Month: September 2020

With the regular season of baseball under wrapped after a 60-game long (or in the Cardinals and Tigers case, a 58-game long) season, the Major League Baseball postseason is now underway. And for the very first time in baseball history, there will be an expanding number of qualified playoff contestants with 16 teams eligible for a chance at a World Series in 2020. This is largely in due to the season having been delayed back in late March, around the time that the Covid-19 pandemic started to come into play. And if recent reports by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred is any indication, this expanded playoff roster might be a new yearly thing from here on out. It will now look as though you don’t even need to have a winning record to get in the playoffs, let alone win a World Series. Just ask the Astros and Brewers!  

The way this format works is how each team ranked themselves in the postseason standings. Not necessarily ranked by the best winning record overall in the entire league but how they fared in their own division compare to the other teams. How it works is that both leagues have a total of eight teams eligible for the playoffs. The first three teams are the ones who clinched 1st place in their own division, the next three teams are the ones that finished 2nd place in their division, and the last two teams are the ones who form the Wild Card. The teams in each separate category are ranked from the highest winning record out of their bunch to the lowest. Hence is why the NL Central champion Cubs are ranked higher than the 2nd place NL West Padres despite the Padres having a better 37-23 record than the Cubs’s 34-26 record. Or how even the 2nd place AL West 29-31 Astros is ranked higher than the Wild Cards of the 35-25 White Sox and 32-28 Blue Jays. Baseball just makes no sense! 

Also, for the first time ever in baseball, there will be the Wild Card series which will decide the teams advancing in the first round of the playoffs. This will be a best-of-3 series where the team that is able to win just two games will be able to move on. This will undoubtedly create more tension for these teams, even more so than the simple Wild Card game that had become a staple since 2012. Unlike, the Stanley Cup Playoffs in hockey this year (that had a similar extra playoff round with the round-robin tournament), the top teams in both leagues WILL have to play these games AND win them if they are to advance. 

The playoff brackets are categorized into eight seeds for each league. The No. 1 seed will face the No. 8 seed, No. 4 will face No. 5, No. 3 will face No 6., and the No. 2 will face No. 7. The winners of the No.1/8 series and the No.4/5 series will face each other in the division series along with the winners of the No.3/6 series and the No.2/7 series. Also, just like with the Stanley Cup, it will all be played in a bubble. The Wild Card Series will be played at the ballpark of the teams with the better winning records than their opponent. For the American League, the division series will be played in San Diego (winners of the No.1/8 and 4/5 series) and Los Angeles (winners of the No. 3/6 and 2/7 series). For the National League, their division series will be played in Arlington (winners of the No.1/8 and 4/5 series) and Houston (winners of the No. 1/8 and 4/5 series). The American League Championship series will be played in San Diego. The National League Championship series will be played in Arlington. Finally, the 2020 World Series will be played strictly in Arlington. 

For the American League, the eight teams (in postseason standings order) include the division winners of the Tampa Bay Rays (40-20), Oakland Athletics (36-24) and Minnesota Twins (36-24), the 2nd place teams of the Cleveland Indians (35-25), New York Yankees (33-27), and Houston Astros (29-31) and the wild card spots of  Chicago White Sox (35-25), and Toronto Blue Jays (32-28).  

No. 8 Blue Jays vs No. 1 Rays 

No. 5 Yankees vs No. 4 Indians 

No. 6 Astros vs No. 3 Twins 

No. 7 White Sox vs No. 2 Athletics 

For the National League, the eight teams (in postseason standings order) include the division winners of the Los Angeles Dodgers (43-17), Atlanta Braves (35-25), and the Chicago Cubs (34-26), the 2nd place teams of the San Diego Padres (37-23), St. Louis Cardinals (30-28), and the Miami Marlins (31-29), and the wild card spots of the Cincinnati Reds (31-29) and Milwaukee Brewers (29-31).  

No. 8 Brewers vs No. 1 Dodgers 

No. 5 Cardinals vs No. 4 Padres 

No. 6 Marlins vs No. 3 Cubs 

No. 7 Reds vs No. 2 Braves 

The Wild Card Series will start from September 29th to October 1st for the American League and September 30th to October 2nd for the National League. Television coverage of these games will be exclusively ABC, ESPN and TBS. 

It is now been officially confirmed by Marvel Studios that Black Widow, which was originally scheduled for May 1st, 2020 and later to November 6th, has been fully delayed to next year on May 7th, 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The other confirmed delays for Marvel include Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, originally set for February 12th, 2021 (the first day of Chinese New Year) and later May 7th, now being released on July 9th, 2021 and Eternals, originally set for November 6th, 2020 and later February 12th, 2021, now being released on November 5th, 2021. 

With Black Widow and Eternals being pushed to 2021, this year will mark the first time since 2009 in which Marvel Studios has not released a new movie onto theaters (not counting X-Men: Origins Wolverine since that’s was produced by Fox long before the merge with Disney so it’s technically not a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe).  Apart from some tv properties such as Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which just got done with its final season) and the new WANDAVISION series exclusively for Disney Plus (which comes out in December 2020) along with The New Mutants (which just quietly snuck its way into empty-seated theaters nearly three full years after its first trailer came out), this will seem to be a rather silent year for Marvel. 

On one hand, it gives the universe the much-needed break from cinema it so truly needed. After the past decade from releasing at least one movie a year to wanting to release up to not one, not two, not even three, but four movies a year (Yes, really!) from 2021 and beyond, there’s a big chance that fatigue might have come in from longtime fans and mainstream audiences. There’s also the undeniable replanning for the franchise’s future due to the incredibly unfortunate death of the Black Panther himself, Chadwick Bosman (May you rest in peace, good sir!) and still the concern of filling up theatre seats with Covid-19 still in affect with a proper vaccine still yet to be implemented. Putting all those factors into mind, this is definitely the best possible decision from Disney and Marvel. 

On the other hand, this does make it abundantly clear that Hollywood might just be done with releasing big movies for the rest of 2020. Though majorly anticipated flicks such as the next James Bond movie, No Time to Die (November 20th), Disney Pixar’s Soul (also November 20th), and DC Comics/Warner Bros’s Wonder Woman 1984 (December 25th) are still scheduled to be released this year, there can be no guarantee that the studios behind those films will stay the course. If clear/potential billion-dollar grossers like those three Marvel movies don’t have fate to release their films until next year, then what does that say about any other potential big box office hits for the rest of this year? Or ones that are projected to bomb like Dune or Death of the Nile (both still scheduled for December 18th)? Or ones that have tried to release their movies during these quarantine times like Tenet and will most likely not even get its full money back (As of September 27th, only grossing $283 million with a $200 million budget).  The simple answer: Not much. 

But you’ve heard it again. The next three Marvel movies, Black Widow, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, and Eternals, have all been pushed back to next year. Black Widow is now set to be released on May 7th, 2021, Shang-Chi on July 9th, 2021, and Eternals on November 5th, 2021. Let’s pray theaters are still around by the time all of these are scheduled to come out!