It s possible that baseball has never had a better single day than the 12 hours from 1 p.m. Monday afternoon until after 1 a.m. Tuesday morning. Almost everything good about the game especially its warped but wonderful postseason was on display.
The best and worst aspect of October baseball is that you have no idea who will win or why or which heroes will emerge. The better team usually wins but not often enough to claim that baseball s format is any model of fairness. Instead it s the epitome of entertainment but one that is so spread out that it demands hours of attention or good luck to see the best of it.
In each playoff team s town every moment is tasted hair is yanked by its roots and throats are raw from screaming just as Washington got to agonize through five division series games last year and probably will return to this insane stage again fairly soon. But few except those whose job is to follow baseball or who ve had the misfortune to be furloughed by fanatics get a sense of the whole sweep of the nutty thing.
In just one day we saw several of the most powerful forces that magnetize us to baseball. One is the constant psychological game within the game between pitchers and hitters or between entire teams and pitchers they want to unhinge. In the ninth inning in Game 3 in Detroit A s closer Grant Balfour who amps himself til his eyes bug out because his stuff isn t quite top drawer flipped out when Victor Martinez of the Tigers stared him down after a foul ball.
Did Martinez provoke Balfour knowing he s on a precarious emotional tightrope every time he pitches Balfour screamed an obscenity. Martinez screamed back and everyone danced at home plate. But Balfour lost some command and might have melted down if he hadn t had a three run cushion. If he has another save chance which Bengal will push his buttons now that he s shown that you can wind him up until it hurts his pitching
There s just such a book on many a pitcher. Does he hate to field bunts hold runners (Stephen Strasburg) watch hitters step out of the box (Jordan Zimmermann) or simply get nervous under playoff pressure (Gio Gonzalez). Championship teams have to iron out almost all such damaging quirks.
A pure October moment crystallizing everything we love and hate about this freakish month was captured by the monstrous walk off homer by a .228 career hitter Jose Lobaton off Koji Uehara who was the hardest pitcher to hit this year (.130) far ahead of runner up Tyler Clippard (.152).
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