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<\/p>\nIt began with a Michael Busch leadoff home run floating through the sky in Milwaukee at a little after 2 p.m. Weird and Wild Daylight Time. It ended with a Josh Naylor bouncer down the first-base line nearly 10 hours later, on the other side of midnight where I live.<\/p>\n
So what were you doing while all that baseball was going on? Checking out the fall foliage? Hanging out at a college football game with 105,000 of your closest friends? Picking up that dry cleaning you forgot you dropped off three weeks ago?<\/p>\n
That, from what I hear, is the kind of stuff normal people do on October Saturdays. But it\u2019s not what I did. Of course, it wasn\u2019t. Instead, I was living the dream, watching 1,421 pitches go roaring toward home plate on one of the great baseball days of the year. Not that I was counting, except yes I was.<\/p>\n
It was Day 1 of\u00a0\u00a0the Division Series. And it was something, all right. A guy who hit 55 homers this season got to pitch.\u00a0The Brewers paraded 20 hitters to the plate before the entire Cubs lineup had gotten to bat once.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jays did something they\u2019d barely done since Joe Carter\u2019s home run landed. (That was in 1993, by the way!) And the Tigers flew all the way across the country to fire up 11 innings of Pitching Chaos and ask:\u00a0Collapse? What collapse?<\/p>\n
Yes, I watched every darned minute of all of that while you were busy with your \u201cnormal\u201d October stuff. But if you were curious about what you missed on the baseball fields of North America, you\u2019ve come to the right place \u2014 where a Division Series edition of our October Weird and Wild column is coming right up in 3 \u2026 2 \u2026 1.<\/p>\n
Take this Shoh to the Hill<\/p>\n
\n On Saturday in South Philly, the amazing Ohtani was at it again. (Emilee Chinn \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n
Hey, guess what? The winning pitcher for the Dodgers, in Game 1 of the National League Division Series, was a guy who hit 55 home runs this year.<\/p>\n
So what would you think, huh? Would you have asked:\u00a0Is Babe Ruth still alive?\u00a0Would you have asked:\u00a0Were we mixing up real life with \u201cMLB The Show\u201d? Would you have asked:\u00a0C\u2019mon, who REALLY pitched for the Dodgers in that game?<\/p>\n
You\u2019d be in disbelief, right? So what does it tell us about the amazing Shoh Man that we just take this stuff he does for granted now?<\/p>\n
Every time he takes the field, he\u2019s redefining the boundaries of what is possible. And we\u2019re so used to it, we don\u2019t even think stuff like this is a story at this point.<\/p>\n
But let\u2019s say this again: A man who hit 55 home runs was the winning pitcher in the Dodgers\u2019 5-3 Game 1 win over the Phillies<\/a>. He spun off six typically dazzling innings, striking out nine, inducing 23 swings-and-misses, allowing a whopping three hits \u2014 just one of them to the last 17 hitters he faced.<\/p>\n And he\u2019s a real person, right here on the planet we live on.<\/p>\n Well, maybe that isn\u2019t a major news flash in your household. But it\u2019s a big deal here at Weird and Wild Postseason HQ. So let\u2019s suspend our disbelief and digest all this. What do you say?<\/p>\n 55 home runs and he pitched?\u00a0<\/b>There\u2019s no point in even asking how many other players have ever whomped that many home runs in a season and then started a postseason game on the mound that fall. Only one man has ever done that. And you know exactly who he is.<\/p>\n But here\u2019s a fun fact for you. Ohtani is not the only player in history to hit 55 homers or more\u00a0in his career\u00a0and also start a postseason game as a pitcher. Can you guess both of the other two?<\/p>\n Yeah, of course one of them is that Babe Ruth guy. He started (and won) three postseason games in his day \u2014 one in the 1916 World Series (a 14-inning complete-game win)\u00a0and two in the 1918 World Series. He hadn\u2019t hit 55 career home runs at the time because he was still mostly pitching in those days. But he had\u00a0won a home run title (in 1918).<\/p>\n But who\u2019s the other man to do it? That would be \u2026 (who else?) Rick Ankiel \u2026 who started two games as a pitcher for the Cardinals in the 2000 postseason \u2026 then became a position player and wound up hitting 76 career home runs. If you aren\u2019t stumping all your friends with that one the next time you find yourself sitting on a bar stool, you\u2019re not even trying.<\/p>\n Started a postseason game on the mound\u00a0and\u00a0in the field?\u00a0<\/b>Here\u2019s another cool fun fact. Yes, Ohtani is the only man ever to start a postseason game as a pitcher and as a position player\u00a0in the same year. But \u2026<\/p>\n Once again, he is\u00a0not\u00a0the only player to do that in his career. OK, so the other two to do it are the same two guys who showed up in the last section, but that doesn\u2019t make this any less fun.<\/p>\n Ruth started 36 postseason games as a position player for the Yankees between 1921 and \u201932. And Ankiel started four postseason games in center field for the 2010 Braves. He even hit a game-winning extra-inning home run against the Giants in one of those October classics. Am I allowed to mention that Shohei has never done that (yet)?<\/p>\n He pitched to a guy who hit more home runs than he hit?\u00a0<\/b>Three times in this game Saturday, a dude who hit 55 homers this year (Ohtani) got to pitch against a guy who hit 56 homers (Kyle Schwarber). Is that as mind-blowing to you as it is to me?<\/p>\n You know how many other times in postseason history two men who hit that many home runs have ever faced each other? None, naturally. (Schwarber went 0-for-3 in that duel<\/a>, by the way, and Ohtani punched him out twice.)<\/p>\n The MVP pitched to the MVP runner-up?\u00a0<\/b>All right, we won\u2019t know for sure that it happened until next month. But it seems likely that Ohtani and Schwarber are going to finish 1-2 in the National League MVP voting this season. And if they do, that\u2019s one more thing we witnessed in this game that nobody had seen before.<\/p>\n I checked with my friends from STATS Perform. And even though a bunch of pitchers have won the MVP award, none of them had ever thrown a postseason pitch to the guy who finished second that year. The closest call was postseasons in which the MVP got to pitch to the third-place finisher:<\/p>\n Dennis Eckersley (first) to Joe Carter (third) \u2014 <\/b>Games 3 and 4, 1992 ALCS<\/p>\n Vida Blue (first) to Frank Robinson (third) \u2014 <\/b>Game 1, 1971 ALCS<\/p>\n Incidentally, that will not\u00a0be the last time Joe Carter comes up in this column (spoiler alert)!<\/p>\n The MVP pitched to the batting champ?\u00a0<\/b>Trea Turner led the National League in batting average this year. Let\u2019s assume once again that Ohtani is going to be the NL MVP. So how often has the MVP thrown a postseason pitch to either (or both) of that year\u2019s batting champs? Oh, it\u2019s happened six other times, but it\u2019s an amazing list. Here it comes, courtesy of STATS:<\/p>\n 1984 WS\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Willie Hernandez\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Tony Gwynn<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n 1956 WS<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Don Newcombe<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Mickey Mantle<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n 1945 WS<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Hal Newhouser<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Phil Cavarretta<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n 1943 WS<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Spud Chandler<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Stan Musial<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n 1939 WS<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Bucky Walters\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Joe DiMaggio<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n 1931 WS\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Lefty Grove<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Chick Hafey<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n The MVP started and won a postseason game?\u00a0<\/b>Baseball is such a strange sport. Ohtani never threw a single pitch with the lead in this game. But he still got a win out of it, because he was the pitcher of record when Teoscar Hern\u00e1ndez pounded a lead-flipping three-run homer<\/a> in the top of the seventh.<\/p>\n So he added his name to this high-powered list of MVPs who won at least one postseason game on the mound in the same year they won the award. (This is just from the expansion era: 1961-present.)<\/p>\n 1963\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Sandy Koufax\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n 2<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n 1968\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Bob Gibson<\/p>\n<\/td>\n 2<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n 1968\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Denny McLain\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n 1<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n 1986\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Roger Clemens\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n 1<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n 2011<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Justin Verlander\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/td>\n 2<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n 2025<\/p>\n<\/td>\n Shohei Ohtani<\/p>\n<\/td>\n 1*<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n (*OK, technically, Ohtani hasn\u2019t won that MVP yet. But also, this postseason isn\u2019t over!)<\/p>\n The starting pitcher struck out four times?\u00a0<\/b>Finally, guess what else happened in Ohtani World on Saturday? A whole bunch of whiffing happened. That\u2019s what.<\/p>\n The starting pitcher for the Dodgers\u00a0struck out four times in Game 1. And that\u2019s a sentence I didn\u2019t expect to be typing.<\/p>\n So how long has it been since any team\u2019s starting pitcher piled up four K\u2019s in a postseason game? How \u2019bout more than 40 years. Last to pull off that trick? Jerry Reuss did it twice\u00a0in two starts in the 1981 NLDS. But before that you\u2019d have to go back to 1969, when the Twins\u2019 Dave Boswell K\u2019d four times in Game 2 of the 1969 ALCS.<\/p>\n But the weirdest and wildest thing of all is that Ohtani came to bat in the ninth with a chance to strike out\u00a0five\u00a0times. Instead, he drew a walk against Phillies closer Jhoan Duran. And it\u2019s a good thing. Only one pitcher in history has ever struck out five times in a postseason game: the Yankees\u2019 George Pipgras, in Game 3 of the 1932 World Series.<\/p>\n So that\u2019s one more Weird and Wild thing we can always say now about Ohtani: He was no George Pipgras. But once again, this man had a night so amazing, in every other way, we are not going to let you take it for granted \u2014 no matter how hard you try.<\/p>\n Once in a Brew moon<\/b> \n Christian Yelich and the Brewers wasted no time revving up their offense. (Michael Reaves \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Allow us to sum up the first two innings of the Brewers\u2019 9-3 bombardment of the Cubs<\/a> in this game.<\/p>\n The Brewers:<\/b><\/p>\n \u2022 20 hitters came to bat \u2022 14 of them reached base \u2022 Nine of them scored \u2022 And Jackson Chourio got three hits \u2026 in two innings \u00a0<\/b>The Cubs:<\/b><\/p>\n Hadn\u2019t even gotten all nine hitters in their lineup an at-bat yet!<\/p>\n So it was the most Brewers game ever<\/a>, friends. Here are just a few more examples:<\/p>\n They had a triple-double!\u00a0<\/b>How did the Brewers\u2019 offense start this game? Their first three hitters \u2014 Chourio, Brice Turang and William Contreras \u2014 all doubled, on three pitches in a row. So how Weird (and Wild) was that?<\/p>\n The Brewers have been playing baseball for 56 seasons. Want to guess how many times in all those years their first three hitters have doubled to start any of the 9,000 regular-season games they\u2019ve played? Yep. That would be none. Of course.<\/p>\n Oh, and one more thing: Only one team in MLB (the Rockies, with 18) hit fewer doubles in the first inning than the Brewers hit this year (22). And then they hit three doubles on three pitches before they even made a first-inning out in this postseason. Baseball!<\/p>\n Then they went to a singles bar!\u00a0<\/b>So that\u2019s how the Brewers\u2019 six-run first inning started. Now here\u2019s how their three-run second-inning started: With the first three hitters going single-single-single.<\/p>\n I know that sounds like typical Brewers baseball, but, um, not so fast. I checked with STATS on this. Not to suggest the Brewers had never\u00a0kicked off both the first and second innings of a game with three straight hits (of any kind) \u2014 but the last time they did it was as recently as \u2026 45 years ago, on Oct. 1, 1980!<\/p>\n Action Jackson!\u00a0<\/b>You didn\u2019t need to watch the first two innings to know that their favorite 21-year-old leadoff dynamo, Jackson Chourio, is going to be a star. But it was an excellent reminder.<\/p>\n \u2022 First at-bat: <\/b>doubled to lead off the bottom of the first. \u2022 Second at-bat: <\/b>singled in two runs \u2014 and that first inning hadn\u2019t ended yet. \u2022 Third at-bat: <\/b>singled in another run with an infield hit. So he was 3-for-3 \u2026\u00a0by the end of the second inning.<\/p>\n All of which made Chourio \u2026 the first player ever to get three hits in the first two innings of any postseason game \u2026 the first guy ever to get two hits in the first inning of any postseason series \u2026 and the first Brewer ever to get three hits in the first two innings of any game in franchise history, regular season or postseason.<\/p>\n You know how many players got three hits in the first two innings of any regular-season game this year? As always, zero would be an excellent guess. And then Chourio did it in his team\u2019s\u00a0first\u00a0game of the postseason. Because baseball \u2014 especially Brewers baseball \u2014 never runs out of Weird and Wild plot lines to keep us in business.<\/p>\n The Tigers: Was it all just a dream? \n The 2025 Tigers: What collapse? (Steph Chambers \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n Those pesky history books are always going to tell us that the 2025 Detroit Tigers were the authors of the biggest collapse in baseball history<\/a>. They\u2019re the team that made a 14-game lead disappear. And that\u2019s an inconvenient truth that is never going away. But here\u2019s a question I can\u2019t stop thinking about \u2026<\/p>\n What if they keep winning?<\/p>\n They\u2019ve already sent one first-place team (the Guardians) home this October. Now they\u2019ve officially placed the American League West champs, the Mariners, in the danger zone, with an eight-pitcher, 11-inning, 3-2 win<\/a> in Seattle on Saturday night.<\/p>\n So let\u2019s ask this again: What if the Tigers keep winning? Did that \u201ccollapse\u201d still happen if they do something wild now like, oh,\u00a0win the World Series?<\/p>\n \u201cThings are going our way,\u201d said their hero du jour, Zach McKinstry<\/a>, late Saturday night. \u201cAnd it\u2019s baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n Oh, it\u2019s \u2026 baseball, all right. So since we\u2019ve spent the last few weeks telling you about the ugly history the Tigers were making in September, it\u2019s only fair that we now tell you about the more upbeat history they could be chasing in October.<\/p>\n Only four other teams have ever blown a lead of at least 10 games, failed to win their division but still staggered into the postseason thanks to the invention of wild cards. So how did those other teams fare in October after all that? Here\u2019s a rundown:<\/p>\n NEVER WON A SERIES:<\/b><\/p>\n 2022 Mets (lost 10-game lead) \u2014 <\/b>lost Wild Card Series WON ONE SERIES:<\/b><\/p>\n 2012 Yankees (lost 10-game lead) \u2014 <\/b>won ALDS, lost in ALCS<\/p>\n WON TWO SERIES:<\/b><\/p>\n 2006 Tigers (lost 10-game lead) \u2014 <\/b>won ALDS and ALCS, lost World Series<\/p>\n So that brings us to this Tigers team. No team has ever blown a double-digit lead\u00a0and\u00a0failed to win its division\u00a0and\u00a0then won the World Series. But what if that\u2019s the miracle these Tigers have in store for us over the next few weeks?<\/p>\n Imagine how the historians would explain\u00a0that,\u00a0huh? I can only think of one way. It\u2019s \u2026 baseball!<\/p>\n Finding Carter \n The Blue Jays flexed in Game 1, their first postseason win in nine years. (Vaughn Ridley \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\nSERIES\u00a0\u00a0MVP\u00a0\u00a0BAT CHAMP<\/tr>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n YEAR\u00a0MVP\u00a0WINS<\/tr>\n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n \n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-2239292737-scaled.jpg\")
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2019 Twins (lost 10-game lead) \u2014 <\/b>lost ALDS<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/GettyImages-2239259958-scaled.jpg\")
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