The final day of the 2018 MLB season took place on Sunday, and…well, 162 games weren’t enough to decide the NL Central and NL West.
On Sunday, the Milwaukee Brewers pounded the Detroit Tigers 11-0, the Chicago Cubs beat the St. Louis Cardinals 10-5, the Los Angeles Dodgers slaughtered the San Francisco Giants 15-0, and the Colorado Rockies topped the Washington Nationals 12-0.
(on an unrelated note, way to compete, Tigers, Cardinals, Giants, and Nationals!)
This set of results means that the Brewers and Cubs are at tied the top of the NL Central with 95-67 records, and the Rockies and Dodgers are all knotted up at the top of the NL West with records of 91-71. And that means that we’re getting not one, but *two* tiebreaker games on Monday in advance of the NL Wild Card game on Tuesday and the AL Wild Card game on Wednesday.
Each of Monday’s tiebreaker games will air on ESPN, with the NL Central game airing at 1 PM ET and the NL West game airing at 4 PM ET. The Brewers have not announced a starter for their game with the Cubs, which will be held at Wrigley Field, while the Cubs will send Jose Quintana to the hill. In the West, German Marquez will start for the Rockies at Dodger Stadium, while Los Angeles counters with Walker Buehler.
One game to rule the Central. pic.twitter.com/BGJumaaC2c
— MLB (@MLB) September 30, 2018
There are no ties in baseball. pic.twitter.com/ICxFOBMcCU
— MLB (@MLB) September 30, 2018
There won’t be any rest for the losers of these two games – they’ll claim the National League’s two Wild Card spots, and will meet on Tuesday in either Milwaukee or Chicago, and that game will also air on ESPN. The winners will head home to the NL Division Series, airing on FS1 and MLB Network (for two games), hosting the Wild Card game winners (NL Central playoff winner) or the Atlanta Braves (NL West playoff winner) on Thursday.
Interestingly enough, ESPN reportedly won’t be using their Sunday Night Baseball crew on either of the Monday tiebreakers (despite both games airing on their network), instead opting for mid-week teams.
ESPN TV tiebreaker announcers:
Brewers-Cubs: Karl Ravech, Eduardo Perez, Tim Kurkjian, Buster Olney
Rockies-Dodgers: Boog Sciambi, David Ross, Rick Sutcliffe
— Eric Stephen (@ericstephen) October 1, 2018
Karl Ravech, Eduardo Perez, Tim Kurkjian, and Buster Olney are lined up to call the early game, the Brewers-Cubs NL Central playoff, and Boog Sciambi, David Ross, and Rick Sutcliffe are reportedly going to be calling the NL West playoff.
This will set up one hell of an interesting day for ESPN, airing a pair of quasi-MLB playoff games before the Monday Night Football matchup between the Chiefs and Broncos. I’m curious as to what would happen if the NL West playoff runs long – would ESPN dare bump an in-progress game to ESPN2 in favor of their premier property, or would they bump the start of Monday Night Football, one of their crown jewels (lower ratings be damned) to ESPN2?
Whatever they decide, one thing is for sure – the Denver market is going to be tuned in to ESPN for a hefty chunk of the Monday afternoon and evening schedule.
For the record, this is the first time we’ve had a Game 163 since 2013 (Rays vs Rangers for the second AL Wild Card), and the first time we’ve had a Game 163 for a division crown since Tigers-Twins in 2009, and…well, this happened.
Godspeed to ESPN’s broadcasting crews.