Colorado Rockies, New York Yankees win wild-card games -- some thoughts

Tony Wolters

The wild-card round is complete in the Major League Baseball playoffs. One game was interesting, and one was not.

The Colorado Rockies beat the Cubs, 2-1, in 13 innings Tuesday in a captivating National League game, while the New York Yankees on Wednesday coasted to a 7-2 win over the Oakland Athletics in American League action.

The most remarkable part of these results? As recently as Saturday morning, the Cubs were in first place by themselves in the NL Central and had the best record in the league. Of all the NL contenders, they probably had as good a chance as any team of being the league's representative in the World Series.

By Tuesday night, their season was over after a stunning offensive collapse. The Milwaukee Brewers caught the Cubs on the second-to-last day of the season and forced a Game 163 on Monday to determine the NL Central champion. The Brewers came into Wrigley Field and won that game, 3-1, to relegate the Cubs to the wild-card round.

Against the Rockies, the vaunted Cubs offense continued to sputter, and Colorado finally put the North Siders out of their misery when Tony Wolters (of all people) delivered a two-out RBI single in the top of the 13th inning to put Colorado ahead to stay.

The Cubs failed to put a ball in play in the bottom of the 13th inning, as Terrance Gore, Javier Baez and Albert Almora all struck out against Colorado reliever Scott Oberg.

Cubs fans will point out that they made the playoffs for the fourth season in a row, which is true, and any playoff season can't truly be characterized as a failure. But, relative to expectations, this season is a big disappointment for the Cubs. They had made the NLCS three years in a row; there has been plenty of "dynasty" talk in Chicago over the past five years, and I feel pretty comfortable saying at this point that the Cubs are not a dynasty. There really aren't dynasties in baseball anymore -- with the extra layers of playoffs, it's just too hard to win.

In fact, this season reminded me of many Cubs team from before 2015, such as this one, this one, this one, this one and this one -- clubs that made fans believe they were on their way to a championship, only to implode in a spectacular manner.

The New York Yankees, meanwhile, had no such trouble. It took them two batters Wednesday night to score as many runs as the Cubs did Monday and Tuesday combined.

Aaron Judge hit a two-run homer of Liam Hendriks in the bottom of the first inning to put the Yankees up, 2-0, and they were on their way.

Oakland tried an outside-the-box strategy, using Hendriks and other relievers to pitch a do-or-die game. Obviously, it didn't work. It wasn't Lou Trivino's fault. He was the second Oakland reliever to take the mound, and he tossed three shutout innings to keep his club in the game.

However, the Yankees scored four runs in the sixth to increase their lead to 6-0 against Fernando Rodney and Blake Treinen. Rodney only needed four pitches to give up a run, and he did not retire a batter.

For me, that's the problem with bullpen days and using an "opener" as your starting pitcher. If you use enough relievers, to me, you're eventually going to put a guy out there who doesn't have his good stuff that day, and that's when the game is going to go off the rails.

I understand the thought process: The A's wanted to give the loaded New York lineup different looks, and never let any of the Yankees hitters face the same pitcher twice. But, if the plan is to use six or seven pitchers to get through nine innings, my feeling is one of those six or seven guys is not going to be up to the task.

In this case, Hendriks, Rodney and Treinen all struggled, and now a 97-win season in Oakland has gone for naught.