2019 MLB World Series Preview

On 22nd October, baseball’s premier competition begins – the World Series. In this showpiece series of 7 games, the Houston Astros and Washington Nationals will clash to decide who takes home the Commissioner’s Trophy, but how did these teams get here? How have they fared so far postseason? And which team is more likely to come out on top? 
Major League Baseball sees 30 teams take part in a regular sporting season divided into two leagues – the National League and the American League. Within these leagues, teams play each other multiple times a season, along with some select interleague games, with each team participating in 162 games across the seven month season. These two leagues are split between 3 divisions – West, East and Central. At the end of the regular season, the three teams at the top of each division in both leagues progress to postseason.

Postseason began at the start of October with two Wild Card games. Two teams from each league are designated as the Wild Card sides in postseason, which are the teams that possess the most impressive records in the regular season, but didn’t win their respective division. Washington Nationals, this season’s National League representative in the World Series, progressed to postseason 2019 in this manner.
The tournament begins with each Wild Card team taking on the other Wild Card side from their league in a single game. The winners of these games advance to the League Division Series, stylised as ALDS and NLDS for American League and National League games respectively. This stage acts as the semi-finals and it is here that the three division winners from each league enter the competition. After a series of five games, the winners continue on to the League Championship Series (ALCS and NLCS), which are effectively semi-finals, in which the final four sides battle it out in a seven game series to determine the World Series competitors. Winning this game also earns the victors the trophy, or pennant, that labels them as winners of their respective leagues that season.
Houston Astros picked up the American League pennant after edging a tight series against New York Yankees four games to two. The Texan team are strong favourites to emerge ultimate victors, as they have dominated MLB for the past three years, winning the World Series in 2017 and coming close in 2018, before being knocked out in the ALCS against Boston Red Sox. The Astros were unbelievable in the regular season this year, becoming the first team since the 2002-2004 Yankees to have three consecutive 100-win seasons as they clinched their third straight AL West title. Injury worries arose after their star pitcher Ryan Pressly exited game six of the ALCS due to discomfort in his knee, however he claims to be fit enough to pitch in the World Series. The Astros also boast offensive prowess in the form of Carlos Correa, who became the youngest batsman ever in MLB history to reach ten postseason home runs in game four of the ALCS.

Taking on this rampant side are the Washington Nationals, who have fought through three series in postseason to reach the World Series. The Nats may be underdogs going in to the competition, however they have proven their strength in recent weeks, particularly in their 4-0 crushing of St Louis Cardinals in the NLCS. The clean sweep was aided by the excellent pitching of Patrick Corbin and Stephen Strasburg, who limited the Cardinals to just two runs in the first three games of the series. Their dominance was cemented by a seven run thrashing in the first inning of the fourth and final game of the series, in which Juan Soto reminded the fans of his importance to the side with an excellent batting performance. As a result, the Nationals progressed to their first ever World Series with hopes of continuing their success and toppling another giant in the form of the Houston Astros. 
The Astros may be firm favourites, but they are 27-36 all-time against the Nationals (since 2005) and last played them in the regular season in 2017, losing two of the three games. Houston last played in Washington in ‘14, getting destroyed in two games. The Astros have lost 14 of their last 16 games against the Nats since Sept. 11, 2011, so anything could happen in the seven game series. The 115th Fall Classic begins on October 22nd.