2020 MLB postseason thread

Schedule is out for this most-unusual postseason.

AL Wild Card (best of 3) opens Tuesday, with top seeds hosting.
(1) Toronto vs. Tampa Bay
(2) Oakland vs. White Sox
(3) Minnesota vs. Houston
(4) Cleveland vs. Yankees

NL Wild card (best of 3) opens Wednesday
(1) Dodgers vs. Milwaukee
(2) Atlanta vs. Cincinnati
(3) Cubs vs. Miami
(4) San Diego vs. St. Louis.

 

Best of 3 is a trap for which of top teams? Braves? Oakland?

 

Dodgers

 

Dodgers are vastly superior to the Brew Crew, yet anything can happen in a best-of-three mini-series.
I wouldn't want to play the White Sox.

 

If Burnes hadn't just gone on the DL, I might have put the Dodgers in that category.

Oakland's probably the right answer: Chapman and a key bullpen piece are on the DL. The lineup is actually quite pitiful. And of any three combinations of they could throw out there as starters, how comfortable do you really feel with any of them?

Tampa would be my second choice: Blue Jays have enough streaky hitters and if you can win Ryu's start and assume Snell and Glasnow are unavailable for Game 3, I could see them going down.

 

No days off until the WS. That's going to hurt teams that planned to rely on 5-6 arms for most games.

 

That's my biggest issue with the current postseason structure, pre-COVID. It doesn't replicate "real" regular season baseball. So many off days allow managers to use (or overuse) their six or seven best pitchers over three series instead of having to leave their starter in, or rely on a fourth/fifth starter or a bullpen start.

Why do you need two or three off days in a seven-game series? That made sense before air travel.

 

What always used to bug me (pre-COVID) was the workouts prior to the series. I guess it makes some sense for the visiting team, if they need to figure out ballpark angles and such, but I always found it a little weird that a team would need to have a workout after 6 weeks of spring training and 162 games during the season.

 

It's going to be cold as balls at Wrigley for the three games, but no rain on the horizon.

 

Aren't all the games being played in California and Texas?

EDIT: Didn't realize the Wild Card Series were all home parks. Yikes!

 

Only after the Wild Card round.

 

As a Dodgers fan, I hope they win the first two games. They are more talented than the Brewers but I've seen Dave Roberts bungle too many games with how he utilizes his pitchers and an elimination game scares me.