The 2013 Major League Baseball postseason is underway and with the Pittsburgh Pirates already upending the Cincinnati Reds in the National League Wild Card Game, all eyes will turn to the American League Wild Card showdown between Tampa Bay and Cleveland. Winners in their last 10 games to close out the season, the Indians enter the upcoming Wild Card clash as the hottest team in baseball. First year manager Terry Francona has once again instilled a winning attitude in Cleveland and as the Indians get set to host the Rays for a one game battle, fans of the beloved 'Tribe' are excited to have October baseball after a five-year postseason absence.
Tampa Bay on the other hand has enjoyed postseason success in recent years. Though they failed to qualify for the tournament a season ago, Joe Maddon and his club made back-to-back postseason appearances in 2010 and 2011. The club's first playoff appearance came in 2008 after a 97-win season that also saw the club advance to the World Series where they'd ultimately fall to the Philadelphia Phillies. Like Cleveland, Tampa Bay will also enter the Wild Card match-up playing solid baseball. Winning 8 of their last 10 to qualify, manager Joe Maddon says his team is ready for another tough outing since they've been playing elimination games for the last few weeks just to get into this position.
"I'll tell you what," Maddon said. "We've already played this wild-card game a couple times. We did it in Toronto a couple days ago. We did it in Texas, and we're going to come here tomorrow and do it again. I don't know if there's a battle-tested component to that, if you get immune to whatever that pressure is and you go play."
"When you get into this momentum kind of a thing on a daily basis and you're playing great competition and you're going from city to city to city and it's an adverse territory, all of this stuff is what you train for and you really dig and you love it," he continued. You don't have time to get nervous or overthink, you've just got to get ready and go play, and for our guys, they kind of like that moment right now."
One of the big reasons for the success of Cleveland other than the calming and jovial influence of manager Terry Francona has been the addition of first baseman Nick Swisher. Joining the club after 4 seasons with the New York Yankees, the supportive and fun-loving leader - who smacked 22 home runs and drove in 63 runs this year - says Francona is having fun once again and says it's easy for the team to respond to a manager of his caliber.
"I'll bet he'll tell you that this is one of his favorite teams ever," Swisher said. "I've never had so much fun as a player being a part of this and having him lead us. He comes in there and he brings it every day. That's contagious. He comes in with all of the enthusiasm and excitement and laughter and I just feed off that stuff. We all do."
Alex Cobb will take the mound for Tampa Bay while Danny Salazar gets the call for Cleveland. Cobb finished the 2013 regular season with a crisp 11-3 record and a 2.76 ERA while his opponent ended the season 2-3 with a 3.12 ERA in 10 starts.
American League Wild Card Game - DATE, TIME & TV INFO
DATE: Wednesday, October 2
TIME: 8:07pm, ET
TV COVERAGE: TBS
LIVE STREAM: CLICK HERE
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