The Minnesota Twins had the second-best record in the American League this season. They went 36-24, won the AL Central and were considered a legitimate threat to reach the World Series.
Then the Wild Card round happened.
The Twins fell to the Astros 4-1 in Game 1 on Tuesday and 3-1 in Game 2 on Wednesday. It was their 18th straight postseason loss, and just like that, their season is over.
It has to feel bizarre to lose one game of a series and then suddenly be playing an elimination game, no?
“It is, but we also are coming off of the Wild Card format in recent years that was a single-game elimination,” MLB analyst Doug Glanville said on The DA Show. “Now at least they have the best-of-three, which really speaks more to baseball. Baseball is about series. It’s about having a rotation of pitchers, and you’re at your best in a larger sample size. So this is unusual, and this is certainly unprecedented having 16 teams make the playoffs – eight in each league – and [to] have a team like the Dodgers, who played over .700 baseball, face the Brewers, who played under .500.”
The Dodgers beat the Brewers 4-2 in Game 1 on Wednesday, but there were upsets throughout the league. The Yankees swept the Indians, while the Cardinals beat the Padres 7-4 in Game 1 of their series and the Marlins beat the Cubs 5-1.
“In a three-game series, anyone can beat anyone, and that’s what’s going to be so unusual this season,” Glanville said. “A lot of the teams on the road won their first games as a visiting team, so we’ll see how it plays out, but that’s how it started.”