MLB Bullets Is Wild For Wild Cards

Those of you on the Atlantic Coast of Florida, Georgia and South Carolina, stay safe. And unless you’re somewhere safe right now, you shouldn’t be reading this. You might also not want to read this if you’re Buck Showalter.

• We’re going to start out with Showalter Agonistes, as we really didn’t get to cover the fallout from the Orioles failure to use Zach Britton in the Wild Card game. Tyler Kepner talks to Showalter about his decision. He told the Orioles manager “I’m sorry to harp on this . . .” and Showalter shot back “Are you really?” Kepner had to admit he wasn’t.
• Bob Nightengale goes over the frustration of Britton and the rest of the Orioles clubhouse over the loss.
• Cliff Corcoran goes over the many places where Showalter should have called on Britton.
• Sam Miller goes through the game inning-by-inning over where Britton should and should not have gotten into the game. Pretty much anywhere was better than never.
• Jeff Passan calls Showalter’s decision a “colossal, inexcusable mistake.”
• Ken Rosenthal thinks the incident shows the fine line between brilliance and failure.
• Or maybe there’s a fine line between stupid and clever.

• Jonah Keri thinks it was the stupidest managerial decision he’s ever seen.
• Ted Keith remembers a couple of similar mistakes made by Yankees managers, including one by Buck Showalter.
• Craig Calcaterra thinks that Showalter made his mistake out of fear and not stupidity.
• Chief Jim Hopper and Joyce Byers from Stranger Things went looking for Zach Britton in the upside-down world. Justice for Barb!
• The other follow-up from the AL Wild Card game is that the man that the police were looking for in connection with throwing a beer at Hyun Soo Kim has turned himself in and has been charged with criminal mischief. He denies that he threw the beer, however. The Blue Jays have also issued an apology.
• On to the NL Wild Card game. Mike Lupica writes that Madison Bumgarner has added to his own legend.
• Chris Cwik has some stats about Bumgarner’s remarkable postseason dominance.
• Steven Goldman looks at the “magic” of the Giants in even years. He’d call it “coincidence” and “good fortune” more than magic.
• Will Leitch, on the other hand, thinks the Cubs should beware of the Giants postseason magic. He does credit a lot more than numerology, however.
• Craig Calcaterra tells the NY media to stop looking for a scapegoat because sometimes teams just lose and no one is to blame. Good luck with convincing them of that.
• Mike Axisa asks “Quo Vadis, Mets?” (Not exactly in those words.)
• Noah Syndergaard had one of the best lines ever to sum up the end of the season:

That’s going to go down with some of the greatest baseball quotes ever.

• The Blue Jays want to slug their way to the World Series and Ben Lindbergh thinks they can do it.
• To the disappointment of those who love them, Jose Bautista has not been bat-flipping this postseason.
• Rangers fans still want to see Bautista punched, however.
• Michael Klopman argues that Trea Turner is the Nationals’ secret weapon. Thanks, AJ Preller! (By the way, did you hear what the Indians radio team said about Preller? That was the one inning I was listening to the Indians radio broadcast.)
• Grant Brisbee ranks the playoff teams by the severity of their injuries. The Cubs rank surprisingly high.
• Jose de Jesus Ortiz compares the Cardinals to the Cubs. The Cards don’t come out well.
• Benjamin Hochman says an upgrade at center field is the top priority of the Cardinals offseason.
• Commissioner Rob Manfred doesn’t think that last week’s Reds/Cardinals game means that the instant replay rule needs to be changed.
• Here’s one of the stranger stories of the week. Broadcaster Joe Buck reveals that he was addicted to getting hair plugs and that it almost ended his career.
• You may know Mike Schur as the creator of Parks and Recreation and The Good Place. Or you may know him as one of the creators of the late baseball blog Fire Joe Morgan. Anyway, Schur wants to know why the greatest baseball player in 50 years, Mike Trout, isn’t more famous? He blames the city of Anaheim and the Weather Channel.
• We got more background on the Marlins firing of hitting coach Barry Bonds. Apparently manager Don Mattingly told management that either Bonds went or he went.
• Bonds did write a nice note to the Marlins on his departure.
• The Marlins exercised their 2017 option on Ichiro Suzuki. So we get at least one more season of “The Hit King.”
• The Reds claimed Arismendy Alcantara off of waivers.
• Eddie Robinson is the last living member of the World Series Champion 1948 Cleveland Indians and he remembers the Tribe’s last title like it was yesterday.
• Drake LaRoche will throw out the first pitch at the Nationals/Dodgers game tomorrow. Which means Drake LaRoche will throw one more pitch in the postseason than Zach Britton. (I stole that joke from @joe_sheehan)
• Here’s an interesting story. Phil Braun tells about the year he covered the Braves for a newspaper that he had made up.
• Emma Baccellieri breaks down that play last week in which Anthony Rizzo had to play second base. She points out that the rules are clear that only a first baseman can wear a first baseman’s glove. The rules are unclear about who’s on first.
• Emma Span has one of those “Who should I root for in the playoffs?” flowcharts.
• Since Cub Tracks doesn’t publish until Sunday, I’ve got some Cubs news before the news of the next two games overtakes it. Bob Costas thinks the Cubs should be anxious.
• Ed Sherman talks with Paul Sullivan about what it’s like to cover the Cubs for decades and asks what covering a World Series might be like.
• Finally, HBO’s Bill Simmons offers some advice for Cubs fans, from a fan of a team that went a long time before winning the World Series.

And tomorrow will be a better day than today, Buster. Just 11 wins to go.