‘This is why you play’: How this October delivered the gift of back-to-back Game 7 showdowns
-
Jeff Passan, ESPN
PHILADELPHIA — Every year, October baseball is a treat, a mish-mash of drama, intrigue, strategy, excitement and nerves frayed and fried. Game 7s take each of those elements and supercharge them. Sports exist for series that go the distance. And this October has gifted a pair of them.
Two days. Two Game 7s.
Early Monday evening, the Arizona Diamondbacks handed the Philadelphia Phillies their first home loss of this postseason, booking a Game 7 in the National League Championship Series on Tuesday at Citizens Bank Park. As the Diamondbacks reveled in extending their season with a 5-1 win, the Texas Rangers were in the process of extinguishing the Houston Astros in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series, an 11-4 drubbing that kept alive hopes of the franchise’s first championship in 63 years of existence.
As little theater as the wild card and division series rounds this year provided, the LCS have made up for it. And Tuesday’s affair, featuring the star-laden Phillies aiming to make up for their World Series loss last season against the “scrappy,” “gritty” — their words — Diamondbacks attempting to turn an 84-win season into a championship, presents a tantalizing story, regardless of outcome, playing out in real time.
This is baseball at its best. Sure, games are always binary — win or lose — but Game 7s offer a twist: win or go home. They’re not uncommon, exactly, but they are rare enough that the Phillies, who played their first game in 1883 and have played more than 20,000 games in their history, have never participated in a Game 7 — until now.
The last time both championship series in a full season went to Game 7s was 2004, and both series were all-timers. (It also happened during the COVID-19-shortened 2020 season.) It speaks to how special this postseason has become, a consideration not lost on the Diamondbacks, who already disposed of a pair of division champions (the Milwaukee Brewers and Los Angeles Dodgers) and are aiming to fell a Phillies team that entered the NLCS as distinct favorites.
“It could go well, and we’ll celebrate, and it could go poorly, and it could even be my fault,” Diamondbacks closer Paul Sewald said. “But this is why you play. To play in this month. To play Game 7.”
It’s the biggest stage, and one set for indelible moments, as the Rangers and Astros illustrated Monday night.
It’s where Texas outfielder Adolis Garcia concluded the series of his life with a game that etched him in history books. Three days ago, a 99 mph fastball from Astros reliever Bryan Abreu tagged Garcia in his shoulder two innings after he punctuated a three-run home run with a sloth-caliber trot around the bases. The Rangers slugger’s Game 7 coda included four hits in five-at bats, a pair of home runs and five runs batted in.
It’s where Bruce Bochy has cemented his case for the Hall of Fame. The Rangers’ manager, who came out of retirement to take over a team that lost 94 games last season and 102 the year before, is now 6-0 in winner-take-all games, including three Game 7s. He is the first manager to win an LCS with three different organizations. He was the perfect shepherd for the team that spent $500 million on a middle infield in free agency before the 2022 season and another $250 million on pitching this winter and then got Max Scherzer and Jordan Montgomery, who together covered the first five innings of Game 7, at the trade deadline.
Every team’s path to Game 7 is different. The Rangers relied on their bats; the Astros seemed to survive on pure will. Philadelphia rode its stars, Arizona its moxie, and, perhaps more unexpectedly than on the other side of the bracket, their NLCS clash has also produced captivating baseball.
Game 6 showcased the Diamondbacks at their best: hitting home runs and stealing bases and getting five fantastic innings from starter Merrill Kelly and four more from a once-maligned bullpen that found itself at the most opportune moment. Tonight, the calculus for the Diamondbacks is simple: score early and quiet the raucous crowd at the Bank. In this series, when the Phillies get on the board in the first inning, they are 3-0; when they’re held scoreless, they’re 0-3.
“That’s what we need to do all the time,” Arizona shortstop Geraldo Perdomo said. “The first two games there were so loud, and I think [Monday] we answered early. … In any stadium, when the opposite team scores first, the crowd — it’s not loud how it used to be in the beginning. That’s what we need to do for [Game 7], too.”
Philadelphia won’t make it easy. The same mashers who have pummeled 10 home runs this series — Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, J.T. Realmuto and Nick Castellanos — will look to add to the total. Phillies starter Ranger Suarez went toe-to-toe with D-backs rookie Brandon Pfaadt in the brilliantly pitched Game 3, tossing 5⅓ scoreless innings to Pfaadt’s 5⅔. For whatever gap there might be on paper, the NLCS participants are about as even as it gets on the field.
And now, it comes down to Game 7. When Perdomo thinks of Game 7, he remembers the winter league battles between Aguilas and Licey in his native Dominican Republic, that rivalry the country’s equivalent of Yankees-Red Sox. Pfaadt thinks back to just a year ago, when he started and won Game 7 for the Triple-A Pacific Coast League title.
This, though? This is the big leagues. This is for a shot at the World Series. If stars are made in October, legends are made in Game 7.
No, the seventh game won’t prove anything writ large the first six haven’t already. It will, though, send one team to Arlington, Texas, for Game 1 of the World Series on Friday and the other one home for the winter. The stakes are almost too colossal for one game, and yet those stakes are precisely what make Game 7s so exceptional.
This is why we watch. One Game 7 is in the books, and another is coming at 8 p.m. ET. Nothing churns the stomach and induces nausea and fires up the dopamine quite like it.
Isn’t it great?
-
Ryan S. Clark, NHL reporter
After a week on the bench, Stuart Skinner returned to the net to help the Edmonton Oilers force a Game 7 in their second-round series against the Vancouver Canucks.
Last appearing in Game 3 after struggling to start the series, Skinner made 14 saves in the Oilers’ 5-1 win in Game 6 at Rogers Place in Edmonton, Alberta.
Game 7 will be played Monday at Rogers Arena in Vancouver as the winner will face the Dallas Stars in the Western Conference finals starting Thursday at the American Airlines Center in Dallas.
“I think by doing what we did tonight, I think we just showed a lot of desperation,” Skinner said on the ESPN broadcast. “Guys were blocking shots all over the place. I think both teams played great. You got to give a lot of credit to Vancouver, but you know Vancouver is going to come out really hard especially in their barn. I think we’re going to have to match that and bring some more.”
Averaging 3.80 goals per game during the playoffs while boasting a defensive structure that’s been among the strongest when it comes to limiting shots on goals and scoring chances is the formula the Oilers have used to come within a game of the Western Conference finals.
Figuring out how the Oilers could mesh their defensive structure with the most consistent version of Skinner, however, was one of those challenges they were trying to solve in a series in which the first five games were decided by a goal.
Especially when the Oilers limited the Canucks to 19.3 shots per game in the first three games only to find themselves down in the series with Skinner posting a 4.63 goals-against average and a .790 save percentage through Game 3.
Saturday saw the connection between the Oilers’ defensive structure and Skinner finally click.
The Oilers, who had limited teams to 24.91 scoring chances per 60, limited the Canucks to 18 scoring chances in 5-on-5 play. They also held the Canucks to just seven high-danger scoring chances and didn’t allow any in the second period.
Combining that defensive consistency with Skinner allowing only one goal on 15 shots added to an evening that saw the Oilers burst through for five goals. It was the third time this postseason and the first time in the second round that the Oilers have scored more than five goals.
Oilers captain Connor McDavid, who finished with three points, told the Sportsnet broadcast after the game that although Skinner didn’t face many shots he did “a great job” handling what McDavid considered to be dangerous chances.
“We never had a doubt,” McDavid said. “He’s a battler. He’s always been a battler. Our team always responds and he’s no different. He responded great and gave us a great performance.”
His role in the Oilers’ Game 6 win is the latest development in what has been another mercurial season for the second-year goaltender.
A year ago, Skinner was a rookie who emerged as the No. 1 goaltender for his hometown team. He helped the Oilers reach the second round only for them to be eliminated in six games by the eventual Stanley Cup champion Vegas Golden Knights.
Skinner was pulled over the final three games of the series, which led to an offseason filled with questions. Much like the Oilers themselves, Skinner had a difficult start to the season but found consistency once the club fired coach Jay Woodcroft and hired Kris Knoblauch.
In that time, Skinner solidified his place as the team’s No. 1 goaltender — which is what made his performances through the first three games so jarring. It led to him being pulled to start the third period in the Oilers’ Game 3 loss, with Knoblauch turning to Calvin Pickard in Games 4 and 5.
Pickard stopped 19 shots in the Oilers’ Game 4 victory while allowing three goals on 35 shots in their 3-2 loss in Game 5 to the Canucks.
Knoblauch said after Game 3 that Skinner would return to the lineup at some point, and that point was Saturday.
Now he and the Oilers are just a win away from the conference finals.
“I think obviously, to start off, I think Calvin was amazing when he got put in,” Skinner said. “Definitely got the job done and kept us in it. An unbelievable teammate. For me, I was able to get a little bit of rest and just work on my game and feel good about it again. I was able to come out and do what I had to do.”
-
Sports2 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Environment12 months agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Sports1 month agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports7 months agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports3 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment1 year agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Environment1 year agoTesla advances Powerwall pilot project with German electric company