2024 MLB playoffs

Wild Card Series

(All times Eastern)

Tuesday, Oct. 1

AL Wild Card Series Game 1: Astros vs. Tigers, 2:32 p.m., ABC
AL Wild Card Series Game 1: Orioles vs. Royals, 4:08 p.m., ESPN2
NL Wild Card Series Game 1: Brewers vs. Mets, 5:32 p.m., ESPN
NL Wild Card Series Game 1: Padres vs. Braves, 8:38 p.m., ESPN

Wednesday, Oct. 2

AL Wild Card Series Game 2: Astros vs. Tigers, 2:32 p.m., ABC
AL Wild Card Series Game 2: Orioles vs. Royals, 4:38 p.m, ESPN
NL Wild Card Series Game 2: Brewers vs. Mets, 7:38 p.m., ESPN
NL Wild Card Series Game 2: Padres vs. Braves, 8:38 p.m., ESPN2

Tuesday, Oct. 3

*AL Wild Card Series Game 3: Astros vs. Tigers, 2:32 p.m., ABC/
*AL Wild Card Series Game 3: Orioles vs. Royals, 4:08 p.m., ESPN
*NL Wild Card Series Game 3: Padres vs. Braves, 7:08 p.m., ESPN
*NL Wild Card Series Game 3: Brewers vs. Mets, 8:38 p.m., ESPN2

Not doing polls this year as it becomes too many threads to keep track of.

Tigers over Astros
Orioles over Royals
Padres over Braves
Mets over Brewers

^^think the same so I’ll make it more specific

Tigers in 3
Orioles in 3
Padres in 2
Mets in 2

General agreement that top seed for both leagues has the tougher teams? Gotta think KC/O’s > Ass/Tigers and Braves/Pads > Brewers/Mets?

Astros, Royals, Padres

genuinely torn between Brew Crew and Mets, the former are being slept on and Francisco Lindor’s back is being held together by paper clips and gumption atm, but they’re coming off a high, but…

idk Mets in 3 but I don’t feel sure on that one at all

Sorry, but I will never cheer for the Tigers (old AL East rivalries die hard). The Astros are inevitable in October.

The Orioles have been a lukewarm team for months because of all the injuries, I'm not sure who they are now. This series is a coinflip.

Padres over Braves

Mets vs Brewers, I'm rooting for the Mets but I agree that people are sleeping on the Brewers because they held the lead all year in a weak division.

I vote with my heart; but the head does say brewcrew. Gotta believe in momentum. Gotta believe in riding an unbelievable narrative. Don't necessarily have to think it'll actually happen, but you do have to believe it

other things being equal, the brewers didn’t play a must-win game sunday, fly to atlanta, play 18 pretty intense innings yesterday, then fly back to milwaukee for an early-evening game with a torched bullpen. that takes a toll

(and if mlb cared about putting its best product on the field it might have pushed the series back a day, but)

i don't know if i have strong feelings about who wins or loses. i just want the boys to go out, play hard and have fun.

it'd be nice tho if the mets could beat the brewers in a way that embarrasses rhys hoskins. i don't like that guy

Fuck I forgot about that, that was right at the start of the season too

Mark Vientos to get a big hit please 🙏🏻

hoskins most recently hit a grand slam against us on friday. you could tell he was rubbing it in!

Astros 2
Orioles 3
Padres 2
Brewers 3

my predictions are the same as my rooting interests which probably means they're wrong: tigers, o's, padres, brewers

Rooting for (in order) Tigers, Guardians, Orioles in the AL; Phillies, Mets in the NL.

AL picks are team-based; NL picks are mostly for Harper and Lindor.

I would also have seen three playoff teams in person this year if Mookieproof hadn’t requested that I not attend Brewers-Pirates in person when I was in Pittsburgh. (The Pirates swept in my absence; they were swept when I attended their previous series).

As it was, Mets because the game we saw in London had an incredible finish and because Mark Vientos has a misspelled tattoo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3LlkcCxqWrg

Mark Vientos Hebrew Tattoo translates to “The Flipper”.

He will definitely be doing a lot of bat flipping that’s for sure. pic.twitter.com/nSdOoCTb7t

— Ben Yoel (@Ben_Yoel) September 7, 2024

it's so annoying that an mlb.tv subscription does not include the playoffs

luckily i have an urge for sports... a sports urge if you will...

xp sorry what

Oh it does outside the US thank fuck

MLB.TV INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIBERS:

Live games are available internationally on MLB.TV (excluding Canada). Archives available on demand 90 minutes after the game.


BOO

The Braves announced their roster for the Wild Card series today and it does not include left-hander Chris Sale. The club is going with an even split of 13 pitchers and position players, the latter group including two catchers, five infielders and six outfielders.

that puts the braves intransigence on rescheduling around helene in a new light - they weren’t hoping to pitch sale twice, they were hoping the rainouts would give sale even more time to rest and get back on the bump

Announcers:

https://barrettmedia.com/2024/09/30/espn-names-broadcast-teams-for-mlb-wild-card-round/

Parker Meadows has big shoes to fill as the Tigers' first starting CF in a playoff game since Don Kelly

Tigers strike first

three runs on three ground balls up the middle

good start

15 pitches for skubal to get through two innings, vs 41 for valdez

framber couldn't find anywhere to hide the sticky stuff

lets go Thrillwaukee, getting sick of these surprisingly good regular seasons followed by early exits, lets fuckin do something for once

I really don't want the Astros, come on Tigers

No, no, no

Well, at least, this is going to be a good ending.

Nice

Yes!

intense

tigers have a tinge of the old royals about them

(Gulp)

I'm getting a sense this is going to be a wild game.

(Mets v Brewers)

What is going on? I'm working and missing all the stare down action

Winker hit a triple and said something to one of the Brewers while running the bases?

Hoskins hbp in first AB also

Big play for the mets

Goodnight O's

Lindor-Candelita surely the best middle infield pairing in the game?

Hey Heston Kjerstad just going to put you in to pinch hit in the bottom of the ninth with two outs of a one run playoff game, NO PRESSURE

chisholm

looking forward to the series, think the yankees have a slight pitching advantage and don’t know if the dodgers can pull off the bullpen game trick for three straight series. we shall see.

also, is there not a corner somewhere where red sox fans can go to be miserable?

Bit scared of what the yanks will do to Buehler. I continue to believe in the bullpen game for this team. I am also irrationally scared of Duggie turning it on this series. Just seems like a thing that would happen

Is Verdugo a follower of Jesus? Is that ever Judge likes about him? Trying to remember if there’s a crucifix hanging in that collection of necklaces

verdugo is just a pet dog tbh

Is Judge a famously religious guy? I don’t think I would rank him in the top 1000 godbotherers in the league? Iirc Judge asked Cashman to trade for him before.

yeah he's the '_religion x_ buys shoes too' kinda christian

lol I just went and looked at his Instagram profile and the first word is Christian (I don’t follow him)

Jimmy who is your actual team

would it be fair to say that none of the four CS teams had a marquee pitcher (who was healthy and available to pitch)?

i mean a top-tier starting pitcher

Yamamoto?

How healthy is Cole? I thought he was up to speed, but maybe not.

he missed 6 weeks or so early in the year. he should be fully back

LA kings are my only fixed team. Grew up w the dodgers. Have regional mets loyalty now bc they are a better experience than NYY, who are fash. When the mets win my friends are happy so i was kinda sorta fine either way.

I just like baseball ok!

The thing is, they’re the two franchises that people hate the most.

— Jessica Kleinschmidt (@KleinschmidtJD) October 21, 2024

Yamamoto & Cole are surely marquee in name even if they’ve both missed tons of time this year. They’re the two biggest SP contracts of all time! Combined $649 million between them.

Maybe I'm supposed to, but I don't hate either team as constituted right now--too many players I like on both sides. (I don't hate franchises in the abstract.)

Yamamoto & Cole are surely marquee in name even if they’ve both missed tons of time this year. They’re the two biggest SP contracts of all time! Combined $649 million between them.

― gyac, Monday, 21 October 2024 16:13 (ten minutes ago) link

i agree. tbh i was not aware that cole had pitched in the playoffs. i don't think yamamoto is necessarily considered top-tier yet but i agree the contract by default makes him a marquee starter.

i don't hate the dodgers in the abstract but i do hate this particular dodgers team

whereas the yankees i hate both ways

honestly do not get the hatred that people have for the NYY. It's especially strong locally in NY! The security guard at my kid's school said "I hate the Dodgers...but I gotta root for them against the Yankees." Someone please 'splain!

cmon man

they’re the yankees

the payroll, steinbrenner, the beard policy, michael kay, jeter, a-rod, brett fuckin gardner, the sheer number of pennants, they’re the choice of roided up geeked out malcontents everywhere, the hats like an ubiquitous global icon of dreary big-dog capitalism, the black uniforms, they’re the fuckin death star

I’m sure this is copy pasta by now, but in case it isn’t:

Two men just to my right were talking about the Mets.

"I tell you, there isn't one of 'em—not one—that could make the Yankee club," one of them said. "I never saw such a collection of dogs."

"Well, what about Frank Thomas?" said the other. "What about him? What's he batting now? .315? .320? He's got thirteen homers, don't he?"

"Yeah, and who's he going to push out of the Yankee outfield? Mantle? Maris? Blanchard? You can't call these characters ballplayers. They all belong back in the minors—the low minors."

I recognized the tone. It was knowing, cold, full of the contempt that the calculator feels for those who don't play the odds. It was the voice of the Yankee fan. The Yankees have won the American League pennant twenty times in the past thirty years; they have been world champions sixteen times in that period. Over the years, many of their followers have come to watch them with the smugness and arrogance of holders of large blocks of blue-chip stocks. These fans expect no less than perfection. They coolly accept the late-inning rally, the winning homer, as only their due. They are apt to take defeat with ill grace, and they treat their stars as though they were executives hired to protect their interests. During a slump or a losing streak, these capitalists are quick and shrill with their complaints: "They ought to damn well do better than this, considering what they're being paid!"

Suddenly the Mets fans made sense to me. What we were witnessing was precisely the opposite of the kind of rooting that goes on across the river. This was the losing cheer, the gallant yell for a good try—antimatter to the sounds of Yankee Stadium. This was a new recognition that perfection is admirable but a trifle inhuman, and that a stumbling kind of semi-success can be much more warming. Most of all, perhaps, these exultant yells for the Mets were also yells for ourselves, and came from a wry, half-understood recognition that there is more Met than Yankee in every one of us. I knew for whom that foghorn blew; it blew for me.

-Roger Angell, June 1962
From the essay "The Go! Shouters" in the book "The Summer Game”

haha love it - i hadn't read that before

Exactly. Yankees fans are the worst impulses of all sports fans enabled for 100 years.

The only thing worse than a Yankees fan is a Dallas Cowboys fan.

it boils down to entitlement. which has become a kind of disease in fandom and has absolutely afflicted the red sox for instance. once loveable losers now it's like when we fall short of the playoffs it's like somebody's killed our dog. it's not FAIR. WAHHHHHHH. the yankees are the absolute OG final bosses of this though of course

lol my dad grew up in texas so we were cowboys fans.. i of course preferred to stop watching the nfl entirely rather than continue that particular tradition

"The Yankees have won the American League pennant twenty times in the past thirty years; they have been world champions sixteen times in that period." Literally this was 50 years ago

Yankees fans do have that reputation ofc but I have several mutuals who are Yankees fans and who are wonderful, warm people who make fun of their players and aren’t 27 RINGS types. My favourite is an AROD SHOULD HAVE PLAYED SHORT truther (she’s right!) We have fun talking shit to each other. And then I come on here and see people… complaining that fans of other teams don’t like the Yankees? Are they supposed to?

it was 50 years ago, but the sentiment hasn’t changed, especially after their 90s-00s dominance, plus they haven’t had a losing season since 1992

i guess the red sox fans never found that corner to be miserable in

Feel free to start your own segregated thread for playoff talk for just Dodgers and Yankees fans, I’m sure all five of you will have a great time.

Not the red sox fan calling for segregation

got ‘em

Literally this was 50 years ago

they've made the playoffs 26 times in the last 30 years. and i've enjoyed them underachieving for 23 of the last 24

i mean i actively like cole and (no joke) some of my best friends are yankees fans. but seriously, fuck that team

anyway aren't you -- calstars -- from california? coming to nyc and becoming a diehard yankees fan is psycho shit

it’s true. yankees are the team for true new yorkers, all the transplants pick the mets

it's like moving to north carolina and becoming a duke fan

(nb i went to duke)

I’ve lived in ny since I was 4.

Rooted for Boston in 86 because Mets

Apart from soto and cole i dont think the yankees are cool (judge is amazing. He is not cool.).

― Its big ball chunky time (Jimmy The Mod Awaits The Return Of His Beloved), Sunday, October 20, 2024 8:54 PM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

smh

Reminder that senior year Aaron Judge may be the greatest year for a high school athlete of all-time https://t.co/q0tgSnfZ8K pic.twitter.com/SlDpiWB07z

— Addison (@YankeeWRLD) October 23, 2024

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0pPlos2i7Ys

(Drum fill)

Greater career -- Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani?

between the end of the regular season and the start of the world series, the yankees will have played nine games and had 16 off days

as earl weaver once said, 'this ain't football, we do this every third day'

(during the regular season they played 162 games and had 23 scheduled off-days, including the four-day all-star break)

(fwiw i do not blame the yankees for this!)

yeah it's telling how many ON THIS DAY IN BASEBALL HISTORY from the last several weeks were all world series moments...

can't wait for a couple years when we'll have "Is Shohei Ohtani the greatest in the month of November in MLB history?" thinkpieces.

the payroll, steinbrenner, the beard policy, michael kay, jeter, a-rod, brett fuckin gardner, the sheer number of pennants, they’re the choice of roided up geeked out malcontents everywhere, the hats like an ubiquitous global icon of dreary big-dog capitalism, the black uniforms, they’re the fuckin death star

Jeter, scourge of the nation

Jeter, scourge of the nation

thats right

have to say that while steinbrenner was an almost uniquely incredible asshole, he at least wanted to win

he wouldn't have tanked for picks, he wouldn't have traded mookie, and he wasn't (quite) as bad as marge schott