2026 NATIONAL LEAGUE WILD CARD SERIES “D”
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| SERIES PREVIEW – Selkirk Steelers and Triple Creek Patriots had nearly identical records during the season. Selkirk has the hurler’s edge in game 1 with Fried on the mound, but Triple Creek has the advantage in games 2 through 4. |
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GAME #1 – Max Fried 23-5 (2.10) vs. Jameson Taillon 13-5 (2.04) Sunday’s opener at Triple Creek had the shape of a pitcher’s duel for six innings. Casey Schmitt‘s two-run blast off Jameson Taillon in the second staked Max Fried to an early lead, and Fried made it hold up, working into the seventh and striking out seven along the way. But Selkirk had an answer waiting in the fourth: Mookie Betts stole second and came around to score on Marcus Semien‘s line-drive double down the line, and Pete Alonso followed with a double of his own to plate Semien and even the score at 2-2 — back-to-back two-baggers that erased the deficit in an instant. The game stayed knotted until the top of the ninth, when Semien — who was already 1-for-3 with a double — turned around a Logan Henderson fastball and sent it out to left, seemingly handing Selkirk closer Brad Keller a 3-2 lead to protect. It lasted exactly one half-inning. Keller walked Will Smith. He walked Cody Bellinger. Corey Seager, pinch-hitting for Schmitt, fought off a two-strike pitch and looped a blooper down the right-field line that found grass, scoring pinch-runner Cody Freeman to tie the game. Bellinger, running the moment the ball left the bat, never slowed down rounding third — and when Selkirk’s relay throw arrived a beat too late, Bellinger slid home standing to complete the 4-3 walk-off. Henderson, who had just allowed the go-ahead homer minutes earlier, inherited the win. Keller took the loss and the blown save both, and a furious Salvador Perez — thrown out at the plate earlier in the inning trying to score from second — had to be restrained from arguing with the umpire as the Patriots dogpiled at home plate. Triple Creek 4 – Selkirk 3 Win: Logan Henderson 1-0 (9.00) |
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GAME #2 – Dylan Cease 17-11 (3.07) vs. Michael Lorenzen 12-11 (4.24) If Game 1 was chaos, Game 2 was a declaration. Selkirk grabbed a first-inning lead on Dylan Cease‘s watch — Semien doubled in the run, and a wild pitch and a hustling extra base did the rest — and Michael Lorenzen answered by striking out seven Steelers over four scoreless innings for Triple Creek. Lars Nootbaar‘s two-run homer in the third put the Patriots ahead for good, but the knockout blow came in the sixth: Lourdes Gurriel Jr. drove one into the gap for a two-run shot, and on the very next pitch, Jonathan India followed with a solo homer of his own — back-to-back home runs that turned a competitive game into a laugher. J.T. Brubaker cleaned up in relief with two scoreless innings to pick up the win, and although Selkirk loaded the bases and scratched across a run in the ninth on Nolan Arenado‘s infield single, Matt Strahm slammed the door with a strikeout of Matt McLain to seal the 5-2 final. Triple Creek 5 – Selkirk 2 Win: J.T. Brubaker 1-0 (0.00) |
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GAME #3 – Jose Quintana 5-10 (3.96) vs. Cal Quantrill 10-2 (4.48) Selkirk changed up its lineup for the road trip to its own park for Game 3, but the outcome stayed the same. Will Smith led off the game with a home run off Cal Quantrill, and the floodgates opened from there — a four-run second inning built on singles, an aggressive send home, and a nifty relay throw that nailed Schmitt trying to stretch a hit into a triple were the only things that kept the inning from getting even further out of hand. Zach Neto added a solo homer of his own in the third, and by the time Quantrill was pulled after three innings, he’d been tagged for five runs on eight hits, including two home runs. Jose Quintana cruised for Triple Creek, working 5.1 innings and turning a comfortable lead over to the bullpen, and the Patriots closed it out 6-2 to complete the sweep. Triple Creek 6 – Selkirk 2 Win: Jose Quintana 1-0 (3.38) |
| SERIES SUMMARY – Patriots Stun Steelers With a Sweep: Triple Creek Rides Power, Nerve, and a Walk-Off for the Ages!
Triple Creek wins the National League Wild Card Series in three straight games, outscoring Selkirk 15-7 and out-homering the Steelers 6-1 behind a lineup that never stopped finding new heroes. Across the three games, Triple Creek outscored Selkirk 15-7 and out-hit the Steelers 23-18. The most telling gap was on the scoreboard’s longest hits: six different Patriots left the yard — Schmitt, Nootbaar, Gurriel, India, Smith, and Neto — while Selkirk managed exactly one home run in the entire series, Semien’s solo shot in the Game 1 finale that wasn’t enough. Selkirk’s marquee bats went quiet at the worst time — Betts, Alonso, Perez, and Arenado combined for zero extra-base power beyond a handful of doubles, and Alonso’s early doubles in Game 1 were as loud as it got for Selkirk’s lineup all series. Cody Bellinger, fittingly, never recorded a hit in the series and still scored the biggest run of it. On the mound, Triple Creek’s starters set the tone even when the results didn’t show it in the box score: Fried and Lorenzen combined for 14 strikeouts across their two outings without picking up a decision, while Quintana got the series-clinching win in Game 3. Selkirk’s rotation, by contrast, never got out of the third inning intact in the finale, and its bullpen ERA ballooned into the twenties and thirties across stretches of the series. |