MLB Playoff Wrap: Giants, Mets Creating Separation
By Jason Burke
We’re getting down to the wire in the MLB playoff races, and on Friday night both the San Francisco Giants and New York Mets created some separation between themselves and the St. Louis Cardinals.
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, the Mets certainly have the schedule to claim one of the two wild card spots this season, and last night they won a winnable game against the Minnesota Twins and their rookie pitcher Jose Berrios.
Berrios has had a rough go of it in his rookie campaign, holding a 2-7 record to go along with an 8.88 ERA and an ERA- of 214 (100 being average, anything above being below average), but he held the Mets to two runs in four innings. Each run came on a solo homer from Jose Reyes and Asdrubal Cabrera. The Mets would add another run in the bottom of the seventh on a Yoenis Cespedes RBI single.
Add in that the Mets will be getting Jacob deGrom back in their rotation on Sunday, Lucas Duda will be joining the team and be available off the bench, and Juan Lagares should see some time as a defensive sub, and the Mets could become a legitimate concern for the Chicago Cubs in the NLDS if they are able to make it past the wild card play-in game.
Out in San Francisco the Giants have been going without batting practice the past two games, and their offense has come to life, because of course it did. The Giants have scored 14 runs over the past two games while allowing just four to the Cardinals. That’s three runs more than that had accumulated over their previous five games against the Padres and Diamondbacks. The Cardinals just so happen to be the one team that can realistically still push the Giants out of the wild card race, and through two games they’ve been duds.
On the bright side for St. Louis, a series split still sees them right back where they started on Thursday, a game behind the Giants. And while San Francisco will be playing the Dodgers twice over the remainder of the season, the Cardinals have the Rockies, Cubs, Reds and Pirates remaining on their schedule. None of these series should be deemed a cake walk by any means, but given the rivalry between the Giants and Dodgers (and the fact that both teams could potentially still claim the NL West crown), and San Francisco’s recent troubles with San Diego, their schedule may play tougher than St. Louis’.
The pitching match-ups for the final two games of the series are Jeff Samardzija vs. Mike Leake and Albert Suarez vs. Alex Reyes. Samardzija has had issues with the long ball this season, and St. Louis like to go deep when on the road, leading baseball with 115 of them. Sunday’s starter Alex Reyes has an ERA of just 1.29 but his walk rate is a bit high at 5.1 per nine innings.
Over in the American League, the Red Sox are hoping to end the Yankees hopes of a playoff appearance this weekend, as Boston took another game from the Bombers, 7-4 at Fenway. Clay Buchholz provided six innings while allowing just two earned to get the win.
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Both the Orioles and Blue Jays won, keeping them two back of Boston in the AL East and three up on Detroit and Seattle, who both lost. The Astros and Yankees both sit four games back of the wild card spots, with Houston being the only team chasing an AL wild card ticket that didn’t lose any ground. Houston snapped Seattle’s eight-game winning streak with a seven inning, two hit shutout performance from Collin McHugh.
Over the past two days, the Rays, Angels, A’s, Padres and D-Backs were all officially eliminated from playoff contention. The Reds (1), Phillies, (3) and Brewers (3) could all be on the outside of the hunt by the end of the weekend.