Wednesday’s games in the MLB postseason left both the American and National League Championship Series finely poised.

The Los Angeles Dodgers’ survived their first ‘must-win’ game, denying – temporarily perhaps – the St. Louis Cardinals a berth in the World Series with a 6-4 victory. The series will now head back to St. Louis for Game Six on Friday night.

Whilst the Cardinals remain favourites leading the series 3-2, a win for the Dodgers in Game Six will not only level the series, it will also bring back all the bad memories the Cardinals have of letting a 3-1 NLCS lead slip last year against the San Francisco Giants.

In the ALCS, the Boston Red Sox and Detroit Tigers will play Game Five on Thursday night with all to play for. The Tigers took Game Four 7-3 to make the series all square at two apiece.

Detroit jumped on Red Sox starter Jake Peavy, scoring five runs in the second inning. Boston had a chance to escape a bases-loaded situation having conceded only one run, but Dustin Pedroia and Stephen Drew were unable to turn an inning-ending double-play and despite a late rally, they were never able to recover.

Watching that inning again on Thursday evening, the main thing that stood out was that the Red Sox were lucky to get even one out on the potential double-play. Second base umpire Dan Iassogna called Austin Jackson out on a force play even though Drew hadn’t touched the bag, nor got particularly close to doing so.

It has long been the case that umpires have given fielders some leeway at second base when base runners are charging in trying to break up a double-play. The pivot man on the play, in this case the shortstop Drew, is vulnerable to being caught unguarded by what amounts to a sliding tackle.

So long as the fielder is ‘in the neighbourhood’ of the base, he will be given the out. It’s the baseball equivalent of a referee whistling for a foul when a defender slides in and doesn’t actually make heavy contact with the attacker. The fouled player shouldn’t have to leave his leg in the way and get it broken to prove that it was a mis-timed dangerous tackle, and a pivot man on a double-play shouldn’t have to suffer such an injury either.

However, what will happen next season when instant replay is introduced?

Maybe there will be a gentleman’s agreement that managers will not challenge such a play, knowing that allowing it as a general rule helps protect the players.

No,  I don’t see that lasting too long either when an important game is on the line and, in any case, the incident in last night’s game shows there’s a significant grey area involved. Whether someone tags a bag or not is clear enough. Whether a fielder is ‘in the neighbourhood’ of the base is much more subjective. Certainly Tigers manager Jim Leyland would have been well within his rights to challenge the call in this case yet one person’s definition of close will differ from another, largely based on which team you are attached to.

What’s more likely to happen is that players simply will have to adjust and make sure they touch the base, taking the ‘neighbourhood play’ out of the equation. I’ve stated before that introducing instant replay doesn’t just involve adding a new officiating tool, it will also change the way the game is played.

In this case, the result also could be an increase in injuries to infielders and if that happens they’ll potentially be a clamour for a rule change or two. One possibility would be for umpires to take a hard line on calling interference on a baserunner going into second base if the pivot man would in any way be likely to be touched in attempting to turn the double-play. Traditionalists will like that as much as they like the idea of collisions at home plate being outlawed.

It could have a series of consequences, or maybe everyone will quickly adjust and it doesn’t become an issue. It’s difficult to tell, yet it’s clear that instant replay will change baseball. Whether that’s for better or worse remains to be seen and like every other issue in baseball, opinions will be divided.

Baseball, like all sports, will continue to evolve and the game in MLB will be different as a result of instant replay.

For many in the U.K., today is the sort of Sunday where you’re glad to be able to stay indoors to shelter from the wind and rain.

Saturday night’s two Championship Series games were the perfect gift for anyone trying to find something to occupy the mind whilst huddled up away from the elements.

If you don’t have the time or inclination to re-watch the games in full then the Complete Game videos on MLB.com are a good way to catch up on the main flow of each game, even if the lack of commentary does take a bit of getting used to. Alternatively the Pulse of the Postseason video follows the timeline of the day in one neat 10 minute package.

First up on the ‘Pulse’ video is the St. Louis Cardinals’ 1-0 triumph over the Dodgers to take a 2-0 series lead as the teams head out to L.A.

Rookie Michael Wacha was impressive once again, but the most telling part of the tale came in Trevor Rosenthal’s 1-2-3 ninth inning to seal the Dodgers’ fate.

With Matt Kemp done for the season, Hanley Ramirez and Andre Ethier battling injuries and Yasiel Puig battling a loss of form, they are severely restricted when it comes to scoring runs and whilst pitching can take you a long way – good pitching beats good hitting, and so on – you can’t win if you can’t score runs.

Puig looked completely lost at the plate throughout the game and none more so than when he struck out to lead off the ninth inning, lumbering him with the ‘golden sombrero’ for four strikeouts. Juan Uribe, no one’s idea of a number 5 hitter on a World Series contender, then wildly hacked his way to the next strikeout, before Andre Either came off the bench to end the game striking out on three pitches.

L.A. have received two strong pitching performances from Zack Greinke and Clayton Kershaw and both have gone to waste due to their scuffling batting lineup. That lineup will now have to face the Cardinals’ best pitcher, Adam Wainwright, in Game Three whilst the Dodgers are likely to send Hyun-Jin Ryu to the mound knowing that he’s dealing with arm soreness and has been ineffective of late.

The Dodgers aren’t done just yet, but the Cardinals couldn’t be in a better position.

The other game of the night also finished 1-0 as Anibal Sanchez and the Detroit Tigers’ bullpen came within two outs of no-hitting what has been a potent Boston Red Sox batting lineup.

This series has been billed as a match-up between the Tigers’ starting pitching and the Red Sox’s offence and in that respect it was Detroit’s strength that won out in Game One. However, I suspect that it will be Detroit’s batting lineup that will determine the result of this series and in that sense the first game showed Boston how they could make it to another Fall Classic.

Even though they were handcuffed by the Tigers’ pitching – Boston fans have some reason to point to Joe West’s strikezone as a contributory factor too, although all hitters know they have to adjust to the zone being called on the night – they were always in the game because their own pitching was able to limit the Tigers’ offence.

Whilst Detroit are justified in having faith in their starting pitchers – not least in Max Scherzer for Game Two tonight – they’ll know that it’s unlikely they can win four games in this series against a strong Boston team if they can’t find a way to get the offence going around a clearly hobbled Miguel Cabrera.

You expect the Tigers to pitch well and, even in the face of this, you expect the Red Sox’s offence to score runs. What we should expect from the Tigers’ offence is less clear and finding out should make this a fascinating series.

The Los Angeles Dodgers and St. Louis Cardinals got the Championship Series stage of the 2013 postseason off to a flying start with an enthralling Game One on Friday night.

The Cards won 3-2 in thirteen innings and left U.K.-based fans wondering whether to go back to bed or just to get on with their Saturday morning with the game ending at close to 6.30 a.m. The latter was probably the option most took as it was difficult to drift off after such an exciting game.

Carlos Beltran once again proved to be an October hero, this time making two decisive plays to add to his postseason scrapbook.

The first came in the tenth inning when his perfect throw from the outfield beat a tagging-up Mark Ellis to home plate where Yadier Molina was more than happy to play the role of base-blocker to preserve the 2-2 scoreline. It looked initially from the TV footage that centre-fielder Jon Jay might take the fly-ball, but Beltran had the better angle to catch and fire and he did so brilliantly.

It was the second impressive outfield contribution to a double-play of the game after Dodgers right-fielder Yasiel Puig caught a David Freeze line drive and then smartly got the ball to first base to double-off Jay to end the seventh inning.

Beltran’s fielding play came with a side story, that of the man who hit the fly ball to him to start it off.

Adrian Gonzalez had walked to lead off the eighth inning and Dodgers manager Don Mattingly decided to take the first baseman out of the game for pinch-runner Dee Gordon. With all to play for in a 2-2 game, Mattingly’s keenness to take a late lead was understandable but it was a gamble considering Gordon still needed to get around from first base and, if he didn’t, the Dodgers would play the rest of the game without one of their most potent threats at the plate.

Unfortunately for LA, Mattingly’s gamble didn’t pay off – Gordon was out at second on a fielder’s choice in the next at-bat and Juan Uribe then grounded into a double-play to end the inning – and the result was that Michael Young took over Gonzalez’s spot in the batting lineup. It was Young who flied out tamely in the eleventh inning to set up Beltran’s double play and Young compounded the situation in the twelfth inning when he killed another Dodger rally by grounding into a double-play.

We’ll never know how the game might have panned out had Mattingly not been so hasty to remove one of his best hitters, but it certainly didn’t help their cause as the game ultimately unfolded and all Gonzalez could do was watch from the bench rather than stand in the batter’s box.

Gonzalez’s watching brief ended in the bottom of the thirteenth inning with the sight of Daniel Descalso crossing home plate to score the winning run. There was an air of expectation and also inevitability as Carlos Beltran stepped into the batter’s box with the game there to be won. Sure enough, he singled into the right field to send the Red Birds to a 1-0 series lead.

It was a great game and a great win for the Cardinals, not least because Zack Greinke was terrific on the mound for the Dodgers. Watching a masterful pitcher snapping off curveballs at will is one of the joys of baseball – unless you‘re the batter trying to hit them – and he struck out all three Cardinal batters with that pitch in the fifth on his way to ten K’s over eight innings.

Game Two of the series begins at 21.07 BST on Saturday and although it’s got a tough act to follow, don’t rule out it being just as exciting as the first with Clayton Kershaw and Michael Wacha on the mound.

Detroit and Boston will then get their series underway at 1.00 a.m. with Anibal Sanchez and Jon Lester taking to the mound at Fenway Park.