2022 MLB Wild Card schedule

(dcJohn/Flickr/Wikimedia Commons)

The 2022 MLB regular season has come to an end, and with some recent major changes within the Royals organization, including the firing of Mike Matheny, there is finally a glimmer of hope visible for Kansas City fans. But for now, the Royals’ season is done for the year, and the world of Major League Baseball turns its attention to the playoffs. The Wild Card Series begins today, and MLB has released the schedule for the series taking place throughout the weekend. All times Eastern.

Friday, October 7th
Rays @ Guardians, Game 1, 12:07 p.m., ESPN
Phillies @ Cardinals, Game 1, 2:07 p.m., ABC
Mariners @ Blue Jays, Game 1, 4:07 p.m., ESPN
Padres @ Mets, Game 1, 8:07 p.m., ESPN

Saturday, October 8th
Rays @ Guardians, Game 2, 12:07 p.m., ESPN2
Mariners @ Blue Jays, Game 2, 4:07 p.m., ESPN
Padres @ Mets, Game 2, 7:37 p.m., ESPN
Phillies @ Cardinals, Game 2, 8:37 p.m., ESPN2

Sunday, October 9th
Mariners @ Blue Jays, Game 3, 2:07 p.m., ABC (if necessary)
Rays @ Guardians, Game 3, 4:07 p.m., ESPN (if necessary)
Padres @ Mets, Game 3, 7:37 p.m., ESPN (if necessary)
Phillies @ Cardinals, Game 3, 8:37 p.m., ESPN2 (if necessary)

Times for Game 3 on Sunday are subject to change, depending on whether all games are needed, and if not, which ones are left.

The openers of all four AL and NL Division Series are scheduled for Tuesday, October 11th. The NLCS will then begin on Tuesday, October 18th, and the ALCS is set to begin on Wednesday, October 19th. Game One of the World Series will take place on Friday, October 28th.

Edwin Jackson

Edwin Jackson, April 2010 (Steven Groves / Wikimedia Commons)

Pitcher Edwin Jackson was born on September 9, 1983 in Neu Ulm, Germany while his father, Edwin Jackson Sr., was serving in the United States Army there. He has the distinction of having played for more major league teams than any other player in Major League Baseball history. Over the course of a career that spanned sixteen years, Jackson played for fourteen MLB teams:

  • Los Angeles Dodgers (2003–2005)
  • Tampa Bay Devil Rays / Rays (2006–2008)
  • Detroit Tigers (2009, 2019)
  • Arizona Diamondbacks (2010)
  • Chicago White Sox (2010–2011)
  • St. Louis Cardinals (2011)
  • Washington Nationals (2012, 2017)
  • Chicago Cubs (2013–2015)
  • Atlanta Braves (2015)
  • Miami Marlins (2016)
  • San Diego Padres (2016)
  • Baltimore Orioles (2017)
  • Oakland Athletics (2018)
  • Toronto Blue Jays (2019)

Jackson was named to the American League All-Star team in 2009. On June 25, 2010, as a Diamondback, he threw a no-hitter against the Tampa Bay Rays. Jackson was also a member of the 2011 World Series champion Cardinals, though he lost the only game he appeared in. Jackson’s last MLB appearance took place on September 28, 2019 with the Detroit Tigers.

In 2021, Jackson was named to the roster of the United States national baseball team, which qualified for the 2020 Summer Olympics. The team went on to win silver, falling to Japan in the gold-medal game.

On September 10, 2022, Edwin Jackson announced his retirement from baseball.

Edwin Jackson, 2021 (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Robert Jordan/Released)

Dodgers win the Series

Congratulations to the Los Angeles Dodgers on their World Series victory! It is a very well deserved championship, to say the least. It’s a been a strange season, and I’m genuinely impressed it made it all the way to the end.

Dodgers 2020 World Series - Business World
BusinessWorld

World Series 2020 schedule

Welp, the 2020 World Series matchup is set: Los Angeles Dodgers vs. Tampa Bay Rays. I honestly don’t have a dog in this fight, but the way the ALCS and the NLCS both played out, this should be a very entertaining World Series. Here is the tentative schedule for this year’s matchup:

Tuesday, Oct. 20
• World Series Game 1, TB vs. LAD, 8 p.m., FOX

Wednesday, Oct. 21
• World Series Game 2, TB vs. LAD, 8 p.m., FOX

Thursday, Oct. 22
OFF-DAY

Friday, Oct. 23
• World Series Game 3, LAD vs. TB, 8 p.m., FOX

Saturday, Oct. 24
• World Series Game 4, LAD vs. TB, 8 p.m., FOX

Sunday, Oct. 25
• World Series Game 5, LAD vs. TB, 8 p.m., FOX

Monday, Oct. 26
OFF-DAY

Tuesday, Oct. 27
• World Series Game 6, TB vs. LAD, 8 p.m., FOX

Wednesday, Oct. 28
• World Series, Game 7, TB vs. LAD, 8 p.m., FOX

See the source image

Quote of the day

Baseball really is a glorified game of throw and catch. And if you don’t have guys who throw it really well, you can’t compete for long.

~Tucker Elliot, Tampa Bay Rays IQ: The Ultimate Test of True Fandom

Get it at Amazon  

Royals vs. Rays 08.30.2017

Though it took me until late-August to finally make it to a game, I suddenly seem to have made quite a shift in my luck, as the other night I made it to my second game in two weeks.  This past Wednesday night was Bark at the Park night at Kauffman Stadium, and the ballpark was full of our furry friends.

RoyalsRays1

We arrived early enough to take a detour through the Royals Hall of Fame.  We’ve seen much of it all before, so we didn’t linger too much, though I had yet to see the short film the Royals had created chronicling their journey to the 2015 World Series championship.  Watching it turned out to be a moving experience, almost like reliving the whole trip in a Reader’s Digest format.  It was enough to make me wish the Royals would hurry up and have a repeat season.

2015 World Champs

The gal who invited me to come along to the game with her had some impressive seats, so I was able to enjoy being in closer proximity to the field than I was last week.

RoyalsRays2

Unfortunately, the Royals were unable to pull off another win with my presence.  I suppose I can’t be lucky all the time, eh?  Jason Vargas gave up three home runs, and even Whit Merrifield’s 3-run homer in the bottom of the third wasn’t enough of a spark to keep the Royals in it.  The Royals are now 11 games out of first in the AL Central, and our chances at a Wild Card slot are starting to look a bit slim. Then again, these are the Kansas City Royals, and as we all know, you can’t count them out even in the bleakest of circumstances.

RoyalsRays3

Infographic: AL East logo history

I stumbled across this graphic in my random internet wanderings depicting a history of the logos and uniforms for the teams in the American League East.  I love how this graphic also gives an idea of just how long these teams have been around, relative to one another.

It looks tiny here, but click on the image to get to a larger version.

mlb_al_east_auxillary_h

Virtual reality batting practice

This story came out a couple days ago, describing the use of virtual reality for batting practice by the Tampa Bay Rays.  The team is using a simulator called the iCube through which players can take swings against a virtual pitcher that mimics a variety of human MLB pitchers.

I would love to see the perspective that the batter himself has in using the system.  Without a doubt, the experience would be far more realistic than the one I have taking batting practice against my Wii (and certainly much more difficult).  It’ll be fascinating to see how technology like this will ultimately impact training and the game itself.

You can read the story here.

Injuries and inside-the-parkers

It’s not every day that we see an inside-the-park home run, but Jarrod Dyson managed to pull one off a couple nights ago against the Tampa Bay Rays.  In some ways, it was kind of a bittersweet moment, because the reason Dyson entered the game in the first place was due to an injury to Alex Gordon that will keep Gordon out of the Royals lineup for the next two months.

You get kind of a funny pit in your stomach when you see such a great player go down like that.  It was one of those moments that had me feeling like this:

Of course, if you’re Dyson, this is an excellent time to do things to help solidify your position in the lineup, and an inside-the-park home run is a good way to make a statement.  It takes him all of fourteen seconds to round the bases in this awesome display of speed.

So congratulations to Dyson and the Royals as they continue to expand their lead in the AL Central!  Fingers crossed that it continues even after the All-Star break.

Farewell to a legend

Don Zimmer passed away last night.

It’s difficult to be a baseball fan and never have heard of the man, even if I never did pay very close attention to him.  He’s like the foul pole on the baseball diamond: most of the time, nobody pays attention to it, but everyone knows it’s there, and it stands out and makes its presence known in its own way.  I will forever remember him as the man who sat next to Joe Torre in the Yankees dugout.

Don Zimmer and Joe Torre (New York Times)

Reading the stories about Zimmer this morning, however, has my interest particularly piqued.  He married his wife on a baseball diamond in between the two games of a double header.  He played for the Brooklyn Dodgers World Series championship team and accumulated twelve years in the Majors, primarily as an infielder.  He spent thirteen years as a manager and was named the NL’s manager of the year in 1989, when he led the Chicago Cubs to a division championship.

Zimmer lived and breathed baseball.  Every year, he wore a new jersey number, changing it to reflect the number of years he spent in baseball.  This year, he wore number 66.

As a player, Don Zimmer hit .235 with 91 home runs and 352 RBIs in 1,095 games.  Not stellar numbers, perhaps, but his biggest impact on the game came as a coach and an advisor.  Zimmer’s passion for the game knew no boundaries, and even at the age of 83, he still served as a senior advisor for the Tampa Bay Rays.

It feels strange, now, to be writing this, as if I had always followed the man, because I didn’t.  I guess for me, and for a lot of people, Zimmer was a given when it came to baseball.  For as long as I’ve known about baseball, I’ve heard the name Don Zimmer, and I now find myself struck with the realization that he, too, was merely mortal.

Farewell and rest in peace.