MLB Playoff Roundup: Pitching dominance opens Wild Card Series

The playoffs have begun! All eight Wild Card round teams were in action yesterday, as baseball fans were treated to some 10 consecutive hours of postseason play.

I tend to think most Yankee fans are pretty happy with the results of the AL side, and they even got to some old friends succeed in the Senior Circuit.

Detroit Tigers 3, Houston Astros 1 (DET leads 1-0) Man, Tarik Skubal is a special, special kid.

The favorite for the AL Cy Young Award, Skubal flummoxed the Astros over six shutout innings, striking out six against a single walk.

He left after throwing just 88 pitches, and while he could have maybe gone one more, a combination of cramping and perhaps hoping-against-hope that he can give an emergency inning a hypothetical Game 3 weighed heavier on Tigers skipper A.J.

Hinchs mind.

Look at this changeup: I dont know what youre supposed to do about that pitch, lol.

The Tigers got all three runs of Framber Valdez in the second inning, including some help from embedded Yankee Trey Sweeney, and all of them came with two outs.

Jake Rogers, who you didnt know existed until yesterday, got the Cats on the board with an RBI single: Sweeney and Matt Vierling followed with hits of their own, each bringing in a man and putting a crooked number up early.

Hinchs famous pitching chaos quote came back to relevance once Skubal came out.

Will Vest and Tyler Holton did their jobs, but the Astros made it interesting in a very dramatic ninth inning.

They knocked out closer Jason Foley, who retired just one hitter while allowing three hits and a walk.

Yainer Diaz brought in Houstons sole run in the ninth before the club managed to load the bases when final relief option Beau Brieske couldnt find the strike zone with two out.

Staring down onetime playoff hero Jason Heyward, Brieske had a gut-check moment against veteran Jason Heyward.

It was a lineout with an xBA of .570 and could well have cleared the bases for a walk-off winner, but it was a lineout regardless.

Spencer Torkelson speared it, and the Tigers secured Game 1.

Although they wont have Skubal to fall back on as Houston attempts to win two in a row to survive, there was almost no way for them to pull off an upset without winning the opener behind their ace.

Theyve done what they needed to do; now, theyll need a little magic (and perhaps more chaos) to seal the deal.

Kansas City Royals 1, Baltimore Orioles 0 (KC leads 1-0) Imagine your ace, the guy you traded for in the offseason, getting the ball to open a playoff series.

He pitches into the ninth, allows one run, and sets up your young, dynamic lineup perfectly for a series-opening win.

And then you lose, because of Bobby Witt Jr.

Thats basically what happened to the Orioles, who rode Corbin Burnes golden start while managing just five hits of their own.

The top five in Baltimores lineup reached base just twice combined over the entire game, never a good sign in the postseason where runs are harder and harder to come by.

Cole Ragans was arguably more dominant than Burnes, sitting down eight Os without any walks in six full innings.

Like Skubal, he was also yanked after six because of cramping, so please give notes to the Yankees starters to drink enough water this weekend.

Ragans really got into trouble once, putting runners on the corners in the fifth inning.

The game was still scoreless, exactly the time to break it open with Gunnar Henderson at the plate: If the Royals win this series, that strikeout alone may end up as the turning point.

Three batters later, in the top of the sixth, Witt came to the dish with Maikel Garcia at second: That was all the club needed, as that downward-trending Orioles offense couldnt manage anything else.

The one-time AL East favorites have lost nine consecutive playoff games, are now one loss away from the end of their season, and theyve already played their ace.

New York Mets 8, Milwaukee Brewers 4 (NYM leads 1-0) If anyone was worried about the Mets being exhausted after Mondays doubleheader in Atlanta, well....

J.D.

Martinez capped off a five-run fifth inning with that single, icing a game that until that point had been pretty back and forth.

The Brewers jumped all over Luis Severino in the first inning, seeing Brice Turang lead off with a double, and a pair of Jackson Chourio and William Contreras single brought Turang home.

Sevy continued to struggle with traffic, loading the bases and plunking Rhys Hoskins to allow the second run of the game.

Lucky for him, the Mets were there to pick him right up: Jesse Winkers huge triple knotted the game up, and Starling Marte brought him in with a sac fly to make it 3-2.

Both pitchers would settle in slightly before the youngest player in the postseason came around to hit in the fourth: We had a heavyweight fight until that big fifth inning for the Mets, where the separation between the teams became permanent.

We need to give full credit to Sevy, as shaky as he was early on.

The Mets needed length after everything that happened on Monday, and he ended up giving his team six much-needed, workmanlike innings on 106 pitches.

The final line isnt the prettiest more runs allowed than strikeouts but it was more than enough for skipper Carlos Mendoza in the Game 1 victory.

San Diego Padres 4, Atlanta Braves 0 (SD leads 1-0) We close with yet another dominant pitching performance, and somewhat oddly, the only home-team win of the days events.

With Michael King on the bump for the Padres, I felt like a high school teacher whose prized pupil made law review.

The trade for Juan Soto was worth it, and Id make it every day, but boy we saw why it wasnt possible without giving up King.

Or, in his own words: I had a dream i was king...i woke up still #king Seven innings, zero runs, and a dozen strikeouts one off his career-high and the second-most by a Padres pitcher in playoff history.

Those who know ball knew how good King was, but hopefully this is something of a coming out party for the righty.

I thought the changeup above to Yordan was the best pitch of the night, but then King dotted a 97-mph sinker inside for a strikeout of Marcell Ozuna: I dont understand how anyone ever gets a hit.

While King was setting the tempo on the hill, Fernando Tatis Jr.

smoked an absolute laugher into the left-field seats off spot starter AJ Smith-Shawver in the bottom of the first.

Your ace sits down two hitters in the top half, and your franchise player does that in the bottom half? Thats a hell of a way to start your playoff run.

We got a little more fireworks from former Yankees, with Kyle Higashioka adding some insurance later in the game: I think the Padres are an incredibly dangerous team, with a three-headed monster of a rotation and a lineup that can thump 1-9.

Anything can happen in a three-game series, but they certainly established themselves as a real pennant threat by completely tossing aside Atlanta.

They can use Max Fried if they want, but you cant win if you cant score.

Tomorrow, we get to do this all again.

Yankee fans get to debate whether theyd rather the Royals sweep or if it would be more advantageous for both teams to expend as much pitching as possible.

(Stay tuned for more from Peter and me on that front.) The No.

2 in each playoff rotation is tasked with matching some really, really strong day one performances.

Im thankful for the bye, because we can just sit back and enjoy some compelling October baseball..

This article has been shared from the original article on pinstripealley, here is the link to the original article.