It began with a 94 mph Tanner Bibee four-seam fastball at 1:09 on a glorious East Coast afternoon. It ended with Manny Machado waving at one last Blake Treinen sweeper, at 9:15 Chavez Ravine Time … otherwise known as a quarter past frigging midnight where I live.
But no worries! Somebody had to volunteer to watch four postseason baseball games in one day — and tell you about them. That somebody, naturally, was me.
So yeah, I watched 11 hours and six minutes of baseball Saturday … in four different rooms … on six different devices. Which meant I had to watch 43 pitchers fire 1,466 pitches — and OK, so it’s conceivable I might have missed a few. But whatever.
The October Weird and Wild column is there for you on days like this. So let’s tell you just how Weird and Wild it was, beginning with the latest, unfathomable day in the life of the Mets.
The Mets star in Mission Improbable 4
Trailing late? No problem. The Mets did it again. (Bill Streicher / Imagn Images)
“Win Improbability.” When I first made up that metric to describe the Mets a few days ago, it was only supposed to get me through one of these columns. Who knew then that the Mets’ hot new show, Mission Improbable, would have more episodes than The Bear.
But after their newest late-inning magic show, Saturday in Philadelphia, the Mets have now run off four of these great moments in Win Improbability this week. And you don’t see that much. By which I mean ever. So let’s recap what they’ve been up to for the last week.
Monday (their Game 161 clincher) — They entered the eighth trailing, 3-0, in Atlanta. Win Improbability: 95 percent. So what happened? They scored six in the eighth, plus two more in the ninth — on a lead-flipping homer by Francisco Lindor — to win, 8-7.
Tuesday (Game 1 of NL Wild Card Series) — This time, they reached the fifth trailing, 4-3, in Milwaukee. Win Improbability: 64 percent. Guess what happened. Right. They scored five in the fifth and won, 8-3.
Thursday (Game 3 NL Wild Card Series) — You know all about this one: Entered the ninth trailing the Brewers, 2-0. Had gotten two hits all night. Star Brewers closer Devin Williams needed only three outs to send them home. Win Improbability: 92 percent. But you’ve heard about the rest. If not, just google Pete Alonso.
Saturday (NLDS Game 1) — Could this really happen again? It could. It did. Zack Wheeler exited after seven overpowering innings (one hit, no runs, nine strikeouts, 30 whiffs). The Mets trailed, 1-0. Win Improbability: 75 percent. What happened this time? A stunning five-run eighth inning happened, against the Phillies’ best relievers. Mets win another shocker, 6-2.
Amazin’! What is happening?
“I believe in momentum,” said their left fielder, Brandon Nimmo, after this latest David Copperfield trick.
“I believe in us working hard,” said their third baseman, Mark Vientos. “And the results will happen after.”
OK, cool. These theories are brought to you by the Let’s Practice Your Cliches scene in “Bull Durham.” So here at the October Weird and Wild column, we’re going to stick with Win Improbability. At least we can document that.
So let’s do that.
Four massive innings in a week? There’s nothing more improbable than that parade of script-flipping rallies, is there?
Swirl this around your brain: Four times since Monday, the Mets have found themselves trailing in the late innings — and then had innings where they scored four runs once, five runs twice and six runs once, all in the fifth inning or later. So I asked my friends from STATS Perform just how rare it was.
Their answer: Exactly as rare as you’d think it is.
The Mets have played baseball for 63 seasons now. They’ve played more than 10,000 games if you count the postseason. Want to guess how many times, in all those years and all those games, they’ve had four innings like that in any week of their existence — regular season and/or postseason?
Who out there said: No times? Excellent guess! This was the first week in Mets history — only six days, actually — in which they erupted for four innings of four runs or more, in the fifth or later, all while trailing. The shortest previous span they’d ever done that was 10 days: July 23-Aug. 1, 1996 and June 22-July 1, 1997.
So what do you think? Here’s what I think: Good timing!
30 whiffs — and a win? I’ll have more on Wheeler later in this column. They don’t make aces like that guy anymore. But let’s stick to the team he was pitching against Saturday.
In seven innings of flailing against Wheeler, the Mets swung and missed 30 times. It’s only the third game since 2008 (aka, the pitch-tracking era) in which any pitcher induced 30 whiffs or more in a postseason game. It’s the 26th time if we count all the regular-season games over those 17 seasons.
I was surprised to learn that it’s not unprecedented for a team to swing-and-miss 30-plus times against a starting pitcher and still win that game. That’s happened seven other times since 2008. But this was different.
How many teams in that span have whiffed 30 times, but also scored zero times and gotten no more than one hit against a starting pitcher — and still figured out a way to win? That answer is exactly one:
The Mets … on Saturday.
Back-to-back Mission Improbables? Now let’s get to one final Mets shocker. They’ve now done this in two games in a row. Once again: Who does this?
On one hand, the Elias Sports Bureau tells us that seven other teams have won back-to-back games in the same postseason after trailing in the eighth inning or later. So if you heard that, you might think: Oh. It’s not that rare after all.
Oh yeah? Think again. Just two other National League teams have ever done that — in 120 postseasons. And this is kind of cool: It was the two franchises who were playing in this game!
The Mets did it in the 1999 National League Championship Series against the Braves. And the Phillies did it in the zany 1980 NLCS against the Astros. So see? It’s getting more rare all the time.
Also, the American League teams that pulled this off include the 2004 Red Sox “Idiots,” in their epic comeback against the Yankees … the Yankees, in the two Byung-Hyun Kim games, in the 2001 World Series against Arizona … and the Royals, in their Game 4 and Game 5 stunners against the Mets in 2015.
But all of that is just the preamble to the truly Weird and Wild part. How many teams have pulled off comebacks like that, in the eighth inning or later, even though they were getting shut out — during both games — until those rallies? That would be just one team ever …
The 2024 “Mission Improbable” Mets.
Welcome to Oct-Oh-Ber!
Shohei Ohtani delivered for the Dodgers in his postseason debut. (Kiyoshi Mio / Imagn Images)
So maybe you’ve heard of this guy who plays for the Dodgers now. He’s been in the news a few times. His name is Shohei Ohtani. And on Saturday, he finally got to play in his first postseason baseball game — on this side of the Pacific, at least.
Here’s what the October Weird and Wild column thinks it’s important you know:
This was a postseason debut unlike any other in history!
Now I’m sure you think we say that about everything Ohtani does. So let’s prove it.
Should we run through a brief sampling of Stuff Ohtani Has Done before he got to play in October? Why the heck not, because he has already …
• Won two MVP awards (with a third coming right up)
• Won a Rookie of the Year award
• Hit 54 home runs in a season (this year)
• Stolen 59 bases in a season (also this year)
• Hit 225 career home runs
• Had a 200-strikeout season on the mound
And heck, those are just the highlights. But here’s the historic part:
Seven other players in AL/NL history have won at least two MVP trophies and a Rookie of the Year trophy. The names might sound familiar:
Willie Mays
Frank Robinson
Johnny Bench
Cal Ripken Jr.
Albert Pujols
Mike Trout
Bryce Harper
And Aaron Judge is about to make it eight. But here’s the big question: How many of those guys won all those awards before they played a single postseason game?
It’s another great time to shout-out: None, because that’s the right answer. In fact, every one of them played a postseason game before they accepted their first MVP trophy. But not Ohtani, thanks to Tungsten Arm O’Doyle Angels subplots we don’t need to dredge up now.
In other words … even if you overlook the 50-50 stuff … and the heroics on the mound, there has still never been a player who had the career Ohtani has had before finally making it to the postseason. How ’bout that.
So welcome to Oct-oh-ber! Or should it be Ohtober?
Whatever. Once Ohtani got there, he knew the drill. In the Dodgers’ 7-5 win over the Padres on Saturday, all he did was go 2-for-5 … and wallop a 111.8 mph home run into the right-field pavilion of Dodger Stadium — in the second inning of the first postseason game he ever played in.
SHOHEI OHTANI TIES THE GAME!!! #NLDS pic.twitter.com/EkcONeweie
— MLB (@MLB) October 6, 2024
So did you know …
• Only one other player in history has hit 50 home runs in a season and then capped off that season with a home run in one of his first two career postseason trips to the plate? According to Jake Coyne of STATS Perform, that was Brady (50-Homer) Anderson, who went deep in his very first postseason plate appearance, for the 1996 Orioles.
• And just two players have ever hit as many career homers as Ohtani before debuting in the postseason — and then smoked a home run in one of their first two October plate appearances:
| PLAYER | YEAR | CAREER HR |
|---|---|---|
|
Carlos Delgado |
2006 |
407 |
|
Ted Kluszewski |
1959 |
259 |
(Source: STATS Perform)
Ted Kluszewski sighting!
That’s a leading question
Jazz Chisholm Jr. comes home to give the Yankees a lead that finally held up. (Vincent Carchietta / Imagn Images)
So there I was, doing what I do on nights like this — watching two games at once … and keeping score of both those games … while writing this column … and dropping everything from time to time to get stuck in Weird and Wild research quicksand … when my pal Tyler Kepner reached out to me, with this question:
When was the last postseason game with five lead changes? That’s what we have here in the Bronx tonight.
You can tell, from the way he asked that question, that Tyler assumed this had happened before. And I’ll be honest. I assumed the same thing. There have been some wild and crazy October baseball games, you know. So of course we’d assume that.
How wrong we were!
We ran this question past the folks from STATS. And we were all blown away by the answer — meaning me and Tyler and the STATS research crew.
Would you believe that Saturday’s Royals-Yankees game was the first postseason game in history with five (or more) lead changes? Who knew.
But that happened. The Royals led, 1-0. Then the Yankees led, 2-1. Then the Royals led, 3-2. You get the pattern. It was 4-3, Yankees … then 5-4, Royals … then 6-5, Yankees. And that makes five lead changes … in a 6-5 game … which feels practically (and nearly mathematically) impossible.
You can read lots more about it in Tyler’s great piece. But since you know you need to know, here are the six previous games that had four lead changes. There are some all-timers in here:
• Mets 9, Braves 5 — 1969 NLCS Game 1 (the first NLCS game ever)
• Blue Jays 15, Phillies 14 — 1993 World Series Game 4 (the Mitch Williams game)
• Marlins 14, Indians 11 — 1997 World Series Game 3 (the snow game)
• Red Sox 12, Indians 8 — 1999 ALDS Game 5 (the Pedro in relief game)
• Indians 13, Red Sox 6 — 2007 ALCS Game 2 (the 1:37 a.m. game)
• A’s 9, Astros 7 — 2020 ALDS Game 3 (the Liam Hendricks goes three-innings game)
And then along came the Royals and Yankees to wipe them all out of the postseason record book. October baseball. It’s the best.
Speaking of Cleveland
Is there any history more Weird and Wild than AL Central history? You should probably not answer that question because we’re going with the answer that makes the rest of this note possible: No!
We’re going there because Saturday in Cleveland, we had an outbreak of the most spectacular AL Central history ever. It was Tigers versus Guardians. And it was a monumental development because it was the first postseason series to feature two AL Central teams playing each other.
So how does that compare to the other five divisions, you ask? You’ve definitely come to the right place if you were wondering about that, because I have that answer for you. Since the dawn of the wild-card era in 1995, here’s the rundown on how many series have pitted two teams from those other divisions. And yes, I included Dodgers-Padres and Phillies-Mets from this year.
AL East — 12
NL West — 8
NL East — 7
NL Central — 7
AL West — 3
Goofy Weird and Wild footnote: The Astros have gotten mixed up in five of those intra-division series … in two different leagues (AL/NL) … and two different divisions (AL West/NL Central).
Party of Four
Zack Wheeler, Game 1 monster. (Eric Hartline / Imagn Images)
Hey! Before you move on to the next great story on this site, stick with us for another minute – because we have a few more fabulous Weird and Wild tidbits for you:
WHEELS UP — I told you there’d be a salute here to Phillies ace Zack Wheeler. You know a team has a true ace hanging around its clubhouse when it hands him the baseball in Game 1 of every postseason series he’s available to pitch in — and doesn’t even have to think about it for 10 seconds.
So Zack Wheeler has now started five Game 1s for the Phillies over the last three postseasons. And after his latest masterpiece — seven innings, one hit, no runs, nine strikeouts, 30 swings-and-misses — here’s where he stands:
He’s officially the greatest Game 1 starter ever.
His career Game 1 ERA is now 0.82, the lowest in history among all pitchers who have started at least five Game 1s. Clayton Kershaw’s career Game 1 ERA is 6.28. Max Scherzer? He’s at 5.49. Chris Sale? His is 6.43. Justin Verlander? How ’bout 4.44.
But Wheeler has now allowed a total of three runs and 12 hits in five Game 1 starts. The best hitters alive are batting .111 against him in those games. How the heck did his team lose that game Saturday?
GOOD INTENTIONS — Did anyone else notice this? The Padres intentionally walked Mookie Betts in the fourth inning Saturday … with a 2-and-2 count on him.
Since I was about 1,200 pitches into my baseball-watching day at that point, I thought I’d hallucinated it for a minute. But nope. It was a real thing, all right.
So what was that all about? It actually made sense from Padres manager Mike Shildt’s viewpoint. His pitcher, left-handed reliever Adrian Morejon, had just wild-pitched Ohtani to second base. So first base was open, with the left-handed Freddie Freeman on deck. Yada yada.
Still, you don’t see those two-strike intentional walks much, do you? So I asked STATS to check. And it turns out this was, somehow, the fifth two-strike intentional walk in the pitch-count era, which goes back to 1988. Here they come.
• 2005 NLDS Game 2 — Orlando Palmeiro (by Bobby Cox), 1st inning
• 2003 ALDS Game 1 — Nomar Garciaparra (by Ken Macha), 11th inning
• 1995 NLDS Game 3 — Jeff Branson (by Tommy Lasorda), 2nd inning
• 1991 World Series Game 1 — Chili Davis (by Bobby Cox), 5th inning
The biggest upset on that list: None by Tony La Russa!
FOR OPENERS — Tigers pitcher Tyler Holton has had a sensational year — so sensational that his manager, A.J. Hinch, nominated him to start back-to-back postseason games (Game 2 of the Wild Card Series last Wednesday in Houston, then Game 1 of the ALDS on Saturday in Cleveland).
All right, so in truth, he was merely “the opener” for both games. But let’s not get into technicalities right now … because Holton’s day didn’t go so hot. His line went like this:
4 batters, 4 runs, 0 outs
Did you know that’s a starting pitcher line (no outs, four runs or more) that’s been spotted in only three other box scores in postseason history? True! So Holton will be joining:
• Charlie Root, 1935 Cubs — 4 batters, 4 runs, 0 outs
• Bob Moose, 1972 Pirates — 5 batters, 4 runs, 0 outs
• Al Leiter, 1999 Mets — 6 batters, 5 runs, 0 outs
BEHIND THE BAG, IT GETS THROUGH BUCKNER — Finally, I can’t stop thinking about these Mets comebacks. So how about this:
Between the Bill Buckner Game — that was Game 6 of the 1986 World Series — and this past week, you know how many times the Mets had come back to win a postseason game they trailed in the eighth inning or later? That would be just two times! That’s out of 64 games … over nearly four decades.
And what happened after that? Naturally, they then roared back and won two of those games (Thursday and Saturday) in a row?
Unreal. There’s only one way to explain it, you know. Repeat after me. It’s …
Baseball!
(Top photo of Jose Iglesias and Tyrone Taylor: Matt Slocum / Associated Press)
