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Are you ready for baseball in October?
Well, there is still a day left in September, and what a day it is to begin the Major League Baseball playoffs. You had a 12 in 30 chance that your team plays in the post-season that starts today.
My team is the Red Sox (as you probably know by now) and the BoSox have their hands full for a couple of reasons.
No. 1 is that as the fifth seed in the American League, they play the 4th-seed Yankees, their oldest and bitterest rival. And because of how the wildcard schedule was revised recently, they will have to beat the Bombers 2 out of 3 at Yankee Stadium to advance.
Why are all three games at the home park of the higher seed, you may be wondering? Me, too. It does give the Yankees an advantage, but the MLB Players Association thought it is better than the one-game wildcard play-in they had before 2022.
It all begins with best-of-three series: the Tigers at Guardians at 1 on ESPN, the Padres at Cubs at 3 on ABC, Reds at Dodgers at 9 after the Sox and Yankees first pitch at 6, both also on ESPN.
The top two division winners in each league – Blue Jays and Mariners in the American and Brewers and Phillies in the National – get first round byes and won’t play until the weekend.
May I indulge you with a few reasons why I think the Sox could actually win two out of three in the Bronx?
They played 13 games during the regular season with Boston winning nine times, four in New York. They also had a three-game sweep of the Yankees at Fenway Park in June.
And ace Garrett Crochet, a favorite to win the American League Cy Young Award, starts the opener for the Sox. He is a fierce lefthander who will force the Yankees to keep a couple of lefty hitters out of the starting lineup, at least.
The Yanks have home run slugger Aaron Judge, who finished the regular season with 53 dingers and can easily launch one into the bleachers in right center where his personal fan section dresses in judges’ robes. And the Yanks have their own good southpaw going in Max Fried.
Another reason this series isn’t over before it starts is the pressure of winning game one and game three. The Players Association must have taken this into consideration.
If the road team wins the opener behind Crochet, the pressure falls into the lap of the higher seed in a very short series.
And like they say about any deciding game in any series – best of five or best of seven – anything can happen in the deciding game. So I like the BoSox if they can get to game three.
I also like the Guardians over the Tigers, the Cubs over the Padres and the Dodgers over the Reds to advance.
Featured image via Associated Press/Chris Young
Art Chansky is a veteran journalist who has written ten books, including best-sellers “Game Changers,” “Blue Bloods,” and “The Dean’s List.” He has contributed to WCHL for decades, having made his first appearance as a student in 1971. His “Sports Notebook” commentary airs daily on the 97.9 The Hill WCHL and his “Art’s Angle” opinion column runs weekly on Chapelboro.Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees, and you can directly support our efforts in local journalism here. Want more of what you see on Chapelboro? Let us bring free local news and community information to you by signing up for our newsletter.
