I told The Hoya I would only write this column this week if the New York Yankees won the wild card series against their — and my — arch-rival, the Boston Red Sox. Otherwise, I would be too busy mourning the season that could have been.
Courtesy of Yankees’ rookie starting pitcher Cam Schlittler and the Yankees earrings I haven’t taken out of my ears since Game 2, my column lives another day.
Never let me take an 18-hour round-trip adventure to New York for a playoff game again. A plan that started as an impulsive “what-if” ended with me at Yankee Stadium on a Tuesday evening, watching as the sky darkened and the Yankees ruined my night.
They led for most of the game — the first in a three-game series against the Red Sox — until relief pitcher Luke Weaver gave up the lead and the offense quietly disappeared. The Yankees gave me false hope in the ninth inning by loading the bases without recording an out, but nothing came of it. I slinked out of the stadium as Liza Minnelli played over the speakers, using the last of my voice to declare repeatedly that I hate baseball.
I spent my train ride back to Washington, D.C., trying not to think about the game. I figured we were doomed. After all, since MLB implemented a new playoff format in 2021, and the single wild card game became a three-game series, no team has overcome a Game 1 loss in the wild card round.
No team, that is, except the 2025 Yankees. They won a back-and-forth, stress-inducing Game 2 on Wednesday, leaving it up to dueling rookie pitchers to decide the series in the rubber match. I placed all my faith in Cam Schlittler’s postseason debut, and holy Schlitt did he deliver.
Schlittler pitched 8 shutout innings, striking out 12 and walking no one. The Yankees won 4-0, punching their ticket to meet the Toronto Blue Jays in the American League Division Series (ALDS). Have I mentioned that I have developed a sudden disdain for maple syrup?
In the other three wild card series around the majors, things were just as hectic. Except in Los Angeles. Nothing fun ever happens in L.A.
At home, the Cleveland Guardians faced their division rival, the Detroit Tigers, not even a week after the two teams met in the regular season. The Tigers had at one point been 15.5 games ahead of the Guardians in the division race — insurmountable, until it wasn’t. The Guardians won the division by one game, earning home field advantage against the Tigers in the wild card series. Had the Tigers lost the series, it would have marked the end of a prolonged disaster of a season — but Detroit survived a strong effort from the young Cleveland team and won the series in three games.
In the National League, the 90-win San Diego Padres squared off against the 92-win Chicago Cubs. The Cubs took Game 1 and the Padres responded by winning Game 2 before dropping a close Game 3. If you’re counting, that means there were three dramatic, leave-it-all-on-the-field, winner-take-all games played this season.
It could have been four, but the L.A. Dodgers ruin everything. Invariably.
The Dodgers quickly dispatched the Cincinnati Reds, approaching both games as if they were insulted to have to play a wild card series. If I were watching, I would have seen MVP frontrunner Shohei Ohtani delight the crowd and hit two home runs. I wasn’t watching, though. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.
“Ignorance is bliss” would have been a great thing to consider before I turned on the Yankees game just now to see that the Blue Jays were leading 10-1 in the 9th inning of Game 1 of the ALDS. Perhaps the Yankees are just excruciatingly bad in Game 1s yet perfectly competent in every other situation. Yankees in four? Nope — Yankees in five? Please?
By Friday, you’ll know if I am back to hating baseball, or if I still somehow believe in the month of October. If you’re hoping for another edition of this column, you better hope for the latter.