With the marathon regular season freshly concluded and all 12 playoff berths handed out, it's time for October intrigue (even if, at this writing, it's not quite October yet). While four teams -- the Rays and Guardians on the American League side and the Brewers and Dodgers in the National League -- will enjoy byes straight to the Division Series round, the remaining eight teams will begin their respective Wild Card Series on Tuesday. By way of reminder, the wild card round is best-of-three with the higher seed hosting every game.
With those essentials laid out, let's have a bit of a closer look at the four Wild Card Series that get underway on Tuesday. Specifically, we'll assign one question to each series that will go a long way toward determining which team prevails. Baseball is structurally dependent upon randomness to a degree foreign to other major sports, which means expectations are defied with regularity.
That said, the questions to come represent a best guess at how each series will be decided. The Phillies took the meandering and highly perilous route to clinching the third and final wild-card spot in the NL. They were on the cusp of securing a playoff berth for several days, but an ill-timed losing streak in tandem with a surge by the Diamondbacks made for a dramatic Game 162.
Since the D-backs held the tiebreaker over the Phillies, nothing was to be assumed. In the end, the Phillies of course secured their spot with a win over the Rays, but they had to start co-ace Zack Wheeler to get there. Ideally, they would've clinched well before the last day of the regular season and thus been able to line up their rotation optimally.
As for specifics, Cristopher Sánchez should be lined up to go in Game 2 on full rest, but Games 1 and 3 are question marks. In the opener opposite Braves ace Chris Sale, manager Don Mattingly will presumably go with Jesús Luzardo, who was recently activated from the injured list and who worked one inning of relief on four pitches on Sunday. Luzardo, who had been sidelined with shoulder inflammation, hasn't made a start since Sept. 7, so he's not entirely a known quantity going into this series.
If there's a Game 3, does Mattingly summon Wheeler on short rest? Or does he tab Aaron Nola, who's been better down the stretch but still well shy of what the Phillies' front three have provided? If the Phillies hadn't forced themselves into playing a high-stakes Game 162, then all of this would be much clearer.
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