The Miami Marlins are the big surprise

Don Mattingly Manager of the Year in Major League Baseball?

If the season wasn’t a restarted short one with only 60 games, it’s assumed his Miami Marlins would have been picked to finish last in the National League East. It was a young team that traded away its top players, its remaining players, were the first team to test positive for in the coronavirus pandemic, had its first week postponed after opening in Philadelphia, and had a number of make-up games that turned into seven inning doubleheaders.

No matter, for despite this the former New York Yankee first baseman has the Mattingly Marlins in the post-season playoffs. Not only that, they opened Wednesday in the best-of-three wild card series by turning back the Chicago Cubs, 5-1, at Wrigley Field in the Windy City. What this franchise, which has won a pair of World Series as a wild card, is one resilient bunch of fish.

Corey Dickerson had the big blow with a 3-run home run off of fading starter Kyle Hendricks in the seventh inning. Jesus Aguillar also homered and Sandy Alcantara pitched 3-hit ball into the seventh as Miami conjured up memories of past playoff magic in the franchise’s first postseason game since it won the World Series in 2003. The Marlins, who rallied past the Cubs in a memorable National League Championship Series that year, have never lost a playoff game.

Back then, Mattingly was starring with the Yankees. Now he is pushing the bottom for a club that wasn’t expected to get this far, but has. Adversity, the COVIP-19 outbreak, but here are the Marlins right the unexpected hunt. At this stage, anything they do is a plus.

In Atlanta, it was Most Valuable Player candidate Freddie Freeman sending a base hit up the middle to bring his Braves a 1-0 win over the Cincinnati Reds in the bottom of the seventh inning. Freeman had battled the coronavirus before recovering and making it to the season opener with his booming bat and skills at first base. It was the East Champion Braves winning a postseason opener for the first time since game one of the 2001 National League Division Series. They will try to wrap up the Wild Card series today.

Elsewhere, in the American League the Houston Astros swept the Minnesota Twins with Wednesday’s 3-1 win, the Twins’ 18th straight defeat in playoff games. Houston now lines up against the Oakland Athletics-Chicago White Series in a best-of-five series that starts Monday at Dodger Stadium. The A’s and White Sox are deadlocked at a game apiece and seek to settle that today.

Wednesday night, the New York Yankees came from behind to break a 9-9 tie with a run in the top of the ninth inning in Cleveland and sweeping the Indians. The Yanks will now go at the division rival Tampa Bay Rays after the first place Rays ousted the Toronto Blue Jays with the 8-2 clincher in St.Petersburg. In Los Angeles, the National League leading Dodgers defeated the Milwaukee Brewers, 4-2, in game one, and in San Diego the St. Louis Cardinals flew past the Padres, 8-4.