Most Rootable Storylines of the Division Series | The Bandwagon
This week, Hannah Keyser gives you a reason, or two, to get invested in each Division Series — even the one with the Astros. Plus: Her picks for the Championship Series are sure to give TV executives nightmares.
Video Transcript
HANNAH KEYSER: Can you leave? OK.
It's like, this is where I'm sitting, so. This is Gatsby's show now. He's like, I'm Gatsby. This is not "The Bandwagon." I'm Hannah Keyser, and this is "The Bandwagon."
[CHEERING]
HANNAH KEYSER: Last week, we previewed the first round of the postseason that should not, but was called the Wild Card Series, giving you one reason to root for all 16 teams that made it. And thankfully, half of them are already gone.
There were some surprises. Like, we learned that the curse that turns the Twins into weak shells of the regular-season selves does not actually start on October 1, but in fact backdates to the beginning of the playoffs, even if they're in September.
Even if you hated the expanded field in theory, you should be excited about the division series it brought, in part because it's never been a more apt name. This year, all four matchups pit division rivals against one another. And that's after a regular season in which teams only played regional opponents. And nobody gets on your nerves quite like the relatives you know and love and have been stuck with for months on end in quarantine. All four series are going to be spicy and full of tons of talent. And today we're going to talk about why each one has the potential to be the best division series ever. Whoo, there.
[CHEERING]
HANNAH KEYSER: Yeah, first up, Astros versus A's. Currently, Mike Fiers and the former team he exposed for cheating their way to a World Series championship are quarantining at the same hotel near Dodger Stadium, the site of their most infamous victory. He's probably gonna pitch against them, too, for the first time since blowing the whistle. The Astros upset both the higher-seeded Twins, and probably a whole bunch of other people, by advancing this far, and they know it.
- I know a lot of people are mad. I know a lot of people don't want to see us here. But what are they gonna say now?
HANNAH KEYSER: If I had to guess, probably something along the lines of "we hate you" or maybe something stronger.
The Astros are trying to demonstrate that they can hit without knowing what pitch is coming, which they definitely did not do during the regular season. They all had, like, the worst offensive numbers. And I'm not sure they proved much of anything in a couple of heartbreakingly close victories over a team that made crucial errors. But hey, that's something to watch for now, especially as they go up against the team that has been forced into second place and the single wild card game playoff in recent years by the Astros' seemingly unstoppable success.
The A's were 7 and 3 against the Astros in the regular season this year, which is the first time they've had a winning season series against Houston since, well, long before 2017, which is the thing that really matters. Um, it was 2014, if you care.
And I know everyone hates those in-game interviews of players who are presumably trying to focus on their most important day at the office this year, but come on. This was what Ramon Laureano had to say about an opposing player that he seems to actually really like and respect.
- Jimenez rips one.
RAMON LAUREANO: I got it, I got it. Damn, he can f-[BLEEP]-ing run.
HANNAH KEYSER: Somebody make sure he gets his 11 hours of sleep at night, because I want Laureano miked up and feeling good the entire series. Did you see this quote? It was like, Ramon Laureano was like, I hate these early start times. I got to be up at what, 7:00? So now I got to go to sleep at what, 7:00? And it's like, no.
[LAUGHTER]
HANNAH KEYSER: Let's do Yankees versus Rays. I promise not to make every one of these matchups about the beef, and the Yankees and Rays promise not to bring any of the hard feelings from the regular season into the division series, unless, of course, the other guy does first. But we're talking about a Rays team that had shirts and hats made up to show off their retaliatory beanballs. But it's not that the Yankees care or anything.
GIANCARLO STANTON: Shirts and hats, that doesn't mean anything.
HANNAH KEYSER: Giancarlo Stanton, you would say that. Last week, the Rays made sweeping the baby Blue Jays look like a piece of celebratory cupcake. They can't have champagne in the clubhouse this postseason. Blake Snell took a no-hitter into the sixth inning, and Nick Anderson continued to show who's the best reliever in the bigs this year. And they will need all that shutdown pitching and more, which is where their maddeningly successful bullpen management will probably come into play against the Yankees, who remain incredibly on brand, like, crazy on brand. The Bronx Bombers hit seven home runs over two games in the first round, including Aaron Judge's first homer since he came back from injury off the presumptive AL Cy Young award winner and Stanton's first two home runs since an end-of-season slump following his IL stint.
The Rays' dominance in the regular season this year skews what has been a historic David and Goliath story between the franchise that's always talking about their 27 rings and the ones still fighting for its first ever. Both teams can tell themselves they're the underdog in this matchup of the AL's top seed and the literal Yankees.
Braves and Marlins. As everyone knows, the Miami Marlins are the most historically dominant postseason team, really. The numbers don't lie. Admittedly, this year's club faced an uphill battle after losing 105 games in 2019 and then 18 players to a COVID-19 outbreak that sidelined the entire team for a week. But a little adversity isn't gonna shake the confidence of a group of guys that probably wears matching bottom-feeder shirts in the same summer [? wat ?] was released.
[LAUGHTER]
HANNAH KEYSER: Even without any help from overeager fans, the Marlins were able to oust the Cubs at Wrigley last week, thanks to Sixto Sanchez pitching cool, calm, and collected five shutout innings just 40 days after making his Major League debut, and this hypnotizing perfect play at the plate that I would hang on my wall if that was a thing you could do with GIFs. We should do that with GIFs.
- You should!
HANNAH KEYSER: It is really almost unfair to send these Poseidons of October to face off against the Braves, who had lost nine postseason series in a row dating back to 2002 before Max Fried and Ian Anderson held the Reds scoreless in a sweep. Told you they couldn't hit. The Braves will need more than two pitchers to get through a five-game series without any off days. But if they do, I'm sure they'll have a whole mental scrapbook to remember it by.
When you hit as many home runs as Marcell Ozuna does, you might get bored of just running the bases normally. Enter the celebratory pseudo-selfie. It looks like his teammates thought it was as cool as all of baseball Twitter did, which I hope means we'll get pantomime posing for daguerreotype portraits when they hit a homer again. It was the second-most exciting display of power by a member of the extended Braves universe this past week.
I'll stop talking about Charlie Freeman when he stops being the most interesting person in Major League Baseball.
Padres versus Dodgers. Whether you want the Dodgers to finally break through and realize their postseason potential as the clear best team in baseball or you want to see them sense their waning window in the form of a legitimate contender just like an hour-and-a-half sell, this is the series for you. The top two records in the National League will match up now, and that also means as many as five games featuring both Mookie Betts and Fernando Tatís, Jr. on the same field. It does not get any better than that.
Clayton Kershaw's hall of fame stuff, plus an extra mile per hour this year, overcame the weight of a convenient narrative and his manager's attempt to take him out of the game to throw eight scoreless innings as the Dodgers pitched a shutout against the Brewers to advance. Then again, nine relatively anonymous San Diego relievers also threw a shutout in a win-or-go-home against the Cardinals last week. Four of them pitched three days in a row.
The Padres' prodigious offense steals the spotlight, and rightfully so. I mean, Tatís is 21 years old, and with the help of Wil Myers, already in an exclusive club with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig as the only pairs of teammates in baseball history to hit two home runs each in a postseason game. They did this 88 years apart to the day. And if that doesn't give you goosebumps, maybe Tatís's bat flip will. It's a shame the Babe only flipped his bat on walks.
But it's honestly incredible that their pitching even survived a series without Mike Clevinger or Dinelson Lamet. They'll need them back this round if the Padres are gonna seriously challenge the Dodgers for NL dominance. And I want that, but I also want to see Jay Cronenworth take his two-way abilities to the big stage and pitch an inning or two if they don't have any other pitchers.
- Let him pitch.
HANNAH KEYSER: Plus, no other series right now has $300 million riding on it.
- Big money.
- Manny [INAUDIBLE] With that big of a contract, you've got 10 Octobers off now. Come on and get over to LA.
MANNY MACHADO: I'll bet you my contact we'll win the World Series before you guys do.
HANNAH KEYSER: Seriously, though, what if Manny called it? Uh, that would be very embarrassing for the Dodgers. So that is our preview overview of this week's division series. I did not pick teams to root for, which does not mean that I don't have deep-rooted internal biases. For example, I will be rooting for A's, Rays, Marlins, Padres. Hopefully, those'll be the teams we are talking about next week in the championship series preview.
- And the TV executives hurl themselves off buildings.
[LAUGHTER]