Playoff baseball game thread

October bail starts today

Good morning A’s fans! No playoffs for our Green & Gold this year but that doesn’t mean the rest of the baseball world stops turning. We got a full slate of playoff baseball today as the postseason officially kicks off with the Wild Card round and four games today. Remember, it’s a best-of-three series so every win and loss is absolutely critical.

Things start with the Detroit Tigers versus the Houston Astros. Having won the AL West the Astros get to host but they’ll be without future Hall-of-Famer Justin Verlander, who was left off the roster released this morning. The first matchup will be Detroit ace and likely Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal taking on Framber Valdez.

Next up: the Kansas City Royals versus the Baltimore Orioles. Both young and upstart teams with seemingly bright futures, this matchup will feature Royals lefty Cole Ragans taking on O’s ace Corbin Burnes. That’ll be the second game today, starting just after 1 P.M.

With the AL contests over it’s time for National League playoff baseball. The New York Mets travel to Milwaukee to take on the Brewers in what could be the closest series of the first round. New York surged late into the playoffs by punching their ticket on the last day of the regular season. The Brewers meanwhile have known for a while they’d be playing Fall baseball and planned accordingly. While Milwaukee will get to start ace Freddy Peralta for the first game the Mets will instead turn to Pedro Severino to start this series.

And finally, to wrap up the first day it’ll be the Atlanta Braves taking on the San Diego Padres. Like the Astros the Braves go into the playoffs without their ace in Chris Sale, who was also left off the roster after dealing with back spasms. Instead the Braves will turn to rookie Spencer Schwellenbach in game one while the Padres will go with right-hander Michael King.

For those who don’t have work or school and can just watch baseball all day: lucky! For the rest of us, we’ll be trying to sneak in a peak whenever and wherever we can. Join in on the discussion below to talk playoff ball!