Starting Friday October, 7th the desired, and loved MLB playoffs start, but this year there is a little bit of a different outlook on them, as the 2 longest droughts in the sport, for playoff berth, were broken this year including the Philadelphia Phillies, whos drought was over a decade, and the longest playoff drought in sports was held by the Seattle Mariners, of 21 years, but both teams are still alive and well heading into October.

“There is definitely a different feeling for it this year, as we are seeing teams we don’t usually see this late in the year,” says diehard baseball fan and NAI student Colin Moore.

So with the crack of the bat with the newly named Cleveland Guardians, hosting the Tampa Bay Rays were off and Cleveland had home field advantage, and it definitely showed early as Shane Bieber mowed through the Rays lineup as he went, 7 and ⅔ innings pitched while only allowing 1 earned run. However, on the other side of the ball Shane McClanhan was amazing in his own right going six innings pitched, but Guardians star player Jose Ramirez, chased him for the longball and they gave up their 1 run lead they got in the top half of the inning taken away. Eventually Cleveland would ride the Ramirez home run till the end, winning a 2-1 tight game. 

Now, over 800 miles away the Seattle Mariners appeared in the playoffs for the first time in over 20 years, and they showed that they were ready to play in Canada. The Mariners chased Blue Jays ace pitcher Alek Manoah for 3 runs in the first and they rode on that wave all the way to the end as trade deadline acquisition Luis Castillo pitched 7 and ⅓ innings of shutout ball, and the Mariners won 4-0, When Moore was asked about the Mariners first game back in the playoffs, he said, “I knew the Mariners were a good team, but I didn’t know they could go up to Toronto and shutout that deadly offense.”

In St. Louis, the big three of Cardinal legends, Albert Pujols, Yadier Molina, and Adam Wainwright were entering what could be their last series together. Like the other two games of that day, it was a low scoring pitchers duel, kind of a snooze fest, the Cardinals did take a 2-0 lead into the top of the ninth inning with lockdown closing pitcher Adam Helsley coming back to the ninth with a lead, but what absolutely nobody expected was that the Phillies went out and chased Helsley for 6 earned runs and they cruised to a win. Moore says, “It was really unbelievable what the Phillies offense was able to do, in the top of the ninth with their backs against the wall against a Pitcher as good as Helsley.”

The last game of the night took place in Queens, New York, where the 101 Win New York Mets played the 89 win San Diego Padres. Yu Darvish the starting pitcher for the Padres game 1 is the mets equivalent to the devil, he loves to face the mets and the mets hate to face him and Darvish pitched 7 innings and only allowing 1 run, but that didn’t shock mets fans, what did was one of the best pitchers in the world, Max Scherzer allowed 7 runs, his first time doing so in over 5 years, when I asked Moore, his response was. “Scherzer’s washed, the mets suck” as the Padres cruised to a 7-1 win. 

Day 2 had much anticipation in the air, as 4 teams were now facing their fate in the playoffs, 3 of which were the home team in the series. 

If we thought game 1 in Cleveland was a pitchers duel and maybe a snooze fest, boy we were in for a treat in game 2. The Guardians and Rays wen’t 11 innings before we really got some action, in the top of the twelfth  inning the rays were threatening with a runner on 3rd base and a dribbler up the line and a throw by Jose Ramirez seemed a little suspect, and after over 5 minutes of review, the play was determined out, but later that day on social media picture would show Cleveland’s first baseman’s foot was off the bag meaning a run should have scored.

But I digress, in the bottom  of the fifteenth inning Guardians outfielder Oscar Gonzalez, famous for his Spongebob Square pants walkup song, clubbed a home run to end the game 1-0 after 15 innings. The guardians advance to face the evil empire, the New York Yankees.

In Toronto we got an instant classic, where there was scoring early and often where the Blue Jays jumped on former teammate  and Cy Young award winner  Robbie Ray for 4 runs in 3 innings as Ray Failed to finish the 4th inning, but Seattle Mariners manager Scott Servias decided to go to the bullpen early he thought his team would be safe for a couple innings but it was completely the opposite. His bullpen allowed four runs in the bottom of the 5th inning to put the Mariners down 7 runs. All hope was lost.