Yankees to face Guardians and Astros will take on Mariners in the American League Division Series
The American League Wild Card race came down to two surprise teams who will now move on to face two giants of the game
The ALDS boils down to two David-vs-Goliath stories as the Cleveland Guardians will travel to New York to face the Yankees and the Seattle Mariners will head down to Houston to take on the Astros.
To describe the AL Wild Card series as surprising does not hint at the level of shock to find these two teams making their way through. This is not meant to be a dig at either Cleveland or Seattle, two clubs who have had solid seasons capped by a good run through September. But the simple fact is that nobody in baseball would have picked them getting through just six weeks ago. Perhaps a betting man might feel confident in going out on a limb to pick one, but not both.
The Yankees spend the most money in baseball, and have done so for all of living memory. Their roster for 2022 set them back $249 million. Cleveland, in this pond full of sharks, is a minnow. Perhaps even bait. They spent just over $69 million for their roster. Occupying that vast gulf between the two are every other team in baseball, and yet, here we are. David will square off against Goliath.
It is not simply a question of size, but one of style that will define the ALDS series between these two teams. The Yankees have gone all in on the long ball, betting the house on big hitters and riding the wave of an Aaron Judge record-setting season to earn their spot here. Cleveland, by contrast, has leant heavily on small-ball, playing low-scoring games that rely heavily on their defense, with a young roster who are less susceptible to autumnal injury than their opponents.
In the other ALDS game, the Seattle Mariners were not picked by many to sweep the Blue Jays. While they have had a solid back end of the season, the conventional wisdom was that Toronto simply had too many tools to stay down for long. And when the Jays went up 8-1, it looked as if conventional wisdom was correct. But then Seattle erased the deficit in a spectacular turnaround, helped along by a mind-boggling display of self-immolation on Toronto’s part.
Now the Mariners will face a familiar divisional foe in Houston. The Astros are the strongest team in baseball, no matter what the Dodgers have to say about that, and they will be a hard nut for the Mariners to crack. But these two teams have faced each other 19 times in the regular season, with Houston winning 12 of these meetings. But this is the playoffs and Seattle only needs to find three.
They have the kind of lineup that can do it, with a strong lineup featuring Julio Rodriguez and Ty France and a rotation that includes Luis Castillo. Sure, the odds are in Houston’s favor, how could they not be? The Astros are in their sixth straight ALCS while the Mariners haven’t been to the playoffs since 2001. But when you play baseball in October, every day is a Mickey Mouse Club Wednesday, Anything Can Happen Day.
Houston will bring all of their big guns to bear on the Mariners, with Justin Verlander tipped to start Game 1 and there will be Framber Valdez and Lance McCullers Jr starting the next two games, with Jose Urquidy the likely Game 4 starter, should it go that far.
There is very little love lost between these two teams and with Houston playing in three of the last four World Series, they are the battle hardened favorites.