Six times this postseason, Gleyber Torres has walked to the plate in the first inning to get things started for the Yankees. Five times this postseason, that opening opportunity has equaled an opening salvo: walk, walk, double, single, double. It’s a small picture of Torres as the catalyst, and presents […]
In the very first game of the very first World Series, Pittsburgh’s starter, Deacon Phillippe, did something that, to this day, has been replicated only 20 times: he issued no walks while fanning double-digit batters (he had 10 K’s). No one matched Phillippe’s feat for 46 years, until Brooklyn’s […]
It’s Saturday, October 12 – Game 5 of the ALDS pitting Detroit against Cleveland – and the Tigers have just used up the first three of their 27 allotted outs, leading to Steven Kwan leading off the first for Cleveland. Entering this do-or-die contest, Kwan has posted a .500/.556/.563 line […]
If the 2010 postseason wasn’t quite a pitching version of “anything you can do, I can do better,” that’s mainly because Roy Halladay set the bar too high to begin things. In Game 1 of the Phillies’ NLDS tussle with the Reds, the right-hander was nearly perfect, allowing just one […]
A few days ago, the Mets sent the orange-and-blue-clad fans of the greater New York area into a frenzy by finishing off the rival Phillies in a memorable four-game NLDS that was much closer than some of the final scores indicated. There were several heroes for the victors, of […]
By the time Sandy Alomar established a new Indians postseason record with his 10 RBI in the 1997 World Series, the 31-year-old catcher was a long established member of the team. He had pre-dated Manny and Lofton and Vizquel and Thome and had represented Cleveland in five All-Star Games; he […]
Collectively, the 20 most recent postseasons (2005-2024) have produced 85 examples of a starting pitcher finishing his work with at least seven innings and no runs allowed. Strolling through the list, one finds that Giants’ hurlers have the most such efforts, with 11. The Dodgers, Phillies and Tigers come next […]
League Division Series play has produced 39 winner-take-all contests – those ultimate, tension-filled testing grounds that have a way of squeezing out all of the possible drama. The very first year of this round – 1981 – was especially generous in its largesse, serving up three Game 5’s on the […]
On October 10, 1981, pinch-hitter George Vukovich stepped into the box to face Montreal’s Jeff Reardon. It was the start of the bottom of the 10th, the Expos and Phillies were knotted at five, and Philadelphia was trying to force a decisive Game 5. A pitch, a swing … and […]
By the simple laws of math, a postseason baseball game matters more than one from the regular season. After all, we’re talking 162 games for a team spread over half a year versus maybe 20 games across a single month. But it isn’t the math that gets our senses tingling […]