You may be familiar with the geologic phenomenon that is the Continental Divide, an imaginary line running from Alaska to Chile that separates water flowing east from water flowing west. For this week, then, it seemed appropriate that we divide our eight teams, send half of them west, half of them east, have three of their stadiums host games not involving the home team, and thanks to two roofs and "southern California", not worry about water at all.
With the Dodgers and Padres both advancing through the Wild Card round to face each other in the NLDS, it makes sense that Dodger Stadium and Petco Park would both be hosting Division Series games this week.
It's 2020, nothing makes sense. Because while it's true that those parks did host games, neither the Dodgers nor Padres played in any of them. Nope, they got banished to the other side of the mountains to meet each other at Globe Life Field in Arlington, because why not.
Things took an unfortunate turn early for the Padres when Game 1 starter Mike Clevinger blew out his elbow six batters into the series. And that was after walking three of them and throwing a wild pitch along the way, becoming the first starter in Padres history (regular or postseason) to do that despite allowing 0 hits. (Why swing?) The only other postseason pitchers with 0 hits but 3 walks and a wild pitch are Detroit's Anibal Sanchez, in the 2013 ALCS game where he tossed 6 no-hit frames, and Baltimore's Mike Cuellar in 1974. That forced the Padres to cobble together the rest of the game with their bullpen, although eventually it seemed like that might have been the plan all along. (Dinelson Lamet and Chris Paddack were notably left off the series roster.) By the time Mookie Betts finally broke up the no-hitter in the 6th, the Padres were on their sixth pitcher already (Garrett Richards), meaning they were just the second team in postseason history to have five different pitchers appear in a game without giving up a hit. The first team to do that... was the Padres in the final Wild Card game last Friday, and those were not consecutive.
That's not to say the Dodgers didn't have plenty of people hanging around first base. Four of those five 0-hit pitchers still walked somebody, and by the end of the game the Padres had issued 10 free passes, thrown 3 wild pitches, and hit a batter. Only one other team in postseason history had been that generous to an opponent... and they won! The Blue Jays pulled it off in the opener of their 1993 ALCS against Chicago. Ignoring the hit batter for a moment, only once before in team history had the Padres issued 10 walks and thrown 3 wild pitches, and that was also against the Dodgers. It was June 28, 1969, in San Diego's first season at the major-league level, and it ended with the worst home loss in Padres history (19-0).
The hit batter in question was pinch-hitter Enrique Hernandez, who as it turns out, also got plunked while pinch-hitting for Yu Darvish in Game 7 of the 2017 World Series. He's the first batter in postseason history to have multiple PH HBPs, and continuing our theme of Things That Aren't Hits, Corey Seager broke a 1-1 tie with a 6th-inning sacrifice fly. He also did that in the 2017 World Series, off Justin Verlander in Game 6, and is the first batter in postseason history with a pair of go-ahead sac flies in the 6th or later. Garrett Richards would issue two more walks and another wild pitch after that lone hit by Mookie Betts; ultimately the Dodgers finished the contest with 5 runs on just 4 hits. The only other team in postseason history to do that without homering were the 1947 Yankees (who scored all their runs in one inning) and the 1919 Reds (in a game against Lefty Williams, who wasn't really trying to get them out).
Game 2 on Wednesday is going to be remembered, if at all, for the ending, so we'll blow through the early part. Corey Seager did collect a pair of doubles and a stolen base, joining Justin Turner (2015 NLDS) and Maury Wills (1965 WS) as the only Dodgers to do that in a postseason game. He was also the third Dodgers batter with a multi-double game in Arlington; Mark Grudzielanek and Alex Cora did it in the same interleague series at the old park in June 2000. Drew Pomeranz then let in two inherited runs in the 7th to give the Dodgers a 6-3 lead. And apparently they knew exactly how long the leash was. Long enough for Kenley Jansen to give up a single to Jake Cronenworth and then a double to Mitch Moreland, just the second pinch-hit RBI double in Padres postseason history in the 8th or later. Ruben Rivera hit the other against the Yankees' Mike Stanton in Game 2 of the 1998 World Series. With 2 outs Trent Grisham then singles home Moreland to make it 6-5, another "second" in Padres postseason history. Their only other RBI base hit when down to the team's final strike came from Jim Leyritz, whose home run off Houston's Billy Wagner tied Game 2 of their 1998 Division Series.
Bye, Kenley. As Friend Of Kernels Jayson Stark discovered, this was Jansen's 373rd career save opportunity. Not once had he gotten pulled with the Dodgers still ahead. Instead that save would go to Joe Kelly, and he didn't exactly make it easy either. Grisham's already on first. Kelly promptly walks two batters to load the bases with a 1-run lead. He then somehow gets Eric Hosmer to hit a grounder to short, "earning" a save despite facing three batters and walking two of them-- the first pitcher in postseason history to do that. Hosmer, meanwhile, had the first postseason at-bat in 11 years to end a game with the bases loaded and his team down 1; Nick Swisher forced a Game 6, so to speak, in the 2009 ALCS against the Angels.
Game 3 in this series was already forced just by the best-of-five format, but MLB's schedulers were not forced to have the Dodgers and Padres be the last game every night. We know they did that to get west-coast TV ratings, but remember those nine pitchers the Padres used in Game 1? How quaint. Facing elimination, San Diego broke their own record by running eleven pitchers out to the mound-- with only "starter" Adrian Morejon getting more than 3 outs-- and of course they still lost. (Which was probably good, because who's left to pitch Game 4?) They did keep this one marginally close at the beginning, with Jake Cronenworth the recipient of the first game-tying bases-loaded walk in Padres postseason history in the 2nd. The Dodgers then piled up 4 hits, 2 walks, a stolen base, and a wild pitch in the 3rd to pull away with a 5-run inning. They were also playing their own "opener" games, letting Dustin May go just 1 inning before pulling him. Only Josh Tudor (1988, blew out his elbow) and Bob Welch (1983, a combination of early walks and Tommy Lasorda) had been pulled from a Dodgers postseason start before allowing a hit. Julio Urias, meanwhile, played the role of "long reliever", going 5 innings and only allowing 1 hit himself. It had been 34 years since a Dodgers pitcher threw 5 innings in relief with 1 hit and 6 strikeouts; Balvino Galvez, who made just 10 MLB appearances, did it against the Giants on September 26, 1986. But because balks make everything funner, we must give Urias a shout-out for becoming the second pitcher in Dodgers postseason history to balk in a run. Elias Sosa did that in the opening game of the 1977 NLCS against the Phillies. And after Brusdar Graterol committed a non-scoring balk on Wednesday, the Dodgers became just the third team in postseason history to have one in back-to-back games (1975 Pirates, 1948 Indians).
The big offensive story of the night was Dodgers catcher Will Smith, who succeeded in raising his postseason batting average by 158 basis points. In his two years in the majors, Smith had been 1-for-24 (.042) entering Thursday's game, but sure, keep running different Padres pitchers out there, I'll hit all of them. Double off Morejon. RBI single off Tim Hill. Single off Matt Strahm. Single off Drew Pomeranz. And the icing on the cake, another double off Trevor Rosenthal in the 9th to score Dodgers runs number 9 and 10. It's not only the first 5-hit game in Dodgers postseason history, it's just the third time anyone's gotten hits off five different pitchers in a postseason game. Albert Pujols, who had the last 5-hit game overall in the 2011 World Series, did it; the first was Paul Blair of the Orioles in the 1969 ALCS. We also just listed you three of the four players ever to have 5 hits and 3+ RBI in a postseason game; the other is Hideki Matsui of the Yankees in the 2004 ALCS. And only three other "Los Angeles" Dodgers have ever done 5-and-3 without a home run in the mix: James Loney (September 18, 2011), Ron Cey (July 3, 1977), and Willie Davis (August 24, 1971).
It's hard to know whether the Padres kept changing pitchers because Smith and the Dodgers kept getting hits, or vice versa, but regardless Los Angeles had just two innings in the 12-3 clincher where they did not have at least two baserunners. That means a lot of guys on second and third, commonly noted as "scoring position". In fact the Dodgers would finish the game 8-for-24 (twenty-four!) in those situations. That set a postseason record for the most at-bats by any one team with runners in scoring position; the previous mark had been held by the Blue Jays who went 10-for-23 in a wild 15-14 World Series game in Philadelphia in 1993.
Speaking of 24, back at Dodger Stadium, any kind of water that did fall and run down the side of Chavez Ravine was sure to collect some baseballs along the way. Because plenty of them landed outside the stadium thanks to its two combatants, the Astros and Athletics. Exactly two dozen of them, in fact, easily the most ever at one stadium in a single postseason series. Where to begin.
Khris Davis will take care of beginning things for us, with a 2-run shot to open the scoring in Game 1. He would end up joining Brandon Moss (2014 Wild Card game) as the only A's designated hitters with 2 hits and 2 RBI in a postseason loss. Sean Murphy and Matt Olson followed him with dingers in the 3rd and 4th, just the second time in A's postseason history that they'd gone deep in three consecutive innings. The other was in the famous "earthquake game", 1989 WS 3 against Oakland, that had to be postponed for 10 days. That also made it just the second time the A's had hit 3 homers in a game at Dodger Stadium; the other was April 11, 2018, and Davis hit the first one in that batch as well.
However, much like the Home Run Derby that this series would become, the A's are now done homering and Astros, your turn to swing away. Don't mind if we do. Alex Bregman and Carlos Correa both launched homers in the 4th, the first Astros teammates to homer in the same inning at Dodger Stadium since That Game With All The Homers, aka 2017 World Series Game 2 when Houston and Los Angeles piled up six of them from the 9th inning on. Monday's starter Chris Bassitt joined Tim Hudson (2003 ALDS 1) as the only A's starters to give up 9+ hits including multiple homers in a postseason game.
And yet it wasn't a homer that ultimately gave the Astros their Game 1 win. That happened in the 6th when Marcus Semien's 2-out error opened the floodgates behind reliever J.B. Wendelken. George Springer doubled to get Houston back to 5-4, and then Jose Altuve's bases-loaded single was just the third lead-flipping hit in the 6th or later in Astros postseason history. Marwin Gonzalez had a double in the 2018 ALDS aganist Cleveland, while Lance Berkman's homer in Game 5 of the 2005 NLCS put them one strike away from the pennant before Albert Pujols flipped it back. Wendelken would become the second pitcher in A's postseason history to give up 0 earned runs (because of the 2-out error) and take a loss, and the other happened before earned runs were officially counted in league stats. Eddie Plank did it in a 1-0 game in 1905. Carlos Correa would homer again on the way to a 10-5 win, becoming the first Astros batter with a multi-homer game at Dodger Stadium since Lance Berkman on May 27, 2001. And George Springer finished Monday with 4 hits, joining Terry Puhl (1980 NLCS 5) as the only Astros leadoff batters to do that in the postseason.
Springer only ended up with 2 hits in Tuesday's 5-2 Houston victory, but guess where both of them landed. (Hint: Not in the playing field.) First we should mention that Khris Davis opened the scoring yet again with a 2nd-inning homer, the fourth A's batter to homer in Games 1 and 2 of the same postseason series. The rest of that list is Jose Canseco (1988 ALCS), Mickey Cochrane (1930 WS), and Jimmie Foxx (1929 WS). But Springer's first homer flipped that lead right back in the top of the 3rd, something he also did in Game 4 of last year's ALCS against the Yankees. Only eight players have hit multiple lead-flipping homers in postseason history (any inning); the aforementioned Lance Berkman and Albert Pujols are two of them, along with Sandy Alomar, Johnny Damon, Greg Luzinski, Jim Thome, and Lou Gehrig. And remember that Carlos Correa went deep twice on Monday. The last time any team had a 2-homer player in back-to-back postseason games was in 2011 when Delmon Young and Miguel Cabrera did it in the ALCS. And only two other teams have had it happen in Games 1 and 2 of a series: the 2002 Angels (Troy Glaus & Tim Salmon) and 1995 Braves (Chipper Jones & Marquis Grissom, much more on them later).
On to Wednesday with the A's facing a "win or go home" situation, which they promptly turned into "win or go homer". Maybe "win and go homer". "Go homer and win"? Because they did both. Tommy La Stella in the 1st. Mark Canha in the 2nd. Matt Olson in the 4th. Marcus Semien in the 5th. Have we mentioned that all of these were off Astros starter Jose Urquidy, who would become the fifth pitcher in postseason history to surrender four taters without finishing the 5th inning. The last one to do it was Andy Pettitte in Game 3 of the 1998 ALCS, and he ended up losing. So did Cincinnati's Gene Thompson (1939) and Charlie Root of the Cubs (1932). The only one not to lose was Dick Hughes of the Cardinals who got bailed out in Game 6 of the 1967 World Series by Lou Brock homering to tie the game in the 7th.
Well, the only one before Urquidy. Because all four of those Oakland homers were also solo shots, and the Astros offense was kinda busy also. Jose Altuve matched La Stella's dinger in the bottom of the 1st, joining Alex Bregman (WS Game 2, last year) as the only Houstonians to hit a 1st-inning postseason homer with the team already trailing. Then they ran Jesús Luzardo out of the game in the 5th when Aledmys Diaz homered to tie the game. The problem for Oakland, at least on this afternoon, was that they ran in Yusmeiro Petit. Who faced five batters and went hit-by-pitch, single, single, double, walk. Only nine pitchers in postseason history have faced five hitters and allowed all of them to reach, the most recent being Arizona's Brad Ziegler (2011 NLDS 3), who was also the only one to go 6-for-6. Petit did record an out because Altuve tried to go first-to-third on one of those singles and failed. But suddenly the Astros lead 7-4 and Urquidy is off the hook. And Oakland's season is on it unless they can come back.
Spoiler alert: Yeah, they can. Allow Chad Pinder to take care of that with yet another homer, this time a 3-run jack in the 7th to tie the game up again. Jason Giambi hit the only other tying or go-ahead 3-run homer for the A's in the 7th or later at Dodger Stadium, on June 16, 2009, off Ramon Troncoso. The only 3- or 4-run homers they've hit at all in the 7th or later of a postseason game were by Mark Ellis (2002), Ray Fosse (1974), and Mule Haas (1929). Pinder also joined Milton Bradley (2006 ALCS 2) and Dave Henderson (1989 WS 3) as the only A's batters with 3 hits and 4 RBI in a postseason game.
Finally the A's end up winning this thing with not a multi-run homer, but the play we love to call "a multi-run homer that didn't make it". Yes, the good old sacrifice fly, as if anyone in 2020 is really intentionally giving themselves up by hitting a ball to the outfield. But okay. We'll let Sean Murphy hit the first go-ahead sac fly in A's postseason history in the 8th or later, making up for also becoming the first A's catcher ever to commit an interference violation in a postseason game. Later in the inning Chad Pinder cranked one also for the final margin of 9-7, Oakland's first time hitting two of them that late in a game since Josh Reddick and Nate Freiman on April 4, 2013.
This of course sets up Game 4 on Thursday, and why wouldn't there be more bizarre home-run-ness? Only one of the A's got in on the homer party this time, but wouldn't you know he did it twice. Ramon Laureano gave Oakland a 3-0 lead against Zack Greinke in the 2nd, and then had to get a run back with another homer in the 5th. The only other A's batter with a multi-homer game at Dodger Stadium was (yep, we've been waiting for one of these) in an Angels game. Jim Gentile did it on May 7, 1965, the Halos' final season borrowing Chavez Ravine before they got old enough to get their own place.
You might ask why Laureano's second homer qualified as "getting a run back". Well, that's because the Astros offense was busy with its own little parade of Michael Brantley and Carlos Correa. They both took Frankie Montas deep in the 4th, with Correa being the fourth Astros player to hit a 3- or 4-run homer to flip a postseason game (George Springer 2019, Lance Berkman 2005, Craig Biggio 2004). Montas was also the fourth A's pitcher to give up 5 runs in a potential elimination game, after Jon Lester (2014 WC), Gil Heredia (2000 ALDS), and Mike Moore (1992 ALCS). The A's were well on their way to said elimination when Brantley homered again in the 5th, this time off J.B. Wendelken. Brantley is the first Astros batter to homer in consecutive innings of a postseason game, and the second to pull off that feat at Dodger Stadium after Denny Walling on August 5, 1986.
Remember last week when Wil Myers and Fernando Tatis hit 2 homers in the same game, joining Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in 1932? Well, see also: Brantley and Laureano. Except they are on different teams. And that has only happened two other times in postseason history. Boston's Troy O'Leary and Cleveland's Jim Thome did it in Game 5 of the 1999 ALDS, while Atlanta's Chipper Jones and then-Cub Eric Karros matched homers in Game 4 of their 2003 Division Series. When Jose Altuve added the Astros' final runs in the 7th, we had just the fourth postseason series in history to collect 24 homers, and the first of those four that didn't last seven games. We also had the first series ever where four different games featured both teams hitting multiple homers. Who knew that, all this time, the secret to having the AL West not play a bunch of 3-1 snoozefests was to have them play in Dodger Stadium.
We then head south to Petco Park where one of the teams knows a little something about rivers and water runoff and also baseballs. The Yankees' double-A affiliate in Trenton, N.J., plays its games on the shores of the Delaware River, just upstream from the "secret" spot where MLB gathers the special mud to rub up all the game balls. (And if you've ever been to a game in Trenton where the wind is blowing the wrong direction, you might think it's something other than mud. If you get our, heh, drift.)
Game 1 between the Yankees and Rays got a little muddy for their ace starters, Gerrit Cole and Blake Snell. Cole lasted 6 innings but gave up homers to Randy Arozarena and Ji-Man Choi; he got the win only because Snell gave up three homers, joining Jeremy Hellickson (2011 ALDS), Matt Garza (2008 WS), and Scott Kazmir (2008 ALCS) as the only Rays pitchers to do that in the postseason. That left the Yankees hanging onto a 4-3 lead going to the 9th, but if you've learned nothing about the Yankees in the past two months, you should know that the 7th inning is way too early to start writing notes about them.
John Curtiss is sent to the mound to try and keep the Rays within 1 run. He did that by having Kyle Higashioka single on the first pitch he threw, then issuing a 4-pitch walk to D.J. LeMahieu. Then a single to Aaron Hicks, another walk to load the bases, and here comes Giancarlo Stanton. Who hasn't met a game yet this month in which he hasn't homered. Cue the second 9th-inning grand slam in Yankees postseason history, after Ricky Ledee in the 1999 ALCS. Their last 9th-inning slam in any game outside of Yankee Stadium was by Bobby Abreu in Toronto on September 24, 2008. And combined with the one Gio Urshela hit in the Wild Card series, it's only the second time the Yankees have hit two in one postseason; Bill Skowron and Yogi Berra each hit one in the 1956 World Series.
Game 2 looked remarkably similar, with the teams trading 1-run leads early, thanks mostly to those lovable homers again. Stanton got his out of the way early, a solo shot to lead off the 2nd and make him the seventh player to homer in four straight games within the same postseason. Not surprisingly, all but one have come in the Wild Card Era: George Springer (2017), Daniel Murphy (2015), Evan Longoria (2008), Carlos Beltran (2004), Juan Gonzalez (1996), and Jeffrey Leonard (1987). Meanwhile, Stanton tied the game with that homer because Randy Arozarena had gone deep again, becoming the first Rays batter to hit one in Games 1 and 2 of the same postseason series.
Mike Zunino then gave the Rays the lead again with his own homer in the 2nd; when Zunino homered in the Wild Card round last week, he stole the alphabetical caboose from another Rays great, Ben Zobrist. It was also the first team any team had an A- player and a Z- player homer in the same postseason game. Bobby Bonilla and Todd Zeile had the previous maximum separation when they did it for the Orioles in the last game of the 1996 ALCS.
Stanton may have been born in November, but he seems to have been born for October, because guess who got the Yankees back within a run in the 4th. He has now become the fourth Yankees batter to hit 5 homers in one postseason, after Alex Rodriguez (2009), Bernie Williams (1996), and of course "Mr. October" himself, Reggie Jackson (1977). However, Stanton would end up as the third Yankees batter with 4 RBI in a postseason loss; Yogi Berra did that in the 1956 game where he hit the grand slam, and again in the final game of 1960 when Bill Mazeroski hit the walkoff for the Pirates.
That 7-5 loss is largely because, when Stanton wasn't hitting homers off Tyler Glasnow, the rest of the team was missing badly. Glasnow struck out 10, the first Rays pitcher ever to hit double digits in a postseason game. That leaves four franchises (COL, LAA, MIL, TOR) that have never had a pitcher do it. He also joined James Shields (May 2, 2012) and Wilson Alvarez (June 25, 1999) as the only pitchers in Rays history to give up 4 runs and 2 homers, but also strike out 10 and get a win. The Yankees fared no better against the Rays' bullpen, finishing the game with 18 K's. That was the most ever by the Yankees against the Rays, and the most by any team in any 9-inning postseason game. Masahiro Tanaka was sent out for Game 3, and he's usually good for at least 1 homer every game. This time it took until the 4th inning, but it was a 3-run job off the bat of Kevin Kiermaier, the second 3- or 4-run go-ahead dinger in Rays postseason history. The other one was by... Kevin Kiermaier, and a year earlier to the day, when he took Zack Greinke deep. Tanaka then gave us a bonus homer when Randy Arozarena knocked him out of the game to start the 5th. Evan Longoria and Carlos Peña are the only other Rays batters to homer in three straight postseason games, and they did it in the same three games (2008 ALCS 3-5).
Chad Green got out of the 5th, but like Tanaka he was sent back out to start another inning, and that ended with Michael Perez also hitting a 2-run homer. Combined with Kiermaier, it was the seventh time a team's starting #8 and #9 batters had homered in the same postseason game, but it was the first time ever that they'd each had at least 3 RBI. And Perez also kept up another fascinating streak by homering in the 6th. After Arozarena in the 5th and Kiermaier in the 4th. Going back to Game 2 it was Arozarena in the 1st, Zunino in the 2nd, and Manuel Margot in the 3rd. The Rays are the first team in postseason history to homer in three consecutive innings in back-to-back games, and the seventh to homer in innings 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of an entire series. The 2011 Tigers were the previous team to pull that off.
So it's 8-2 and the Rays are well on their way to a 2-1 series lead, but there's some unfinished business. Stanton hasn't homered yet. Darned 9-inning games. Out of that list above, only Murphy and Beltran extended their single-postseason homer streak to 5 games, and it also marked the third time this season that a Yankees player had a 5-game streak. Luke Voit and Aaron Judge had two of the three such streaks in the majors in the regular season, and it matches the total number of Yankees who had 5-game homer streaks in the previous 50 seasons combined (A-Rod, Tino Martinez, Don Mattingly).
Some unexpected Yankee bats got into the homer fray in Game 4 when Luke Voit and Gleyber Torres both hit their first ones of the series. With both teams saving their aces for a potential Game 5, it was the Yankees bullpen who nailed down Tampa Bay for the final 5 innings and forced said winner-take-all matchup. Chad Green faced 6 batters and retired all of them. Zack Britton went 5 up, 5 down. The only other Yankees pitchers to do 4 or more in the same game were Green and Tommy Kahnle in last year's ALCS against Houston. For the Rays, employing their now-standard "opener" tactic meant Ryan Yarbrough threw 5 innings in "relief" by himself, breaking the 3⅓ that Dan Wheeler threw in an extra-inning game in the 2008 ALCS. Torres would end up with 2 hits, 2 runs scored, 2 RBI (on the homer), and a stolen base, the second-youngest player in postseason history to do all of that in one game. The Rays can probably tell you who the other one is-- Evan Longoria in the 2008 Division Series against the White Sox.
So it's 5-1, the Rays have only 3 hits, and we've got some unfinished business. Stanton hasn't homered yet. Stop us if you've heard this one (see two paragraphs ago). And no, no he didn't. Aaron Hicks came up with the bases loaded in the 8th but flied out to end the inning and strand Stanton on deck. Giancarlo did, however, hit a double in the 7th that result in the end of Yarbrough's night. That's still an extra-base hit if not a homer. And the only other Yankees batter with an XBH in six straight postseason games is Paul O'Neill, who did it eight in a row over two years (1997-98).
Which brings us to the only one of our Division Serieses to actually go the full five games. Continuing that Giants "even year" theme from a decade ago, the last four times that only one (or zero) went the distance were 2014, 2016, 2018, and now 2020. And apparently someone forgot to tell the offenses that they needed to play Game 5. With Gerrit Cole and Tyler Glasnow matching up, neither team got a hit until Aaron Judge led off the 4th with a home run. That made it the third winner-take-all game to go hitless through 3, after ALDS matchups in 2012 (Jason Hammel vs CC Sabathia) and 2013 (Justin Verlander vs Sonny Gray). Judge also hit a go-ahead homer in the 2018 Wild Card game, making him and Yogi Berra the only Yankees with two go-ahead dingers in "WTA" games.
Ah, but Tyler Glasnow wasn't around to see it. (He probably saw it, just not from the mound.) He got yanked in the 3rd inning after one time around the Yankees order (and 2 walks). Only one other pitcher in postseason history has gotten pulled from a winner-take-all start with a no-hitter still intact. That's a famous stunt by Senators manager Bucky Harris in 1924 to "start" right-hander Curly Ogden but switch him up for lefty George Mogridge after one batter (which actually became two). Cole, meanwhile, made it to the 6th inning, finishing with 9 strikeouts and just the 1 hit allowed. Except it's still tied, meaning he joined Homer Bailey (2012 NLDS 3) and Mike Mussina (1997 ALCS 6) as the only pitchers in postseason history to put up that line and not get a win out of it.
Finally in the 8th Mike Brosseau would decide he had enough ties. You know, for church, for a big meeting at work, for formal dinners. No more ties. After fouling off four 2-strike pitches from Aroldis Chapman, Brosseau hit the first-ever home run in Rays postseason history on the ninth pitch or later of an at-bat. He also hit just their second go-ahead homer in the 8th or later, joining Jose Lobaton's walkoff against Boston in the 2013 ALDS. Amazingly, Brosseau's pinch-hit single in the 6th was the only other Rays hit of the game; they became the third team in postseason history to have 3 hits, strike out 13 times, and win; the 2012 Giants (NLDS 3) and 1997 Indians (ALCS 6) were the others. Even more impressive, in the long and storied history of the Yankees franchise, Friday was the first time they had held their opponent to 3 hits, recorded 13+ strikeouts, and lost. Timing is everything.
Since we were busy no-hitting each other for the first half of the game, it turned out to be the first winner-take-all game in postseason history in which neither team had more than 3 hits. Almost like neither one of them wanted to leave San Diego. We know the feeling.
But we still have one series we haven't gotten to yet. So we must hop the mountains again, back to the Atlantic Ocean watershed where yet another playoff team is hosting Division Series games that don't even involve them. Houston has some unfortunate experiences with excess water, one of them causing one of the most famous neutral-site games in MLB history, Carlos Zambrano's no-hitter against the Astros at Miller Park. The nearby indie team in Sugar Land also played a bunch of "home" games on the road a couple years ago, a predecessor to all those rescheduled "home team bats first" doubleheaders in 2020.
The Marlins played in a bunch of those doubleheaders in our shortened and oft-rearranged mini-season, but at least for three days they were closer to being Fish out of water. They started Tuesday on the wrong foot (fin? flipper?) when Ronald Acuña hit a home run on the second pitch of the series from Sandy Alcantara. It was the 13th homer to be hit by a team's first batter of a postseason series, and the fourth by the Braves to start any postseason game. Those others belong to Marcus Giles (2001 NLCS 2), Marquis Grissom (1995 NLDS 2), and Bill Bruton (1958 WS 2). Acuña's homer was also just the third leadoff dinger the Braves had hit at Minute Maid Park, and don't forget the Astros have still played there as an NL team for longer than as an AL team. Those other two leadoff homers were by Nate McLouth (September 10, 2009) and Josh Anderson (September 27, 2008).
For the Marlins faithful that was only a temporary setback when Miguel Rojas led off the 2nd with a homer of his own. And they built a 4-1 lead with 4 hits in the 3rd. But then, from the village of Arnaud in the south of France, comes Travis (sometimes there is actual research involved in these posts) to lead the Braves back to victory. His double in the 3rd got the Braves back within 1, and scroll forward to the 7th and the proverbial second-guessing of "did we leave Alcantara out there one inning too long?". He gave up two singles to start the frame, and then d'Arnaud unloads a 3-run homer off Yimi Garcia to put Atlanta in front for good. Chipper Jones (2001 NLDS 1) and Michael Tucker (1998 NLCS 5) had the only other 3- or 4-run, go-ahead homers in the 7th or later in Braves postseason history, and it would also make Alcantara the first Marlins pitcher not named Josh Beckett (who did it twice in 2003) to strike out 8 opponents in a postseason game and lose. When Dansby Swanson homered later in the same inning, Garcia got the dubious honor of being the first Marlins pitcher to give up 3+ runs, get 1 out, and blow a save in a postseason appearance. D'Arnaud would join Chipper Jones (1999 NLCS 5) and Otis Nixon (1993 NLCS 2) as the only Braves batters with 3 hits and 2 walks in the same postseason game.
If only the Marlins had known that Tuesday's 9-5 loss would be the high point. While it's true that they did only allow the Braves 2 runs in Wednesday's Game 2, their own offense ran into the phenom known as Ian Anderson, who proceeded to hold Miami to 3 hits while striking out 8. He also posted that line in Game 2 of the Wild Card series last week against Cincinnati, joining Tom Glavine as the only pitchers in Braves postseason history to do it twice and win both games. Also, as we've hinted before, you can't spell "Brian Anderson" (of the Marlins) without "Ian Anderson" (of the Braves), and when the former doubled off the latter in the 4th, we're pretty sure it's the first postseason hit in MLB history where one player's name is fully contained within the other. (We didn't feel like downloading all 27,000 of them to make sure, however, so don't make any life-altering decisions based on this.)
And one of Tuesday's irritants, Ronald Acuña, at least stayed silent on Wednesday by striking out four times. He's the first Braves leadoff batter ever to do that in a postseason game, and he would end up as the fifth leadoff batter in postseason history to have 0 hits and 4 strikeouts in a game his team won. The others there are Austin Meadows (Rays 2019), Austin Jackson (Tigers 2011), Alfonso Soriano (Yankees 2003), and Brady Anderson (Orioles 1997).
However, the Marlins still couldn't shake those other two big troublemakers from Tuesday, Travis d'Arnaud and Dansby Swanson. Both of them hit solo homers off Pablo Lopez, which wouldn't have been a huge problem in most games, but with Anderson dealing on the other side, those two homers comprised the entire 2-0 final score. The Nationals, in 2012, were the last team to hit two solo shots for their only runs in a postseason game and win; Jayson Werth's walkoff to force a Game 5 against St Louis was the second of the homers in that one. You might remember that d'Arnaud and Swanson also both homered in that big 7th inning on Tuesday; they join a list of six other Braves batters to homer in Games 1 and 2 of the same postseason series. The only other teammates to both do it were Chipper Jones and Ryan Klesko in the 1997 NLCS; the rest of the roll is Javy Lopez (2002 NLDS), Eddie Perez (1999 NLCS), Marquis Grissom (1995 NLDS), and Hank Aaron (1969 NLCS).
Ah yes, Hank Aaron in that 1969 NLCS against the Mets. That was the first-ever National League Championship Series, and they were only best-of-five back then, so it's fun that the Braves got swept despite Aaron homering in every game. That kept coming up in our searches on Thursday because guess what d'Arnaud and Swanson did again. Nope. Good try though. This time Atlanta didn't homer at all on their way to washing the Marlins back out to sea, but d'Arnaud opened the scoring with a 2-run double in the 3rd, and then Swanson scampered his way to a triple in the 9th. So while they didn't homer, they did both have an extra-base hit in Games 1, 2, and 3 of the same series. Only other Braves batter to do that? Yep, Hank Aaron in 1969. And while Swanson's triple didn't score a run, he did drive in d'Arnaud with a sacrifice fly after that 3rd-inning double. That gave both players at least 1 RBI in Games 1, 2, and 3 as well? Yep, Aaron again, although a few other familiar names did this one in between-- all in Division Series play: Fred McGriff (1996), Javy Lopez (2002), Marcus Giles (2003), Andruw Jones (2005), and Chris Johnson (2013). Swanson's interesting combo of a triple and a sac fly in the same game was the first time any Braves batter had done that since... welp, Dansby Swanson on April 8, 2019, at Coors Field. The only other Braves hitters with two such games, regular or postseason, are Brian Jordan, Ron Gant, Eddie Mathews, Bill Bruton, and (guess who!) Hank Aaron again.
And while the Braves were busy collecting 7 runs without so much as a homer on Thursday, the Marlins were once again battling their pitching in the form of Kyle Wright, who almost matched Anderson's line with 0 runs, 3 hits, and 7 strikeouts (instead of 8). This week's clincher by Wright, plus last week's clincher by Anderson against the Reds, are two of the three games in Braves postseason history where a pitcher has done that 0-3-7 combo line in a game that won a series. The other was Tom Glavine in 1995 to enable one of Skip Caray's great calls, "The Atlanta Braves have given you a championship!"
We don't know if the Braves will give you, the humble viewer of WTBS-17 in Atlanta, another championship this year. (We're pretty sure Skip Caray won't be calling it if they do, but hey, 2020.) But we know there's only four teams left for two pennants and 30 little golden flags. On to the next round.
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