Late dingers defi ned division series
Time for a deep breath. A chance to catch up on the DVR. Baseball’s post- season takes a break after none of the four Division Series went the full five games. The action starts up again Friday night when Kansas City visits Baltimore in the AL Championship Series opener.
James Shields — Big Game James — pitches for the wild card Royals against Orioles right- hander Chris Tillman. The best- of- seven playoff matches surprising squads that have never met in the post- season.
Baltimore seeks its first pennant since 1983. Kansas City is in the playoffs for the first time since winning the 1985 World Series.
Over in the National League, it’s San Francisco and St. Louis in a rematch of their 2012 NLCS, won by the Giants after they rallied from a 3- 1 series deficit. Game 1 is Saturday night at Busch Stadium.
Those two teams are no strangers to October success. While the Giants are looking to make every other year a pattern after winning the World Series in 2010 and 2012, the Cardinals are in their fourth straight NLCS and ninth in 15 years.
St. Louis advanced Tuesday with a 3- 2 win over Clayton Kershaw and the Dodgers, bringing cheers from San Francisco fans at AT& T Park who were happy to see rival Los Angeles eliminated. Hours later, the wild card Giants won their own Game 4 by an identical score against Washington.
Kansas City polished off its threegame sweep of the Los Angeles Angels on Sunday, while Baltimore did the same against Detroit.
The previous time no Division Series went the distance was 2009.
It’s happened seven times since the playoffs expanded in 1995, including four years in a row from 2006- 09. Many of the biggest hits throughout this post- season have been home runs.
In eight of the 16 playoff games so far, the decisive run scored on a long ball. That’s a much higher ratio than the 32.6 per cent mark during regular season games this year, according to STATS.
Sort of strange considering that offence is down all around the majors. And even teams that don’t normally flash much power are going yard when it counts in October.
Kansas City ranked last in the majors with 95 home runs during the season, but Eric Hosmer and Mike Moustakas have two apiece in four playoff games. Moustakas and Hosmer each connected in the 11th inning on consecutive nights to lift the Royals over the Angels in the first two games of their ALDS.
Kansas City was the only club with fewer homers this season than St. Louis, which socked all of 105.
But the Cardinals hit seven long balls in four NLDS games against the Dodgers, including Matt Adams’s go- ahead, three- run shot off Kershaw in the seventh inning Tuesday.