If you know me, you know I’ve been a bit critical of the 2020 Major League Baseball season. It just hasn’t been all there, and the “playoffs” looked to be proving the point.
It started by having over half the league playing with the possibility of winning it all…only to have the futility of adding the extra teams play out rather quickly. In the National League, one division represented half of the eight teams playing…and proceeded to show the weakness of the system by being shown the door at 1-8 in the first round. Thankfully, the number 8 teams didn’t upend it all by upsetting the favorites, but in a 3-game series where 2 wins advances you, there was a real possibility of a big dose of luck factoring in.
I think I’m actually vindicated in saying how ridiculous it was adding the extra teams – to the point of having a sub-.500 team in the “hunt” (my Brewers – a team that had no business being there) – as the number 1 seed in the American League and the number 1 seed in the National League are going to play for it all over the next few days.
And the way it’s finally played out, I’d almost say the season has redeemed itself. The ALCS and NLCS both went to seven games. They both had teams that were on the ropes – one that won it in the end (a number 1 seed) and one that lost (a number 6). They both had some pretty good baseball.
And yet they still had some moments that had my hopes in the game slipping. Like during Houston’s comeback win in game 5 of the ALCS, when it was either home run or nothing (7 total runs scored on 5 solo home runs and a 2-run shot. Even the NLCS game that followed began with two solo homers before someone actually scored on a base hit later in the game.).
But now I actually can’t help but look forward to the World Series. I’m really intrigued by the Rays. One redeeming factor of that multi-homer game 5 is that the home runs were only necessary because Tampa Bay’s defense pretty much ate up anything that stayed in the park. They’ve been impressive all-around, but especially on the left side of the diamond. If I had a quarter for every hard-hit one-hopper that got snagged by their infield, I’d be a couple of bucks richer, that’s for sure. And yet the Astros fought hard to the very end of game seven despite being down 3 game to none at one time.
And the Astros were the team I wanted to win that series. Part of that is because they cheated a couple of years back and they’ve been taking a lot of grief for it. Too much grief in my opinion. And having them go so deep into the postseason this year against some decent competition tells me that the effect of their cheating was probably minimal (as a matter of fact, they went this far without their ace, Verlander). And yet I found the irony kind of funny – what little crowd they had at the ALCS razzing the Astros for cheating a few years ago. Cheating is wrong and abhorrent, but the pearl-clutching was just a bit too over the top.
Overall, I think the game made a bit of a comeback. The Dodgers have a legitimate shot at a World Series title for the first time in 32 years. And the Rays are making their second trip to the World Series in their short 22-year history (as a Brewer fan, I should be jealous, but I’m also a realist). And now here we are, just a day from the start of the 2020 World Series. And things are as they should be…or at least can be for what looked to be heading for such a disastrous season. Number 1 against number 1. It almost feels normal.