As October rolls around, there is one thing that all baseball fans are looking forward to, the 2022 MLB postseason. This year, a roster of both young and old teams enter the arena. From the American League, the Mariners, Blue Jays, Guardians, Rays, Yankees and Astros are all competing for the coveted American League pennant. 

The two heavyweights from one side of the bracket are the Yankees and Astros. Both teams have had one hundred win seasons and are both rounded out with both pitching and hitting. Other teams, like the Mariners and the Blue Jays, are smelling the postseason for the first time in a long time. The Mariners in particular have waited twenty years since their last appearance. 

From the National League, the Phillies, Cardinals, Padres, Mets, Braves and Dodgers all compete this year. The Dodgers and the Braves are the favorites to represent the National League, with the Dodgers having the most wins in the entire MLB. Regardless of the odds, every team is out on an even playing field this October. 

The Wild Card series finished rather quickly. Of the four series played, only one went to a final game. Starting in the American League, the Mariners won a deflating series against the Blue Jays. The Jays blew an 8-1 lead in game two against the Mariners, losing the series 2-0. The Guardians swept the Rays, winning game one 2-1, and then capped the series off by a walk off home run in the 15th inning by Oscar Gonzalez. Those wins set up a Mariners-Astros, Guardians-Yankees divisional series. 

Over in the National League, the Padres took a high-powered series in New York against the Mets as the teams combined for 24 runs in three games. Unfortunately for the Mets, they ended up losing the series 2-1. In the other NL series, the Cardinals vs. the Phillies, games ended rather quickly. The Phillies won both games in rather convincing fashion, building late leads in both games. The world was then looking at a Padres-Dodgers, Braves-Phillies Divisional round. 

The two American League series were wildly different in terms of competition. The Astros won game one against the Mariners with a walk-off home run by Yordan Alverez, and then the Astros never looked back. The Mariners lost the series 3-0. New York-Cleveland was a different story. Both teams won two games each in some nail biting action, sending the series to a game five in New York. Unfortunately for the Guardians, the Yankees won an uneventful game five 5-1.

In the National League for the Divisional series, there was nothing short of magic. The Dodgers and the Padres started off with a Dodgers 3-1 win, followed by three straight Padres wins to grant them the series win. This is regarded as the biggest upset in the playoffs as the Dodgers were predicted to make the world series in a lot of people’s minds. The other NL powerhouse, the Braves, also went down. The Phillies displayed a glorious display of offense, scoring 24 runs in 4 games. This would set up a Yankees-Astros, Padres-Phillies championship series.

One important thing to note is that the Championship Series on both sides graduates from a 5-game series to a 7-game series. This allows for not only more action, but gives teams more time to re-access and recover. Now, this year was interesting because both Championship Series ended in runaway victories, which don’t happen too often in baseball. The Phillies-Padres series ended 4-1 in the Phillies favor, and the Astros swept the Yankees 4-0. 

The postseason success of the Phillies was unexpected. The Phillies were just able to beat out the Brewers for the 3rd and final wild card spot, but no one really predicted them going far. ESPN’s pre-postseason power rankings had them almost at the bottom, which is what made charging into St. Louis and sweeping the Division winning Cardinals all the more impressive. On the flip side of the coin, the Astros success was almost guaranteed. Despite a cheating scandal in 2017-2019, the Astros have maintained steady playoff success for almost six years now. 

Through the first four games of the World Series, the teams each won two games. Offense has been the name of the game in this series as through the first four games, 30 runs have been scored. That’s right, just over a touchdown a game. Unfortunately, the next two games were both uneventful, with the Astros winning both games. Even though the Phillies run was cut short, they had a miraculous run regardless. The 2022 Postseason was one too remember, no matter what happens in the next few years.

References

2022 MLB playoffs: Schedule, postseason bracket, standings . ESPN Enterprise, 2022. https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/34719951/2022-mlb-playoffs-schedule-postseason-bracket-standings