Last year I noted that Fall Baseball is War (see it here.) Now it has started again with the stunning walkoff win by the Kansas City Royals at home versus the Minnesota Twins. The Twins, currently in last place in the AL Central, were leading the Royals, the leader in the AL Central, 1-0 after a magnificent pitching performance by Ricky Nolasco for the Twins and an almost equally superb job by Royal pticher Danny Duffy. This game was 0-0 in the seventh when Joe Maurer doubled home Brian Dozier for a 1-0 Twins lead. It was that way in the bottom of the ninth. Glen Perkins, the Twins star closer with 32 f 37 saves so far. He was looking for his 33rd. On his second pitch of the ninth, Alcides Escobar blooped a single in front of the center fielder. That center fielder was playing a little deeper that usual so he could keep the ball in front of him and cut off gappers to hold the batter to a single and keep the tying run at first. However the ball fell just in front of him. That brought up Alex Gordon and on the second pitch to Gordon, the ball was hit just over the right field wall. Four pitches, two hits, one just short of the center fielder and one just over the fence and the game ended abruptly, but, like walkoffs at home, finally.
The Twins are in last place at 58-73 and the first place Royals are 73-58.  Perfect baseball symmetry. Twelve games out of 131 seperate the two teams, just over two games a month since April. Not much, but in baseball, a season apart.
This fact points out the close competition in baseball, closer than any other sport. it comes down to winning what I call the “Fifth Game” of which, last night’s game was a perfect example.    Look here for “Fifth Game Theory.”