MLB August 2022 Review

Well, this is it. We have finally reached the home stretch of the 2022 MLB season. The regular season will come to an end on October 5, 2022, which is a Wednesday, meaning that the season has 35 days--an even five weeks--remaining. August has been quite eventful for us baseball fans, and here are some of the things that occurred during this pivotal month.

She Is Gone!

Aaron Judge continues to hit dinger after dinger after dinger, as talk of him surpassing Roger Maris for not only the Yankees record, but the American League record, increases. As we know, Maris hit 61 home runs during the 1961 season, which stood as the overall Major League record until Mark McGwire finished with 70 home runs in 1998 (the current record is 73, hit by Barry Bonds in 2001). Judge enters the month of September with 51 home runs, needing only 11 to surpass Maris.

Judge's home run quest has been the lone positive in what has been a tumultuous August for the New York Yankees. The team went 10-18 in the month of August, and only won one series--the two game set against the New York Mets. Their once monumental division lead is now down to just six games, and their first opponents for September: the 2nd place Tampa Bay Rays. Overall, the Yankees are five games behind the Houston Astros in the American League, and because the Astros won the season series, the Yankees have to finish ahead of the Astros, as a tie in the standings could give homefield in a potential (and possibly inevitable) ALCS to Houston.

A Roll of the Dice

On August 15, MLB announced their postseason schedule, beginning with the officially newly minted Wild Card Series--a transplant from the 2020 bubble postseason. It was announced back in March that the postseason field would be extended from 10 teams to 12, the first increase since 2012, and in this format, the top two teams in each league would get byes straight to the Division Series, while the other four teams would face off in the best-of-three Wild Card Series. One series will pit the #3 seed (the lowest division champion) against the #6 seed, while the #4 seed will face the #5 seed. The winners will not be re-ranked; the 3 vs 6 winner will face the #2 seed, while the 4 vs 5 winner will face the #1 seed. Home field in the Wild Card series will belong to the #3 and #4 seeds.

As for the schedule, the postseason will start on October 7, with the Wild Card Series being played on three straight days (if needed). The LDS will start on October 11, with potential Game Fives taking place on October 16 (National League) and October 17 (American League). The NLCS will kick off on October 18, with a potential Game Seven taking place on October 25. The ALCS will begin on October 19, with a potential Game Seven taking place on October 26. The World Series begins on October 28, and we are guaranteed November baseball, as Game Four will take place on November 1, and a potential Game Seven will occur on November 5. Regarding TV rights, ESPN will have the entire Wild Card Series, and because this is an even-numbered year, TBS will air the American League half, while FOX and FS1 will air the National League half. FOX will have the World Series for the 23rd straight season.

It's Time for Dodger Baseball

The Dodgers appear to be a team on a big mission, and we know what that mission is: proving that 2020 wasn't a fluke. The Dodgers are responding to their NLCS loss in 2021 with an immensely dominant 2022 season, capped off by a very strong August. How strong, you ask? All they did was go 20-6 in the month of August, which saw them avoid back-to-back losses all month; in fact, they've only lost back-to-back games once in the 2nd half. On August 30, the Dodgers became the first team to reach 90 wins, and they are definitely on pace to surpass their franchise record of 106 wins.

The Dodgers lead the National League West by 18.5 games over the San Diego Padres; so that race is done. Overall, the Dodgers lead by eight games over the New York Mets, so it seems like a foregone conclusion that Los Angeles will be the very city that the rest of the National League will have to go through to get to the World Series. Only time will tell if the Dodgers will get there and actually win it.

As you've noticed, there's a reason for my choice in titles, and the reason is as follows:

On August 2, 2022, Vincent Edward Scully passed away at the age of 94. Vin Scully is the greatest sports broadcaster of all time, and that's not an opinion, it's a cold hard fact. As a native of Southern California, I feel blessed to have experienced Vin Scully on the call for as long as I have. Scully, born in the Bronx, served 67 seasons as the voice of the Dodgers, beginning in 1950 when the team was based in Brooklyn. To me, though, Vin Scully was not just the voice of the Dodgers, he was the voice of baseball as a whole--the greatest representative of the great sport.

I said this before on social media, but I will gladly repeat it, because it's the truth. Vin Scully was more than an announcer. He was a storyteller, he was a historian, but most of all, he was a fan. We all loved his stories, we all gathered around and listened to so many of his stories. Not all of them were about baseball, it was about anything and everything, but we loved every moment and drank in every syllable. Obviously, Vin Scully meant so much to Dodgers fans, but it went beyond that. It wasn't just Dodgers fans. It was Cubs fans. It was Cardinals fans. It was Red Sox fans. It was Yankees fans, like myself. It was even fans of the rival Giants. It was overall fans of baseball, wherever we are.