The 2010 MLB Playoffs are finally here!
And though several of the races came down to the final day of the regular season, the American and National League Divisional Series matchups have been set.
Now, it’s time for the Rays, Twins, Rangers, Yankees, Phillies, Reds, Giants, and Braves to fight it out for the 2010 title.
And, of course, you’ll want to watch each and every game, so follow along to get the 4-1-1 on each Divisional Series matchup.
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MLB’s second season gets underway Wednesday.
While the Yankees, Twins and Phillies have been postseason mainstays recently, the Giants, Rangers and Reds are back for the first time in years; the Braves are making their first appearance since 2005 and the Rays are looking to complete some unfinished business from 2008.
Every October provides a chance for young guys and traveled veterans that spent their careers with historically poor teams to get a shot at MLB’s postseason for the first time. Some can’t handle the pressure of the sport’s biggest spotlight, while others step up to new heights.
Young guys like Andruw Jones (1996), Derek Jeter (1996), K-Rod (2002), Josh Beckett (2003), Bobby Jenks (2005), Adam Wainwright (2006) and BJ Upton (2008) instantly made a name for themselves with breakout postseason performances in their first trips.
Meanwhile, veterans like Scott Brosius (1998), Carlos Beltran (2004) and Matt Holliday (2007) paved the way for big payouts by making breakout first impressions in October.
The following slideshow will include my 15 candidates for breakout performers in their first appearance in the postseason. These are in no particular order. Leave a comment if you disagree with my choices or think I missed someone.
The grind of the Major League Baseball regular season has finally come to an end and for those fans that had the patience to stick with their favorite team over that 162 game marathon, they are now bracing themselves for the sprint that is the MLB playoffs.
Despite how entertaining it might be to watch your favorite team play a four game series against the Pirates, it’s time for the playoffs to usher in a new brand of baseball where everything matters just a little bit more.
Every pitch, every managerial move, every strike, and every walk matters more, simply because you no longer have the time to make up for bad play in the postseason.
When October starts, you have to get things right the first time and if your team is lethargic or sloppy out of the gate, they will probably be sitting on the couch in a matter of days, contemplating whether or not to rip the speakers out of their television so they won’t have to listen to Joe Buck anymore.
While success in October is a team effort, it’s hard to deny that the baseball playoffs are a time where individual players shine the brightest and can single handedly turn around a game or even a whole series with one swing of the bat or one dominant pitching performance.
With this in mind, let’s take a look at the most important player for each playoff team as we eagerly await the start of the 2010 postseason.
Baseball is all about stories. The game is beautiful, tactical, and intense, but more than any other professional sport in world history, baseball fans crave more storylines and drama. Babe Ruth was a legend because of his larger-than-life personality. Josh Hamilton is a hero because of the drug addiction he overcame to become one of baseball’s best sluggers.
In the playoffs, this sense of added drama is even more heightened. Stories of redemption, persistence, and (sometimes) sheer dominance demand to be told. Given the level of coverage the postseason receives in our modern media-crazed world, those stories will find their way into the headlines and television segments to which we will all pay more attention as the World Series draws near. Here are five of the best ones you can expect to see.
The playoffs are here yet again boys and girls and that means raucous crowds, high pressure situations, and games that start after my bedtime.
The divisional series crank up Wednesday night with three exciting games on tap to fill your hearts with joy.
So sit back, relax, and let the wave of playoff baseball rush over you, here is what you can expect in terms of each match-up in the divisional round of these 2010 playoffs.
Marquee pitching match-ups are what playoff baseball is all about. Men like Curt Schilling and John Smoltz built their legacies in the harsh crucible of October, and now a new set of aces is ready to take center stage and make that sort of impact themselves.
Some, like Texas Rangers ace Cliff Lee, have already established their postseason prowess. For others, like the Giants’ Tim Lincecum and Philadelphia’s Roy Halladay, 2010 will mark a long-awaited playoff debut. The intensity of duels like these put butts in seats, and draw those watching at home up onto their feet to pace the living room. When runs are as scarce as they may be in these contests, every pitch is crucial.
What follows are the five best playoff pitching match-ups of the first round. Baseball connoisseurs, bon appetit.
For the first time in seven years, postseason baseball has found its way to AT&T Park. In the National League Divisional Series, the newly crowned NL West champion San Francisco Giants (92-70) will meet the Atlanta Braves (91-71), who also squeaked by on the final day of the season. The winner of the five-game series will move on to face either Philadelphia (97-65) or Cincinnati (91-71).
No doubt Giants general manager Brian Sabean is spearheading an extended powwow with manager Bruce Bochy and his staff, as the rules call for the 40-man active roster to be trimmed down to 25 by Thursday’s opener in China Basin.
Although substitutions can be made in each round of the playoffs, it will be interesting to find out the composition of the final list for the NLDS, as it will undoubtedly give clues on how they intend to attack the Braves and advance to their first National League Championship Series since 2002.
All year long, the Giants’ outstanding pitching has defied belief, especially during the final month of the season. San Francisco hurlers held opposing batters to a .182 average in September and conceded three runs or less in 24 out of 26 games, a feat that has occurred only once since 1920.
However, the team’s bats haven’t fared as well, with their own dubious streak defining their offense. In the last 29 games to close the year, Giants hitters scored more than four runs only eight times.
With that said, smallball will the be order of the day in San Francisco, and the signs were evident in last Sunday’s division-clinching win over San Diego. In the bottom of the seventh inning, with the Giants in desperate need of adding an insurance run to a slim 2-0 lead, Eugenio Velez laid down a sacrifice bunt to move 245-pound Pablo Sandoval from first base.
However, the portly former All-Star’s lack of speed was blatantly clear when he was gunned down at second with three strides to spare in what became a waste of an out.
The Giants’ formidable rotation and bullpen have compensated for the toothless offense for most of 2010. Since this pattern will likely continue into the playoffs, the necessity of manufacturing runs will be at a premium in close games, where each win gets the team one step closer to the World Series.
According to the way Sabean and Bochy have handled the season to date, I have broken down the current 40-man roster and given my projections for the final 25 who will take the field for the NLDS. Starters are in bold, cuts will have lines through their names, and shaky picks up for debate will be in italics, with key stats for each player included.
The San Diego Padres have been a thorn in the Giants side all year.
With the exception of the Giants winning three out of four against the Padres in San Diego last month, the Padres have an 8-2 record against the Giants in the other 10 games.
That’s why it’s not enough to just win the division and sit back while Atlanta drops three straight to the Phillies; letting the Padres sneak in as a wild card against a resting Giants.
The Giants must bring their A-game the last two games even if the division is already theirs.
Bay Area sports fans can all remember that one year this century that the Golden State Warriors made the playoffs.
That was a miracle in its own right and the magic continued when the Warriors won a six-game series against the heavily-favored No. 1 seed Dallas Mavericks who were coming off an NBA Finals loss to the Miami Heat a year earlier with the mantra, “Unfinished Business.”
Where the Mavericks went wrong and where the San Francisco Giants must go right is that with three or so games left in the regular season, the Mavericks faced the Warriors who were fighting for the last playoff spot with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Dallas rested their top players pretty much the whole game, and the Warriors won the game and the last playoff spot by one game over a furious Los Angeles Clippers club who owned the tiebreaker against the Warriors in the standings.
A couple weeks later the Warriors are sending the Mavericks home packing early from the playoffs.
Unfinished business indeed.
The Padres are currently a game behind the Braves with two games to play.
The Braves are playing the Phillies who would like nothing more than to see their division rival Atlanta Braves miss the playoffs by their own hands in the most disheartening of fashions.
The beautiful thing about this is that if the Giants are going to eliminate the San Diego Padres on their own, then it’s going to come down to the last game of the season where Jonathan Sanchez closes out the regular season for the G-Men.
Sanchez, for some reason, opened up his big mouth after he lost a game earlier this year just before a three game series with the Padres predicting a sweep and never looking back.
Well here we are with two games left to play and the Giants still don’t own the division and the ball will be in Sanchez’s as he either pitches Sunday to either win the West for the Giants or send the Padres home for some October surfing.
Barry Zito pitches Saturday in a game which will determine which one of those two things Sanchez will be pitching for—assuming a Braves loss.
The beautiful thing is, either we get to see the Giants eliminate a team that has owned them this year or we get to see a trash-talking Sanchez get a big slice of humble pie.
Either way, this will be an exciting weekend.
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With the MLB playoffs just around the corner, San Francisco Giants are on verge of eliminating the San Diego Padres from the divisional race and claim their first NL West crown since 2003.
Barry Bonds isn’t the big bopper in the lineup anymore and Jason Schmidt isn’t the ace of the pitching staff.
Instead the 2010 Giants have a young catcher by the name of Buster Posey leading the way on offense and a pitching staff led by two time NL CY Young Award winner Time Lincecum.
The Giants host the San Diego Padres for a three game set that will determine the winner of the NL West as well as the NL Wild Card champion.
The Giants only need one win this weekend to pop champagne and begin talking about October baseball by the bay.
Giants’ fans must be patient waiting for their team to officially clinch. Once they do, they should note that these five qualities will result in a deep playoff run from Buster Posey and company.
The San Francisco Giants crept closer to a postseason berth, while the San Diego Padres suffered another heartbreaking loss Thursday night to move towards the brink of elimination.
Madison Bumgarner worked out of several jams and the Giants blasted three home runs en route to a 4-1 win over the Diamondbacks.
Meanwhile, offense was again the problem for the Padres, who tallied just three hits in the 1-0 loss to the Cubs.
Here’s a look at the latest news from the top teams heading into the postseason, and some very early predictions for each playoff team.
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