#but at least if the dodger win i can blame it on the mlb script and pretend it doesn’t matter

[notsocooljess]

if the mets lose tonight my soul will be crushed beyond repair and i will have to pretend i’m functioning like normal when i’m not and NO i’m not being dramatic!!!

[junker-town]

The Wild Card Game is heartbreaking, but that’s the point

Two teams enter, one team leaves, and we all get to point and laugh at them.

Ah, the Wild Card Game. It’s the John Cena of MLB, in that some of y’all love it and some of y’all hate it, but goddammit if we aren’t always talking about it, anyway. Personally, I adore the Wild Card Game, because it’s rude as hell. There is nothing else like it in baseball, which is such a marathon-not-a-sprint kind of game... until the Wild Card, which gives you three hours to disarm a bomb and then blows your season all over the place if you fail to do so.

You could say it’s manufactured drama, but hey, welcome to the entire concept of sports. At first, there was no postseason, just a first-place finisher. Then there was a World Series, with the regular season being the determiner of which teams were in it. Then there were League Championship Series, wild cards, League Division Series, and now the Wild Card round: it’s all made up, none of this is organic, but it sure is fun.

The Cubs faltered in September and hung on just enough to avoid ceding the division to the Brewers until Game 163. Rather than go home like in the olden days, they got one more shot, once again in front of their home crowd, to prove that they actually do belong in the postseason. Or, failing deserving being there, they at least had won the right game at the right game and given themselves second life.

Instead, the Rockies, who outlasted the Diamondbacks and Cardinals and weathered a Dodgers assault, were the victors, and the Cubs went from having the NL’s best record to blowing both of their second chances at the NLDS. You can manufacture that kind of heartbreak, sure, but usually in the scripted sense, not in the letting the chips fall where they may within the system you’ve constructed way. What a delicious, sudden defeat for a team that stood above the rest of the National League pack just a few weeks ago. What a painful memory that’ll haunt these fans until the next time the Cubs are able to do something that helps their followers cope with this loss. We have the Wild Card Game to thank for this.

And in the American League, the A’s, who won 97 games, were given the chance to topple the Yankees, who won 100, and only finished in second place because the Red Sox set a franchise record for wins by picking up 108 Ws. Two great teams from two difficult divisions, not quite good enough to contend with a team making history and the defending champion Astros, but only one was allowed to continue on. Baseball threw one spear into the middle of the field, and told these two teams only one of them would be allowed to leave. Baseball Thunderdome rules.

The A’s and their fans are crushed, of course. Oakland hasn’t been to the postseason since 2014, when they lost the most heartbreaking Wild Card Game of them all to the Royals and their singles factory. They’ve been through a lengthy rebuild since then, one that paid off with this 97-win team full of exciting young players and great decisions, and now their postseason run is over so soon, too soon, and the long offseason awaits the roster and the fan base. Will everything come together again next year? Did the A’s blow their one chance at reentering the world of relevant baseball? These thoughts are haunting, and there is no exorcism available until this time next year at the earliest.

Is it fair? No, but this was never about fair. It’s about entertainment, and watching the baseball gods just baseball the hell out of the A’s and Cubs, forcing their fans through the anger and denial and acceptance of an entire series loss in just a few hours, has me entertained. Long live the Wild Card Game.

The A’s are done, sure, but Grant Brisbee doesn’t want you to blame the opener, even if the aesthetics of Wednesday’s Wild Card Game loss look pretty bad right now.

The AL Wild Card Game unfolded as expected, writes Whitney McIntosh.

Hyun-jin Ryu has earned the Dodgers’ trust.

We ranked every team in the MLB postseason, but now that the Wild Card round is over, we’ve reranked the remaining eight.

Melisa Reidy, ex-wife of Addison Russell, detailed why she spoke up about Russell’s domestic abuse.

Russell, by the way, was suspended 40 games by Major League Baseball following their investigation.

Theo Epstein won’t say if Russell will return to the Cubs in 2019, but I can tell you right now that ownership does not give a single shit about this in any way other than that it’s inconvenient to them, public relations-wise.

The Braves will have to take on the Dodgers without Dansby Swanson.

Here’s a preview of the Brewers/Rockies NLDS, courtesy Brew Crew Ball.

The MLBPA filed a grievance against the Braves on behalf of Carter Stewart, which would make Stewart a free agent instead of just an unsigned draft pick.