by Jules Gonsoulin
sports editor
October is known for cool weather, football, and Halloween, but to die hard baseball fans, it means one thing: playoffs. The Major League Baseball playoffs have just kicked off, with the playing of the two wild card match ups and the start of the National League and American League first-round series. The first week of the postseason was exciting, to say the least. Multiple games went into extra innings, and the Cinderella story that is the Kansas City Royals is still going strong.
The Royals kicked things off in the postseason with the wild card game against the Oakland Athletics. Generally known as a team that has been fundamentally bad for the past few years, the Royals came into the postseason with a chip on their shoulders and a winning attitude. They bested the A’s in extra innings and moved on to play the no. 1-seed Los Angeles Angels. The Royals have found success in extra innings throughout their postseason campaign so far. They went on to defeat the Angels in two consecutive extra-inning games. These Royals are difficult to deal with, and they are on the cusp of defeating the powerful Angels and making the American League Championship Series.
The story was different for the Pittsburgh Pirates, another team that has been historically bad but managed to make the postseason this year. In the National League Wild Card game, the San Francisco Giants blew out the Pirates. The Giants typically play very well in the postseason, and they have given the overall favorites, the Washington Nationals, trouble so far in the NL Divisional Series. On Saturday night, the two played a grueling 18-inning affair, which was tied at one run apiece for the majority of the game. Sketchy calls and players being thrown out dominated that matchup.
Overall, the postseason has been filled with intense, long games and huge performances from star players such as Eric Hosmer, Jordan Zimmerman, Clayton Kershaw and Buster Posey. In such a tightly contested offseason, it is incredibly difficult to predict who will come out on top. My prediction at this point in the playoffs is the Kansas City Royals defeating the San Francisco Giants in the World Series.