“Electrifying!” – Yankees Fan Rich Breaks Down Day 1 of the MLB Wild Card Playoffs

The MLB postseason opened with a quadruple header, and Rich had one word for the best of the bunch: electrifying.

That was Phillies and Braves, the game that started it all. Philadelphia, with Don Mattingly as interim manager, trailed 2-1 until J.T. Realmuto lined a two-run triple in the seventh. That is when Mattingly turned to his All-Star closer in the seventh inning. "And Duran Duran got out there," Rich said, which drew the obvious "This is planet Earth" from the crew.

Rich understood the logic. "When you bring your closer in early, it's because you identify a certain part of the lineup that needs closer attention," he said. The problem, he pointed out, was that Duran never had a two-inning save situation all year. "You're asking your closer to do something in the playoffs he has not done. You look at his game log, it's all one inning of work."

The second inning unraveled fast. A base hit from Michael Harris. Ozzie Albies hit by a pitch. Austin Riley was having a disastrous season by his standards, with only 19 home runs, and Duran had given up only two homers in 61 innings all year. Phillies fans knew anyway. "It's like literally the horror movie, the calls are coming from within the house," Rich said. "Three-run jack. Game one goes to Atlanta." To Rich, the seventh and eighth innings were "the crucible": a catcher's go-ahead triple, then a three-run shot to end it.

Out in San Diego, the Padres made short work of a Cubs offense Rich called one of the best in baseball. Michael King struck out Pete Crow-Armstrong on three pitches to start the game, then Fernando Tatis, who Rich noted the crew had been waiting half a season to see homer, led off with one. "Go figure baseball, man," Rich said. The home run Tatis was most associated with all season, Rich joked, was the one he stole from the Mets.

That was all King needed. He took a no-hitter into the seventh until Nico Hoerner hit one down the third base line that Manny Machado, who also homered in the first, could not handle. King went six and a third. Then Joe Musgrove, who had not pitched in two years, finished off an 8-0 Padres win. "Can't make that up, either," Rich said.

Then there was Chicago's other team, which entered the playoffs with momentum from an unexpected place. "I don't know how many people had on their bingo cards at any point in their lives that a team would make the playoffs and go in with some momentum from Vatican City," Rich said. Pope Leo XIV, a Chicagoan who used to go to White Sox games, sent a letter of support with the papal seal. "This is official official," Rich said, admitting that as a Yankees fan, he kind of wished a Pope had been on his side for past playoff trips to Houston.

It worked. Colson Montgomery, who had a record number of strikeouts all season, made contact and homered. Sam Antonacci drove in two. The White Sox, who had not made the postseason since 2021, held on after the Astros brought the tying run to the plate in the eighth. Manager Will Venable admitted after the game he had not even seen the papal letter. "The Pope having our back and supporting us means a lot," he said. Rich's reaction: "The Pope has our back, says a manager in sports. Love it."

Then came the game Rich had been waiting for. Yankees and Red Sox, a "blood sport," at Yankee Stadium in the wild card round for the second straight year. Rich noted the Yankees are the only team in this format's history to lose game one and still win the series, which they did against Boston last year.

This time they took care of game one behind Cam Schlittler, the Walpole, Massachusetts native who shut down the Red Sox in game three last year. Coming off what Rich called "a sure fire Cy Young season," Schlittler went six and a third innings with 10 strikeouts, no runs, two hits and one walk. "That's what a Cy Young does," Rich said. He also had a stat ready: only two pitchers in MLB history have multiple postseason starts against the Red Sox with 10 or more strikeouts. Schlittler is one. "The other is Bob Gibson."

What thrilled Rich most was where Schlittler came from. "Normally, Yankees have to spend $350 million on somebody else to come to their team to do this sort of work," he said, recalling homegrown stars like Andy Pettitte and Mariano Rivera from the Joe Torre years.

Backing the kid from Walpole was a kid from Cohasset. Ben Rice homered after Red Sox manager Chad Tracy pulled his starter for a lefty reliever, Miller, who then failed to throw his sinker. "You throw a high fastball, hit on run, game over," one member of the crew said. Rice's homer triggered an all caps, expletive-laden text from Chris on the group chain. Rich added that Alex Cora "would have the Yankees in a blender. Instead, the Yankees had Tracy in a blender last night."

That is why Rich could not hide his excitement. George Lombard Jr. went three for four with two runs scored in his first career playoff game. Spencer Jones got a hit. Austin Wells, "a two-hit maven all September long," came up with a big hit to start the scoring. Then came a grand slam to put it away. "All of them are homegrown," Rich said. "So maybe the green shoots are showing."

Rice did what fans had been hoping Aaron Judge would do in the playoffs, and his six RBIs tied a Yankees postseason record for a single game. Afterward, Rice kept it simple. "You can find success by just being consistent every day," he said. "Approach it like any other game and do the things that helped you over 162."

As Rich put it: "And they did it without the Pope."