Nearly Perfect Padres Pitching Knocks Out the Favored N.Y. Mets
October 10, 2022
With a loss in the third and final wild card game, the N.Y. Mets became the third wild card team to be favored but lose in the initial two out of three round of the 2022 major league baseball playoffs. Like the Toronto Blue Jays and St. Louis Cardinals, the Mets had a better regular season record than their opponent, winning 12 more games than the Padres, and enjoyed the presumed advantage of playing their wild card games on their home field and in front of their own fans. Only the Cleveland Guardians, who won two straight from the Tampa Rays and who had the better regular season record than did Tampa, will be moving on to the divisional playoff round.
Surprisingly, each one of the four teams that were eliminated failed to score any runs in one of their two losses. The Mets 6-0 loss occurred last night in game three. Not only were they shut out from scoring, but they managed just a single hit and one walk against masterful San Diego pitching. Of the nine total wild card games in this new post-season format, four were shutouts, with the Cards losing their second game 2-0, the Rays losing than first game by 1-0, and the Jays losing their initial game 4-0. Among the 648 regular season games played by those four teams that are now out of the post-season tournament, a mere 6.5% had ended in shutout losses, but 44% of their wild card playoff games did just that.
The Mets’s best relief pitcher, Edwin Diaz had pitched effectively in game two for longer than he is generally accustomed to being used. This raised some doubt about his availability in the third and decisive game. As it turned out, he was used again, entering the game in the eighth inning with the Mets already trailing 4-0 and the inning’s first two Padre batters having already reached base via a single and a walk. Diaz managed to get his first two batters out, one by strikeout and the other via a bunt that moved the runners to second and third base. A single followed that scored two more runs, putting the game out of the Mets’ reach. Diaz was the sixth of seven pitchers used by the Mets. In spite of one of the most perfect performances by a starting pitcher in playoff baseball history, the Padres still managed to use three pitchers in all.
The divisional round of the playoffs, like the wild card round, serves up four match-ups: Cleveland against the N.Y. Yankees, San Diego against the L.A. Dodgers, Seattle against Houston, and Philadelphia against Atlanta. The four teams that earned a Bye in the wild card round, had better regular season records in the regular season than their opponent. Let’s see if that kind of history does any better job of predicting outcomes in the divisional playoffs than it did in the wild card round.
Copyright 2022, Larry Greenberg. All rights reserved. No secondary distribution without express permission.
Tags: MLB Playoffs
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