Lots of unfamiliar territory in 2020 baseball playoffs
Mookie Betts, meet Devin Williams and his devastating changeup. Aaron Judge, take a closer look at a much improved Shane Bieber. Fernando Tatis Jr., say hello to Jack Flaherty.
Welcome to the first round of the 2020 playoffs, a class with an unusual amount of homework and precious little room for error.
After the pandemic-shortened regular season was limited to regional play, seven of the eight wild- card series involve teams that haven’t played any meaningful games against each other since last year. The one exception is Blake Snell and Tampa Bay taking on Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Toronto in an all-AL East matchup.
“It’s like the old days, man, when you played a team you’ve never played before. It’s exactly what it is,” said Sandy Alomar Jr., the acting manager for the Indians. “It’s very strange.”
That means a lot of video and scouting work before the AL playoffs begin today and the NL postseason starts Wednesday. And the advance reports might be a tick or two off after scouts were shut out of ballparks this year because of COVID-19 protocols.
Factor in the format — it’s a best-of-three series in the first round, compared to best of five in the division series and best of seven in the final two rounds — and the wild-card round might be a more apt description than Major League Baseball had intended.
“Any mistake can be a total mess for either team,” Twins slugger Nelson Cruz said. “Every pitch will be critical.”
Betts and the Dodgers rolled to baseball’s best record this year at 43-17, three games better than the Rays. But they get to walk the same thin line as everybody else in opening series of their eighth consecutive playoff appearance.
The Yankees and Indians haven’t played against each other since last August, and their powerful lineups face quite the challenge in Game 1 of their wild- card series.
Bieber, the ace of the Indians and the favorite for the AL Cy Young Award, versus Gerrit Cole, the $324 million right-hander for the Yankees. Bieber is making his third career start against New York, and Cole is facing for Cleveland for the sixth time, including a win for Houston in Game 2 of the 2018 ALDS. JOHNSTONE, 2-TIME SERIES CHAMP AND POPULAR PRANKSTER, DIES >> Jay Johnstone, who won World Series championships as a versatile outfielder with the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Dodgers while being baseball’s merry prankster, has died. He was 74.
He died Saturday of complications from COVID-19 and also had suffered from dementia in recent years, according to his daughter Mary Jayne Sarah Johnstone. He died at a nursing home in Granada Hills, she said.
Besides the Yankees and Dodgers, Johnstone played for the California Angels, Chicago White Sox, Oakland, Philadelphia, San Diego, and Chicago Cubs during a 20-year major league career that began in 1966 and ended in 1985. He had a career batting average of .267, with 102 home runs and 531 RBIs.