Shohei Ohtani likes winning Most Valuable Player awards. He loves winning the World Series even more.
The two-way Japanese star did both for a second season in a row for the Los Angeles Dodgers, earning his fourth career MVP on Thursday night while unanimously earning the National League honor. He’s just the second to win four MVPs after Barry Bonds with seven and the only player to win unanimously more than once.
Considering Ohtani is 31, overtaking Bonds doesn’t seem out of the question. Especially if it leads to more Fall Classic opportunities.
“If I’m playing well as an individual that means I’m helping the team win, so in that sense, hopefully I can end up with a couple more MVPs,” Ohtani said through an interpreter. “But at the end of the day, it’s all about winning games.”
In the American League, Aaron Judge became the New York Yankees’ fourth three-time winner, edging Seattle’s Cal Raleigh with 17 first-place votes to 13 for the switch-hitting catcher. The vote was the closest for an MVP since the Los Angeles Angels’ Mike Trout topped Houston’s Alex Bregman by 17-13 in 2019.
Judge, who won the AL award in 2022 and 2024, joined Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Mickey Mantle as three-time MVPs with the Yankees. The 33-year-old outfielder led the majors with a .331 batting average and 1.144 OPS while hitting 53 homers.
When asked about his place in MLB and Yankees lore, Judge acknowledged he’s in rare company.
“It’s tough for me to wrap my head around,” Judge said. “It’s mind blowing from my side of things, because I play this game to win, I play this game for my teammates, my family, all the fans in New York.”
Later he added: “You’ve got to pinch yourself every single day. It’s truly an incredible honor.”
Ohtani won a MVP for the third straight year, his second in the NL with the Dodgers after two in the AL with the Angels. He became the first to win in each league twice after getting the AL honor in 2021 and 2023. Ohtani signed with the crosstown Dodgers the following offseason and won NL MVP in 2024 during his first season in Chavez Ravine. He’s also won the World Series in both his seasons with the Dodgers.
Philadelphia Phillies slugger Kyle Schwarber finished second in the NL with 23 second-place votes and New York Mets outfielder Juan Soto was third with four.
Ohtani hit .282 and led the NL with a 1.014 OPS. He also had 55 homers, 102 RBIs and 20 stolen bases.
The right-hander returned to pitching in June after missing 1 1/2 seasons on the mound because of an elbow injury. He struck out 62 batters over 47 innings, slowly increasing his workload while preparing for the postseason.
Ohtani continued to shine in October with arguably the greatest single game in MLB history. He hit three homers while striking out 10 over six dominant innings on Oct. 17, leading the Dodgers over Milwaukee to finish an NL Championship Series sweep.
Schwarber, who earned a $50,000 bonus for finishing second, hit an NL-best 56 homers and led the big leagues with 132 RBIs for Philadelphia.
Soto overcame a slow start to the season to have his typically stellar offensive output. The four-time All-Star — who signed a $765 million, 15-year deal last December — had 43 homers, 105 RBIs and an NL-best 38 stolen bases. He received a $150,000 bonus for finishing third in the MVP voting.
Judge is the first AL player to win back-to-back MVPs since Detroit’s Miguel Cabrera it in 2012 and 2013.
Raleigh, nicknamed “Big Dumper,” led the big leagues with 60 homers, the most for a player primarily a catcher. He started 119 games behind the plate and another 38 at designated hitter.
The 28-year-old also had a career-high 125 RBIs, leading the Mariners to one of their best seasons in franchise history. Judge said he got to know Raleigh a little during the All-Star break and the catcher asked for some leadership tips.
“Cal’s a special player,” Judge said. “I could sit here and talk all night about the player he is, but really the kind of leader and person he is really stuck out to me at the All-Star Game.”
Cleveland’s José Ramírez finished third in the AL.
Arizona’s Geraldo Perdomo was fourth in the NL voting, earning him $2.5 million annual salary increases in 2028 and 2029 along with the price of Arizona’s 2030 club option.
CLEVELAND (AP) — Tim Anderson of the Chicago White Sox and José Ramírez of the Cleveland Guardians exchanged punches at second base Saturday night, triggering a long, bench-clearing melee in the sixth inning that led to six ejections.
Ramírez connected with a wild right hand to the face of Anderson, dazing the shortstop and knocking him to the dirt. Both benches and bullpens poured onto the field, leading to some chaotic moments in one of the nastiest fights in the majors in recent years.
“It’s not funny, but boys will be boys,” said Guardians manager Terry Francona, who was ejected following the fracas.
Francona wasn’t exactly sure what prompted the Anderson-Ramírez fight, but said that before the brawl, Anderson had been told by one of the umpires to stop jawing at Guardians rookie Gabriel Arias.
Ramírez and Anderson likely face suspensions, and perhaps other participants as well. The teams play their series finale Sunday afternoon.
Ramírez said he felt Anderson was being disrespectful. On Friday night, Anderson pushed Guardians rookie Brayan Rocchio off the bag at second following a slide, leading to a call that was controversially reversed by the umpires.
“He said he wanted to fight and I had to defend myself,” Ramírez said through a translator.
Francona, third-base coach Mike Sarbaugh and closer Emmanuel Clase were tossed along with Chicago manager Pedro Grifol. There were multiple flare-ups on the infield and in foul territory. It took 15 minutes before order was restored.
The altercation began when Ramírez slid headfirst into second with an RBI double and Anderson stood over him, straddling the All-Star third baseman. When Ramírez got up, he pointed his finger in Anderson’s face and yelled, prompting them to square off.
Anderson dropped his glove and threw the first punch before Ramírez countered with his shot to the Chicago star’s jaw.
Anderson had to be forcibly taken into the dugout by members of the coaching staff, but returned to the field several minutes later from the clubhouse. Chicago teammate Andrew Vaughn physically carried Anderson down the steps following the latter outburst.
Sarbaugh and Clase were the primary figures in subsequent escalations during the delay.
The White Sox held a 5-1 lead when the game was delayed.
After Anderson went down, he popped up incensed and tried to get at Ramírez but couldn’t break free from several teammates trying to calm him down.
Tempers temporarily calmed before Francona and Grifol had words, leading to pushing and shoving by players and coaches on both teams as the crowd roared.
“I think he was more yelling at me and I yelled back,” Francona said.
Grifol didn’t want to comment directly about the ugly incident.
“There are a lot of people upset,” he said. “Thank God I haven’t heard of any news out of the trainer’s room. I’m not going to talk about it. I’m going to let MLB figure this out. They’ve got some work to do.”
AP Sports Writer Tom Withers contributed to this report.
The Cleveland Guardians weren’t supposed to be here — not yet. They entered the season with the youngest roster in MLB, at least a season or two behind a Chicago White Sox team that many pundits believed would run away with the American League Central race.
And yet, here they are, after taking the division with 92 wins and sweeping the Tampa Bay Rays in the AL Wild Card Series, now facing off against the New York Yankees in the division series.
Their unexpected success can be attributed to a number of things: smart promotions from the front office and successful debuts from many of the franchise’s 25-and-under crowd. But, most importantly, the presence of a bona fide superstar in veteran Jose Ramirez — the heart and soul of the team and a man who, in early April, was hours away from being traded.
On the final day of spring training, the Guardians’ front office had hit its deadline — if it couldn’t get a contract extension done with its All-Star third baseman that day, he was going to be traded before Opening Day. The San Diego Padres, among other contenders, were waiting for a call.
Team interpreter Agustin Rivero, who was coaching first base in a split-squad game that afternoon, was pulled away for one last conversation between the player and his front office, and to help Ramirez share his take: He wanted to stay in Cleveland.
“I’m so grateful Jose wanted to be here, and he made that a priority,” Guardians president of baseball operations Chris Antonetti said during wild-card weekend. “He got personally involved. … We wouldn’t be standing here without that.”
After a few hectic hours, Ramirez went from the trade block to a long-term commitment from the only franchise he has known. And six months after Ramirez signed a seven-year, $141 million deal, he and his squad celebrated their first playoff series win since the 2016 AL Championship Series.
“I’m really happy, especially for the commitment the organization made,” Ramirez said through Rivero recently. “It’s very really special. The most important part is family. The city has given me the opportunity to take care of my family. Cleveland is my family.”
As one of the only veterans in a clubhouse full of youngsters, Ramirez has led his squad to an unlikely extension of its season — first with an MVP-caliber season that got the Guardians to October, then with a go-ahead home run in Game 1 of the AL Wild Card Series against the Tampa Bay Rays.
But how far Ramirez could lead this team came down to how quickly a roster that debuted 17 rookies this season was ready to follow.
A lot of the Guardians’ success as a young team is a credit to the franchise’s culture, according to Antonetti. The current rookies watched as previous Cleveland teams made the playoffs while they were doing the same in the minors. Winning begets winning, in his estimation.
“Our Double-A team won a championship in the Eastern League in 2021,” Antonetti said. “And there’s like seven to nine of those guys up here now that are AL Central champions.”
The rookies got their first taste of a pennant race during that minor league season, but there is a level of pressure in the major leagues that is impossible to replicate anywhere else. And perhaps the number of intense showdowns they needed to put away two division competitors to clinch this season gave the kids a little extra edge when their October moment arrived.
And arrive it did, when Oscar Gonzalez — a rookie with fewer than 100 games under his belt — provided the only run in a 1-0 Game 2 win by depositing a 15th-inning pitch into the right-center-field bleachers — and sending Progressive Field into a frenzy.
“I could never imagine anything like this,” another rookie, Steve Kwan, said on the field after the wild-card series win. “And how it’s happened as well. Tito [manager Terry Francona] expressed at the beginning of the year that we’re going to play the game right because we can’t live and die by the home run.”
It wasn’t lost on anyone that the Guardians’ two wins against Tampa Bay came via the long ball, as did their only run in Tuesday’s 4-1 ALDS-opening loss at Yankee Stadium. But no one, including the Guardians, thinks that’s how Cleveland is going to win a championship — at least not this year.
Their 127 home runs in the regular season ranked second to last in the majors, and while three runs might have been enough to get past the Rays, the Guardians are going to need to score some runs to take down the Yankees in the division series. Part of what helped spur a 16-2 run in September that vaulted Cleveland into the playoffs was putting the ball in play and working the basepaths: That month, the Guardians posted the second-highest batting average in the majors (.264), fourth-best OBP (.331), fifth-fewest strikeouts (195) and most stolen bases (31).
Cleveland is known for that scrappy, high-energy style of baseball — not for mashing balls into the stands. But what might matter more to the Guardians, who were as many as five games below .500 twice this season, is their resolve.
“There’s a quiet confidence in our group of guys,” 26-year-old reliever Sam Hentges said. “We come to the ballpark every day and we don’t really back down from challenges. That’s preached from Tito … and that’s how we attack each day.”
Hentges, in his first full year in the big leagues, compiled a 2.32 ERA in 57 games then followed that up with three pressure-packed scoreless innings Saturday to earn the clinching win over the Rays.
But now after grinding out that wild-card series over a fellow small-market team, Cleveland is being put to the ultimate test against the big-market, big-money 99-win Yankees, who won five of the six regular-season meetings between the teams before grabbing a 1-0 ALDS lead Tuesday night in New York.
“I was kind of wide eyed the first time,” Kwan said of playing in New York back in late April. “Hopefully, we can play baseball like we always do.”
While the Guardians’ front office would never use the payroll discrepancy as an excuse for whatever happens on the field this week, it’s hard to overlook the David vs. Goliath nature of this matchup as Cleveland brings an $82 million payroll that ranks 28th in all of baseball against New York’s $265 million roster.
“We operate in very different markets, but we have the same goal,” Antonetti noted with a smile.
That goal — to win in October — might have seemed far-fetched in March, but it became a bit more obtainable once Ramirez signed. Then as each youngster began to contribute and the team kept racking up wins, the concept of the postseason emerged as a reality. Cleveland went from a complete unknown, with just a 7.5% chance to win the division at the start of the season, to an ALCS contender. Now, facing their first series deficit of the playoffs, it’s time to see if the Guardians can quiet their doubters once again.
“They didn’t let anyone else write their season story for them,” Antonetti said. “They took the reins and wrote their own story.”
The regular season is officially in the books (OK, maybe there is still a game or two trickling slowly to its finish as you read this) and the 2022 MLB playoffs are set to start Friday — and this year’s postseason could be epic.
In addition to a new format that features 12 teams and a three-game wild-card round that is guaranteed to bring drama to October from the very start, there are so many storylines to follow throughout that it has a chance to be an all-time great month of baseball.
Below, we highlight the 12 themes that will dominate the entire sport as the new 12-team format begins.
I think baseball finally nailed it. Yes, there are those who will always favor the old setups of two pennants or four division winners, but the 12-team arrangement is an improvement over 10 teams (which had been the norm for the past decade). The do-or-die wild-card game, which had been around since 2012, never felt right and, frankly, never really turned into the must-see drama that the sports world stopped everything to watch anyway.
As we saw with the temporary 16-team bracket in 2020, these quick, three-game series are fun. They’re still plenty pressure-packed, but they feel more like baseball than a winner-take-all matchup.
Crucially, this format still rewards the best teams with a first-round bye and the opportunity to rest a pitching staff and line up a rotation. My only nit with where baseball landed this year is that a seven-game division series would be better than five — maybe next year, when the start of the season won’t be delayed by a lockout.
2. There’s a 111-win superteam and nobody is sure what to make of its World Series chances
The Los Angeles Dodgers won 111 games — the most ever for a National League team in a 162-game season and a total topped only by the 2001 Seattle Mariners and 1998 New York Yankees. If they win it all, they go down alongside that Yankees team as one of the greatest of all time; if they don’t win it all, they’re relegated to the back pages of history alongside those Mariners.
Since 2017, the Dodgers have had four 104-win seasons, a remarkably long period of domination … but just one World Series title. Their sole championship came in the shortened 2020 season, with playoff games played in front of empty stadiums or at neutral sites. It counts — or as a friend of mine who is a longtime die-hard Dodgers fan told me, it counts as one-third of a title. And don’t forget that teams were allowed to play with 28-man rosters that postseason, which allowed the Dodgers to use starters as relievers and relievers as starters and do things they might not have been able to do with a 26-man roster.
Alden Gonzalez had a good breakdown of the pressure the Dodgers face this October. In a sense, they’re playing for two championships: 2022 and a validation of 2020. While manager Dave Roberts told ESPN he “absolutely” considers the Dodgers a dynasty — and four 104-win seasons certainly back that claim up — two titles would definitely secure their place in history as one of the greatest teams of all time.
3. We’ve got a real chance of a repeat
After winning the World Series in 2021, the Atlanta Braves lost Freddie Freeman to the Dodgers — and got younger and better, winning 101 games and their fifth straight division title. No team has repeated as World Series champs since the Yankees won three in a row from 1998 to 2000; the Braves have the power, the pitching and the momentum — after stealing the NL East in the final week with a three-game sweep of the New York Mets — to do it.
And it’s not just a repeat, the Braves might be on their way to a dynasty here. Their turnaround from a 10½-game deficit to the division title began when they called up Michael Harris II to play center field in late May and moved Spencer Strider to the rotation. From June 1 — the first win in a 14-game winning streak — to the end of the regular season, they went 78-34. Strider’s injured oblique might keep him out of the playoffs, but they still have Max Fried, 20-game winner Kyle Wright and October hero of the past Charlie Morton, plus a lineup that led the NL in home runs.
4. Speaking of dynasties … what do we make of the Houston Astros?
You might have noticed by now, but there are a lot of good teams at the top of this year’s playoff bracket. We have four 100-win clubs in the Dodgers, Astros, Braves and Mets, with the Yankees finishing at 99 wins. The you-can’t-predict-baseball nature of the postseason doesn’t guarantee we’ll see two of these teams in the World Series, but if we do, there’s a good chance we’ll see a classic series. The last matchup of 100-win teams in the World Series was 2017, when the Astros beat the Dodgers in seven thrilling games. Before that, you have to go all the way back to 1970 to have two 100-win teams in the World Series.
The Astros also have four 100-win seasons since 2017, including 107 in 2019 and 106 this season. Sign-stealing scandal or not, if they win the World Series, perhaps they go down as the dominant franchise of this era. And an added bonus? After 25 years of managing in the big leagues and making his 12th trip to the postseason, manager Dusty Baker is hoping to finally win that final game of the season.
To make matters more interesting, the Astros appear on a collision course to meet the Yankees in the American League Championship Series for the third time since 2017. Remember the war of words in the spring between Astros owner Jim Crane and Yankees general manager Brian Cashman after Cashman cried that the only thing that had stopped the Yankees in previous seasons from reaching the World Series was “something that was so illegal and horrific.” A Yankees-Astros ALCS would be an epic battle — even if it is one Evil Empire versus another.
5. New York baseball is B-A-C-K
This is now the Yankees’ 13th season since last appearing in a World Series in 2009 — an unacceptable length of time for baseball’s richest and most historically successful franchise with 27 titles in a sport where the wealthiest teams have a decided advantage. Longtime fans will note the Yankees are closing in on the infamous World Series drought from 1982 to 1995, the reign of terror era under George Steinbrenner when he cycled through 13 managers and seven general managers.
On the other side of town: The Mets won 100 games for just the fourth time in franchise history and first time since 1988, but they enter the postseason with the bitter taste of defeat after losing that final series to the Braves. Everyone knows that Jacob deGrom and Max Scherzer can carry a team through a postseason — but deGrom allowed 14 runs and six home runs in 21 innings over his final four starts, so the Mets will need him to find that groove where he posted a 1.66 ERA over his first seven starts after returning in August. Still, this is hardly a two-man team: Pete Alonso led the NL in RBIs, Francisco Lindor might finish in the top 10 of the MVP voting, Chris Bassitt and Taijuan Walker are solid 3-4 starters and Edwin Diaz has been a lockdown closer. The Mets have had their moments since that run of success in the 1980s, including two World Series appearances, but it’s been 36 years since their iconic 1986 team won it all.
6. Did you really think we forgot about Aaron Judge?
Yes, both teams have made New York baseball interesting all season, but nobody has been more at the center of that than the man who just finished up a 62-home run campaign — and has fans of both New York teams envisioning his free agency will end with him signing with their club.
Now, we have Judge trying to cap off what might be arguably the greatest season of any player in history — by that, I mean a historic regular season, a great postseason and a World Series title. Ted Williams in 1941? Didn’t even win the pennant. Carl Yastrzemski in 1967? The highest single-season WAR for a position player other than Babe Ruth, but the Red Sox lost the World Series. Bob Gibson in 1968? A 1.12 ERA and a record 17 strikeouts in one World Series game, but he lost Game 7. Dwight Gooden in 1985? The Mets missed the playoffs. Pedro Martinez in 1999? The Red Sox lost in the ALCS. Barry Bonds in 2001? The Giants didn’t make the playoffs. Bonds in 2002? He had a great postseason, but the Giants lost Game 7 of the Fall Classic. Mookie Betts in 2018? A 10.7-WAR season that matches Judge and the Red Sox won the World Series, but Betts had a lackluster postseason (.210/.300/.323).
7. Can the GOAT go out on top?
Let’s not forget the other slugger who made home run history this season — Albert Pujols. Every player would love to go out on top, either still playing well or with a dogpile on the field. Almost none of them do. Pujols and Yadier Molina have a chance to do that — and maybe Adam Wainwright joins them in retirement as well (he’s yet to officially announce his status for 2023).
The three St. Louis Cardinals legends reunited this season when Pujols returned after a 10-year exile, and all three will play a key role in what happens to the club in October. As will Paul Goldschmidt and Nolan Arenado, two of the greatest players of their generation who will likely finish 1-2 in the MVP voting in the NL — and who both seek their first trip to the World Series.
8. The playoff drought-busters
While the Cardinals come into this postseason with loads of October experience, there are two franchises about to get their first taste of the playoffs in a long, long time. The Seattle Mariners and Philadelphia Phillies ended the sport’s two longest playoff droughts in securing wild-card spots, although both teams will be on the road for the first round — Seattle at Toronto, Philadelphia at St. Louis.
When Cal Raleigh hit his pinch-hit walk-off home run to clinch a wild-card spot, the Mariners celebrated like they had won the World Series. Can you blame them? Twenty-one years is a long time between playoff appearances. Sure, they had plenty of terrible teams along the way, but also several near misses: 93 wins in 2002 and 2003, 88 wins in 2007, one win short in 2014, three short in 2016, alive until the final day last season. They aren’t even guaranteed a home playoff game if they don’t beat the Blue Jays, although you can bet the watch party at T-Mobile Park will have a playoff-like atmosphere.
The good news is Julio Rodriguez returned from his back problem to play a couple of games at the end of the regular season (and homered in the season finale). The bad news is second-half spark plug Sam Haggerty and outfielder/DH Jesse Winker both just landed on the injured list. The rotation and bullpen are healthy, however — Luis Castillo looks like a legitimate ace when he’s on, while Logan Gilbert had a 2.00 ERA in September, allowing one run or less in five of his six starts. If you like a good underdog story, believe in the Mariners.
Meanwhile, the Phillies had the majors’ second-longest playoff drought, making it for the first time since 2011. They have Bryce Harper, back in the postseason for the first time since 2017, and power-hitting Kyle Schwarber, who led the NL in home runs. Aaron Nola, Zack Wheeler and Ranger Suarez (2.95 ERA since July 16) are a strong rotation trio. I wouldn’t bet on them in the tough NL, but there are similarities here in roster construction to the 2019 Nationals, who went from the wild card to World Series champs.
9. The World Series curses we don’t talk about enough
The Cleveland Guardians are trying to win their first World Series since 1948. The San Diego Padres and Tampa Bay Rays are trying to win their first one, while the aforementioned Mariners remain the only franchise never to play in a World Series.
The Guardians’ World Series drought has never received as much attention as the ones for the Red Sox and Cubs did, but it’s now been 74 years since the Cleveland franchise won it all — longer than the 1986 Red Sox had gone (68 years) when they lost to the Mets. How about winning it all in the first season with the new nickname? They might make a movie out of that given this list of Cleveland’s postseason heartbreaks:
1995: The best team in baseball that year, but they lost the World Series to the Braves.
1997: Blew a ninth-inning lead in Game 7 of the World Series to the Marlins and lost in extra innings.
2007: Lost the ALCS to the Red Sox after being up 3-1.
2016: Were up 3-1 on the Cubs in the World Series and lost Game 7, again, in extra innings.
2017: Lost the division series to the Yankees after being up 2-0.
And then there’s the team that’s been around since 1969 — and never won it all. The Padres made World Series appearances in 1984 and 1998, but this is just the seventh postseason trip in franchise history.
But these aren’t your older brother’s Padres. This is a team that has spent the past three seasons acquiring an All-Star squad of talent while playing with a brash style that could make it very popular this postseason — if the Padres can stick around long enough for national fans to get familiar with their stars. They’ve gone all-in to dethrone the Dodgers in recent seasons — only to fall well short. But they squeaked in, and anything can happen in the playoffs, right? Especially with Manny Machado and Juan Soto and Joe Musgrove and Yu Darvish and a suddenly rejuvenated Blake Snell (1.76 ERA over his final seven starts). The Mets-Padres wild-card series is the one to watch — with the winner facing the Dodgers in a colossal division series showdown.
10. The redemption stories
Let’s see here. We’ve got Justin Verlander, who after missing 2021 with Tommy John surgery, came back and went 18-4 with a 1.75 ERA while leading the American League in wins, ERA, WHIP and lowest batting average allowed. His status as future Hall of Famer is secure, but with a big October and another World Series championship for the Astros, his legacy becomes that of an inner-circle Hall of Famer. DeGrom and Scherzer missed some time, and deGrom sputtered at the end of the season, but that dynamic pair could carry the Mets to their first title since 1986. And then of course, there is Clayton Kershaw. Yes, he got his ring a couple of years ago, but he was injured last October, and he hasn’t won a ring in a full season with a normal postseason. How will he perform?
11. The October introduction of some legit young stars
As my colleague Kiley McDaniel pointed out recently, this is the best rookie class since Pujols and Ichiro Suzuki debuted in 2001 — and most of the biggest names will be playing in the postseason (sorry, Adley Rutschman). We’ve got Rodriguez leading the Mariners and Harris and Strider on the Braves.
But it’s not just the rookies who will remind us how bright the future of baseball is this postseason …
While we often think of the Rays as a parade of bullpen arms, they also have two budding young superstars in Wander Franco and Shane McClanahan who could power another small-market success story this postseason. And across the AL East, Alek Manoah, Alejandro Kirk, Bo Bichette and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. form a young core that makes the Blue Jays a team nobody wants to face this postseason. Of course, the question we’ll all be waiting to see answered is how these young stars will handle the bright lights of October … or should we say November.
12. It’s an October so great — it could take part of November to finish it
That’s right, thanks to the combination of the new format and the MLB lockout pushing back the start of the season, Game 7 of the 2022 World Series would take place on Nov. 5, the latest date of a playoff game in MLB history.
If every series goes the distance, we’ll get 53 postseason games with all of these incredible storylines fueling the possibility that any given night can become a must-see moment for baseball fans. Of course, in the end we need great games to have a great postseason.
That’s what still makes 1986 the gold standard for all postseasons. There were just 20 playoff games that October — the seven-game ALCS between the Red Sox and Angels, the six-game NLCS between the Mets and Astros, then the seven-game World Series when the Mets beat the Red Sox. Five of the 20 games went extra innings. Eight were decided by one run. Several are all-time classics, including Game 5 of the ALCS; Games 3, 5 and 6 of the NLCS; and Games 6 and 7 of the World Series.
The stage is set. I’m going with the Dodgers over the Astros. I’ll take Kershaw versus Verlander in Game 7 of the World Series, thank you very much.
