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A Viewer’s Guide to MLB’s Postseason Race | The Bandwagon

This week, Hannah Keyser identifies the most dramatic series to watch in the final days of the 2021 regular season. She also issues rulings on Steve Cohen’s tweets, Bill Murray, and the entire nation of Canada.

Video Transcript

HANNAH KEYSER: I'm from a teeny tiny town. It's like one square mile. And yet, still, it is the location of the first complete dinosaur skeleton ever discovered in, like, the Western hemisphere, and--

- Wow. In Haddonfield, New Jersey?

HANNAH KEYSER: Yes, Haddonfield, New Jersey. The hadrosaurus. Look It up. There's a statue in downtown Haddonfield. They put a Santa hat on him at Christmas time. [INAUDIBLE] alive. I'm Hannah Keyser, and this is The Bandwagon.

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Well, folks, we have nearly done, it survived what might end up being the only 162 game MLB season in a three year span. After a long summer of thinking, surely, by fall we'll back in the studio. We're not. We've reached the best part of the baseball year, or at least the craziest.

With a week and a half to go, there are still, technically, 19 teams voting for 10 postseason spots, which is, for the record, the exact, correct, optimal, and most satisfying number of postseason spots. And yeah. Sure. We don't actually need to talk about Cleveland or Colorado. Sometimes elimination is more of a mindset than a mathematical reality. But there are plenty of true contenders and close races left to be decided.

We are not going to try to give you an exhaustive overview of all the possible outcomes, because even I do not talk quickly enough for that. And also, it would be out of date almost immediately. Instead, we're going to treat the past six months in baseball like the slow moving overlapping slate of reality shows that it is, and tell you what to watch as we approach the season finales across the league, the match-ups that matter the most and why you should tune in. This is The Bandwagon viewer's guide to the rest of the regular season, the one where the rivals try to stay relevant.

Starting this Friday, the Yankees try to salvage a disappointing season by eking out the Ales' last postseason berth. Their best hope is to beat their long standing nemesis at home in Boston while the Red Sox look down at them from atop the wild card standings. Think of it as a gritty live action reboot of a classic superhero comic. The stars are all still big buff dudes with strong chins and the weight of a major metropolis on their shoulder, but the whole thing has been injected with an extra level of pathos.

An underperforming lopsided Yankees lineup arrives with an air of desperation and looks towards their embattled ace in Garrett Cole to bring glory back to Gotham. And the Red Sox will try to defend their turf, literally, as well as in the standings, despite a season story line that's infected with a real world virus. They'll both leave the series with their ultimate fates as yet undecided, but the clash of erstwhile Titans rendered merely mortal will make for a bitter grudge match. The one with the Canadian kids.

- Eh.

HANNAH KEYSER: From Boston, the bombers head North of the border where they'll face a Blue Jays team that's somehow both fresh faced and totally formidable. Like Odysseus himself, the baby jays have grown up during their multiyear journey to get home and, are playing up to their full genetic and off season upgrade potential in Toronto.

So far, that's only been good enough for a tenuously held wild card spot that could be snatched away if the Yankees can remember what they were doing when they won 13 in a row last month. But the Blue Jays have momentum on their side, as well as Vlad Jr. On a quest to win a crown or three, and Robbie Ray, who you definitely did not know was a legitimate Cy Young contender.

- Don't lie.

HANNAH KEYSER: Look at him in this tight pants. The gang tries not to waste Bryce's MVP.

- We'll see.

HANNAH KEYSER: From The schadenfreude inducing comedy of errors that is the NL East, a winner has to emerge. One fan base will see their season long bemoaning of blown saves and bad luck give way to a barely earned postseason berth in the accidental hope that comes with it. But at least Mets fans don't have to worry about that.

- Got him.

- Hey, now.

HANNAH KEYSER: The spiritually tobacco swilling old school Braves will lean on their all-star infield, as they try to hang on to a well-timed August ascension. Their biggest threat down the stretch comes from the form of Bryce Harper on an MVP worthy tear, and the ramshackled Phillies team is dragging behind them.

Presumably fueled by eye black, haters who called him overrated and the unwavering support of a furry flightless bird the color of Astroturf-- apparently, the fanatic is a bird-- Harper is putting up not only his best season in Philly with another 10 left to go on the contract, but one of the best offensive performances in team history. Will it be enough to push the perennially 500 team into a postseason for the first time in a decade? Find out when they take on the Braves in the final week of the season.

- Tune in.

HANNAH KEYSER: The one where they might be wild cards.

- Yeah.

HANNAH KEYSER: The Brewers have all but locked up their NL Central title, which is why we gave them the entire episode of their own last week. And whoever doesn't win the West-- more on that in a minute-- is guaranteed to walk away with the least satisfying playoff spot ever. So the reason to watch the Cardinals host their division rivals next week is to find out what will happen with the National League's second wild card spot.

As various could have been contenders crumbled over the course of September, the Cardinals and their well timed winning streak are left as the most competent team that neither won their division nor had the best second place record. What they do have is a battery with more combined years playing baseball in St. Louis than I have been alive, and a breakout star with an ass that makes him look like a whole entire center all on his own.

The one with giant stakes. But of course, the race that's most likely to come down to the final weekend of the season is the one between the two best teams in all of baseball. In a perfect world where sports are scripted, the Giants would close out their magical summer against the Dodgers themselves. Those rich LA kids with their rings and ringers brought in mid-season. But instead, the Giants will host the Padres in a poignant commentary about disrupting preseason narratives and expectations about aging curves.

The fires of fun aren't totally cooked yet, and the beatings will continue until morale improves. But mostly, they'll serve as a potential stumbling block to a San Francisco team trying to pull off an upset in the toughest division. The Dodgers and Giants were the first two teams to punch a postseason ticket, and one of them is going to win the NL West, and the other runs the risk of having all their hopes and hypes dissolved when they get sent home night one.

And if that does happen, chin up. Worked out OK for grocery store Joe. OK. So there you have our favorite five series that are left to be played in the rest of the regular season. While I'm talking, we're going to put up a calendar so you can see when all of those are. Three of them overlap. And then I'm going to stop, and you can screenshot it. You get it? Good. All right.

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- Steve Cohen's tweets.

HANNAH KEYSER: Steve Cohen, the Mets' new owner, tweeted about-- I don't know. What is it that they said that he was mad about?

- They said his tweets were a problem.

HANNAH KEYSER: Oh, they said his tweets were a problem.

- So he tweeted about it.

HANNAH KEYSER: And he was like, I'll show you a tweet that's a problem. I think it's very meta that we keep getting commentary that's like, people don't want to work for the Mets, because Steve Cohen has Twitter. I don't think that's true at all, first of all. I just think-- like, I think the only person for whom Steve Cohen's Twitter is a problem is Steve Cohen. And for that reason, he should continue to tweet irresponsible shit so we can all enjoy it and have something to talk about. Fan.

- Old pitchers.

HANNAH KEYSER: Which one? Adam Wainwright?

- The whole phenomenon.

HANNAH KEYSER: The whole phenomenon. Charlie Morton, Rich Hill. There's a bunch of old pitchers. I like that.

- Max Scherzer.

HANNAH KEYSER: Max Scherzer. We're not-- are we calling him old yet? Is 37 old?

- Yes, he's old.

HANNAH KEYSER: Wow. Troubling news for all you 37-year-olds out there. I don't know. I have a soft spot for old pitchers. I'm a huge fan. I love every single one of them. Max Scherzer for Cy Young.

- Peyton Manning.

HANNAH KEYSER: Oh, you told me this. You were like, it's just like a podcast while there was a football game. I'm not going to consume it, because I don't watch football. But I'm happy for them. But I also understand why people would be really into that. And I also wish that I could just, like, watch TV with my sister, and talk to her and call that my job.

I wish there was a show that was just my sister and I watching a Say Yes to the Dress marathon while we talked about it. That would also be good content, but people wouldn't like it as much. So it feels unfair. But as a model, I like this. I'm not going to watch, but fan.

- Bill Murray.

HANNAH KEYSER: Is 71. I saw that. Look at that. You didn't think I was going to know that.

- Proud of you.

HANNAH KEYSER: I like Bill Murray. I actually don't know that I, like, like any Bill Murray movies. I just--

- Caddyshack.

HANNAH KEYSER: I haven't seen that.

- Groundhog Day.

HANNAH KEYSER: I have seen that. Groundhog Day is a great movie. I think about Groundhog Day all the time in terms of, like, the scale. They could have done that movie and gone so much less hard. Groundhog Day could have just been, like, yeah. He's bored. Instead, they went with, like, he's had enough time to, like, become, like, an expert at everything that he comes across and also try to kill himself multiple times.

You're just going to introduce me to that concept that, like, actually, if you lived forever, it would be a curse. And then they're, like, it's a cute love story. I'm like, no it's not. Bill Murray seems lovely. I enjoy his baseball fandom. He seems like he is having a blast as a famous person and not in a way that is bad for anyone else, in fact, in a way that is good for other people.

Bill Murray seems like he's, like, wow. People really love when I do almost anything. So I'm just going to interact with as many people as possible. I love that for him and for us. Fan. Hope your movies are good.

- Canada.

HANNAH KEYSER: Have you seen how good the Blue Jays are since they got home to Canada? I feel like that is-- we all would be better in Canada or something. Like, it's like-- the sort of universal health care and, like, general politeness didn't convince you that, like, being in Canada was, like, a better way to work.

The Blue Jays would convince you. They're what? They're, like, they're truly incredible since they've gotten back to Canada. I know. It's really cold, and they're really polite, and I'm not that. That's the thing. That's the thing about Canada. It's like, I understand that, like, Canada is, like, a better place where I will not fit in. I'm not chill and outdoorsy, and I don't want to sleep in flannel.

So I feel like Canada is not the place for me. But it is the place for all of the Blue Jays' hitters and also Robbie Ray. Canada, fan. All right. So this is our last regular season episode of 2021. Hope you all had fun. And then over the next month, we're all going to forget everything that happened for our summer, because we're going to pay attention to the postseason. And we'll talk about that right here next time.

- Yeah, let's go.

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