After the madness of the Wild Card Series — with three winner-take-all games on Thursday, all of them taut and stressful — a day off to rest and catch our breath on Friday was certainly appreciated. But now that everybody has had a chance to get their bearings: It’s time to get back into it. And what better way than with a full day of four Division Series games.
Can the Brewers get their mojo back?
The last game the Brewers played that really meant anything was — well, considering their lead in the NL Central was never fewer than five games after Aug. 5, it has been a while. It’s a matter of debate whether a team’s record down the stretch means that much in the postseason, but it should be said that since their 14-game winning streak ended on Aug. 16, the Brewers were under .500.
Meanwhile, the Cubs are coming off a taut, gripping series win over the Padres and may have finally figured out their bullpen over the last fortnight or so. The one thing the Cubs are still working out is the offense outside of Seiya Suzuki and Michael Busch, with Kyle Tucker continuing to work through his calf issue and Pete Crow-Armstrong still working his way back to his first-half form.
What does that mean? The best path for the Brewers to look like the Brewers again is to have Peralta pitch like he did in August (4-0, 0.32 ERA). The Brewers have enjoyed their best season in franchise history. But a Game 1 loss would make that all feel awfully precarious, especially coming on the heels of the team’s other recent October disappointments.
Will the Blue Jays take advantage of a good pitching matchup?
The Yankees just survived a grueling three games against the Red Sox, and while they were saved somewhat by rookie Cam Schlittler’s brilliant eight innings in Game 3, they still had to use David Bednar, the only reliever they particularly trust right now, in all three games. Now Gil is going to start for the Yankees in Game 1 of this series, which is hardly ideal. The 2024 AL Rookie of the Year still posted a 3.32 ERA in 11 starts after returning from a lat strain in August, but his command was rough and his underlying numbers were worrisome. (Gil held the Blue Jays to one run over six innings on Sept. 6, but with four walks and only one strikeout.)
Gil pitching in front of a questionable bullpen would seem exactly what the Blue Jays would like to see, but it’s up in the air whether they have the horses to benefit right now. Bo Bichette is still out of the lineup, and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. ended the season in an ugly slump, putting up just a .592 OPS with no homers after Sept. 5. The Yankees have a wobbly bullpen but also the highest-scoring offense in baseball. The Blue Jays are going to have to muscle up to win this series, and they’ll have no better opportunity to do so than in Game 1.
We finally get to watch Ohtani do both in a playoff game
Fun trivia question! Who was the last player, before Ohtani, to both hit and pitch in a postseason game? No, no, the answer is not Babe Ruth; it’s amazing how quickly we forget. The last player to get a plate appearance, as a pitcher, in a postseason game was Astros reliever Kendall Graveman, who struck out in the ninth inning of Game 5 of the 2021 World Series. (That was the last year before the arrival of the universal DH. It should also be noted that Zack Greinke got a hit in that game, but as a pinch-hitter.)
Since the Angels never made the playoffs when Ohtani played for them, and Ohtani wasn’t pitching last October, he now gets — for the first time — to be the starting pitcher and the leadoff man in a playoff game. Not just any playoff game either: Game 1 of what promises to be an epic series between two teams who desperately, desperately want to win the World Series this year.
It’s one thing to watch Ohtani do something no one has done in baseball in a century, and never at this level. It’s quite another to see him do it when the stakes are this high. To steal an old LeBron James marketing line: We are all witnesses.
Can the Tigers somehow steal one non-Skubal game?
Because Tarik Skubal pitched Game 1 of the Wild Card Series, he won’t be able to start Game 1 of the ALDS, which would be on three days’ rest. But because of the travel days from Seattle to Detroit after Game 2 and then (theoretically) back again after Game 4, Skubal could start both Game 2 and Game 5 on full rest.
For a team like the Tigers, which feels like it’s being held together by manager A.J. Hinch’s “Skubal and Pitching Chaos” strategy for the second straight October, that could be enough. There’s no guarantee Detroit wins Skubal’s starts — the club won only one of his regular-season outings in September — but doing so is the Tigers’ clearest path to advancing as underdogs in this series.
Even if that happens, though, they need to sneak out one win in the other three games. Game 1 wouldn’t seem like the ideal time to do it, as the Tigers only had one day off after their grueling series in Cleveland and have to be extremely road weary. (They haven’t played a home game since Sept. 21.) They also used both of their other clear playoff-caliber starters, Casey Mize and Jack Flaherty, in that series. But if the Tigers can figure out a way to steal Game 1, they’re instantly — and maybe definitively — the favorites in this series moving forward.
