Yankees Keep Rolling, Leaving Fans Wondering Who’ll Finally Halt their Momentum
The Yankees are going to the World Series. This is not a particularly exciting sentence for an Orioles fan to have typed. They will be back playing for the championship for the first time since their last title in 2009. It’s been 15 years and hopefully it will go on for longer, but they haven’t been stopped yet in this postseason and now only the National League’s champion, which could be decided tonight, can stop them.
In the final account, the Guardians had their season halt a lot like the Orioles did. What had been a strength of the team failed them on the way out the door. The Guardians were built on an elite bullpen and that bullpen gave up multiple runs in every one of the four ALCS losses. Top-flight closer Emmanuel Clase blew it in Game 3 of the series (which the Guardians turned around and won anyway) and again in Game 4. In Game 5, Hunter Gaddis, who had a 1.57 ERA and 0.763 WHIP in the regular season, was the big loser.
There’s no way to have a feel-good postseason series exit. That has to be among the tougher ones. The Guardians title drought that goes back to 1948 continues. There are 29 teams who won’t win the World Series every year and they’ve made it longer than most before putting their names on the list, but here they are all the same.
The Mets and Dodgers series could be settled tonight, if the Dodgers win Game 6 now that they’re back on their home turf in Los Angeles. They’ve got a 3-2 edge, so the Mets would have to win both on the road to do the thing. The Mets did not win either of the LA games previously. It’s an 8:08 Eastern start time for NLCS Game 6.
