CLEVELAND — Baseball had an unforgettable Saturday and night, like the NCAA Tournament day and night. For a sport that’s often criticized for its glacial pace and lack of ball-in-play action, it’s true that it produced a great many thrilling sudden death scenes across the country.
In Philadelphia, the 87-win Phillies upset the 101-win Braves with four. In Seattle, the Astros hit a home run in his 18th inning, broke the scoreless tie, survived the marathon, and swept the Mariners. In Cleveland, the offensively challenged Guardians scored three runs in Game 3, landing the mighty Yankees on the doorstep of disaster. In San Diego, the 89-win Padres used his five-run sevens to stun the 111-win Dodgers, making him one of the most devastating upsets in modern baseball history.
Each fall of the mighty Dodgers and defending champion Braves felt like a midfielder knocking out a college basketball heavyweight. St. He fell short of Peter beating Kentucky to reach his elite eight, but it was close enough.
Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said, “The shock factor is very high.
And it all sounds like a marketing executive’s dream. I want my fans to believe that anything is possible in sports, especially in the playoffs where seasons are ruined and legends are made. After all, everyone loves underdogs, except those who partner with overdogs.
But while Saturday’s ad was just as entertaining as MLB’s, it also exposed flaws in the postseason program that needed fixing. A Best of Five Division series shall not be a Best of Five Division series. It should be a best of seven division series in the name of fairness to the top tournament seeds.
The NHL plays best of seven in every postseason round, and the NBA does the same once play-in tournaments are complete. These leagues revolve around an 82-game regular season, which is about half the length of a baseball regular season.
The Dodgers dominated in 162 games to win the National League West, 22 ahead of San Diego. Their reward was an atypical five-day layoff followed by a shorter division series shootout in favor of the Padres, who had nothing to lose, winning 5-14 against the Dodgers during the regular season.
A best-of-seven would have given the Dodgers a greater margin of error than they’ve had over six months of performance. The conventional wisdom is that the longer the series, the more likely the stronger team will win.
Are you not sure about it? Consider what San Diego local boy Joe Musgrove told Fox at the Padres’ wild clubhouse celebration.
“We’ve been beaten by these guys quite a bit this year. As a kid, I’ve sat in those stands and watched them get beaten for years. So this round It’s probably better to have had to play them in a 5-game series than in a 7-game series to be able to beat them in. But this team is beginning to find its identity. Let’s take a look at this and really turn it on all at once here.”
“I’d probably be better off if I had to play five games in a row against them rather than seven games in a row.”
Musgrove understands that it’s much easier to pressure high seeds when eliminations lurk around the corner.
But if anything, the postseason should tilt in favor of division champions, not wildcards. not. The Phillies may still beat the Braves. Maybe the Padres are still beating the Dodgers, maybe the Guardians had a chance to beat the Yanks when Progressive arrived on his field Sunday night.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said before Game 4, “It’s a new format, so everyone’s going to analyze it and maybe frankly overanalyze it after it’s all over.” Get a firm grip on it. For us, there is nothing that we cannot succeed in. “
This does not mean that the system should not be changed. MLB’s desire for more wild card rounds (and more TV revenue) forced the dominant regular season team into a lengthy October layoff, leaving the team rusty and facing lesser opponents with momentum. The least MLB should do is give its dominant team room to recover in the divisional series.
Of course, the easier solution here is for the Dodgers, Braves, and (over three games) the Yankees to play better. No one told hitters to stop hitting and pitchers to hang their sliders. There is no known rule that a knocked out member of a 100-win club could not do what the 106-win Astros did.
The Astros have dealt with the pressure of advancing to the ALCS for the sixth year in a row. After all, they know how to win the big game without running a scam.
But this isn’t about comparing one division champion’s grit, or lack thereof, to Houston. This is about devising a system that gives the best odds that identifies the best teams in the sport. And the Best of Seven Division series is that system.
