After the Diamondbacks’ playoff hopes came to a screeching halt with five consecutive losses to end the season, baseball’s postseason will begin without them this week.
The wild-card series take place over three days (if necessary) beginning on Tuesday, Sept. 30, with four best-of-three series.
Both leagues feature fascinating matchups.
In the American League, the same two clubs that battled for the AL Central division title, the Cleveland Guardians and the Detroit Tigers, meet in the opening round. They are more than familiar with each other; they played six times over the past two weeks, with the Guardians winning five of those games as they overcame what was once a 12 1/2-game deficit to win the division.
The other AL series includes two storied rivals, the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox. The Yankees led the AL East for the first three months of the season before being passed by the Toronto Blue Jays, then caught the Blue Jays in the final week but couldn’t push past them. The Blue Jays won the division by virtue of a tiebreaker.
As for the Red Sox, they advanced to October despite a bizarre year in which they traded away their face-of-the-franchise player, Rafael Devers, and did not add much at the trade deadline.
The National League’s most interesting matchup is probably between the San Diego Padres and Chicago Cubs. The Padres have a strong lineup and deep bullpen, but an unreliable rotation. The Cubs have a well-rounded team that played at or above .500 in every month of the season.
The other NL matchup features the Los Angeles Dodgers hosting the Cincinnati Reds, who finished three games ahead of the Diamondbacks for the final wild-card spot. The Dodgers have a far more talented roster, one that seems to be finding its stride in recent weeks; their biggest question is whether their bullpen is up to the task.
The Reds have an ace in right-hander Hunter Greene, but have struggled to generate offense, scoring three runs or fewer in 12 of their past 20 games.