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Three sweeps — two by underdogs — leave us with one game today: Mets/Brewers. Plus: Ken on the Yankees’ clear path, and the Bally Sports saga takes a dramatic turn. I’m Levi Weaver, here with Ken Rosenthal. Welcome to The Windup!
AL Wild Card Series: Underdogs sweep
There’s been a lot said about this year’s wide-open playoff field, but I’d be lying if I said the AL wild-card rounds weren’t shocking, with both road teams sweeping the favorites.
Tigers 5, Astros 2: The second game in this series was no less tense than the first. With the Tigers leading 1-0, Detroit manager A.J. Hinch made the bold decision to call on Jackson Jobe — who had a total of four big-league innings under his belt — in the seventh inning. That backfired; the Astros took the lead when (in an equally gutsy decision) Jeremy Peña tagged up and scored on a shallow fly ball to right field.
But the tide turned for Detroit — hard — in the top of the eighth. After the tying run scored on a wild pitch, unlikely hero Andy Ibáñez smacked a bases-clearing double down the left-field line against Josh Hader.
That was all it took. The Tigers swept the heavily favored Astros, and will face Game 1 starter Tanner Bibee and the Guardians in the ALDS.
It’s the first time since 2016 the Astros won’t be in the ALCS. Chandler Rome has an in-depth autopsy on the season — and perhaps the dynasty, as Alex Bregman hits free agency. (So does Justin Verlander, who wants to pitch in 2025.)
Royals 2, Orioles 1: After Cedric Mullins’ game-tying home run in the fifth inning, Royals starter Seth Lugo loaded the bases with one out. What followed were the two moments that made the difference in the game.
- Reliever Angel Zerpa came on and struck out Colton Cowser on a pitch that was so high and tight, it hit him in the right hand. Adley Rutschman followed with a grounder to deep short, and Bobby Witt Jr. put an end to the inning. Half an inning later, he would put an end to the Orioles’ season…
- In the sixth, with two outs and runners on first and third, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde opted to pitch to Witt (Sound familiar? It should.). Witt hit a hard grounder up the middle, fielded nicely on a dive by second baseman Jordan Westburg. It appeared that Westburg had a play at second base, but chose instead to try to throw out the guy who is No. 1 on MLB’s sprint-speed leaderboard.
Witt was safe, the run scored and the “unlikely savants of October” are moving on to face the Yankees in the ALDS. For Baltimore, says Britt Ghiroli, this year feels different than 2023, when many shrugged off an ALDS sweep, pointing to the inexperience of a young team with a bright future. This year felt like a step backward.
Ken’s Notebook: Yankees must seize their moment
From my latest column:
In difficult times during the regular season, Yankees manager Aaron Boone often remarked that the team’s path to the playoffs remained wide open, saying, “it’s right in front of us.”
The same can now be said of the American League title.
After 14 years of wandering through the October desert, the Yankees have stumbled onto an oasis. Or maybe the upsets of the Orioles and especially the Astros in the Wild Card Series are more like a baseball parting of the Red Sea.
The Yankees suddenly loom as favorites to capture their first AL title since 2009, the year they last won the World Series. Boone might not say it out of respect to the competition, but yes, it’s right in front of them. The Yankees will have no excuses if they cannot survive an AL field that includes three AL Central clubs with payrolls approximately one-third of their own.
Of course, big-money teams don’t always prevail, not in the regular season, not in short postseason series. The Astros, fielding a payroll more than double that of the Tigers, got swept at home. The Yankees’ Division Series opponent, the Royals, features the likely AL MVP runner-up, Bobby Witt Jr., and two potential top-five finishers in the AL Cy Young voting, Cole Ragans and Seth Lugo. The other AL team with the bye, the Guardians, won only two fewer games than the Yankees during the regular season.
Think Yankees fans want to hear it?
The Yankees are mostly healthy. They feature two of the game’s biggest stars, Aaron Judge and Juan Soto. And no longer must they deal with the Astros, who defeated them in the ALCS in 2017, 2019 and 2022, going a combined 8-1 at Minute Maid Park.
Yes, the 2017 triumph occurred during a postseason in which the Astros stole signs illegally, but in four games at Minute Maid, the Yankees scored three runs. Some Yankees fans would like to believe the 2019 ALCS also was tainted, but the Jose Altuve buzzer controversy was never proven to be anything more than a social-media creation. And in 2022, the Astros swept the Yankees in four straight, erasing any doubt about their superiority once and for all.
This season was shaping up as more of the same. An eighth straight ALCS appearance by the Astros — and fourth showdown with the Yankees — looked quite possible. The Orioles are 15-11 against the Yankees the past two years, but did not appear a serious threat, fading for months, scoring only one run in two games against the Royals. The Astros, once again, figured to be another matter.
More Yankees:
- How Aaron Judge transformed his “terrible” swing to become the world’s best hitter.
- New York hasn’t announced a Game 3 starter. That’s because the team is keeping its options open.
NL Wild Card: Home teams hang on
While the road teams ruled the AL side, it was the home teams emerging victorious in the NL. The Brewers crafted a dramatic late-inning comeback at home to force a Game 3 against the Mets, while the Padres put an end to a remarkably scrappy Braves season in San Diego.
Brewers 5, Mets 3: Not even a first-inning game-tying home run by Jackson Chourio could break the Mets’ momentum that started with their five-run fifth inning on Tuesday. Solution? Do it again in the eighth.
This time, the momentum shift stuck. Four hitters later, Garrett Mitchell’s two-run homer made it 5-3 Milwaukee. Enter Devin Williams, and it was one, two, three, good night — the final out, fittingly, landed safely in Chourio’s glove.
The Brewers and Mets will be the only series to go the full three games, as Jose Quintana faces Tobias Myers today in what could be Pete Alonso’s final game with the Mets (7:08 p.m. ET, ESPN). Stream it here.
Padres 5, Braves 4: The Padres jumped early, combining for a cycle en route to a five-run inning that ended Max Fried’s night early. Atlanta did their best to whip up one last comeback, getting a two-run home run from Michael Harris II in the eighth inning, but couldn’t ever get that final run to tie it up. They’re on to next-season mode
For the Padres, it means another postseason matchup against the title-or-bust Dodgers, whom they’ve faced in each of their last two playoff appearances. Los Angeles swept the 2020 NLDS, and San Diego took a 3-1 win in the rematch in 2022.
One bit of bad news for San Diego: Starter Joe Musgrove left the game in the fourth inning with “right elbow tightness.” Musgrove spent two stints on the IL for elbow inflammation during the regular season.
Messes: Bally drops more teams
There was a big move yesterday in the Bally Sports saga, one that could ultimately prove to be massive. As part of a revised get-out-of-bankruptcy plan, broadcaster Diamond Sports Group announced that it is officially dropping two more teams — the Tigers and Rays — with as many as nine others in limbo.
The lone team currently on the Bally roster for 2025: the Atlanta Braves. Sort of. It’s complicated, which initially led to some confusion as to how many teams were being officially dropped. Let’s try to simplify:
- Four teams (Brewers, Guardians, Rangers, Twins) had expiring deals. Those teams are now essentially free agents (the Rangers reportedly plan to handle broadcasts in-house, selling rights directly to distributors, according to Sports Business Journal.)
- The Tigers and Rays could also negotiate a new deal, but won’t get the price they originally agreed to (this is the same thing that happened with the Rangers last year).
- The remaining five teams (Angels, Cardinals, Marlins, Reds, Royals) are “joint-venture” teams. According to Evan Drellich’s report, those teams “… technically can’t be assumed or rejected because they’re not a formal part of the bankruptcy proceeding.”
- But as Drellich points out, that designation hasn’t stopped Bally from cutting teams loose before. The Padres were also a joint-venture team last year, when Bally simply stopped paying them and allowed the rights to revert back to the team.
We’ll keep you posted.
Handshakes and High Fives
Pete Crow-Armstrong took a big step in 2024 toward being the Cubs’ next great young superstar. Patrick Mooney says Chicago needs more of the same.
Spanish-language broadcaster and former Dodgers great Fernando Valenzuela has stepped away from the booth to tend to a health matter.
Most-clicked in yesterday’s newsletter: Jim Bowden’s list of 11 impending free agents with the most on the line this postseason.
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(Top photo: Thomas Shea / Imagn Images)
