MLB Playoffs: Day 5

When I was in the 8th grade, the Heath girls' team made it to the state basketball tournament.  This was a very big deal -- to this day, it is the only time since the 1930's that Heath has made the state basketball tournament for boys or girls.  And then the Lady Pirates won their first game of the tournament against Paris.  So now things were getting very exciting.  The next game was a quarter-final against Franklin County on Friday afternoon.  Heath Middle School basically shut down for the last period that day so that we could follow the game -- I think the radio feed was broadcast over the P.A. system.  We all got ready for the big game -- I can remember standing up at the blackboard, where I was going to keep a scoreboard.  The last few minutes before that game tipped off were one of my favorite times ever.

And then the game started, and we got killed.  The final score was 61-44 for Franklin County, but I remember it being much less competitive than that, at least in the first quarter.  Within two minutes, we basically knew that the Lady Pirates would not be state champs.  It was quite a let down.

That's how a lot of Nats fans felt yesterday.  After years of waiting, we finally had our first post-season home game in Washington since 1933.  It was a beautiful day, Nats Park was rocking, and we were all set for a mighty struggle with the defending World Champs.  But once the game started, the Nats looked for all the world like a college team that had won the chance to play an exhibition against the Cardinals.  I can rarely remember seeing any MLB team looking so overmatched in the playoffs.  St. Louis won 8-0, and it wasn't nearly that close.  In fact, the whole series hasn't been very close.  The Cardinals have only trailed after 2 of 27 innings in the series so far, and they have outscored Natsdown 22-7.  The Nats will be using their worst starter -- Ross Detwiler -- in game four, so it will be quite surprising if they make it to game five.

The other three series, by contrast, are filled with high drama.  The Giants have now won two games in Cincinnati to force a game five in that series, as they clobbered the Reds 8-3.  The Yankees were losing 2-1 to the Orioles in the bottom of the ninth when Joe Girardi decided to send up Raul Ibanez to pinch-hit for Alex Rodriguez (who is suffering his usual October woes).  Ibanez hit a homer to tie the game, and then hit another homer in the bottom of the 12th to win the game 3-2.  The O's, who had won the last 16 extra innings games that they played, picked a bad time to see that streak come to an end.  And finally, the A's were trailing 3-1 in the bottom of the 9th against Detroit -- and the plastic was already up in the Tigers' locker room for the expected celebration -- but Oakland scored three runs in the bottom of the ninth to force a game five in that series.

So after five days, all eight teams are still alive:

NATIONAL LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES (Best of 5):
St. Louis leads Washington 2-1
Cincinnati and San Francisco are tied 2-2

AMERICAN LEAGUE DIVISION SERIES (Best of 5):
New York leads Baltimore 2-1
Oakland and Detroit are tied 2-2

And for the last time this year, we get four games in one day (home teams listed first):

1 PM EDT:  Cincinnati v. San Francisco (TBS)
4 PM EDT:  Washington v. St. Louis (TBS)
7:30 PM EDT:  New York v. Baltimore (TBS)
9:30 PM EDT:  Oakland v. Detroit (TNT)