Recap of the busiest day in Major League Baseball postseason history

Wow. Thirteen and a half hours of playoff baseball were played on Wednesday. According to Tim Kurkjian of ESPN, “this was the best day of my life.” Ok, well after watching a ton of baseball yesterday, the French Open, and game one of the NBA Finals, I was simply exhausted.

Here is a short recap of what I witnessed.

Atlanta Braves/Cincinnati Reds–The Braves won 1-0 on a RBI single by Freddie Freeman in 13 innings. This was the first time that a playoff game went into the 12th inning tied at zero. In all, there were 35 strikeouts, the most combined strikeouts by both teams in a single postseason game. Reds starting pitcher Trevor Bauer had the most strikeouts with 12.

Houston Astros/Minnesota Twins–The Astros knocked out the Twins with a 3-1 win. As mentioned in The Sporting Base on Wednesday, the Twins have now lost 18 consecutive postseason games, the longest streak ever by a sports team in the four major professional leagues (NHL/NFL/MLB/NBA). The Astros got a key home run in the seventh inning by Carlos Correa, which broke a 1-1 tie.

Chicago Cubs/Miami Marlins–The Marlins scored five runs in the seventh inning en route to a 5-1 win at Wrigley. Lead off hitter Corey Dickerson hit a three-run shot to lead the way. Game two of the series on Thursday was postponed due to rain. It will be interesting to see how much time Marlins center fielder Starling Marte will miss. Late in game one, Marte broke his pinky finger after being hit by a pitch.

Chicago White Sox/Oakland Athletics–Oakland stayed alive following a 5-3 win to force a third and deciding game on Thursday. The Athletics jumped on White Sox starting pitcher Dallas Keuchel early, as he gave up three earned runs and six hits in 3 1/3 innings. Two of those hits were home runs by Khris Davis and Marcus Semien.

Toronto Blue Jays/Tampa Bay Rays–This game was over by the second inning when Rays right fielder Hunter Renfroe hit a grand slam off of Blue Jays ace Hyun-Jin Ryu. The score at that time was 7-0 Tampa Bay. The Rays are now in round two.

St. Louis Cardinals/San Diego Padres--Just like the Athletics and Rays, the Cardinals got off to a fantastic start. They scored four runs in the first inning and jumped to a 6-2 lead in the third. Catcher Yadier Molina led St. Louis with three hits, and was one of two Cardinals to score twice.

New York Yankees/Cleveland Indians–This was the longest game in Major League Baseball postseason history for nine innings as the Yankees defeated the Indians 10-9 and won the series two games to none. The game took four hours and 50 minutes to play, and this was not including the 76 minutes of two rain delays. The pitching on both sides was horrible in the contest, as they had a combined total of 19 walks, which tied a MLB postseason record. There was a grand slam in this contest too, as Gio Urshela went deep in the fourth inning for the Yankees.

Los Angeles Dodgers/Milwaukee Brewers–The Dodgers beat the Brewers 4-2 to take a 1-0 series lead. The most notable stat from this game also came down to walks. Brewers starting pitcher Brent Suter only had five walks in 31 2/3 innings in the regular season, but had five walks in 1 2/3 innings. The Dodgers jumped out to a 3-0 lead after two innings, and then got a key insurance home run from Corey Seager in the seventh inning.

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