The Baltimore Orioles won an AL-leading 101 games during the regular season. The Los Angeles Dodgers also reached triple digits in victories. Those impressive accomplishments earned both teams a bye in the opening round of the playoffs.
The Baltimore Orioles won an AL-leading 101 games during the regular season. The Los Angeles Dodgers also reached triple digits in victories.Clearly, the time off did them no good.
“We came out slow. We had a good amount of off days,” Braves center fielder Michael Harris II said. “I guess it took some time to get the rust off.”MLB's relatively new playoff format — comprised of six division winners and six wild-card teams, with the top two teams in each league advancing straight to the second round while the others play best-of-three series — actually seems to penalize the best clubs by giving them five days off.
“The format is a unusual where you win a division and have this much time off,” Orioles manager Brandon Hyde said. “I don’t know if it’s a disadvantage, but it puts you in a different routine than you are during regular season and what you’re used to." But this is the least attractive option, because it would dilute the playoffs even further by sending more than half of MLB's teams — 16 of 30 — to the postseason.
Also, a 16-team format opens the door for a team with a losing record to qualify for the playoffs. It wouldn't have happened this year. But if such a system had been in place two years ago, the 79-83 Padres would have earned a wild card.The off days that are built into the schedule before and after the best-of-three wild-card series could be eliminated.
That certainly reduced the down time for the three division winners and produced plenty of drama. But one game to determine who advances and who goes home always seemed totally at odds with a sport that plays 162 games during the regular season.
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