MLB Postseason: 5 key moments from Wednesday’s playoff action

Here are 5 key moments that determined Wednesday’s MLB Postseason action.

If you are the manager of an MLB Postseason team, all you can really ask is to get your big gun up to the plate at the decisive moment.

But even the game’s biggest stars don’t always deliver. During Wednesday’s eight post-season games, managers of several teams saw that hope come to fruition. One or two came through. But some of those same managers saw their team’s hopes crushed by their veterans’ failure to deliver in the clutch.

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And in at least one critical case, a key player failed to engage a turning point level moment because that player had already gotten himself ejected.

That’s part of the reason why the Minnesota Twins will watch the remainder of the playoffs from the sidelines.

Wednesday’s key moments illustrated the vast panoply of possible ways in which a big game can turn. Three involved classic batter-pitcher confrontations. Rookie baserunning blunders contributed to one loss. And then there was that ejection.

Probably the most interesting fight took place in Atlanta, where the Braves and Cincinnati Reds stumbled through a dozen scoreless innings before the Braves finally scored in the 13th. That game was marked by wasted opportunities, as should be evidenced by the 22 runners the teams combined to leave on base.

In their vain search for that single run, the Braves and Reds produced 37 strikeouts. Meanwhile, until Atlanta mounted its winning rally, they combined to hit 1-for-14 with runners in scoring position. Doesn’t anybody know how to move a runner anymore?  More on that presently.

Here’s a detailed look at the day’s five key moments.

2020 MLB Postseason: rookie sensation Jake Cronenworth runs too wild.

The Padres are awash with young talent – no news there – among whom infielder Jake Cronenworth is the newest and one of the brightest. Jake Cronenworth produced a .831 OPS this season, easily good enough to earn a regular spot at second base, with occasional forays to shortstop or third.

But Cronenworth is inexperienced enough to still make rookie mistakes. He made two of them Wednesday, both on the bases, and those flubs contributed mightily to the St. Louis Cardinals 7-4 victory over Cronenworth’s Padres.

The Cards led 6-3 in the bottom of the sixth when Cronenworth was hit by a pitch, joining Tommy Pham, who had doubled, on the bases. Soon thereafter, Pham reached third and Cronenworth second on a Cardinal error as Pham attempted to steal the base.

The next batter, Austin Nola, lifted a fly ball to Dexter Fowler in right that scored Pham without a play. But when Cronenworth decided late to try for third, Paul Goldschmidt cut the throw home and turned the play on Cronenworth, who was caught in a rundown.

That blunder denied the Padres a chance to score Cronenworth when the next two batters reached base on an infield hit and a walk.

Two innings later, Conenworth’s baserunning inexperience again undermined Padre hopes. With Cronenworth at third and Jurickson Profar at first in a 6-4 game, Trent Grisham grounded weakly to first baseman Goldschmidt, who had no play on the batter.

But Cronenworth had allowed himself to get caught halfway between third base and home. Goldschmidt ran him back to third, forcing Profar, who had taken third on the assumption that Cronenworth was attempting to score.

It was the inning’s second out, and the third followed seconds later.  Again Cronenworth’s baserunning killed a potential San Diego rally. One inning later the Cards had a 7-4 victory.

2020 MLB Postseason: Eddie Rosario, the man who wasn’t there.

Sometimes the key figure isn’t even involved in the play. Yes, Twins outfielder Eddie Rosario, we’re talking about you.

Rosario was the cleanup hitting left fielder in Rocco Baldelli’s starting lineup Wednesday when the Twins, trailing Houston one game to none, faced the Astros in a definitional ‘must-win’ game.

And few players are as important to the Twins offense as Rosario, whose 54 hits, 13 home runs, and 42 RBIs were all at or near the top of the team’s offensive stats.

In the eighth inning, the Twins reached a moment where the cleanup hitter’s spot came up representing the potential tying run in a 3-1 game. With one out, Nelson Cruz walked and Byron Buxton was summoned as a pinch-runner for him.

But Rosario wasn’t in the batter’s box to make something happen. He had been ejected by plate umpire Manny Gonzalez two innings earlier for beefing about Gonzalez’ strike calls after Rosario whiffed.

The record shows that the second strike call on Rosario was marginal and possibly high. Had Gonzalez seen it that way, Rosario would have walked.

But Gonzalez didn’t see it that way, and after Rosario tipped a third strike into Martin Maldonado’s mitt he gave Gonzalez the magic word.

That moment of indiscretion left Jake Cave, a .221 hitting reserve, to cope with that critical situation two innings later. Cave fanned and Buxton ended the inning by being picked off first.

2020 MLB Postseason: Joey Votto, an impatient wannabe hero.

The Cincinnati Reds’ collective failures in Atlanta Wednesday have already been noted. They failed to produce as much as a single run over 13 innings. It was hardly a new experience for a Reds offense that finished 14th in the National League in runs per game, 15th in base hits, and 15th in batting average.

For the Reds, 2020 was basically a home run-or-nothing experience. More than half the team’s 742 total bases were produced by its 90 home runs. So it’s no surprise that although the Reds got 26 men on base Wednesday, they were unable to nudge eve one of them to cross the plate.

You could tall as early as the first inning that the Reds’ one-dimensional offense was in trouble. The first batter, Nick Senzel, slapped the first-pitch four-seamer from Braves starter Max Fried into right field for a base hit. The next hitter, Nick Castellanos, lined a Fried curve into center for another hit. Senzel eased into third.

That brought up Joey Votto, the perfect Red to manipulate a first-and-third, nobody the outcome. Votto is famous for his patience and bat control. A lifetime .304 batter, he has five times led the league in bases on balls, seven times led in on-base average, and four times has posted an OPS of 1.000 or higher.

So what happened? Did Votto work Fried to a favorable count, then slap a run-producing hit? Did he work a bases-filling walk? Did he lay down a squeeze? Did he loft a fly ball deep enough to get Senzel across with what would eventually have been the game’s winning run? Did he make Fried work?

Votto did none of the above. Instead, he took a high curve for ball one, then got a fastball down the middle and slapped it directly to Braves first baseman Freddie Freeman. Castellanos did get to second, but Senzel had to hold up at third.

When Eugenio Suarez lined out and Mike Moustakas grounded out, the Reds got nothing out of the major opportunity. And that became a recurring theme.

2020 MLB Postseason: DJ LeMahieu, the right man in the right spot.

DJ LeMahieu is the first person since 1903 to win a batting title in both leagues. So he knows a thing or two about delivering in the clutch. On Wednesday, LeMahieu delivered the Cleveland Indians right out of the American League post-season.

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Until the ninth inning of New York’s 10-9 victory, this had not been LeMahieu’s night. Hitless in his four previous official at-bats, he had stranded the only two runners who had reached ahead of him. New York entered the ninth inning of a twisty, turning game one run behind the Indians and facing closer Brad Hand, whose 2020 performance sheet showed 16 saves without a single hitch.

In fact, Hand had allowed only one run in his previous 15 appearances dating back to mid-August.

The Yanks were not intimidated. Giancarlo Stanton walked, Gio Urshela singled, and Gleyber Torres rolled a base hit past Hand that filled the bases. A whiff and a game-tying Gary Sanchez’s sacrifice fly later, LeMahieu came to bat, the right man in the right situation at the right time.

He fell behind 0-2, then slapped a Hand slider into center field for the hit that scored Urshela with the run that gave New York the lead. When Aroldis Chapman polished off the Indians in the bottom of the ninth, the Yankees had officially advanced to meet the Tampa Bay Rays in the division round.