It looked to be a ho-hum October. Baseball's Wild Card round of the playoffs featured four two-game sweeps. In the best-of three Division Series, there were only two games more than the minimum required. But for just the fourth time, in each League Championship Series, which determine the participants in the World Series, we have a deciding, winner-take-all, game seven.

The Texas Rangers won the American League pennant tonight, defeating the defending champion Houston Astros by a score of 11 to 4. Adolis Garcia hit two home runs and drove in five, earning Most Valuable Player honors, en route to the team's first World Series appearance since 2011, and just the second in franchise history. The National League will crown its champion tomorrow, after the Arizona Diamondbacks won 5-1 in Philadelphia this afternoon.

Throughout the playoffs, not only have the series been short, but the games have been decisive. If you score first, you win. That seems to be the theme this year. In this LCS round, there were no lead changes in games one, two, three, and seven in the American League, and none in games one, two, and five in the NL. The only walkoff hit was Ketel Marte's single in NLCS game three, giving Arizona a 2-1 victory. That game was scoreless until the seventh.

Ironically, the starting pitchers in that game were considered the worst choices, and will start the deciding NL game seven. Philadelphia's starting pitching is two deep with Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola, but Ranger Suarez gets the game seven nod. Arizona was also working around just two starters—Zac Gallen and Merrill Kelly. Brandon Pfaadt (pronounced 'fot') had the stellar game three outing, and will go in game seven.

While not all the games have been close, there's been plenty to witness. The Phillies have hit a ton of home runs, and Texas MVP Garcia had five homers and 15 RBIs. The 15 is a record for any post-season series, and 12 of those runs batted in came in the last three games. Houston's Yordan Alvarez has been a beast, but was upstaged by Garcia.

No matter who wins the National League pennant, the World Series will feature two wild card teams. It's happened before, even though there are more non-division winners in the post-season than there used to be. Mediocre records don't mean mediocre games or mediocre moments. The World Series begins in Arlington, on Friday.

Bad umpiring: To announcers, reporters, and most television viewers, it seemed improbable that Astros pitcher Bryan Abreu intentionally hit Garcia with a pitch Friday afternoon, but after the plunking, the six umpires huddled, concluded it was on purpose, and ejected Abreu, Garcia, and Houston manager Dusty Baker from the game. Abreu was given a two-game suspension, but, on appeal, the suspension was upheld but will not be served until the first two games of next year. If you are going to determine a suspension is necessary, it's gutless to not have it served immediately, but there is precedent. In 1988, Dodgers reliever Jay Howell was suspended for having pine tar on his glove, but didn't have to miss the end of the World Series.

Bad scoring: Just hours after the ejections in Arlington, there were two plays in the same inning where perhaps the official scorer should have been ejected. In the top of the sixth inning in NLCS game four in Phoenix came what the announcers referred to as a 'catcher's balk'. With Trea Turner at the plate and Kyle Schwarber at first, Arizona's Andrew Saalfrank delivered a pitch that bounced in front of the plate, and then got lodged under catcher Gabriel Moreno's chest protector. Schwarber was correctly awarded second base, but the catcher, similar to catcher's interference, should be charged with an error. It was scored as a wild pitch. Turner eventually walked, and so did Bryce Harper, loading the bases. After a pitching change, Alec Bohm hit a ground ball to third. Emmanuel Rivera threw wildly to the plate, scoring two runs. An error was charged on the throw, but Bohm was credited with a base hit, in what should have been a fielder's choice.

Bad programming?: The National League Championship Series concludes tomorrow (Tuesday), but game one of the World Series is not until Friday. The Fox network has to be responsible for this. A Friday start means an off day on Sunday, and the only possible explanation is to avoid competing with football. Fox has been broadcasting the World Series since 2000, and the network is proudly promoting their 30th season with the NFL, but both on the same night must be bad. They've done it before, but just this weekend, Texas-Houston game six was on FS1. The Simpsons and the other animated shows followed football on Fox.