Lee Lowenfish

Monday October 5 will be a rare day off before playoff baseball begins with the AL Wild Card game at Yankee Stadium on Tuesday Oct 6 with the rambunctious Houston Astros invading Yankee Stadium for the right to meet the Kansas City Royals in the best-of-five American League Division Series (ALDS).

I must admit that I was rooting for the Yankees to go on the road for the Winner Take All game. They finished the season as losers of six out of seven games, three out of four to the Red Sox at home and a sweep in Baltimore at the hands of last year’s AL East champion Orioles.

The Astros played very well in Seattle and Arizona, winning both series but unable to sweep the Diamondbacks on Sunday that would have given them the home game in Houston. It was still a remarkable year for the young Astros who rose from seasons in the lower depths to lead the AL West for most of 2015 until the Texas Rangers, another horrible team in 2014, roared past them to win the title.

There is nothing like baseball when everything is on the line. Players who gather in Florida and Arizona in February, who live with each other more than with their own families, go on the field in late September and try to relax while playing games that will determine whether they make the playoffs or go home also-rans.

The Saturday October 3 game between the Angels and Rangers will go down as one of the most remarkable ones in baseball history. I have cited over the years in this blog “Lowenfish’s Law”: “No four-run lead in baseball is ever safe until the last man
Is out.”

It came true on Saturday when the Rangers entered the 9th inning at home in Arlington, Texas with a 10-6 lead. Rangers rookie manager Jeff Banister played with fire by bringing in his closer Shawn Tolleson for the FIFTH straight game. He immediately gave up two solo home runs to cut the lead to 10-8.

Infrequently used righthander Ross Olmerdorf came in and got a bad break immediately when Albert Pujols popped a ball down the right field that fell out of first baseman Mike Napoli’s glove when second baseman Roughned Odor collided with him. Four hits later, some with two strikes and two out, gave the lead to the Rangers who closed out a 11-10 victory.

The Rangers were already in the playoffs so it wasn’t a devastating loss. “Tomorrow is your best friend” remains one of the great adages in baseball, and on Sunday southpaw ace Cole Hamels, a trade deadline pickup from the Phillies, pitched a complete game 9-2 victory to give the Rangers the undisputed title of the AL West.

Attempting a sweep at Arizona, always hard to pull off on the road, Houston tied Arizona in the sixth inning but Diamondbacks slugger Paul Goldschmidt belted a two-run home run that proved the difference in a 5-3 Arizona victory.

There should be exceptional drama ahead in the wild card games. Houston’s homegrown stellar southpaw Dallas Keuchel is matched against the Yankees high-salaried Japanese import Masahiro Tanaka on Tuesday night.

On Wednesday the Pirates, winners of 96 games, could find their season end because of the deliveries of the Cubs star righty Jake Arrieta who has enjoyed statistically the greatest second half of a season in baseball history.

Powerhouses Kansas City and St. Louis will have home field advantages when they take on the wild card winners, starting Thursday and Friday in the best-of-five league division series (LDS). Division winners Texas and Toronto and New York and Los Angeles will square off in the other LDS.

Playoff baseball is not the same as the daily grind of the regular season. I am pleased that my Orioles surprised a lot of us by winning the last two games over Toronto after the Blue Jays clinched their title in Baltimore. Even more satisfying was sweeping the Yankees this past weekend, forcing them to back into the home wild card game with Houston’s Sunday loss.

The pending free agent losses of slugger Chris Davis and effective southpaw Wei-Yin Chen made the victories bittersweet. Davis sure went out with a bang hitting two home runs in the last game of the season at Camden Yards. But what baseball teaches us is to enjoy the moments of triumph fully because losses of games, and personnel, inevitably lie ahead.

That’s all for now – in the meantime always remember – “Take it easy but take it!”
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Last post, dear blog readers, I commented that I didn’t see how the Red Sox, Cardinals, or Dodgers could lose based on the way they were playing recently – in the case of the Red Sox the way they were playing all year.

Well, someone had to lose in the St. Louis-Los Angeles NLCS and the Dodgers were spanked in the deciding 6th game, 9-0. LA did have two bona fide aces in Clayton Kershaw and Zack Greinke but somehow the Cardinals have been able to beat Kershaw throughout his budding first-rate career. He lost Game 2 in this year’s NLCS and was the victim of the 9-0 rout.

The Cardinals continue to amaze with their ability to find answers within their farm system for departed and injured players. First, when Albert Pujols bolted to the Angels in free agency after the 2011 season, they found homegrown Allen Craig to replace him. When Craig suffered a foot injury late this season, burly Matt Adams, a low round draft pick from Slippery Rock University in western Pennsylvania, stepped in as a very capable replacement. Craig may be ready for the World Series to give a boost to the Cardinals’ sometimes spotty offense.

And their young pitchers have deservedly the talk of baseball. Michael Wacha was pitching for Texas A & M as late as spring 2012 but he was the NLCS MVP for his two victories against the Dodgers. To make matters even sweeter for the Cardinals is that Wacha was drafted with the pick the Redbirds received for losing Albert Pujols as a so-called “premium” free agent.

It was fitting that the Red Sox did in the Tigers with two crushing grand slams at Fenway because they have been winning dramatic games coming from behind all season. Fitting also that closer Koji Uehara was the ALCS MVP because he has been amazingly consistent since he took over the closer’s role early in the summer.

I find it amusingly ironic that Uehara used to boast bushy muttonchops but now has virtually displays a baby-faced look while beards grow all around him. Uehara is 38 but the new cleaner-shaved look has him seem half his age.

I am sure the Orioles and the Rangers rue that they let Uehara go but Baltimore can take a little solace in knowing that they received Chris Davis, the new HR champion of baseball, and reliable reliever Tommy Hunter in the trade for him. I am also amused that Uehara to some seems like an Irish name while, of course, he is a veteran of many successful years in the Japanese major leagues. And Darren O’Day, a valuable Orioles reliever, is not Irish but a Polish-American from Chicago.

The Red Sox have the home field advantage in the World Series and I thought it would be a factor against Detroit and it could be again in the upcoming battle with St. Louis.
But if Allen Craig can contribute and the young Cardinals keep up their smooth playing, I like them in five or six.

On the other hand, for those of you all enough to remember the 1946 World Series, maybe it will go seven games and unlike Johnny Pesky, Dustin Pedroia will not hold onto the ball too long and throw out a key run at the plate in behalf of the Red Sox cause.

Back to you when the hot stove league really picks up. For now: always remember to take it easy but take it.
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