Yesterday should have been a wonderful day for baseball fans. We just ended a pretty exciting regular season, and yesterday marked the beginning of the playoffs. The two games yesterday featured four great old franchises, two of the best new baseball stadiums, the big leagues' first Triple Crown winner since 1967, a gaggle of ace pitchers, and an old-fashioned NL West rivalry game between the Giants and Reds. The whole day cried out for a double-header starting at 1 PM Eastern on Fox (or NBC, for that matter). So naturally the powers that be within MLB scheduled the games to start at 6:07 Eastern on TBS, which meant: (1) that they were head-to-head with a tremendous night of college football; (2) that they were on a network sports fans don't normally watch; and (3) that they second game wouldn't finish until after 1 A.M. on the East Coast. No other sport makes it so difficult for its fans to watch its post-season.
The games themselves were pretty good. In Detroit, Justin Verlander proved the old saying that momentum is just the next day's starting pitcher, because he shut down the previously red-hot A's, as the Tigers won 3-1. And in the nightcap, Cincinnati's ace Johnny Cueto (19-9, 2.78 ERA) had to leave after only eight pitches -- but the Reds' staff held San Francisco to only two runs as Cincy took a 5-2 victory. I just wish more people had gotten to watch.
The other two series (Nats/Cardinals and Yankees/Orioles) start on Sunday.
National League Divisional Series (Best of 5):
Washington and St. Louis tied 0-0
Cincinnati leads San Francisco 1-0
American League Divisional Series (Best of 5):
New York and Baltimore tied 0-0
Detroit leads Oakland 1-0
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