YANKS-INDIANS BREAKDOWN
The Yankees and Indians are playing each other in the first-ever best-of-three Wild Card series, with all three games being played in Cleveland starting tonight. Both teams finished second in their divisions, with the Yankees (33-27) getting the No. 5 seed and the Indians (35-25) earning home field at No. 4. No fans will be at any of the games in at least the first two rounds.
Whoever wins the series will play the winner of the Rays-Blue Jays series, a best-of-five ALDS beginning Oct. 5. That series will move to the MLB playoff
“bubble” in either Los Angeles or San Diego.
GAME 1 (TONIGHT)
TV: 7 p.m., ESPN
Pitching matchup: Gerrit Cole (l.) (7-3, 2.84 ERA) vs. Shane Bieber (8-1, 1.63 ERA)
GAME 2 (WEDNESDAY)
TV: 7 p.m., ESPN
Pitching matchup: Masahiro Tanaka (3-3, 3.56 ERA) vs. Carlos Carrasco (3-4, 2.91 ERA)
GAME 3 (THURSDAY, IF NECESSARY)
TV: Time TBD, ESPN network TBD
Pitching matchup: Likely J.A. Happ (2-2, 3.47 ERA) vs. Zach Plesac (4-2, 2.28 ERA), although the Yankees have not announced a third starter yet.
HOW WE GOT HERE
The Yankees had two extended stretches of poor play, a 5-15 run that gifted the Rays the AL East and then an ugly 2-6 finish to the season that nearly dropped them to the No. 8 seed overall.
Cleveland took advantage of the White Sox’s September swoon to overtake Chicago for the No. 4 seed. The Indians swept a four-game series against the Sox last week and then beat the Pirates on the season’s final day to end up with the same record. In the chaotic AL Central, the Twins (36-24) won and grabbed the No. 3 seed, while the Indians (35-25) got the No. 4 seed after winning the tiebreaker with the White Sox (35-25), who fell all the way to No. 7 after leading the division for most of the season.
HEAD-TO-HEAD
The teams have not played each other yet this season because of the unique scheduling that kept teams in divisional pods against nine opponents all season. They’ve met in the playoffs four times, although just once this decade: the 2017 ALDS, which the Yankees won, 3-2. They lost the division series to Cleveland in 1997 and 2007 and beat them in the 1998 ALCS en route to a world championship.
That ’07 series is best remembered for the Joba Chamberlain “Bug Game,” when the Yankees reliever came on with a 1-0 lead and was flustered by a swarm of midges and eventually threw two wild pitches that let the Indians tie the score and eventually the series.
KEY PLAYERS
The Indians will counter the Yankees’ $324 million pitcher with an ace of their own. Shane Bieber (r.) led the
American League in wins, strikeouts, and ERA, giving him baseball’s first pitching triple crown in more than a decade. Bieber is a legitimate MVP candidate, as is third baseman Jose Ramirez. After finishing third in the 2017 and 2018 MVP races, Ramirez’s 2020 might have been his best season yet.
Ramirez led all AL position players in WAR, according to FanGraphs, after a scorching-hot September. He hit .354 with a whopping 10 homers and 1.262 OPS in the month.
With Giancarlo Stanton, Aaron Judge, and Gleyber Torres all muted due to various injuries — although all three are now healthy and in the Bombers’ lineup — Luke Voit and DJ LeMahieu carried the offense through good times and bad. Voit stroked 22 homers and LeMahieu hit .364, making them the first pair of teammates to lead the majors in HRs and batting average since 1959
CORONAVIRUS NOTES
The Indians had one of the most controversial virus-related incidents of the year, with star pitchers Mike Clevinger and Zach Plesac nearly getting exiled by their teammates after getting caught lying about partying in Chicago. The Indians’ stiff punishment for both was suspiciously convenient for a franchise that has lived off trading its best and most expensive players for the last decade, but Clevinger was traded to the Padres and Plesac was sent to the team’s alternate site for nearly a month. Plesac recorded a since-deleted car video in which he complained that he had been “dragged across the mud” and subject to “some evil things” by the media.