Three Up, Three Down: The MLB hot/cold report

Brewers snatch the NL Central in enemy territory

The final week of the regular season and the birth of the 2018 postseason gave us plenty of thrills. The National League in particular ended up living up to all of the expectations that we laid on their shoulders when it came to entertainment. The four teams who all needed to win on Sunday to keep things going did so by winning their games by a combined score of 48-5.

This resulted in two Game 163s in the NL, in addition to the Wild Card game that needed to be played. We're going to be heaping praise on the three teams who came out of this thunderdome with spots in the NLDS and we're going to start with Milwaukee. The Brewers made a late surge in September and managed to pull into a tie with the Cubs as the NL Central came down to a winner-take-all game at Wrigley Field on Monday afternoon.

As it turns out, the Brewers were more than ready for the occasion. Their fans did indeed remember the comments that Cole Hamels made about the rivalry and they showed up to Chicago in droves and were there to watch Christian Yelich, Lorenzo Cain and Ryan Braun push their team to their first divisional title since 2011.

Dodgers prove that it's hard to kill a king

A few hours after the game at Wrigley ended, the fans at Dodger Stadium got to celebrate the now-familiar feeling of winning a division. They had little-to-no trouble dispatching of the Rockies in a 5-2 victory that sealed the deal for Los Angeles and gave the Dodgers their sixth-straight NL West title.

What makes this one particularly special for the Dodgers is just how it came to this. They were nine games behind the divisional leaders back in May and it seemed like this was finally going to be the year where the Dodgers were going to cede control of the division back to their geographical rivals.

However, the emergence of Max Muncy combined with familiar names like Justin Turner, Cody Bellinger and Kike Hernandez helped push the Dodgers into eventually hitting their stride once the latter stages of the season approached. It culminated with a divisional title and now the Dodgers will be entering postseason play as one of the favorites, after it seemed like they were destined for a frustrating season.

Rockies make the most out of their second chance

While the Dodgers celebrated, the Rockies had no choice but to pack their bags and hop on a plane to Chicago to take on the Cubs in the NL Wild Card game. Coming off of what was a comprehensive defeat in LA that surely seemed to bring their "momentum" to a screeching halt, it would have been understandable if Colorado had rolled into Wrigley Field on a bit of a downer and let things slip out of their grasp.

Instead, the Rockies came out swinging and grabbed a slender one-run lead in the first inning thanks to a sacrifice fly from Nolan Arenado. That one-run lead almost stood for the entire game, but some eighth-inning heroics from Javier Baez turned this into a 1-1 extra-innings nailbiter. Eventually, Tony Wolters (of all people!) came through with a single that broke the tie in the 13th inning and by the time the inning was over, the Rockies were having a dogpile on the mound.

While you could argue that the Brewers were expected to make it to the postseason and there is no argument when it comes to the Dodgers making it, it's a pleasant shock to see that the Rockies were able to finish the drill and get into the NLDS. Who knows? We could be at the beginning of another magical Rocktober in Denver.

Three Down

The Cubs season came tumbling down in a hurry

A lot of teams across baseball would do unspeakable things if it meant that they could finish the year with 95 wins and a playoff berth. Instead, the 2018 season for the Chicago Cubs will be remembered in the short term for the two failures that happened right in front of the eyes of the Wrigley Field faithful in their two big games this past week.

The Cubs had two opportunities at home to salvage their season and make it into a playoff series where they would have been considered as dangerous opposition solely due to the team's collective playoff experience in recent seasons. Instead, they got to see one of their most heated rivals come into their ballpark and snatch the division from them. Then on the next night after 13 innings of agony, Cubs fans got to watch Scott Oberg strike out their side to end their season.

The Brewers and Rockies both deserve to be facing each other for the spot in the NLCS, but this still has to feel like a huge missed opportunity for the Cubs. They had two chances at home to make it into a series and all they had to show for it was two runs over 22 innings in two winner-take-all games. The Cubs will surely be back next season, but this will definitely be a cold winter in Chicago.

The A's surprising run comes to an end in the Bronx

The American League's lack of drama even seeped into its Wild Card game, as the Yankees made easy work out of the Oakland Athletics. It's always tough to go into New York and win a big game in this time of year and sure enough, the Yankees were up to the task of putting their opposition down for the count and punching their ticket for the ALDS. New York already had a commanding 6-2 lead before Giancarlo Stanton introduced himself to October baseball with a dinger of his own that was the icing on the cake for the Yankees.

With that being said, it's the end of another shock run for the A's. This is a team that always seems to contend when you least expect it and it's safe to say that nobody expected to see Oakland make it this far. For a while there, they even seemed like genuine contenders to knock the Houston Astros off of their perch in the AL West, but it wasn't meant to be -- just as a deep run in the playoffs wasn't meant to be.

The volatility of seeing the A's as contenders also means that you can never feel sure to see them return to this level. Just as sure as we all had fun watching Khris Davis crush dingers or Matt Chapman make crazy plays, we could potentially see this team fade back into obscurity by this time in 2019. With that being said, Oakland having young guys like Ramon Laureano around is definitely encouraging for their future, so maybe their next success won't be such a shock.

Yankees and Red Sox are predictably back in the spotlight 

In news that could only bring a smile to a television network executive's face, the Yankees and Red Sox are set to do battle in the playoffs once again. The two teams who had their fair share of games against each other documented on every national broadcast will once again have their battles take place under the bright lights of prime time TV.

Every game in the Yankees/Red Sox ALDS will happen under the lights. Meanwhile, Cleveland and the defending World Series Champion Houston Astros have been relegated to afternoon duty for the most part. Every one of the Houston/Cleveland games will start with the sun still up and Game 3 will happen on Monday at 1:30 PM. I'm sure all of the neutral fans on the West Coast are thrilled to wake up early for that one!

While it's understandable that baseball wants as many eyes on their product as possible and both the Yankees and Red Sox are still huge draws, it's still tiny bit of a bummer for those of us who wanted to see something new. Granted, this should still be an entertaining series between two teams who we all expected to be here, but the level of excitement outside of those two fanbases just isn't there -- at least for now. Maybe they will put on a memorable barnburner of a series, but for now, the hype is not real.