It's Andy Aparicio's world, we're all just living in it:
It's not often people can say the best player in baseball is a pitcher, but Andy Aparicio has staked a claim to that distinction with an incredible season that has carried over to the postseason as he dominated Detroit with a complete game 3-hitter in a 4-1 win to give the Rays a 1-0 lead on Detroit in the ALDS. Carter Young stunned the crowd in the 2nd inning with a homer off Aparicio to give the Tigers a brief 1-0 lead, but the Rays ace gave Detroit nothing after that. The Rays' bats weren't exactly hitting the cover off the ball either but they made the most of their opportunities as in the 3rd inning Luis Corpus led off with a walk, Ricky Widmar doubled him to 3rd and Dayle Jenkins took one into the LCF seats to make it 3-1 Rays. Widmar then followed with a solo shot of his own to almost the same location in the 5th, but they only managed 5 hits for the game. In a somewhat controversial move I benched long-time starter Joe Barker in favor of Victor de Jesus as the latter really outperformed the former over the course of the season, accumulating 3.5 WAR to Barker's 2.3 in substantially fewer at-bats. It's no secret Barker will be dealt this offseason as we also have Rodolfo Rivas and Mike Harms at the position, and Barker will cost big bucks in arbitration. Anyway back to the present Jon Hayes will get the ball tomorrow in Game 2.
The other games:
Texas closer Jim Connors blew a 2-run lead in the 9th and then allowed an Austin Hendrick homer in the 10th as Cleveland came from behind to take Game 1 of their ALDS, the Reds shocked the Cards with 3 late runs off former Ray Jeremy Bienick to take a 2-0 lead in their NLDS, and the Nationals evened things up with the Diamondbacks in the other NLDS.