After a string of MLB league division series that went down to the wire, the league championship series have offered a bit less competitive balance. With both series already featuring elimination games, let's take a look at some of the highlights and storylines that have defined these postseason matchups thus far.
ALCS: Kansas City Royals Lead Toronto Blue Jays, 3-1
Has any team in this postseason looked more self-assured than the Kansas City Royals? Has any team looked less surprised when they came back from the brink of elimination or absolutely buried a team than this Royals team has thus far?
Maybe that comes from last season's run to the World Series and the experience it offered. Or from a roster that has no conceivable holes. Or from a group of players that never, ever are convinced a game is lost. Or from an excellent pitching staff led by an outstanding bullpen.
One way or another, it has all led to one pretty undeniable conclusion: The Royals are just better than the Toronto Blue Jays, in every facet of the game, and they seem to know it.
As Jerry Crasnick of ESPN wrote, "The Royals were regarded as a dangerous entity entering the postseason because of their strong bullpen and athletic defense. But the Kansas City offense has been the true October revelation, summoning one productive at-bat after another to seize the narrative from Toronto's power-laden, more acclaimed lineup."
While many teams rely on home runs to fuel their offense, the Royals just keep stringing together timely hits, manufacturing runs with aggressive but disciplined at-bats and their power to the alleys. They are relentless, as Game 4's 14-2 win demonstrated, and most leads are safe once they get to the back end of their bullpen.
The Blue Jays may yet recover, paced by the league's most dangerous power offense. But for the time being, the Royals look like baseball's most balanced, confident and, well, best team. It would be shocking if they lost three in a row given how they've played thus far.
NLCS: New York Mets Lead Chicago Cubs, 3-0
The New York Mets seem to have three things going for them at the moment: Pitching, Daniel Murphy and the baseball gods.
The pitching is the least surprising of the three. Starting pitchers Matt Harvey, Noah Syndergaard and Jacob deGrom have combined to throw 16.1 innings over the first three games, giving up just five runs and striking out 25 batters. That the bullpen has stepped in to throw 10.2 scoreless innings has highlighted the dominance of the team's pitching staff.
But that was to be expected. The Mets rode their excellent pitching all season long.
Murphy, on the other hand, has been a revelation. He's hitting .364 with six home runs, nine RBI, nine runs scored and a stolen base this postseason. Murphy, who hit all of 14 home runs during the regular season, has now hit a home run in five straight games.
Baseball-Reference.com on Twitter put that home run streak in perspective:
And that leads in nicely to the baseball gods. It was hard to ignore them on Tuesday night, when Murphy hit another homer or squeaked out an infield hit. Or when the game-winning run was scored on a strikeout. Or when Lucas Duda, of all people, laid down a sacrifice bunt (and it worked!). Or when the Mets lost a run due to the ground-rule double rule and, well, it ultimately didn't matter.
Of course, maybe it isn't the baseball gods at all. Maybe the Mets just keep putting themselves in a position to win and keep on making their own luck.
"I am a little bit of a believer in [karma], in a sense that when you approach each game, you've got to approach it with the mentality to win," Mets reliever Tyler Clippard said after the game, per Jayson Stark of ESPN. "And if you can kind of keep that mentality and that momentum through each game, things seem to go your way. And that's kind of what's going on with us."
Things certainly are going the Mets' way right now, and unless the Cubs can defy both baseball history and their own painful past to win four straight games, the Mets are going to ride pitching, Murphy and the baseball gods right into the World Series.
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