchers in Dodgers history (1884) to do it twice.

Turner, meanwhile, collected his fifth RBI with an 8th-inning single; he joins Pedro Guerrero (1981) and Davey Lopes (1976) as the only Dodgers with 5-RBI games in the postseason. Both of them did it in World Series games against the Yankees.

Goldy again staked the D'backs to a lead in Game 2 with another of those pesky 1st-inning homers. He became the first player with two of the multi-run variety in the same postseason since Lance Berkman in 2011, and it tied Luis Gonzalez for the most total 1st-inning homers in Arizona history (41).

The Diamondbacks then gave the ball to Robbie Ray, who managed to record six strikeouts and not give up a hit until the 4th inning. But that was largely because he had trouble finding the plate, also issuing four walks, hitting Justin Turner, and uncorking three wild pitches before getting pulled in the 5th. He had never before even been charged with two WPs, and the three were the most in a postseason game since then-Brewer Yovani Gallardo did it in the 2011 NLCS. Toss on the hit batter and it's only the second such performance in postseason history. Juan Guzman of the Blue Jays threw 3 WPs and hit one in the ALCS opener in 1993 (though they still won). And only two other pitchers this season had a line of 4 BB, 3 WP, and an HBP. One was fellow Arizonan Zack Godley (August 13), and the other was knuckleballer R.A. Dickey against Arizona (July 24).

With Ray out of the game, the Dodgers stepped up their running game behind the D'backs' bullpen, including a double-steal by Turner and Corey Seager in the 8th. They ended up with 4 SB for just the third time in postseason history; the other two games were in 1988 and 1965, both years in which the Dodgers won the World Series. And it was the first game in postseason history-- and first in all of 2017-- where a team stole four bases and was also "gifted" three wild pitches by the opponent.

All that led to a 9-5 final, just the second time the Dodgers had scored eight runs in back-to-back postseason games. The other was Games 3 and 4 of the 1955 World Series against the Yankees; they won both to tie up that series which famously ended with Brooklyn's only Series title.

Three was all the runs the Dodgers would need on Tuesday as they finished the three-game sweep, with Yu Darvish and friends holding the Diamondbacks to three hits. Cody Bellinger drove in two of those runs, the first on a groundout following Chris Taylor's leadoff double, but the other on a 5th-inning solo homer. That made him, by about two months, the youngest player in Dodgers history to hit a postseason home run, yanking that title away from Corey Seager last year. The only other Dodgers to hit one before turning 23 (both were slightly older than Seager) were Pete Reiser in 1941 and Mike Scioscia in 1981.

For whatever reason, Zack Greinke was sent back out to start the 6th and promptly gave up a homer to Austin Barnes for the final scoring. Like Ray before him, Greinke spent a lot of time missing the plate, and became the first starter in postseason history to walk five and give up two homers in a game where he was facing elimination. (One pitcher-- Javier Vazquez of the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS-- did do it in relief while already losing.)

Those three Arizona hits tied for the fewest ever allowed by the Dodgers in a potential series-clincher. They won all four such games, the most recent prior to Tuesday being Game 5 of the 1981 NLCS at Montréal. Goldschmidt did come to the plate in the 9th as the tying run, but fanned to end the game, and with it the Diamondbacks' 20th season. Only three of those seasons have ended on a strikeout; Matt Williams in 2000 and Robby Hammock in 2003 made the last out of the regular season (and the D'backs were eliminated long before then anyway, so not nearly as dramatic).

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Ai No Correa

Speaking of threes, Jose Altuve added to our 1st-inning home run collection when he went back-to-back with Alex Bregman at the start of Game 1 against the Red Sox. That was the second set of back-to-back homers in Astros postseason history, after Carlos Correa and Colby Rasmus did it two years ago against the Royals.

However, it would be what Altuve did in the rest of the game that made headlines. In the 5th inning he took Chris Sale deep again, his third career multi-homer game, and the ninth time a Red Sox pitcher has allowed three dingers in a postseason contest. Rick Porcello also did it in last year's opener against Cleveland, and the Sox won only one of those nine games. And only two other Sox pitchers have ever given up nine hits and five runs (never mind the homers) in a Game 1: Roger Clemens in the 1986 ALCS and Cy Young in the first-ever World Series in 1903. (Unlike this year, Boston obviously won both series.)

Two innings and two pitchers later, Altuve greeted the third pitch from Austin Maddox with a third homer to complete the final score of 8-2. There have now been 10 three-homer games in postseason history; Altuve's was the first since Pablo Sandoval opened the 2012 World Series with three taters. No Astro had ever done it; in fact, Altuve was the first Astro to go deep thrice in any game since Carlos Lee on April 13, 2007, in Philadelphia. Morgan Ensberg (May 15, 2005) is the only other Astro to do it at Minute Maid Park since it opened; two visiting players (Sammy Sosa and Aramis Ramirez) have also pulled it off.

Dallas Keuchel shut down the Red Sox in Game 2, and this time it was Carlos Correa's turn to hit that 1st-inning homer to give Houston a lead that it never lost. It was the eighth 1st-inning homer allowed by Drew Pomeranz this season, the most for Boston since Pedro Martinez in 2004. Correa would add a two-run double in the 6th, giving him two hits, two runs, and four driven in. That's the same line he had in that 2015 game against Kansas City where he went back-to-back with Rasums, and only 11 players in postseason history have done it twice. The list is pretty fun: Carlos Delgado, Steve Garvey, David Justice, Gary Matthews, Hideki Matsui, Fred McGriff, Albert Pujols, Babe Ruth, Gary Sheffield, and John Valentin.

Correa's second run scored was Houston's eighth, also making them the 11th team to score at least 8 runs in Games 1 and 2 of the same postseason series (last: 2010 Giants in WS); the only one not to win that series was the 2003 Cubs (who lost Game 1 10-9). And when Jackie Bradley hit an otherwise-meaningless two-out RBI single in the 9th, it secured his place in this post. That run made the final score 8-2... exactly the same as Thursday's game. It was the first time Games 1 and 2 of a postseason series had ended with the same score since 2004, when the Cardinals beat the Dodgers in their NLDS by identical counts of 8-3.

Correa opened Game 3 at Fenway Park with yet another 1st-inning homer, making him the seventh player to hit them in back-to-back games (Corey Seager last year). However, that brief 3-0 lead would be the highlight for Houston, especially when Rafael Devers hit a 2-run go-ahead homer in the 3rd. That was Boston's fifth home run to turn a deficit into a lead when facing elimination; the last was by Johnny Damon off Oakland's Steve Sparks in 2003. Together with Correa, who turned 23 in September, it's the second time in postseason history that each team has had a player that young homer in the same game, and the other set also involves a Red Sock. It was Andrew Benintendi, with Francisco Lindor, in last year's ALDS.

David Price kept the Astros at bay for the second straight game, working four innings and scattering four singles. Price had recorded eight outs in Game 2 after Pomeranz was chased, and while there was an off-day in between, he became the first pitcher to throw at least 2⅔ of relief in back-to-back games since Andy Hawkins did it for the Padres in the 1984 World Series.

Hanley Ramirez quietly collected four hits and three RBIs, including a two-run double in the 6th. He became the first player in Red Sox postseason history to go 4-for-4 (or better) and drive in three runs, and only the second ever to do it in a game where his team stood to get bounced. Kevin McReynolds of the Mets did that in Game 6 of the 1988 NLCS, after which the Mets promptly got shut out in Game 7.

The final score would be 10-3 despite the top four hitters in the Boston lineup going 3-for-16. Starting with Hanley (and followed by Devers and Bradley who both homered), all 10 RBIs came from the bottom four spots in the order, just the second game in Red Sox history where they scored in double digits and had every run come from the 6- through 9-holes. The other was May 15, 2006, at Baltimore, and involved Jason Varitek, Mike Lowell, Alex Gonzalez, and the great Wily Mo Peña.

The Red Sox appeared to have life on Monday when Andrew Benintendi hit a two-run homer in the 5th inning against Justin Verlander. That's "reliever" Justin Verlander, entering from the bullpen for the first time in his pro career. Benintendi joined Dave Henderson in the 1986 ALCS as the only Boston hitters whose home runs turned a deficit into a lead in a "must-win" game. Verlander, for his part, hadn't given up a leadoff homer (i.e., first batter faced) since April 22, 2016.

The Astros would finally grab the lead back in the 8th when Alex Bregman and Josh Reddick combined to plate two runs off "reliever" Chris Sale (continuing this season's theme of everyone throwing two innings at random times of random games). Sale did pitch out of the bullpen during his first two years with the White Sox, but Monday was his first relief loss since the final game of the 2011 season against Toronto (he also got a blown save in that game, but they were 16 games out, so who cares). Yuli Gurriel added a 9th-inning single to his double and triple earlier in the game, and is the first player in postseason history with all three of those hits in a game where his team clinched a series win. Only one other player-- Freddie Patek of the 1977 Yankees-- had done it in a potential clincher, but the Yankees lost that game. (For added fun, Monday was Patek's birthday.)

And Rafael Devers gave the Boston one last moment to remember about the season when he rounded the bases as George Springer couldn't chase down a ball off the Green Monster. It was scored as the first inside-the-park homer by a Red Sock at Fenway since Jacoby Ellsbury hit one against Baltimore on September 19, 2011. Devers became the youngest player to hit an inside-the-parker in the postseason, and the youngest in any game since Edgar Renteria for the Marlins on April 5, 1997.

It was the third IHR in Sox postseason history; one was by Larry Gardner at Ebbets Field in Game 4 of the 1916 World Series, and the other is still the only leadoff IHR in World Series history, by Patsy Dougherty in the second-ever WS game in 1903.

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No Hits? No Problem.

If all those 1st-inning home runs were bothering you, well, then you needed to jump on the Cubs/Nationals series. Not only was it pretty much devoid of early home runs, it was devoid of early hits, with two different Nationals pitchers taking no-hitters into the 6th. While many baseball fans were watching the 13-inning drama between the Yankees and Indians on Friday (more on that in a moment), Stephen Strasburg was quietly retiring 15 of the first 16 Cubs batters, with only Addison Russell's walk breaking the streak. That set a mark for the longest no-hit bid in Nats/Expos postseason history (the "Expos" part of that is pretty short), topping Max Scherzer's four innings in last year's NLDS. Javier Baez promptly reached on an error to start the 6th, and with two outs, back-to-back snigles by Kris Bryant and Anthony Rizzo plated two unearned runs. That also marked the deepest into a postseason game that the Cubs had been no-hit; Bill Donovan of the Tigers shut them down for 5⅓ in Game 2 of the World Series in 1908.

Kyle Hendricks was also dealing, holding the Nationals to just two singles (and no runs) over seven innings. He's the fourth Cubs pitcher with that line in a postseason game, and the only one to do it twice. Hendricks also kept the Dodgers off the board to close out last year's NLCS; the others are Rick Sutcliffe (1984 NLCS), Claude Paseau (1945 WS), and Mordecai "Three Finger" Brown in 1906. And Game 1 became only the second contest where both starters went 7+ innings, allowing no earned runs and no more than three hits. The other was the unlikely matchup of the Cardinals' Woody Williams and Houston's Brandon Backe in the 2004 NLCS.

Unfortunately for Strasburg, those two unearned runs hung an un-curly "L" next to his line, making him only the third pitcher in postseason history to strike out 10 opponents, allow zero earned, and lose. And the others are both John Smoltz, who did it in both 1993 (NLCS) and 1996 (WS) as the Braves rolled to 14 straight postseasons but only one championship.

Max Scherzer, meanwhile, didn't take kindly to Strasburg stealing his "longest no-hit bid" record, so three days later, in Game 3, he said give it back. The man who's already completed two no-hitters, and threatened them on many other occasions, scattered three walks and a hit batter before Ben Zobrist doubled over Jayson Werth's head with one out in the 7th. However, this time it was Jose Quintana who shut down the Nationals' bats, again yielding just two hits and one unearned run thanks to Kyle Schwarber making two errors on the same play. Only one other postseason game saw both starters go 5⅔ or longer and allow ≤ 2 hits, and it's our Williams/Backe 2004 matchup again.

Schwarber accounted for only half of the Cubs' errors, but the Nationals couldn't capitalize on the other two and lost 2-1. The Cubs thus became the first team to commit four errors in a postseason game and win it since the Red Sox beat the Cardinals in Game 2 of the 2004 World Series. It was also the first time the Cubs had ever won a postseason game where they were held to four hits with none of them being homers.

In between, the Nats rallied to take Game 2 when Adam Lind led off the 8th with his 15th pinch hit of the season (regular and post-), the most by any player since Greg Dobbs had 17 for the Phillies in 2008. Bryce Harper and Ryan Zimmerman then followed with tying and go-ahead homers, the first time all year the Nationals had one of each in the 8th inning or later of the same game (to be fair, they didn't trail in the 8th a whole lot). The only other tying or go-ahead homer that late in Nats/Expos postseason history was by Jayson Werth in 2012 to force a Game 5 in the Division Series with the Cardinals. And Saturday's homers gave the win to Oliver Perez, whose only other postseason W was as a Met... in 2006! He is the ninth pitcher all-time to go 11+ seasons between his first and second postseason victories (full list).

Strasburg relented to Scherzer on the no-hit thing in Game 4, but instead said, I'll just set a different record. Strasburg fanned 12 in seven scoreless innings as the Nationals clung to a tenuous 1-0 lead. Only one other pitcher in postseason history-- Joe Coleman of the 1972 Tigers-- has thrown seven scoreless and struck out a dozen when facing elimination; Coleman threw a 14-K shutout to stave off an Oakland sweep in the ALCS. And he joined Mike Mussina of the 1997 Orioles as the only pitchers to strike out 10 and allow ≤ 3 hits in back-to-back postseason appearances.

That lead stayed tenuous thanks to Cubs "reliever" Jon Lester who replaced Jake Arrieta in the 5th. Lester got 11 outs before a Daniel Murphy single ended his day. The only other Cubs pitcher to throw 3⅔ of one-hit relief in the postseason was Harry McIntire, who took over for our old buddy Orval Overall in Game 1 of the 1910 World Series at Shibe Park in Philadelphia.

After two walks and another pitching change, Michael Taylor un-tenuoused the lead (we know, not a word, don't @ us) with the first-ever grand slam in Nats/Expos postseason history. Taylor, of course, also hit a rare inside-the-park grand slam five weeks ago, making him the first player with an inside- and an outside- in the same season since Terry Pendleton did for the Cardinals in 1985.

Taylor then gave the Nationals early hope in Thursday's deciding Game 5 with a three-run homer in the 2nd inning. It was the first go-ahead homer in a winner-take-all game in Nats/Expos postseason history, three batters after Daniel Murphy hit the first tying one. (The franchise has only played five WTA games, so #SmallSampleSize.) But that also made Taylor just the fourth player to hit a grand slam and a three-run homer in the same postseason series. Troy O'Leary (1999) and Edgar Martinez (1995) hit both in the same game, while Nelson Cruz did it two games apart in 2011. Taylor added an RBI single in the 8th, becoming the first player in postseason history with consecutive 4-RBI games, and the first to have two such games in the same season when facing elimination.

Those hopes, however, were dashed by a four-run top of the 5th that started with an Addison Russell double. After that, however, it got weird, even for us. Javier Baez struck out but reached first on a passed ball, even as his backswing appeared to hit Matt Wieters in the head (not reviewable, but dead ball if called). The dazed Wieters then airmailed the throw to first and allowed Russell to score from second, the first run-scoring "K+PB" in postseason history (regardless of the error). Four pitches later, Wieters was called for catcher's interference, awarding Tommy La Stella first base. Wieters thus became the second catcher in postseason history to commit a CI and a PB in the same game, along with the Dodgers' Joe Ferguson, charged with catching knuckleballer Charlie Hough in the 1974 NLCS.

Three pitches after that, Jon Jay got plunked to force in another run. That was the first bases-loaded HBP in Cubs postseason history, and the second one ever issued by the Nationals or Expos (Joe Ross plunked the Dodgers' Joc Pederson last season). The fine folks at Baseball Reference queried their play-by-play database, which has every game since 1974, and about 70% before that, and found no game-- regular or postseason-- with a K+PB, a CI, an HBP, and an intentional walk (which happened after Russell's double) in the same inning.

Russell would double again in the 6th to drive home another run. He also had two extra-base hits and 4 RBIs in Game 6 of last year's World Series, becoming the first Cub to do that twice in the postseason. Eleven other players have done it all-time, a list that includes Duke Snider, Gary Sheffield, Albert Pujols, Steve Garvey, and Babe Ruth.

Ultimately, though, the Nationals' season would end like so many others in recent years, with a one-run defeat by a 9-8 count. Wade Davis got the last seven outs of the game, including one on a controversial replay overturn with two outs and two on, becoming just the third Cubs pitcher with a save of that long in the postseason. Aroldis Chapman got the final eight outs of World Series Game 5 last year against Cleveland, and Bill Lee (not "Spaceman") got nine despite allowing a run against the Tigers in 1935. Having lost Game 5 to the Dodgers last year by a 4-3 score, the Nationals got the dubious honor of being the second team ever to lose 1-run winner-take-all games in consecutive seasons, joining the Athletics of 2002-03. Tack on their 2014 defeat by the Giants in a 3-2 game, and they join the 1995-97 Indians as the only teams to be eliminated from the postseason with a one-run loss three times in four years.

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Clubhouse Lost, Clubhouse Regained

The no-hitter scares were not limited to the Nats/Cubs series; indeed, it looked like the Yankees wouldn't last long against the Indians when Trevor Bauer dealt five hitless frames in Game 1. That marked the longest no-hit bid in Indians postseason history; Bob Feller started their last World Series run in 1948 with four no-hit innings, and Early Wynn duplicated that in Game 2 of the 1954 Classic. It was the fifth time the Yankees had been no-hit through five in a postseason game; all of those have occurred this century, three of them are against the Tigers, and two of them were against the aforementioned Max Scherzer.

Aaron Hicks doubled in the 6th, but the Yankees would finish with just three hits and no runs; Jay Bruce's 2-run homer in the 4th was the biggest blow for Cleveland. Bruce, of course, spent parts of nine years a few hours down I-71 in Cincinnati; he is the first player ever to hit a postseason homer for both Ohio teams. The Yankees also uncorked four wild pitches in Game 1, the second team ever to do so in a postseason game. The Cardinals threw five in the opener of their 2000 NLDS against Atlanta.

Game 2 looked exactly the opposite when the Yankees unloaded for six runs against Corey Kluber, with Hicks' 3-run homer in the 3rd ultimately chasing him from the game. Leading 8-3 in the 6th, Joe Girardi made one oft-questioned decision to pull CC Sabathia after a four-pitch walk, and then another extremely-questioned decision not to challenge a Lonnie Chisenhall hit-by-pitch. If you've made it this far, you know that Francisco Lindor hit a grand slam two pitches later, the fifth in Indians postseason history. Jim Thome hit two, Albert Belle hit one in 1996, and Elmer Smith hit the very first postseason slam in the 1920 World Series, but played second fiddle to Bill Wambsganss's unassisted triple play.

Jay Bruce tied the game with another homer in the 8th, joining Thome (1999 ALDS) as the only Clevelanders to homer in the first two games of a postseason series. Finally Yan Gomes found the hole for an RBI single in the 13th, the second 13th-inning walkoff (or later) in Indians postseason history. Tony Peña's solo homer beat the Red Sox in the opener of their 1995 Division Series.

Needing a win to stay alive, the Yankees handed the ball to Masahiro Tanaka in Game 3. He and Carlos Carrasco did their best Cubs/Nats impression, combining for 13 strikeouts and zero runs through the first six innings. It was just the third time in 2017 that a Yankee game had been 0-0 through six innings, and all of those happened to be Tanaka starts at Yankee Stadium. He also blanked the Rangers (Yu Darvish) on June 23 and the Athletics (Sean Manaea) on May 26. Tanaka became the second Yankee to throw at least seven scoreless innings and allow ≤ 3 hits in a "must-win" postseason game; Johnny Kucks threw a complete-game shutout in Game 7 of the 1956 World Series.

Greg Bird's solo homer to lead off the 7th would prove to be the only score in the game, marking the sixth 1-0 postseason win for the Yankees and the third loss for the Indians. Solo homers decided the previous 1-0 game for both teams as well: Jorge Posada in the Yankees' 2001 Division Series over Oakland, and a David Justice home run that most Cleveland fans would rather forget; it gave the Braves the 1995 World Series championship.

Bird's shot (see what we did there?) was the Yankees' first go-ahead homer in the 7th inning or later of a potential elimination game since... yep. That one. And the last time any Yankee had homered in a 1-0 win was back on May 26, 2010, when Derek Jeter hit one during the first season at Target Field. The Bronx Bombers had the longest drought in the majors of doing such a thing.

The phrase "comedy of errors" would not be off-base to describe Game 4. Trevor Bauer on short rest didn't have nearly the dominant outing as he did in Game 1, but it was four Indians errors-- two by 3B Giovanny Urshela-- that led to a whopping six unearned runs as the Yankees rolled, 7-3. Bauer gave up four of those before being pulled; he became just the second Cleveland starter to give up zero earned runs in a postseason game but not finish the 2nd inning. The other... was Trevor Bauer, in last year's ALCS when he famously sliced his finger playing with his drone, attempted to bandage it up, but then the bandage came undone and he, um, "got his red on" all over the mound. The Indians had only one other postseason game in their history with four errors-- and they still won. That was a 3-2 win over Seattle in the 1995 ALCS. Combined with the Cubs' four-error game from above, it's the first season since 2010 where there have been two such games, and the first time ever that two had happened on the same day.

Meanwhile, on the Yankees' side, Aaron Judge continued his torrid pace of, well, striking out, with four more whiffs. He did, however, rope a two-run double-- his only hit of the entire series-- and thus became the first Yankee with four strikeouts but two RBIs since Alfonso Soriano did it against the Twins on May 18, 2002. Only two players in Yankees history (regular season or post-) had done it without hitting a home run... and they were in the same game! Tino Martinez and Paul O'Neill both posted that line in an 11-inning, 10-8 slugfest with the Mariners on August 23, 1997. Judge finished the Division Series with 16 strikeouts; combined with his 208 from the regular season, he now holds the record for most total whiffs in a year, one more than Mark Reynolds' recognized record of 223 in 2009.

Tommy Kahnle recorded the final six outs for New York to earn his fourth career save, but he got five of those via strikeout. No Yankee pitcher had recorded a five-strikeout "save" in a postseason game since before the stat was official. Allie Reynolds was the only other one to do it, in Game 4 of the 1949 World Series at Ebbets Field.

And what can we say about Game 5 except "Didi"? The Yankee shortstop clobbered two home runs to join Jason Giambi (2003) and Yogi Berra (1965) as the only Bronx Bombers to go deep twice in a "winner-take-all" game. CC Sabathia retired the first nine Clevelanders in order, struck out nine total, but got into trouble in the 5th and was replaced. Combined with nine strikeouts by Luis Severino in Game 4, it was the second time Yankee pitchers had posted back-to-back 9-K games in the same postseason series; Roger Clemens and "El Duque" Orlando Hernandez did it in Games 2 and 3 of the 2000 fall classic against the Mets.

Giovanny Urshela partially redemeed himself with an RBI single in that 5th inning, becoming the first player in Indians history to have a postseason RBI on his birthday. But David Robertson (who relieved Sabathia) and Aroldis Chapman kept Cleveland hitless for the last 4⅔ innings, the third tandem of pitchers in postseason history to each throw two hitless frames in the same game. Dave Dravecky and Craig Lefferts did it for the Padres in the 1984 NLCS, and more memorably, "El Sid" Fernandez and Jesse Orosco of the Mets stymied the Red Sox in innings 5, 6, 8, and 9 while the offense came back to win Game 7 of the 1986 World Series.

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And then there were four.