The Cleveland Indians made a surprising run to the top of the American League wild card chase with a late season push and now that the Tampa Bay Rays defeated the Texas Rangers in game 163 of the season, the Indians and Rays will matchup to see who advances to play the Boston Red Sox in the American League divisional series.
The wild card game is Wednesday night and one of the top storylines of the season has been the resurgence of Terry Francona and his new Indians team and now one of the biggest storylines of the playoffs will be whether or not he gets to play his old team in the Boston Red Sox. Francona lost his job after the 2011 season due to the collapse of the Red Sox and now the team is resurgent after winning the American League East and the opponent for the number on seed could now be Francona and his Indians.
According to ESPN.com, Francona spoke to reporters about his previous managerial job in Boston and compared it to his new team, joking around saying that the team avoided "chicken and beer. That helped." Francona is known as one of the most jovial but serious managers in the game and after guiding his team to a wild card appearance, he knows that one game could mean a matchup in Fenway Park with his old Red Sox team.
Back in 2011, the Red Sox looked as if they had the postseason all assured, but after a terrible finish in September that saw the team win just seven of 27 games, the team ended up on the outside of the playoffs looking in. The collapse cost Francona his job and the exit from Boston was anything but clean, as reports came out about the chicken and beer incidents, as well as his medication use.
Francona took last season off and worked on TV before coming back to manage the Indians and clearly that move paid off, as has the signings of Nick Swisher and Michael Bourn. The Indians had the easiest schedule or any of the teams going for the wild card down the stretch and they were able to win 21 of their last 27 games over the last month, nearly the antithesis of what happened in Boston.
The Rays are in the playoffs for the fourth time in six seasons and now the Indians are in for the first time in years and plenty of the responsibility is on Francona, who helped change the culture of the team. Francona said the way his team played down the stretch was not surprising to him, as they have played hard all season even when things were not going well and to start the game, the Rays will have young star Alex Cobb, while Cleveland will go with Danny Salazar.
The Indians were one of the most consistent teams down the stretch this season and they ranked 11th in the MLB in runs and 12th in batting average. The team was ranked fourth in on base percentage and 10th in slugging and now they will get the chance to host a one-game playoff to see who will go play the Red Sox.
