What we learned in the wild card round of the MLB postseason: Game 1 is key, aces count

There was a lot of good baseball this week. Elite pitching performances. One-off competitions. Stars get big hits in big moments.

Game 3 on Thursday night – New York Mets 4, Milwaukee Brewers 2 – was a true postseason epic. Two consecutive home runs by the Brewers in the seventh inning. Pete Alonso went deep in the ninth to keep his Mets career going a little longer. Francisco Lindor then sprinted for a double play to end the game.

October is all about winner take all, and there was only one series that went the distance in the Wild Card round. It didn't disappoint us. The other three series were sweeps. That brings us to our first conclusion from the wildcard round…

Game 1 is everything

Wild card sweeps were the norm in this playoff format.

During the era of the one-time Wild Card Game — which ran from 2012 to 2019 and returned in 2021 — many lamented the brutal injustice of a brilliant season washed away in nine innings. Wouldn't a three-game series be a better solution than a winner-take-all game?

So far the answer is… not really. Since the league switched to the three-game Wild Card Series in 2022, the winner of Game 1 has won all 12 series. Only two series have even reached Game 3. This corresponds to a sweep rate of 83 percent.

If we include the 2020 postseason — after the pandemic-shortened season, MLB expanded the playoff field and staged eight three-game wild-card series — the Game 1 loser came back just twice in 20 tries to win the series ( A's and Padres). in 2020). Sixteen were swept.

Although it is still a small series example, it has taken some air out of the balloon. The league would love for each Wild Card series to be three games. Instead, almost every series was decided in Game 1.

And if that's the case, you'd better have an Ace from Game 1.

Respect the Crown (and the Chaos)

The Detroit Tigers had a winning formula for the Wild Card Series: a Triple Crown winner in Game 1 and what manager AJ Hinch called “pitching chaos” in Game 2. Let the ace set the stage and let everyone else close the curtain.

Be it Tarik Skubal for the Tigers, Michael King for the Padres or Cole Ragans for the Royals – three of the four teams that showed top-notch performances in the Wild Card opener ended up being a complete hit. After Skubal threw six shutout innings against Houston in Game 1, the Tigers managed seven relievers in Game 2. King's 12-strikeout gem in Game 1 left the Braves reeling and the Padres' bullpen fresh for Joe Musgrove's injury-shortened start in Game 2. It was a similar story for the Royals, whose bullpen was up to the task after Seth Lugo in the fifth inning of Game 2 in Baltimore was taken out of the game.

Corbin Burnes also had a breakout performance in Game 1, allowing one run over eight innings in his final start before free agency, but Bobby Witt Jr. drove in the game's only run. The O's only managed one run in the sweep.

Chris Sale, the NL Triple Crown winner, didn't even make the Braves' wild card list. With Sale suffering from back spasms, the Braves started AJ Smith-Shawver in the first game. He only lasted four outs. The Braves never had a chance. The Houston Astros also fell behind early as star player Framber Valdez continued last year's postseason woes. Houston was substituted in two games. The most dominant starts in the Brewers-Mets series came not from Aces, but from Game 3 starters José Quintana and Tobias Myers.

Tarik Skubal is making a deal with the Astros. (Kevin M. Cox / Associated Press)

Home field blues

When we wrote about each participant's schedule, we wrote a lot about the fight for byes and home field advantage in the Wild Card Series. The former? Critically important. (Just ask the 91-win Orioles and the 93-win Brewers.) The latter? Well, how much does Does the home field play a role in this round?

The home team has won just nine of 20 three-game Wild Card Series since 2020.

If you take 2020 out of the equation, because stadiums were empty and the playoff field was watered down, the home team performed even worse in the Wild Card Series, losing eight of 12 series.

There is no logical reason for this to be true. No team would choose to play away instead of at home. But perhaps home field is far less important than other factors in a three-game series: like an ace.

This doubleheader caused a mess

The Braves' pitching staff had been in trouble since Spencer Strider's elbow started barking in spring training, but that was all over when Hurricane Helene forced a doubleheader on Monday that added Sale to the Braves' long injured list.

Smith-Shawver starts Game 1 without Austin Riley or Ronald Acuña Jr. in the lineup? This wasn't the Braves team anyone expected in March. But when they were swept, Atlanta lay in ruins. The Braves emptied the bullpen to split the doubleheader against the Mets, used a spot starter in the first game of the playoffs and then had to cover Max Fried's two-inning start in the second game.

They were gassed.

The Mets played the other half of this season-ending doubleheader. Luis Severino pitched well enough in Game 1 to give them a fighting chance in the Wild Card Series, lasting six innings despite heavy early traffic. The cracks began to show in Game 3. After Quintana pitched six shutout innings, Buttó created a stalemate, and suddenly closer Edwin Díaz put out the fire in the seventh inning. Even when fully rested, the Mets bullpen did not have a quality bullpen. When exhausted, they are more likely to collapse. It was David Peterson – a starter – who kept the Brewers at bay by saving Game 3.

The headquarters is dead (Long live the headquarters)

Some AL executives talked earlier this year about how balancing the MLB schedule would help powerful divisions (like the AL East) and hurt weaker divisions (like the AL Central). That was the idea anyway.

But the AL Central has three of the American League's bottom four teams (the Royals, Tigers and Guardians), while the East only has the Yankees. The Rays, Red Sox and Blue Jays missed the tournament and the Orioles are already on their way home.

Last season, the AL Central had just one team with a winning record, while the AL East had four.

The NL Central has largely been a disappointment this season. The Brewers were their only hope of making any postseason noise, but they have now lost their last six playoff series and are 2-10 in postseason play since 2019. That appeared to be the case for a brief window Thursday night after Jake Bauers and Sal Frelick went yard that half of the remaining playoff teams would come from the middle of the country. Instead, Alonso completely eliminated the NL Central.

Pete Alonso after his home run against the Brewers. (Aaron Gash / MLB Photos via Getty Images)

The momentum is important

There's a natural instinct to assume that teams that come screaming into the playoffs late in the season won't be discovered until the playoffs begin. Your mistakes will be exposed. They were pretenders, after all.

Then came the Tigers and Mets. The Tigers' playoff odds were 0.2 percent as of August 11th and the Mets' playoff odds were 13.1 percent as of August 28th. Neither started the season as a midfield team. There were about 500 teams in the first half. And then outrageous things happened. The Tigers traded their No. 2 starter and several other veterans and couldn't stop winning. The Mets fiddled with the buttons on their pitching staff, found something offensive, and made miracles happen in Game 161.

Neither of them was exposed in this round. The Tigers kept rolling. Their ace was better than the other guys' aces and their positioning ensured timely hits. The Mets' win was no fluke. They hit well, created havoc and rallied when it mattered most against one of the best pitchers – and best closers – in baseball.

We lump the Tigers and Mets together in part because they were last in our postseason pitching core rankings. Not because we thought they were rubbish, but because some team had to come last and because it looked like the illusions of the second half would eventually stop working. Not like that. Two old sayings apply to these two teams:

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.

And no one wants to see these guys in October.

Five teams won at least 16 games in September. Three – the Tigers, Padres and Mets – won a Wild Card Series. A fourth seed, the Los Angeles Dodgers, received a bye in the first round. The only wild-card team that didn't have a winning record in the second half was the Orioles, who took a 33-33 lead and were eliminated in two games – perhaps not good news for the NL favorite Philadelphia Phillies, who also finished with 33 :33 eliminated. 33 after the break.

You can't predict the ball

Some aces were aces, and some stars were stars – you made your families proud, Alonso, Witt and Fernando Tatis Jr. – but in the postseason not all heroes wear All-Star and Silver Slugger capes. Some are just guys who show up when they're needed most.

The star-studded Padres hit three home runs in their series, two of which came from No. 9 hitter Kyle Higashioka. The Brewers' Game 2 comeback began with rookie of the year candidate Jackson Chourio, but it was Garrett Mitchell who hit the game-winning home run. Skubal lived up to his billing for the Tigers, but it was swingman Beau Briske who closed out Game 1 and pitched 1 2/3 scoreless innings in Game 2. Which second baseman led the Wild Card round in hits and doubles? Not Jose Altuve or Luis Arraez. It was Brewers speedster Brice Turang.

Some of the biggest swings in the Wild Card Series came from Andy Ibañez, Jesse Winker and Frelick. Some of the most decisive punchouts were thrown by Will Vest, Nick Mears and Sam Long.

Come October, even the most anonymous big league player can become a household name.

(Top photos of Kyle Higashioka, left, and Will Vest and Jake Rogers, right: Orlando Ramirez, Alex Stiltz / Getty Images)