Wild Card — Baseball Bench Coach

Yes, I’m one of those. During the September stretch run, every night I watch two or three baseball games at the same time on television while checking the scores of other games on my phone. I love pennant races! While this year some division races have been long decided, the new Wild Card format allows for many playoff spots to be still up for grabs. The hunt for October remains for many teams to experience playoff baseball!

Why do we say “pennant race”? In baseball it starts with Wrigley Field. Flying flags and pennants have played a large part in its history. P.K. Wrigley, who owned the Cubs from 1932 to 1977, brought his family’s love of sailing to the ballpark. White or blue flags were used to show wins and losses. The Friendly Confines also have long kept the National League standings with team pennants flying atop the manual scoreboard. That is how the term “pennant race” was coined. Today, the practice at Wrigley Field and other NL ballparks is to show the updated standings in each division race with team flags flying. The ballpark operators are fortunate this year not to have to include the Wild Card races since positions change daily.

When MLB went to three divisions in each league in 1994, one Wild Card team for each league was added. Beginning in 1998, the team with the best record in the league would face the Wild Card entrant unless both teams were from the same division. In 2012 a second Wild Card team for each league emerged so that two Wild Card teams would face off in a single elimination before entering the Division Series. In 2022 MLB modified the structure again, adding a third Wild Card team in each league. The new format is that the two teams with the best winning records in each league get a first round bye, while the third division winner (seed #3) plays the third Wild Card team (seed #6) and the first and second Wild Card entrants (seed #s 4 and 5) square off. Both series are best of three with all games at the home of the better seed.

The Phillies took full advantage of the new format last year. Philadelphia began the 2022 season with a dismal 21-29 record. After changing managers (Joe Girardi passed the baton to Rob Thomson), the Phils closed 66-46 to reach the playoffs as the sixth NL seed. Behind the play of Bryce Harper, a formidable lineup, and a strong, starting pitching staff, Philly dominated the NL playoffs – taking the Cardinals down in a 2-game sweep; upsetting the Braves in four games in the NLDS; and defeating the Padres in the NLCS 4 games to 1. It marked the first time in League Championship Series play that two Wild Card teams met. The Astros burst the Philadelphia bubble though in the 2022 World Series, taking it in five games.

The Marlins and the Wild Card are synonomous. Miami has never won a division title in its 30-year history. All three of its postseason appearances, the fewest of any MLB team, have been through a Wild Card appearance. They did though make the most of two of them, winning the World Series in 1997 and 2003. It’s definitely a make or break franchise. The Marlins have the lowest, overall winning percentage (.460) of any MLB team in existence. This year Miami is knocking on the Wild Card playoff door in the National League. Is an October run on the horizon again for the Marlins? Anything is possible in playoff baseball.

We’ve witnessed two World Series where both participating teams started their playoff runs as a Wild Card. In 2002, the Angels and the Giants, two teams that finished second in their respective league divisions (AL West and NL West) met in the World Series for the battle of California. The “Anaheim” Angels won the Series in seven games, the first and only world title for the Angels. Twelve years later, the Wild Card Giants were at it again as they met the Royals in the 2014 World Series. It was the only World Series ever played in a non-strike season between two teams with less than 90 wins in the regular season (San Francisco, 88-74, and Kansas City, 89-73). The Giants captured their third world championship in five seasons.

Based on the success of Wild Card teams in the playoffs, the Nike mantra for MLB has to be “Just Get In”. If your team gets hot at the plate and especially on the mound, it has a shot no matter what playoff seed it is. The 2019 Washington Nationals are also an example. Entering the playoffs as a Wild Card, the Nationals went on a tear led by the starting staff of Max Scherzer, Stephen Strasburg, and Patrick Corbin. They defeated the Brewers in the Wild Card game, knocked off the 106-game winning Dodgers in the NLDS, swept the Cardinals in the NLCS, and won the World Series in seven games over the Astros. Just get in.

This year the Wild Card slogan might be “just get the #4 seed”. It’s the only Wild Card seed that gets to entertain home games. The American League #4 seed will be either the Orioles or the Rays, depending on which team is the runner-up in the AL East. The Astros, Rangers, and Mariners are battling for the AL West title, and the two runners-up will try to fend off the Blue Jays for the #s 5 and 6 seeds. The National League Wild Card fight is more interesting. It seems as if the Phillies will get the #4 seed, while five teams, the Cubs, Reds, Diamondbacks, Giants, and Mariners, are trying to secure the last two seeds. With just two weeks left in the season, the five teams are separated by just three games.

Enjoy the pennant races of September, Wild Card style! If you are at the ballpark in the next two weeks, maybe don’t look at the flags flying at the very top but think about the possibilities of those pennants one or even two rungs below.

Until next Monday,

your Baseball Bench Coach