Oct. 5, 2019: MLB Daily Postseason Primer

It turned out to be not a very suspenseful day of baseball as the first three games were won somewhat handily though the Cardinals got the tying run up in the ninth inning.

So both the Braves and the Nationals won guaranteeing four Divisional Series games on Monday.

You can read about the Nationals win here in the TBLA recap.

Let’s quickly sum up the other three Divisional Series games below.

Rays at Astros - Game 1 (Astros lead 1-0)

It was probably a matter of time before the Astros scored but it took until the fifth inning when José Altuve hit a two-run homer off Tyler Glasnow to end the scoreless tie.

The Astros would score two more runs off a poorly played flyball to right. And even though the Rays would score two late runs, none of that mattered because of the performance from Justin Verlander.

Verlander dominated the Rays giving up just one hit while striking out eight. The Rays will try to even their series against Gerrit Cole.

Cardinals at Braves - Game 2 (Series tied 1-1)

The Cardinals had to feel pretty good going into Friday’s game, they had their best pitcher on the mound trying to get them home with 2-0 lead in the series. And Joe Flaherty pitched fine for six innings, giving up just a run. But then the Braves hit for Michael Foltynewicz and Adam Duvall made it count with a two-run pinch hit homer.

As for Foltynewicz, he had a brilliant seven-inning pitching performance giving up just three hits while striking out seven.

Adam Wainwright will start in front of his home crowd on Sunday going against the Braves outstanding rookie right-hander Mike Soroka.

Twins at Yankees - Game 1 (Yankees lead 1-0)

Well there were five home runs hit in this game which is about what you would expect. Neither starting pitcher completed five innings. The pitcher who got credited with the win for the Yankees, Tommy Kahnle, got two outs and gave up a run.

But the Yankees had four innings where they scored two or more runs and despite being out-homered by the Twins, they still managed to score ten runs.

Randy Dobnak, who made five starts and did not pitch more than 30 innings for the Twins this season will start Game 2 against Masahiro Tanaka.

Friday’s scoreboard

Astros 6, Rays 2

Braves 3, Cardinals 0

Yankees 10, Twins 4

Nationals 4, Dodgers 2

Saturday’s schedule - Divisional Series

2:07 p.m. PT: Twins (Randy Dobnak) @ Yankees (Masahiro Tanaka) - Game 2 (FS1)

6:07 p.m.: Rays (Blake Snell) @ Astros (Gerrit Cole) - Game 2 (FS1)