For baseball fans without any vested interests in the eight teams playing this weekend, yesterday was just about the perfect day of games. The four games delivered just the right combination of tension and action—the formula for any good baseball game—by showcasing the variety of genres only our game can provide.
Consider the Guardians series-clinching win over the Rays, or baseball’s version of a comedy built around a great premise: What if two teams that don’t score a lot of runs and don’t allow a lot of runs played a three-game playoff series? This lived up to that billing. It was laughable for the same reason it was exciting. The game remained 0–0 through 14 and ½ innings, making it the longest scoreless game in postseason history, and its run time more than doubled Game 1’s brisk 2-hour, 17-minute pace (the quickest for a playoff game since 1999).
We never knew how, when or if it was going to end. When it finally did, it came suddenly and unexpectedly, and it was wholly satisfying. Guardians rookie outfielder Óscar González, 24, obliterated an 85-mph cutter from Rays 36-year-old righthander Corey Kluber—who won two Cy Youngs with Cleveland in 2014 and ’17—to lead off the 15th inning.
