You didn’t think both these series were going to end in sweeps, did you? You might have, actually, after watching the first two games of both the ALCS and NLCS. The first two innings of ALCS Game 3 on Wednesday night did nothing to change your mind, as the Mariners took an early lead on the Blue Jays thanks to a first-inning Julio Rodríguez two-run homer that sent the Seattle crowd into a frenzy. Did we already know our World Series matchup?
We did not. Twelve unanswered Blue Jays runs later, it was clear the Toronto bats had woken up, and the ALCS, at least, is officially a series. Will the NLCS follow suit? Now that everyone is back in Los Angeles for Game 3, we’ll soon find out.
Throughout this postseason, I’ll be previewing the next day’s action, game by game. Here is a storyline for each team from Thursday’s two LCS games.
Brewers: How do they turn this around?
“I don’t think it’s over,” manager Pat Murphy said after the Brewers’ dispiriting 5-1 Game 2 loss. “I don’t know why.” That is, fair to say, not something you say when your team is overflowing with confidence, and, all told, why would the Brewers have much confidence right now? Other than one out-of-nowhere shaky ninth inning in Game 1 from Roki Sasaki, the Dodgers pitchers have shut down the Brewers, who are batting a collective .086.
The good news — and there is good news — is that, well, the Brewers won 97 games this year, and they did it in large part because of their offense. They were first in the National League in both batting average (.258, tied with the Phillies) and OBP (.332). Grinding out at-bats isn’t something they’ve done in the two games of this series, but it’s certainly something they did throughout the season. Now they get to face Glasnow who, as good as he is (and he has thrown 14 2/3 consecutive scoreless innings dating back to his second-to-last regular season start), is neither Blake Snell nor Yoshinobu Yamamoto — a relief in and of itself.
As dark as it looks now, the Brewers merely need to win two of these three at Dodger Stadium to send the series back to Milwaukee, in front of a fanbase that would be levitating at the opportunity to see their team again. This is the best team in Milwaukee Brewers history. It’s time to start playing like it. Now.
Dodgers: Is this the best they’ve been in years?
At the beginning of the season, it was an open question whether the Dodgers were going to set the single-season wins record. They didn’t come close — like some of us said in the first place! — but it sure looks like they were playing the long game the whole time. The Dodgers have consistently been one of the best regular-season teams in baseball for more than a decade, though it hasn’t always culminated in postseason success.
But this year, coming off a World Series title, they clearly prioritized October from the very beginning. They let their best pitchers (such as Game 3 starter Glasnow) take their time coming back from injuries, they never sweated subpar seasons from some of their veterans, like Mookie Betts, and they kept their focus resolutely on winning in October — because they’ve learned the hard way that that’s all that really matters. It has resulted in the Dodgers, come the postseason, playing like a team that, had it been together like this all year, could have set that single-season win record.
Not only are the Dodgers dominant right now, they’re almost absurdly rested after starters Snell and Yamamoto pitched 17 of the 18 innings in Games 1 and 2. Heading into Game 3, Glasnow is on six days’ rest, and everyone in the bullpen has at least two days’ rest (most of them significantly more). Right now, at this moment, is the best the Dodgers have ever looked, and that’s a scary thought for everyone else.
Blue Jays: How much can they expect from Scherzer?
It will feel just right to see that extreme closeup shot of Scherzer on the mound in Game 4, with the flaring nostrils, the steely stare and the two different-colored eyes reminding you there just really haven’t been many pitchers like him in the history of this sport. An October night, with every pitch meaning so much, with the eternal competition between batter and pitcher taking center stage, with everything on the line, has always seemed like the ideal setting for a competitor of Scherzer’s caliber.
Scherzer has pitched in 30 postseason games (25 starts) in his all-but-certain Hall of Fame career, throwing 143 innings, for five different teams – the Blue Jays will be his sixth — and has two World Series titles to his name. This is actually his seventh League Championship Series. It is, as they say, not his first rodeo.
But it is the first baseball game he has pitched in nearly a month, and there’s a reason for that: Scherzer had a downright miserable September, going 0-3 with a 10.20 ERA in four starts. That dropped him out of the postseason rotation, and off the ALDS roster entirely. And now here he is, trying to keep the Blue Jays from staring down elimination. Blue Jays manager John Schneider says Scherzer is in a much better place physically than he was a month ago, and certainly some extra rest never hurts when you’re 41 years old. It is possible that this could be Scherzer’s last start in the Majors, the culmination of a career that has had so many big ones. Will he rise to the moment like we know he can?
Mariners: Can Castillo shut down this suddenly awakened offense?
It has clearly been a strategy for the Jays this series, particularly in Game 3, to try to jump on pitches early. On Wednesday, it finally paid off. After coming into the game hitting .131, with only one hit after the second inning of each loss, the Blue Jays’ offense awakened with a vengeance, launching line drives everywhere, both at and over the wall, against a stunned George Kirby and a just-trying-to-get-through-it Mariners bullpen.
The most emotionally fulfilling homer might have been Vladimir Guerrero Jr.’s; he had been 0-for-7 in the first two games, and his struggles seemed to be a sort of avatar for the Jays’ ALCS home flop. This was a reminder: The Jays can hit.
But they’re not facing Kirby in Game 4: They’re facing Castillo, making his first ALCS start after being absolute nails in the ALDS. He threw 4 2/3 strong innings in the Game 2 win over Tarik Skubal and then another 1 1/3 relief innings in the Game 5 win over Skubal, getting credited with the victory. (And you got a sense, had that game gone into the 16th or 17th innings, he would have kept the Tigers scoreless in those, too.) Hopes that the Mariners were going to cruise into their first World Series, in front of their home crowd, were quickly dashed on Wednesday, but hey, this is Seattle: It was never going to be so easy. Still, Castillo has a chance to give the M’s a hammer lock on this series.
