Nine Innings Of Life-Changing Drama
The Lead
Audible
3.7 • 2.1K Ratings
🗓️ 30 September 2019
⏱️ 18 minutes
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Summary
The MLB Wild Card games are set. After a 162-game season, four teams will meet this week in do-or-die matchups to determine who will advance and who will go home. This year's Wild Card games feature two teams that have made the playoffs despite having some of the lowest payrolls in baseball (the A's and Rays), and two teams with remarkable comeback stories (the Brewers and Nationals). We speak with The Athletic's Jayson Stark about these matchups and about how this bizarre one-game system came to be.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So the MLBC season is over, Kvita. |
| 0:09.2 | And the playoff matchups are set, or at least the wildcard matchups are set. |
| 0:12.8 | Yeah, in the National League Wildcard, we have the Nationals facing the Brewers, and in |
| 0:17.4 | the American League, we have the A's and the Rays. |
| 0:19.8 | And these are really interesting matchups because on the one hand, you have two teams that |
| 0:23.6 | have made these incredible comebacks, the Nationals and the Brewers. |
| 0:27.6 | And in the other game, you have two teams that have two of the lowest payrolls in all |
| 0:32.5 | of baseball, but have both managed to make the postseason. |
| 0:35.6 | Right. |
| 0:36.6 | And not only have some of these teams made incredible comebacks to the end of the regular season |
| 0:41.4 | to even make it to this point, but this is a really part in the phrase wild part of |
| 0:47.0 | the postseason because for these wildcard teams, I know it's terrible, but these wildcard |
| 0:51.5 | teams, these are teams that have fought so hard through 162 games in the season. |
| 0:56.6 | And now it just comes down to one game. |
| 0:59.3 | And it's very polarizing. |
| 1:00.3 | Some people love the drama, and some people absolutely hate it. |
| 1:03.3 | I love the drama. |
| 1:04.3 | Give me all the chaos. |
| 1:05.8 | And so you spoke with the Athletics Jason Stark about these matchups, and about the incredible |
| 1:10.5 | drama of the wildcard games. |
| 1:13.2 | That's right. |
| 1:14.2 | From Wondering on the Athletic, I'm Kavita Davidson. |
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