A wild Division Series weekend showed off the best of October baseball

SEATTLE -- As Saturday was conscionable beginning, fans thirsty for playoff shot and bare for Seattle dogs -- blistery dog, pick cheese, sauteed onions -- were already snaking astir T-Mobile Park successful anticipation of what was to come. The Seattle Mariners were down 2-0 successful their American League Division Series against the Houston Astros, an obstacle lone 1 successful 10 teams historically person overcome. And yet that information did thing to dissuade those lined up from believing they were astir to witnesser thing memorable. Two decades of postseason lack tin normalize a consciousness of pessimism, but Seattle preferred connected Saturday to beryllium dreamers, to clasp the peculiar benignant of magic this athletics lives to foment.

"Baseball's conscionable a truly comic game," Trey Mancini said astir 9 hours later, headed for a autobus that would statesman the Astros' travel location for their sixth consecutive AL Championship Series. What had occurred successful the clip since was a one-of-a-kind game: 6 hours, 22 minutes, with 42 strikeouts against 4 walks, wherever hits were sparse and runs nonexistent until the 18th inning, erstwhile a rookie whacked a location tally to triumph it.

Mancini is 30, successful his sixth twelvemonth successful the majors. He lived done the leanest of thin years with the Baltimore Orioles and came to the Astros astatine the commercialized deadline. He has beaten cancer. He knows that "funny" tin mean the sad-funny of rebuilding oregon the we-really-don't-know-anything funny of this part bid weekend, and peculiarly of Saturday, erstwhile crossed the state 4 games of varying incarnations played retired successful what would beryllium the past engaged time of the shot calendar this season. Mancini loves the crippled due to the fact that of days similar Saturday.

As this weekend's part bid proved, shot successful October is thing different. It's not ever astir who's better. Sometimes what matters is who happens to get hot. It's not conscionable unpredictable; it's unknowable, susceptible of rendering itself astatine immoderate moment.

Take, for instance, the crippled Mancini played for 8 innings and watched for 10 arsenic a spectator aft being lifted for a pinch hitter. It embodied the excellence of modern tally prevention, with a paucity of baserunners, a surfeit of strikeouts and unshakeable defense. Was it truthful beauteous it got a small ugly, oregon truthful stingy it was beautiful, oregon thing on the continuum instead? No 1 knew for sure. No 1 cared, either.

"It's chaotic however the lines get blurred truthful overmuch successful games similar that," said Astros reliever Ryne Stanek, marveling astatine however akin the Astros' 1-0 triumph implicit the Seattle Mariners was to the Cleveland Guardians' triumph past week by the aforesaid people successful the clincher of their wild-card bid against the Tampa Bay Rays. "I saw it successful the Rays-Cleveland game, wherever they were talking astir however erstwhile things get rolling similar that, it conscionable seems to astir enactment [like that] -- similar it's inertia, conscionable benignant of stays successful motion."

Perhaps that's conscionable a post-facto explanation, the easiest mode to signifier the game's chaos and recognize however 2 teams similar Houston and Seattle -- 1 offensively elite and the different susceptible of homering with the champion -- tin find themselves locked successful a crippled that sucks distant your enactment and replaces it with tension, nerves, anxiousness -- feelings, the benignant of feelings that permeated from the dugout into the stands each the mode crossed the Pacific Northwest. The feelings that resonated 1,000 miles distant successful San Diego, lone with a twist: from dread to elation, successful astir an instant.

"Hitting truly is contagious," Mancini said, an hr earlier the San Diego Padres would participate the seventh inning of their National League Division Series-clinching triumph against their rival, the Los Angeles Dodgers, down 3-0. They past recorded a walk, single, single, double, single, strikeout, popout, azygous -- 5 runs successful all.

This is postseason baseball: A squad similar San Diego -- missing its superstar shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. and abbreviated capable connected rotation extent that its choices for a imaginable Game 5 starter against the Dodgers were bad, worse and nightmare -- vanquished a 111-win squad to whom it mislaid each six bid this play with a 5-3 victory.

All the mode crossed the country, successful Philadelphia, different squad with a tortured caller past similar Seattle's and San Diego's had engaged successful its ain deed parade, going single, hit-by-pitch, single, single, azygous to propulsion a choky crippled into comfy territory. No pb is genuinely comfy against the Atlanta Braves, but the Philadelphia Phillies are conscionable similar the Padres, puffing retired their chests aft their domination and decision of a Braves team that implicit 162 games finished 14 up of the Phillies.

This is October baseball: Five wins successful six games for a squad that was truthful atrocious its manager was fired midseason and truthful bully it won 9 consecutive instantly after. From that constituent on, Philly played astatine a 90-win pace, which is nobody's thought of title caliber, but for the information that 7 teams with 90 oregon less wins person won rings, including past year's 88-win Atlanta unit.

October shot entrances adjacent Astros players, celebrating successful the afterglow of their clinching win, capable to enactment down their bottles of bubbly and intermission their enactment to watch. In Cleveland, the Guardians trailed the New York Yankees by a run. There were 2 outs successful the bottommost of the ninth inning. The bases were loaded. A rookie named Oscar Gonzalez was astatine the plate. His walk-up euphony is the taxable to "SpongeBob SquarePants." He had already deed the walk-off location tally that provided the 1 tally successful Cleveland's aforementioned 1-0 triumph against Tampa Bay, arsenic good arsenic the go-ahead plaything connected a blooper successful Game 2 against the Yankees.

When Gonzalez lined a azygous up the mediate to sheet the tying and winning runs, the lunchroom successful the backmost of the Astros' clubhouse erupted successful screams. Some of the Astros loathe the Yankees conscionable for being the Yankees, and others were taken by the infinitesimal itself, careless of who won oregon lost. These men cognize arsenic good arsenic anyone conscionable however precious October victories are, however days similar Saturday -- erstwhile each crippled is simply a dainty of varying flavors -- are magic.

The Astros, amid 2 upsets and the Yankees facing a winner-take-all Game 5 successful the Bronx tonight, are the exception.

They won 106 games and the apical effect successful the AL, and, aft 5 days off, swept their archetypal bid against the Mariners, coming from down successful the archetypal 2 wins and grinding done 2 games' worthy of innings to seizure the third. This radical of playoff-tested veterans relied connected a rookie, Jeremy Peña, to provide the lone tally successful the clincher. He took a slider from different rookie, Seattle right-hander Penn Murfee, and deposited it implicit the center-field wall, sucking the oxygen retired of a stadium that had spent astir of the time deprived of it acknowledgment to the hyperventilation games similar this invite.

"It's conscionable intense, similar -- you consciousness it," Astros 3rd baseman Alex Bregman said. "You consciousness each transportation [that] 1 transportation could plaything it." And nauseating and stomach-turning though that whitethorn be, Bregman said, "People successful our clubhouse provender connected it. We emotion it."

This is 1 of the galore things that makes the Astros great. This mightiness beryllium their champion squad yet. Even if the discourtesy isn't rather arsenic unsafe arsenic their teams with George Springer and Carlos Correa, Houston's pitching is satellite people -- from Lance McCullers Jr. spinning six shutout innings to commencement Game 3 to Luis Garcia booking 5 scoreless to extremity it and a parade of six relievers successful betwixt throwing up zeroes.

Yes, their lone title came successful the play during which they utilized a sign-stealing strategy to cheat. But by the extremity of the ALCS, Houston volition person played successful astatine slightest 80 playoff games implicit the past six years. It is much than immoderate squad ever successful a six-year span, and portion that surely tin beryllium attributed to playoff expansion, outdoing the dynastic Yankees of the precocious 1990s and aboriginal 2000s arsenic good arsenic the 2016-21 Dodgers puts the Astros successful rarified institution among their modern peers.

They've played truthful galore postseason games that erstwhile Jose Altuve calls Game 3 "the craziest we've played," helium needs to intermission for a infinitesimal and deliberation that through. It's easy, successful the moment, to delegate fantastical adjectives to a crippled that conscionable ended, adjacent to a time similar Saturday, but it's understandable, too.

Baseball truly is simply a comic game, right? It sends america connected rides for which the blueprint request lone beryllium a win-expectancy chart, successful which calmness cedes to commotion successful an instant -- up and down, revolting 1 infinitesimal and life-affirming the next. It is the best, and past it is the worst, and possibly again the best, and that's the amusive of it. We ne'er cognize what it's going to be, which is precisely what keeps america coming backmost for more.