The Philadelphia Flash expected to see either the Austin City Limit or the Washington D.C. Senators in their first-round playoff matchup. Instead, the Buffalo Hot Wings played as their name implies down the stretch. One of the hottest teams in the entire league was able to snag the 6-seed away from the Senators by completing a 3-game sweep over them and earning a berth on divisional record tiebreak.Of course, a really hot team just sneaking into the playoffs is often not a good omen for the "favored" team. In baseball, it is not always who you play so much as when you play them. The Hot Wings took 2 out of 3 from the Flash just over a week ago, and much to the chagrin of Philly fans, the Flash's home playoff woes continued to open the best-of-5 set against the division rivals from New York.
SP Donovan Leiter did not have his best stuff in this one, surrendering 2 runs before the Flash even got to swing the bats. CF Cesar Fernandez for the Hot Wings hit a triple and would later score on a sac fly from 1B Trenidad Ramirez to give the Hot Wings the early lead. It would become a lead they would never surrender.
Leiter labored through 5 innings of work while throwing 110 pitches and allowing 5 runs to score. The Flash really wanted to get a solid start from their ace, because in Game 2, Buffalo will send SP Midre Navarre to the mound. The Flash counter with SP Louie Dali. The same 2 pitchers met in Philly early on in the season, with each allowing 4 runs over about 6 innings of work. The Flash bullpen would wind up responsible for the loss.
Given the magnitude of falling behind 2-0 in a best-of-5 series, expect the Flash bats to attack Navarre early in counts, in the hopes of displaying the type of offensive prowess that made them the 2nd highest scoring team in the National League this season.
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