October only means one thing for baseball fans, and it is not pumpkin picking. Over the past two days, the National League and the American League Wild Card games were played.
The Kansas City Royals and the San Francisco Giants are moving on to the divisional round.
“It’s always interesting to see if a wild card team can go deep in the playoffs,” said senior Dave Potter.
While the defending champion Boston Red Sox missed the playoffs, their opponent in last year’s World Series, the St. Louis Cardinals will take on the Los Angeles Dodgers in the National League Divisional Round.
The other National League matchup features the Washington Nationals and the San Francisco Giants in the best of five divisional series. The first game of both National League Divisional Rounds will be played on Friday.
In the American League, the Kansas City Royals will take on the Los Angeles Angels as the Detroit Lions face the Baltimore Orioles. Both series begin tonight as Detroit and Baltimore take the mound at 5:37 p.m. and the Los Angeles vs. Kansas City game starts at 9:07 p.m.
Tuesday’s wild card game between the Kansas City Royals and the Oakland Athletics took extra innings as both teams battled to continue their seasons. The game was the Royal’s first playoff game in 29 years.
Kansas City catcher Salvador Perez hit a single to left field in the 12 inning to bring second baseman Christian Colon home and win the game for the Royals 9-8. The Royals will now move on to play in their first playoff series since the 1985 World Series. They defeated the St. Louis Cardinals in seven games to earn the franchise’s first and only World Series Pennant.
“I think it’s easy to root for the Royals this year,” said senior Kevin Wilson. “It’s been almost 30 years since they made the playoffs, so I think a lot of people want to see them go all the way.”
The other wild card game between the San Francisco Giants and the Pittsburgh Pirates was not nearly as close of a game. The Giants crushed the Pirates 7-0 in front of Pittsburgh’s home crowd.
The Giants missed the post season last year, but won the World Series in 2012 and could be a threat to compete for the Pennant again.
In the past ten years, the only teams in this year’s post season to win a World Series Championship are the Giants and the St. Louis Cardinals. Each have two titles in that span, with San Francisco winning in 2010 and 2012 and the Cardinals in 2006 and 2011.
Who knows what this month has in store for the baseball world? The only sure thing in the MLB playoffs is that there can only be one winner. Each of the eight teams left will have to battle through three series if they want to be crowned champions at the end of October.
mmontal1@ramapo.edu
