The four-pack of games that opened the MLB playoffs on Tuesday had plenty of variety.
In Baltimore, fans were treated to a classic pitchers’ duel between Corbin Burnes and Cole Ragans, the Astros mounted a ninth-inning comeback resulting in the sort of last-minute suspense that’s a perfect advertisement for baseball, and Milwaukee hosted a game that was utterly chaotic until the scoring dried up in the last few innings.
The most conventional game of the bunch came last as the San Diego Padres rode a massive starting pitching advantage to a win — but it was spiced up by a little power as the Padres were the only team of the eight in action to clear the fence.
Here are a few takeaways from 36 innings of memorable postseason baseball:
Michael King breaks through
After a season where he posted a 2.95 ERA and struck out 201 batters, King didn’t enter Tuesday as an unknown — but he left it with a new level of star power.
King picked a good time to author arguably the best outing of his career, pitching seven shutout innings with 12 strikeouts and no walks. It was the fifth start in postseason history with 10-plus strikeouts and neither a walk or run allowed.
Coming off a stellar second half where he posted a 2.15 ERA, it wasn’t a surprise to see King thrive, but the way he did it was interesting. The right-hander leaned on a deadly sweeper, using it to earn seven strikeouts — a career-high with that pitch.
During the regular season, the offering accounted for just 1.3 Ks per start and 20.3 percent of his total strikeouts, but he quickly identified that the Atlanta Braves couldn’t touch the pitch and went to it again and again when he was ahead in the count.
Orioles’ Burnes move clearly wise, but possibly futile
When the Baltimore Orioles reached the playoffs in 2023 they did so with a relatively unproven rotation, and that group fell apart in October.
Kyle Bradish, Dean Kremer, and Grayson Rodriguez allowed 13 runs in just eight combined innings, sinking Baltimore’s chances against the Texas Rangers. In response the team traded for Burnes in the offseason, giving the team the ace they’d been missing.
Burnes was one of the best pitchers in the American League during the regular season and delivered the kind of outing the Orioles dreamt of when they acquired him on Tuesday with eight innings of one-run ball against the Kansas City Royals.
It was the type of masterful outing that Baltimore acquired him to produce, but it was wasted as the club was held scoreless by Ragans and the Royals bullpen.
Now if the team doesn’t win two straight games against Kansas City that will be the last of his playoff contributions — and considering he’s about to hit free agency there’s a good chance it’s his final outing as an Oriole.
In one afternoon Baltimore got confirmation that it made a stellar trade in February and a massive blow to its chances of capitalizing on that offseason blockbuster.
Even seemingly trustworthy relievers can’t be trusted
One of the Milwaukee Brewers’ supposed advantages in their series with the New York Mets was a bullpen that produced the best ERA of any National League relief corps during the regular season (3.11).
And yet, the NL Central winners are in a 0-1 hole because they couldn’t keep runs off the board once starter Freddy Peralta left the game.
It’s not just surprising that the Brewers had a bullpen imploded, the guys who collapsed had been absolutely bulletproof in recent months. Before Tuesday, Joel Payamps and Aaron Ashby had combined for five earned runs allowed in 40.2 innings since the beginning of August, striking out 51 hitters with only 28 base runners allowed.
That duo allowed five earned runs in the fifth inning on Wednesday without even getting all three outs of the inning.
The meltdown served as a potent reminder that — with the possible exception of the top handful of relievers in the entire sport — it’s extremely difficult to predict what anyone coming out of the bullpen will bring on any given night.
Matchup numbers prove misleading in Houston
Winning playoff games can come down to generating favourable matchups, but that doesn’t mean the results from past battles between players are destined to repeat themselves.
Entering Tuesday’s matchup between the Detroit Tigers and Houston Astros, Detroit’s hitters had faced Houston starter Framber Valdez 80 times and Astros hitters had faced Tigers starter Tarik Skubal an identical 80 times.
The Astros had impressive results against Skubal (.479 SLG) while the Tigers had struggled to do damage against Valdez (.303 with just three extra-base hits). While facing a Cy Young frontrunner is never fun, those numbers seemed to indicate Houston was in good shape.
As it turns out, they meant nothing.
Skubal pitched six shutout innings while Valdez conceded three runs in 4.1 innings during a 3-1 loss — a short start that resulted in his team using five relievers.
The playoffs may be all about matchup hunting, but player vs. player and player vs. team stats often come from relatively small samples — and tend to lack reliability.