Here in the most bizarre year thus far in the 21st Century, it makes a certain amount of sense that the Major League post-season bears a stunning resemblance to what happens every year in the NHL and the NBA. It took less than a week to winnow the original field of sixteen down to eight.
The Yankees renew hostilities with the Tampa Rays tonight in, of all places, San Diego. Nothing says American League Playoffs quite like a best three-out-of-five series in a National League ballpark. The Yankees lost eight of ten times that they played the Rays during the abbreviated regular season. If they reverse that trend over the next five days, then they will play either the Oakland A's or the enemy du jour, the Houston Astros, in the American League Championship Series.
Fun fact: Only one of the sixteen teams that qualified for this year's playoffs has never lost a post-season series. That team? Derek Jeter and Don Mattingly's Miami Marlins. Before this year, the Marlins had only qualified for the playoffs two other times in franchise history, in 1997 and 2003, and both times they won the World Series. Last week, they upset the Chicago Cubs in their first-round matchup, which makes the Fish (point of order, sports fans, although people call the Miami Dolphins "the fish", dolphins are mammals, not fish) a perfect 7-0.
The odds against them finishing this season at 10-0 are long...
...but then again, it is 2020, so bet against them at your peril.
-AK
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