Four things we learned from Division Series Game 1s: The Astros are never out of it
It’s mathematically impossible to win a best-of-five series in Game 1. It’s figuratively possible to lose it, though.
And a quartet of Division Series openers on Tuesday brought a bevy of surprises, heart palpitations and crucial pivot points, for Game 1 certainly and quite possibly for the series at large. Mercifully, the American League will take a day to rest after a Houston Astro made history.
But the defending champions will be fighting for their lives, while the 111-win favorites in the NL will be back at it Wednesday. A look at four things we learned from Tuesday’s Division Series openers:
Astros-Mariners: Down, but never out
It’s been eight years since the Astros began this golden era of baseball and six years of unfettered dominance that’s resulted in five consecutive trips to the AL Championship Series.
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And still, the Astros find ways to make history.
Yordan Alvarez became the first player in playoff history to hit a two-out, walk-off home run with his club trailing by multiple runs, a wallop off Robbie Ray capping an industrious comeback and sending Minute Maid Park into delirium.
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Dodgers-Padres: Four-headed closer
It was a grim inevitability that scarcely caused a pregame ripple: Craig Kimbrel had pitched his way off the Dodgers’ playoff roster.
L.A.’s 111-win regular season gave it the luxury of trying to get Kimbrel right, of handing him the ball in the ninth, his comfort zone, and hoping he’d workshop his way back to viability.
iced the 5-3 victory.
It started sketchily. Phillips walked the first batter he faced and had thrown 20 pitches before recording an out. But with two on and Wil Myers – who homered earlier – at the plate, Phillips got a huge break when Myers’ 100-mph one-hopper was right at second baseman Gavin Lux, who made a beautiful snare and turn to shortstop Trea Turner for a huge double play.
Eventually, the baton came to Martin, who was a less-renowned member of Atlanta’s Night Shift bullpen last year. He did not join the Dodgers until a late July trade from the Cubs, one that barely caused a trade-deadline ripple.
But the Dodgers, as is their wont, got him right; he posted a 1.46 ERA and 1.13 FIP in 26 games with them after those numbers were 4.31/3.02 in Chicago. His final pitch, to Ha-Seong Kim, consumed a great deal of the plate, and Kim was cursing himself for popping it up even before it settled into left fielder Trayce Thompson’s glove.
dunderheaded baserunning. The bullpen still has a throw-a-dart-and-hope-for-the-best feeling.
But this strange Yankee team – a 99-win juggernaut, a flawed favorite, an indomitable force, a disaster waiting to happen – seemed to find the antidote for its herky-jerky performance and whatever anxiety that might have built up over a five-day layoff – the punchless Guardians.
Oh, Cole gave up his semi-daily dinger, a third-inning solo homer to leadoff man Steven Kwan that gave Cleveland the early lead. But by the end of the Yankees’ 4-1 Game 1 victory, the Guardians’ three-game playoff sample featured this unsettling stat: Shut out in 30 of 33 innings.
Sure, they swept the Rays in two games and were competitive throughout in Game 1 at Yankee Stadium. But they’ve also yet to score by any means other than the home run, and they had to wait 15 innings for one the other day. On one hand, the Guardians looked like trouble coming in, with excellent starting pitching, a fearless bullpen and a contact-friendly offense catalyzed by perennial MVP candidate Jose Ramirez.
Upsetting the Yankees probably meant stealing Game 1, a possibility if Cole was not on point or the Yankee sluggers got too eager against starter Cal Quantrill. But New York waited out Quantrill, pushing across the decisive runs in the sixth inning. And Cole – who yielded an AL-high 33 homers – overcame a high early pitch count and stuck around into the seventh, leaving just eight outs for an out-of-sorts Yankee bullpen to consume.
7-6 win and a huge advantage: Top starters Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola will start the next two games.
Perhaps they’ll take back the headlines and that’s fine. Game 1 was for the working men out in the ‘pen – perhaps no one moreso than Dominguez, who pitched two clean innings and struck out three, bridging the gap from the middle innings into the eighth.
“These two innings today were magnificent,” Thomson said of Dominguez.