SWEEP, SWEEP VICTORY
It’ll be hard to remember this weekend come September.
At the beginning of October, none of these teams on the losing or winning sides may be relevant to the postseason or they may have won so many games they have already clinched home field throughout the playoffs.
But I doubt it.
One of these five series involving 10 teams will make a difference after another 130 games are played.
Winning series is the key to a successful season. Pile them up successively and players are happy and fans are filled with joy. Braves broadcaster Ben Ingram told his listeners that Atlanta, after 16 games, is the only team left that has not lost a series.
Yet there’s something better than winning a series. A sweep is so much more satisfying and so much more meaningful. Taking a series means a team comes out ahead, on the plus side. But merely winning best out of three still means two steps forward and the lamentable one step back. A sweep means all positive action. Three steps forward, all in the right direction.
It’s huge to sweep.
We shall see if these are worth remembering late in the season when wins and losses seem more consequential but, in fact, count the exact same as these April victories.
Nationals swept the Brewers, taking three in Milwaukee.
Rays swept the Yankees, winning a trio during Tropicana Field’s homecoming homestand.
Tigers swept the Marlins, spearing the Fish with Skubal on the mound for the clincher.
Athletics swept the Mets in New York, a triumphant visit east for the A’s.
Padres took it to the Rockies, earning an even more satisfying and meaningful four-game sweep at home.
“The Nationals are one out away from some kind of weekend here in Milwaukee,” Charlie Slowes told listeners on the WJFK broadcast. “He makes the catch and a curly W is in the books.”
It was the first three-game sweep for the Nationals against the Brewers since 2006. They won 8-6 on Sunday for the broom treatment. The winning team is still a game below .500 ball, so this ultimately may be a season highlight for the woebegone NL East team. It’s not hard to imagine, from this vantage, that the Brewers may live to regret this weekend’s performance if they get to the end of the regular season battling the Pirates or Cubs for the division or the final wildcard slot.
The Rays took it to the Yankees and took all three from the Bombers, though the Tampa Bay club made it interesting. They entered the ninth with a three-run lead. A Ben Rice single and an Aaron Judge homer pulled the visitors within a run. A two-out double followed to raise the threat level.
It was doused.
“The Rays have swept the Yankees for the first time in eight years” Andy Freed said from Pinellas County on WDAE. “The first homestand at Tropicana Field in two years and it ends in a sweep.”
“It might have been a little wobbly,” Neil Solondz said of the ninth-inning threats. “But none of that matters.”
The victories could very well matter to both teams at the end of regular-season play.
The Tigers took its sweep behind last year’s Cy Young winner Tarik Skubal, up against the Marlins own former Cy winner, Sandy Alcantara.
It was not close.
“Riley Greenemoving toward the line says he’s got it and he does,” Greg Gania told his WXYT audience as the Tigers closed out an 8-2 win and a big step toward getting well on the season.
“You come back to the house and you get a sweep,” Bobby Scales said. “It’s a good start to the homestand.”
The A’s finished a sweep of the Mets and wrapped up a west coast incursion of two buroughs, demoralizing fan bases of both the Yankees and the Mets. The sweep by the nomadic A’s with the teams anemic payroll must be especially irksome.
“Fields, flips, in time,” Ken Korach told KSTE listeners of the ground ball that ended Sunday’s game. “And the A’s have completed a remarkable trip to the Big Apple. The A’s are over .500 in the cauldron of this 15-game stretch” to begin the season and conclude it with a winning 8-7 record.
”Who would’ve believed it,” Johnny Doskow asked. “Five-and-one (record). What a trip.”
I think he meant trip as in journey from California to New York.
Finally, the Padres put a four-game broom to the Rockies, the hapless Colorado team that had shown a spark with four-straight victories of their own before the Padres series started, including a sweep of the Astros. That all skidded to a halt.
Padres among five who sweep on Sunday
Graphic courtesty @Padres
The end-of-game call on Denver’s KOA was understandably desultory as the Padres cruised to a 7-2 victory to wrap up the rare four-game sweep with fans marking the impending end by getting to they’re feet.
“I love fan enthusiasm. It’s great that they’re standing. But not in front of us so I can’t see home plate,” said Jack Corrigan, whose professionalism prevented him from saying he was spared the sight. “If I lean hard to my right, I can see home plate between them but then I can’t see third base.” The torture ended soon.
“It didn’t go well for the Rockies, 7-2 to the Padres.” Corrigan concluded.
The Padres improved to10-6, good enough for second place in the NL West behind the juggernaut Dodgers.
Sweepers and weepers alike may well reflect on this weekend’s games five months from now and celebrate or villify their performances now as it boosts or debilitates their chances to make the tournament.
A new broom may sweep clean, but what it reveals beneath is not immediately clear.