The ALCS and the NLCS are underway. After storybook seasons, neither of my teams are in the championship series. As you may have discovered in a post from earlier this baseball season, Dream Season, I am a lifetime fan of the Chicago Cubs and the Detroit Tigers.
After amazing first half of the season records for both teams, both the Tigers and Cubs stumbled into the playoffs. The Tigers' fate came down to the last day of the regular season to confirm their playoff birth. It was a nerve wracking finish to the regular season, but both teams made it to the Wildcard series. The Tigers moved past the Cleveland Guardians 2 games to one, as the Cubs did the same to the San Diego Padres.
Then, in the Division Series, the Tigers would face the Seattle Mariners, and the Cubs went head to head with division rivals and the hottest team in baseball with the best regular season record, Milwaukee Brewers. The Cubs scored in the first inning of each game (except game 5), but struggled to put runs on the board. The Brewers took the first two games but the Cubs came back to take games 3 and 4. The Cubs dropped Game 5 with a score 3-1. It was the same result for the Tigers, but it went down quite a bit more suspenseful. The Mariners and the Tigers each took one of each of the first two games. Then, power surged for each team as the Mariners won 8-4 in game three, and the Tigers tied it all up 2-2 with a 9-3 win in game four. Then came game 5. The game sat at a score of 2 to2 as the 9th inning came to a close. The game went past midnight in the central time zone as the home team, Mariners, scored in the 15th inning on a walk-off single.
It is hard to see both of my teams lose in the playoffs in back-to-back nights, but in reflection, it was a great season. I have never been so proud to be a Cubs and Tigers fan as this year with their dominant first half of the season. It was fun to entertain the question from friends, "who do you cheer for if they both get to the World Series?" It was nice to dream about that, but I will have to continue my wait.
Regardless of the struggles and frustrations of the last couple months and the team power outage of both teams' bats, it has been fun. You might even say it was almost a Dream Season.
