It's so fleeting that ... everyone's goal is to win the World Series, but it's always something strange like that, that seems to knock you out of that.
Just twice in the previous 21 seasons has a team like the Cubs, which led the major leagues outright in victories, gone on to win the World Series. That would be precisely two (again, those 1998 and 2009 Yankees).But why? But it wouldn't be hard to imagine that same tension gripping Wrigley Field on Sunday night, if the Cubs should lose to Kershaw in Game 6 and then At least this Cubs team appears to be in the beginning of what could be an extended window to win. Just seven of those 12 won 108 … Since the beginning of the wild card era only four of the 26 teams with the top record went on to win the World Series: The 1998 and 2009 Yankees, and the 2007 and 2013 Red Sox. So they felt the tonnage of those losses in every one of those Octobers. Some of the best Major League Baseball teams in history didn't win the World Series. And a wild Giants bench coach Ron Wotus said he is still haunted by the agonizing out call on In baseball, more than any other sport, those October oddities you've never seen before are often the reason that so many underdogs win and so many 100-win teams go fishing. But the team went 21-8 the rest of the way, sneaking into the postseason. Even more impressive than just winning the series? Here are the 15 best teams to never win it all. They did it while losing both games started by Clemens. The Mets put the tying run on first base with nobody out in the bottom of the ninth, but they couldn’t get a run across.
So no wonder the ingenious architect of these Cubs, Theo Epstein, said that when you build a team, all you can do is construct a roster that you think can get you to October. We can't answer those questions, of course.
The Giants dispatched the Washington Nationals and St. Louis Cardinals rather easily before taking on the Kansas City Royals in the World Series. "And you know what?
They could really hit the ball, finishing near the top in most offensive categories that season. And all of a sudden, we started swinging real hard. In fact, most of the time, they don’t. And the manager still stews over all the strange stuff that befell that team in its memorable loss to the wild-card Cardinals in one of the best division series of modern times.
So who knows how many more times they would have won?That team won 100 games in six different seasons -- and won the World Series in none of those years. Suppose we just look at teams that have won 100 games in the wild-card era.
An unhappy ending, nightmares that keep springing back to life and scars that never heal. You get home-field advantage through the league championship series. It would be like the Golden State Warriors abandoning their approach and trying to shoot all 2-pointers in the playoffs. They made the playoffs, however, and matched up with the Pittsburgh Pirates in the National League wild card game with Madison Bumgarner taking the ball.Bumgarner threw a complete-game shutout against the Pirates, allowing just four hits with 10 strikeouts. The Yanks had a 4.87 ERA from their starting rotation and were just 87-74 that year, sneaking into the playoffs in a weak division.Once in the postseason, the Yankees beat the AL West division champion Oakland A’s in five games. Bumgarner came in and pitched the final five innings of the game in relief, allowing just two hits, no runs, and striking out four, on his way to a World Series MVP.When you speak of the worst MLB teams that had no business winning the World Series, much less making the playoffs, the 1987 Minnesota Twins are one of the first teams to come up. And you don't utilize your roster the way you would in 162 games. It's the bounce of the ball.