Author Archive: Matthew Roberson

On the heels of an utterly spectacular Division Series between the Milwaukee Brewers and San Diego Padres — a walk-off, a home run robbery, two paternity leaves, oh my! — I found myself chewing on two pervasive thoughts. One: that was a hell of a series, and it really deserved a fifth game. Two: how many other Division Series have been on that level?

Since the Division Series’ true birth in 1995 (the 1981 strike led to a one-off set of Division Series that autumn, which then went dormant until the next strike made them permanent) we’ve now had 128 of them, with 41 ending in sweeps and 39 going all the way to a do-or-die Game 5, with the ongoing White Sox-Guardians series becoming the 40th. While early-round series in any sport are bound to have some impossibly stacked rosters beating the brakes off ahead-of-schedule teams that are just happy to be cashing playoff bonuses, the history of the Division Series is also rich with indelible postseason memories. With baseball’s inherent small-sample wackiness often playing a huge role — in 2023, both the 100-win Dodgers and 101-win Orioles were swept out of the Division Series by the unlikeliest World Series participants of the decade — these series often shrink the gap between the haves and the have-nots. Sure, sometimes you get a quick sweep where all three games are forgettable, but if you take a fine-tooth comb through the LDS annals, you’ll also find some 3-0 sets that were dripping with tension. (In 1996, for instance, the Cardinals swept the Padres in a series where San Diego sent the tying run to the plate in the ninth inning of all three games.)

This ranking of the best Division Series ever does not include any of those sweeps, or even any four-gamers, though many tried their damnedest. Division Series touchstones like Pedro Martínez coming out of the bullpen for six untouchable innings or Todd Pratt’s improbable homer play well in a highlight reel, but one great moment does not make a great series. The same thing is true of remarkable Game 5s that capped off an otherwise blah affair. We all remember Howie Kendrick’s 2019 grand slam at Dodger Stadium, but forget that the average margin of victory in that Nationals-Dodgers showdown was 4.6 runs. The same thing is true of the Dodgers’ Division Series in 2021 against the Giants, which ended with Max Scherzer’s only career save and sparked the great check swing debate of our times, but also had games decided by four, five, and seven runs.

For a series to be wholly great, it needs start-to-finish drama, star power, and multiple classic games; a little sprinkling of narrative intrigue doesn’t hurt either. Here are the 10 best of the Division Series variety, presented in descending order.

10. All of 2012

This one is obviously cheating, but 2012 is the only year in which all four Division Series went five games, so it gets its own spot. The fact that shorthand is a sufficient way to summarize many of the key events — the Buster Posey grand slam, the Pete Kozma game, the Raul Ibanez game, Justin Verlander vs. Oakland Round 1 — is all you need to know about how spectacular the second week of October was in 2012.

9. 2016 – Dodgers Beat Nationals 3-2

There was a time in the not-so-distant past where the dominant conversation surrounding Dodgers playoff games was that Clayton Kershaw wasn’t very good in them, and that the Los Angeles bullpen was even worse. This narrative clung to the Dodgers as they entered the 2016 postseason having been bounced in the Division Series each of the last two years. This time, though, led by young first-year manager Dave Roberts, questions abounded regarding the team’s overall postseason mettle.

While those were somewhat quieted by Kershaw outdueling Scherzer to take a tight Game 1, the Dodgers dropped each of the next two games, one of which featured Kenley Jansen puking up four earned runs. Allow me to briefly remember some other Dodger bullpen guys who played a big role in this series: Luis Avilán, Pedro Báez, Joe Blanton, and Grant Dayton each made at least three appearances. Avilán, Báez, and Blanton were all dynamite, escaping the series without giving up an earned run. Dayton, however, was the reason the Dodgers nearly blew it again. He took the mound for the seventh inning of Game 5, the Dodgers holding a three-run lead. He was tasked with the bottom of Washington’s lineup, the type of thing that seems simple until you remember that absolutely nothing is simple in playoff baseball. He walked Danny Espinosa, gave up a pinch-hit bomb to Chris Heisey, and then let Clint Robinson reach on a single.

From there, somewhat famously, Roberts aggressively fired Jansen and Kershaw for the final nine outs. Kershaw not only logged his first and only major league save that night, he did so while coming into a messy inning with the tying run in scoring position. This brief but successful outing was as storybook as it gets, removing a fairly sizable monkey yelling about postseason shortcomings from his back. Let us also quickly pay respect to Chase Utley, whose game-winning hit in Game 4 saved the Dodgers’ bacon.

8. 2017 – Yankees Beat Cleveland 3-2

The 2017 Yankees remain the last team to lose the first two games of an LDS and still win the series, though the Guardians could change that on Saturday. Falling into that hole made for an exigent series in its own right, but the Yankees starting the comeback with seven shutout innings from Masahiro Tanaka and a left-on-left Greg Bird homer against a warlock reliever made it even more impressive.

Luis Severino pitched the game of his life to win Game 4, and Didi Gregorius thumped two homers off Corey Kluber, who’d go on to win his second Cy Young that year, to win Game 5. There are so many other things from this series to mention, like how Aaron Judge struck out 16 times, comfortably breaking the Division Series record, or how Cleveland committed a mind-boggling nine errors in five games. It would also be a tremendous oversight not to mention that Game 2 — a 9-8 win for Cleveland that took 13 innings — is one of the very best baseball games of this century, and contained this clip, which I would watch if I ever needed to summon the strength to lift a two-story home from its foundation.

7. 2011 – Cardinals Beat Phillies 3-2

On paper, the 2011 Phillies had everything. This was the fabled Four Aces team, and those four — Roy Halladay (twice), Cole Hamels, Cliff Lee, and Roy Oswalt — made every start of this series. The offense still had its championship core intact as well, even if they were aging. Ryan Madson had an excellent year filling in for the injured Brad Lidge as the team’s primary closer, and on top of that, these Phils were battle tested, having participated in each of the previous four Octobers.

What they didn’t account for was the little guys.

Skip Schumaker and Ryan Theriot were as much of a reason the Cardinals won this series as their Hall of Fame teammates were. While Albert Pujols hit .350 and Yadier Molina threw out three would-be basestealers while masterfully guiding Cardinals pitchers through the vaunted Phillies lineup, Schumaker and Theriot combined to go 12-for-20 with four doubles and four RBI. The biggest of those RBI came in the decisive Game 5, when Schumaker flicked the 10th pitch of his first at-bat off Halladay into the right field corner. It wound up being the only run of the game.

That game is seared into the Delaware Valley’s collective memory for many reasons, the biggest two being Chris Carpenter bullying the Phillies all night en route to a complete game shutout, and Ryan Howard tearing his Achilles in the game’s final at-bat, which was the definitive and unfortunate end to that run of good fortune in Philadelphia. But that game was also one of three one-run affairs in this highly competitive series, including a Game 2 where the Cardinals clawed back from an early 4-0 deficit to beat Lee, and a nailbiter Game 3 where neither team scored until Ben Francisco lifted a pinch-hit homer in the seventh.

Apart from an 11-6 Phillies win to start the series, every game of this tilt was a box office spectacle.

6. 1997 – Cleveland Beats Yankees 3-2

The defending-champion Yankees squared off against Cleveland, with both teams right in the teeth of their ’90s revitalization. They were kind enough to only play bangers.

In Game 1 in the Bronx, the visitors jumped David Cone for five runs in the first inning, only to turn around and watch their bullpen give the Yankees five right back in the sixth. It wasn’t any ordinary offensive explosion either; the Yanks went back-to-back-to-back, marking the first time that had ever happened in a postseason game. If you like watching videos of old Yankee Stadium going ham, I highly recommend pressing play.

Cleveland roughed up Andy Pettitte to steal Game 2, but then lost Game 3 at home, setting up two win-or-go-home games. Because of the playoff format of the time, those were both in Cleveland, and while we will never be able to quantify home field advantage, the hometown nine did take both of them by exactly one run. In Game 4, Cleveland was four outs from elimination when Sandy Alomar Jr. took Mariano Rivera deep in the eighth and Omar Vizquel walked it off in the ninth.

After all that mayhem, there was still a Game 5, which Jose Mesa saved only after putting a runner on second. This whole series was littered with high leverage, and when you factor in the wattage of Derek Jeter, Rivera, Tim Raines, Wade Boggs, Bernie Williams, Jim Thome, Manny Ramirez, David Justice, Orel Hershiser, and several other household names, it easily cements its place in this ranking.

5. 2015 – Blue Jays Beat Rangers 3-2

To this day, Blue Jays-Rangers in 2015 is the series that felt the most like drugs. The energy from pre-renovation Rogers Centre was palpable through the television screen, and rightfully so. This was the Blue Jays’ first taste of October baseball since winning the title in 1993, and their berth in the postseason broke the longest active playoff drought at the time.

Naturally, the Jays lost their first two home games, getting dinked and dunked by Delino DeShields and Hanser Alberto. Game 2 was the real barnburner though, needing 14 innings and 37 total players to complete.

If you’re going to poke holes in this series’ status as an all-timer, it’s because Games 3 and 4 in Texas were relative snoozers. But Game 5 more than made up for them. It was not just a spine tingler, a national exaltation for all of Canada, and the moment that bat flips fully went mainstream thanks to José Bautista’s epic go-ahead home run, but it was also a reminder of what it means to truly be alive (and also that if a catcher throws the ball back to the pitcher and it doinks off the hitter’s bat, that’s still a live ball).

4. 2001 – Diamondbacks Beat Cardinals 3-2

If a series in which every game is decided by three runs or less, the teams alternate wins, and the final swing produces a walk-off hit doesn’t do it for you, this probably just isn’t your jam.

The Diamondbacks won this series despite getting outscored 12-10. They also lost the lone game that Randy Johnson started. The Cardinals, meanwhile, managed to hit a measly .191 for the series and relied heavily on their bullpen, which lacked a true alpha and wasn’t particularly strong in the regular season. Put all that in a blender and you get a weird, gelatinous substance that doesn’t quite feel right but is compelling nonetheless.

One man who was on top of his game was Curt Schilling, who has a case for the best Division Series performance ever. Schilling started two games and went nine innings in both of them, starting with a true masterpiece in Game 1 (nine strikeouts, three hits, zero runs). The encore in Game 5 came with a teensy blemish, but Schilling matched his nine strikeouts and finished with a record-setting 1.30 Win Probability Added for the series. His 18 innings pitched in a Division Series are also a record, and if you’re wondering about that solitary mistake, it was leaving this pitch to J.D. Drew over the plate.

Luckily for the neutral fan, Schilling’s poor location set up Tony Womack’s series-ending floater, foreshadowing more clutchness from him later that postseason.

3. 2003 – Red Sox Beat Athletics 3-2

If you sat down and watched every game of this series today, you’d probably say the worst one was the A’s 5-1 win in Game 2, which was the most lopsided of the series. But that would also mean you just watched Barry Zito twirl seven innings of poetry. Zito’s gem put the Athletics in the driver’s seat but unable to finish the race, as the Red Sox ran off a trio of wins to take the series. First in line to make Oakland slightly less romantic about baseball: Trot Nixon.

The very next day, the A’s lugged a lead into the eighth inning and hitched their wagon to Keith Foulke for the final six outs. He got the first two, then was interrupted by David Ortiz.

All good, Zito was on the hill for Game 5! What’s this, now? He faced Pedro? And gave Manny an 86-mph nothing ball right down the middle? Oh.

The Red Sox took that game in another white knuckler that put a period on an unfathomable streak for the A’s. The green and gold endured four straight ALDS Game 5 losses from 2000-03, with this one marking the second in three years after winning the first two games of the series. Tough for the East Bay baseball fans, cinema (literally and figuratively) for fans of exciting ball. And hey, A’s fans will always have Ramon Hernandez’s bizarre yet effective two-out, walk-off bunt from Game 1.

2. 2013 – Tigers Beat Athletics 3-2

It is not hyperbole at all to say every game of this series had a serotonin spike. If Scherzer and Bartolo Colon duking it out in Game 1 wasn’t enough for you, that game ended with the slimmest of margins as Joaquín Benoit had to slay Brandon Moss and Yoenis Cespedes to close it out. Game 2 was a scoreless tie into the bottom of the ninth — Justin Verlander and Sonny Gray, take a bow — when then-unknown catcher Stephen Vogt spanked a walk-off single. In Game 3, Grant Balfour and Victor Martinez screamed at each other real loud! The Tigers trailed 3-0 in Game 4, then 4-3, and still managed to pull out a win. That game deserves a closer look, because Scherzer came in for a relief outing that was this close to being a complete disaster.

To set the scene, Scherzer relieved Doug Fister in the top of the seventh, with the game knotted at three. Some small ball from the A’s spawned the aforementioned 4-3 lead, but the Tigers got it back in the seventh, partly due to a home run that may or may not have been interfered with.

When Scherzer came out for the eighth, he proceeded to load the bases with nobody out, grit his way to two massive strikeouts, then run the count full to Alberto Callaspo, who laced a line drive that hung up just long enough to be caught. It really was an absolute powder keg of a baseball game.

Game 5 was more tyranny from Verlander, who was just torturous to the A’s. At this point we’ll stop highlighting Oakland’s shortcomings and focus on Verlander, who is one of five pitchers to post a 0.00 ERA in an LDS while tossing at least 10 innings.

1. 1995 – Mariners Beat Yankees 3-2

I don’t need to explain why this series is paramount to the Seattle Mariners’ very existence, or how Ken Griffey Jr. chugging around the bases to win Game 5 is surely the best that any baseball player has ever looked while running.

What maybe does need explaining is everything that led to Edgar Martinez’s picturesque swing and The Kid’s wild ride. Like how Griffey (maybe the most beloved player the Mariners have ever employed) uncorked two home runs off David Cone in Game 1, only for reliever Bobby Ayala (maybe the least beloved player the Mariners have ever employed) to later serve up three runs that essentially sealed Seattle’s loss. Perhaps you were unaware that Vince Coleman and his .345 career slugging percentage hit a tater in Game 2, a sordid evening in the Bronx that lasted over five hours, culminating in Jim Leyritz’s walk-off dinger that nearly killed professional baseball in Seattle.

The Mariners bounced back to win a fun Game 3 and had to overcome a five-run deficit to survive Game 4. While Martinez’s legacy is tied to The Double in Game 5, the M’s aren’t even in that position if not for his less-heralded handiwork the day before. It is a marvel of human accomplishment that he kept the first one fair.

Game 5 was one for the books. While the heroics of both Martinez and Griffey are deserving of their own 20,000 words, and are the main reason why this series gets the top spot, let’s continue the education around the other parts of that legendary Sunday at the Kingdome.

Cone unleashed a legitimately reckless 147 pitches, the Yankees finished with six hits but 10 walks, and a rookie setup man named Rivera made his third straight scoreless appearance on his way to leading all pitchers in WPA for the series.

They were five close, high-scoring games that could never be replicated, have been slightly imitated, but are now forever vindicated with the top spot on this list.

Playoff losses can follow several different scripts, from the wire-to-wire blowouts that breed prolonged helplessness to the back-and-forth affairs that provide just enough hope before snatching it away at the end. But somewhere in the middle, there is the type of game that seems like a team can and should win, only for a few things to break the other way in such a fashion that its fans do not rage, do not cry, but instead climb aboard the doomsday hamster wheel of here we go again.

With their 4-3 loss to the Chicago White Sox in Game 2 of the American League Division Series, the Cleveland Guardians are now 2-7 in their last nine home playoff games. Those perilously loyal Cleveland fans, clad in red and blue jerseys bearing several different names — both on the front and the back — have seen their team repeatedly fall flat, dating back to that famous rain delay in 2016. But in this decade, they’ve also seen their team lose an ALDS Game 4 to the Yankees in 2022 that would have clinched the series, another loss to the Yankees in 2024 when Juan Soto simply decided he was too good of a hitter not to break their hearts, and two crushing Wild Card Series losses at home in 2025 to a division rival. In 2026, with no guarantee that they’ll be coming back for another game this year, the Guardians have added two more defeats at the hands of an AL Central foe, this time coming off a bye.

The White Sox won this game by eschewing the home run ball they relied on all summer and opting for Guards Ball. They had just three of the 10 hardest-hit balls of the game. Their opening pitcher did not get out of the first inning. But twice they scored from second on a single, went 3-for-8 with runners in scoring position (as opposed to Cleveland’s fatal 0-for-5), and rode a scorching hot reliever to probably their biggest victory since the 2005 championship march.

Ironically, this game began with a bit of Guards Ball from the home team that seemed a little too on the nose. Steven Kwan kicked things off with a roller through the right side that left the bat at 84.8 mph. José Ramírez then worked a walk, and Chase DeLauter followed with a productive out. That spelled the end of the night for Anthony Kay, who was replaced by Sean Newcomb. When Newcomb promptly missed the zone with his first two pitches to Jo Adell, the White Sox bench opted to put Adell on intentionally, loading the bases and setting up a double play. Newcomb was able to induce a grounder from Nathaniel Lowe next, but the type that bounces way up in the air rather than skimming along the dirt. It was also, apparently, the type of grounder that triggers a horrendous throwing error, giving Cleveland two easy runs.

The buildup to that calamitous moment wasn’t entirely Newcomb’s fault, as Kay was responsible for the lead runners and recorded one solitary out on just 17 pitches, both fewer than the four outs on 22 pitches he gave Chicago as a reliever in Game 1. What the White Sox do with Kay for the rest of the series may come down entirely to game situations; his Game 2 performance inspired negative confidence, and it seems he’s better suited for plug-and-play outings out of the bullpen, particularly with Davis Martin, Hagen Smith and/or Erick Fedde, and Sean Burke now lined up for the bulk roles should this series go all the way to Game 5.

For the first half of this game, Newcomb’s blunder looked like it would be the defining play. But the true inflection points came in the bottom of the fifth and the top of the sixth. Cleveland, clinging to a 2-1 lead, sent its best hitters to the plate in the home half of the fifth. Not only did that trio — Kwan, Ramírez, and DeLauter — go down in order, they did so without getting a ball out of the infield. Up to that point, the game was following a favorable script for the Guardians. They were gifted an early lead, had their starting pitcher, Gavin Williams, in the rocking chair, and were primed to put pressure on Chicago’s pitching staff. The exact pocket of the lineup that Cleveland manager Stephen Vogt would want at the plate for that situation wilted, and it felt like the White Sox were headed back to their dugout knowing their opponent had squandered their chance to properly put them away.

Within minutes, things began unraveling in Cleveland like the night Mike Love gave his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame speech. Miguel Vargas chased Williams by thwacking his 98th pitch of the night into left field for a sharp leadoff single. The Guardians then turned to lefty Erik Sabrowski, a very qualified fireman who came oh so close to extinguishing the flames. Sabrowski retired Munetaka Murakami and walked Randal Grichuk. No harm, no foul. But perhaps the biggest pitch of the night was one that did not get put in play or result in a strikeout. Rather, it was a wild pitch that pushed Vargas and Grichuk to third and second base, respectively. While Sabrowski did well to dig out of a 2-0 hole and pop Tommy Pham up for the second out, the next batter ambushed him.

Braden Montgomery’s first-pitch double was a wondrous display of hitting. It also would not have given Chicago the lead if not for Sabrowski’s wild pitch. One inning after Cleveland’s biggest (and some would say only) offensive threats failed to do anything, a defense-first rookie with an 89 wRC+ delivered the biggest blow of the night for Chicago. Fellow youngster Chase Meidroth then slapped an opposite-field single off Hunter Gaddis to make it 4-2 White Sox, and the here we go again feeling blew through Progressive Field like a vicious Lake Erie wind. Both Montgomery and Meidroth’s RBI knocks came on fastballs, pitch selections that Cleveland might like to have back. In the regular season, Montgomery had a .379 xwOBA against fastballs, and he was facing a pitcher in Sabrowski who hadn’t allowed a hit all year to righties on his slider. Meidroth — who whiffs on fastballs just 15.7% of the time, compared to 23.5% on breaking stuff and 29.3% on offspeed pitches — probably should have seen exclusively sliders and changeups from Gaddis.

The cruelty of this game for the Guardians is found in Williams’ stat line. Their flamethrowing Big Rig sat 99 mph on his fastball, generated 22 whiffs on 40 swings, and finished with 11 strikeouts. Apart from the three walks that drove his pitch count up — one of which helped the White Sox plate their first run in the fourth inning — Williams did everything that could have been asked of him, handing things over to a more than capable bullpen. It not only wasn’t enough, but it will be lost to history because of what Burke did.

Burke is a starting pitcher by trade, one who made 27 starts for the White Sox this year and led the team in innings. Starting pitchers, notorious creatures of habit that they are, typically don’t like following an opener. They especially don’t like entering a game mid-inning with a runner on base. But that’s exactly what Burke did in his spectacular Game 2 showing. When White Sox skipper Will Venable gave his early-inning interview on the television broadcast, he plainly stated that the plan was to have Kay and Newcomb get through DeLauter a second time. DeLauter singled in his second at-bat, immediately shooting Venable out of the dugout to go get Newcomb, as planned. But if you pumped Venable with truth serum, he’d likely tell you he was feeling a bit queasy about that plan now putting Burke in a dirty inning. Burke’s response to this adversity wasn’t as sexy as escaping a bases-loaded jam or coming on for a multi-inning save, but his subsequent strikeouts of both Adell and Lowe is the type of thing that should get a proper segment if this White Sox run turns documentary worthy. He goes to bed knowing he covered 5 1/3 innings while surrendering just one hit, and also that the Pope must be thrilled with him.

The Guardians, meanwhile, do not have papal fandom or many shreds of optimism on their side, both narratively and statistically. They lost two home games with their two best pitchers on the hill. Two of the three runs they’ve scored this series have come from a pitcher fielding his position and suddenly contracting Joel Zumaya Disease. They now have to win two games at Rate Field in Chicago, which will not only be completely bananas, but is a venue where they lost four of their six games this year. Maybe they can cling to the idea that Adell’s ultimately fruitless eighth-inning triple will unlock his swing, or that Grant Taylor has been so overworked that he can’t possibly continue pitching this well.

But once you start playing that mental game, it’s probably not going to happen for you, the same way it hasn’t happened for Cleveland in the postseason all decade.

In basketball, the biggest offensive threat is usually guarded by the other team’s best defender. A football team’s most dynamic wide receiver has to worry about lining up across from an All-Pro cornerback. But in this sick and twisted sport, sometimes good-on-good instead becomes good-on-whoever-we-have-available. For the 2026 crop of Division Series, there is no shortage of micro matchups — both because the soft underbelly of every roster typically gets exposed in the postseason, and because every organization’s horde of spreadsheet nerds will be combing through information looking for advantages — that may or may not seal a team’s fate.

San Diego Padres vs. Milwaukee Brewers: Run Game vs. Run Game

The Padres and Brewers series will feature a lot of things: two cities that love beer, a blinding amount of yellow arm sleeves and rally towels, and a bunch of basepath thievery.

Both of these teams finished top five in total stolen bases this year, each employing a crew of bandits that will surely look to continue their heist. The Padres were one of just five major league teams to have multiple players swipe at least 25 bags, as Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill took 38 and 27, respectively. Xander Bogaerts, who was not much of a basestealer until arriving in San Diego in 2023, has also joined the party. His 22 steals in 2026 — during his age-33 season, impressively — marked a new single-season best, topping the previous career high of 20 he set in 2025. And while neither received enough playing time to put up those kinds of numbers, speedy outfielders Samad Taylor and Jase Bowen both have elite sprint speed and solid base-stealing acumen. Read the rest of this entry »

Major league baseball’s postseason derives its spine-tingling intrigue from many sources. There’s the tension — and inherent cruelty — of a months-long season coming down to a handful of games. Perhaps nothing in sports is better than a tightly-contested postseason game entering its final innings, the score so close and the stakes so high that it’s impossible to look away, while also leaving even the most devoted fans wondering if they can bear to watch. From these theatrics we often get epic performances and precise execution. Cam Schlittler dismantling the Red Sox with coiling curveballs and unfair fastballs in front of a bloodthirsty Yankee Stadium crowd, for instance. Grant Taylor’s dastardly 3-2 slider to strike out the potential tying run and end the eighth inning in Tuesday’s Game 1 against the Astros also comes to mind, as does the Braves’ note-perfect double play to squash the Phillies’ ninth-inning rally in their opening round first game.

But sometimes, well, sometimes a similar type of joy comes from the baseball equivalent of a windmill dunk.

The scene? Petco Park, Game 1 of the National League Wild Card Series between the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres. The Padres hold a comfortable 7-0 lead in the bottom of the seventh inning. The actor? Fernando Tatis Jr., arguably the most exhilarating player in the game when he’s hitting all his marks. Looking to extend the lead — or maybe just have a little fun — Tatis takes off from first base on a 2-1 pitch and is rewarded with a curveball in the dirt, a basestealer’s delight. Tatis not only beats the throw to second, it pings off his sliding leg and into no man’s land, dribbling slowly into shallow left field as the Friar Faithful slowly ascertain what’s about to happen. Tatis is going turbo mode.

Moments like this bring fans to their feet and opponents to their knees. Tatis — who reached first on an infield single, and saw the opportunity to turn that hit’s 49.7 mph exit velocity into a run — seemed hellbent on scoring as soon as the ball caromed away from the Cubs’ infield. Is stealing a base with a touchdown-sized lead sort of reckless and unnecessary? Sure. But these are the playoffs, where it’s never a bad idea to add on, especially when presented with the opportunity to exploit a catcher like Carson Kelly, who struggled with the running game all year. We can assume Tatis merely read the scouting report and was putting that knowledge to good use. But once he took second, surely he’d chill there (with no outs!) and give the heart of the Padres’ order a chance to drive him in. Right? Wrong:

Tatis did not stop at third, and probably didn’t even consider doing so. Why would he? Because his third base coach explicitly told him to, long before Tatis even reached third base? That’s super boring. And Tatis, ever the entertainer, sensed that this blowout needed a little extra oomph before people started leaving to beat the traffic. Flying into third base, completely ignoring Bob Henley’s stop sign, and rounding for home are the sorts of moves that only the game’s great showmen have the ability to recognize, and even fewer have the aplomb to pull off. Lurking backlash for running up the score be damned (thankfully, the internet seemed to agree that this play was so awesome that he was spared any criticism), Tatis wants to remind everyone that he’s capable of things other ballplayers are not.

The Padres’ rambunctious right fielder, who has an 89th-percentile sprint speed, correctly identified that his speed would provide much more exhilaration in this situation than scoring from second on a Dustin Harris single would. Again, pretty unnecessary given the circumstance, but people don’t pay postseason ticket prices to see the mundane. They want to see superstars do superstar things, punctuated with the type of emotional outburst that makes postseason baseball so special. Does one man’s primal scream after diving across home plate register as much of a sound when 47,000 San Diegans are also screaming? Probably not, but it makes for one hell of a highlight:

FERNANDO TATIS JR. ARE YOU SERIOUS?! pic.twitter.com/hsHlrxILZk

— MLB (@MLB) September 30, 2026

None of this even accounts for the fact that Tatis started this baseball bash with a leadoff home run, giving him seven in 17 playoff games and boosting his lifetime postseason OPS to a nirvanic 1.178. All this from a man who finished April with a 75 wRC+ but who put up a 143 the rest of the way, giving him a strong chance to finish in the top five of MVP voting. His 2026 statistics will show yet another season with at least 25 homers and 25 steals — the fourth time he’s done that — with the lowest strikeout rate of his still-ascendant career to boot. But the numbers won’t tell the full narrative arc. His first home run of the regular season famously did not come until late May, and his team’s playoff odds sagged to a season-low 7.4% in July. The Padres were under .500 as late as July 25, and their deadline acquisitions of Casey Mize and Robbie Ray didn’t do much to help. But thanks to a bullpen unit that tied for second all-time in collective WAR, Jackson Merrill’s second-half revitalization, the surprise production of Harris, Ty France, and Samad Taylor, plus Tatis finding some sort of flow state (which may or may not have something to do with planetary alignment), the Padres are poised to advance into October.

The lesson here? Chase wild, thrill-seeking endeavors over playing it safe. This style of play might just be what San Diego needs in a hypothetical Division Series against the Milwaukee Brewers and their tight, fundamentally sound, 103-win operation. Run free, Fernando Tatis Jr., and deal with the consequences later. At the very least, you gave everyone something to marvel at and helped your team to a convincing win. Which is kind of the whole point of playing postseason baseball.

In past iterations of this column, a combination of pressing narratives and fatigue with certain pitchers and their respective teams, or a straight up lack of interesting matchups have forced us to get creative. Not so this week, where the first three days of the week each feature games with giant WATCH ME signs stapled to their probable pitchers. Beginning with the Padres-Brewers series, the final week of May has gifted us some undeniably fun fixtures.

Monday, May 24, 7:40 PM ET: Blake Snell vs. Brandon Woodruff

In his first year in San Diego, Blake Snell seems to be learning his new city using a method that many non-pitchers find helpful: a lot of walks. Snell has already issued 25 walks in 40.1 innings (13.7 BB%) and allowed hitters to reach base at a clip comfortably above the league average. The former Ray has a .330 on-base percentage against him, while the rest of the league is at .313. Read the rest of this entry »

This season, two sidearm relievers – the Rays’ Ryan Thompson and the Giants’ Tyler Rogers – are leaving hitters dumbstruck with their unusual pitching styles. Besides releasing the ball near their shoe tops, though, Thompson and Rogers have another thing in common.

Both pitchers wear jersey numbers far above what most baseball players would consider traditional. Thompson, who proudly wears No. 81, rocks a number that would fit in better with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers than the Rays. Meanwhile, Rogers has been the best pitcher out of the San Francisco bullpen with No. 71 on his back, and says that he likely would have ditched it had he not been so fortunate on the mound.

Thompson and Rogers discussed the process behind getting their numbers, how important they are to them now, and all of the strange experiences that have come from boldly wearing a number that so many others will not. Read the rest of this entry »

As the 2021 season nears its Memorial Day checkpoint, feast your eyes upon some stars who are off to the best starts of their career, a couple of wily veterans still learning (and if they know what’s good for them, eventually unlearning) some new tricks, and two-up-and down hurlers on a quest for consistency.

Tuesday, May 18, 6:40 PM ET: Trevor Rogers vs. Zack Wheeler

Two of the National League’s best pitchers through the season’s first month are on a collision course at Citizens Bank Park. One is an NL East mainstay who generated considerable prospect hype; the other is making a name for himself after a relatively anonymous minor league career. While Rogers was a first-round pick and a top-six prospect in the Marlins’ system heading into the season, he certainly was not on many fans’ radars outside of South Florida; our own Eric Longenhagen viewed him as a “stable 2-WAR starter prospect.”

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All the pitchers in the league seem to have gotten together and decided that someone has to throw a no-hitter each week. One of our best matchups this week involves a guy who already threw one, two guys meeting in LA who are certainly pitching well enough to nab one of their own, and an AL Central altercation between pitchers – and teams – trending in opposite directions.

Tuesday, May 11, 7:10 PM ET: John Means vs. Marcus Stroman

John Means got his 15 minutes of fame last week after methodically tearing the Mariners apart. Means’ destruction of the M’s lineup earned him a no-hitter and the baseball world’s spotlight, but the Baltimore bro has been reliably great all season. He’s allowed just five hits and three earned runs over his last 22.1 innings, striking out 27 hitters along the way. If we zoom out and look at his entire body of work across seven starts, we find that Means has become one of the best pitchers in the game thanks to one little trick.

Like a local magician bringing their act on the road, Means risked letting the secret out of the bag when he performed the trick over and over again in Seattle. The Orioles’ breakout star threw first pitch strikes to 26 of the 27 hitters he faced, elevating his first-pitch strike percentage to a maniacal 73.5%. Not only is this 12 percentage points above Means’ career-high, it’s also the highest of any American League starter. As a predominantly fastball-changeup artist, one would think that Means adheres to the traditional method of fastballs in the zone, changeups just underneath it. While he still utilizes his changeup in that fashion – to the tune of a 33.3% chase rate – it’s actually the pitch he throws most frequently in the zone, per Baseball Savant. Read the rest of this entry »

In her 2012 novel Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn wrote that the Midwest is full of people who are nice enough, but easy to manipulate. “Easy to mold, easy to wipe down,” Flynn wrote of these people, who she described as having plastic souls. But she could not have foreseen two current Midwest residents who are breaking the mold of modern baseball.

The major-league walk rate has comfortably sat around 8% for the last 100 years, and with 21st-century front offices emphasizing on-base percentage, the game’s elite offensive players regularly walk more than 10% of the time while boasting on-base percentages in the .400 club.

This season, the American League Central plays home to two players that don’t seem to care about any of that. The Twins’ Willians Astudillo and the Royals’ Hanser Alberto have each strode to the plate at least 55 times in 2021. They have combined for zero walks.

The pair of Midwest transplants are the only players in the league who have batted at least 50 times without drawing a walk. They are also the only players in the league who have batted at least 40 times without drawing a walk, and the only players who have batted at least 30 times without a walk. The player with the third-highest amount of plate appearances this year without a base on balls is Angels journeyman Scott Schebler, who’s all the way down at 27. Red Sox backup catcher Kevin Plawecki had made 35 straight walkless plate appearances to begin his season before inexplicably drawing two on Thursday against the Tigers’ bullpen.

Astudillo and Alberto have never been paragons of patience during their careers. Both players have career walk rates under 2.5%, with Astudillo at 1.9% and Alberto at a slightly more selective 2.4%. Since Astudillo was summoned to the big leagues in 2018, he and Alberto have the lowest walk rates of any players with at least 300 plate appearances. Yet, they can each claim on-base percentages above .310 during that span, which certainly isn’t great, but is much better than almost all of their classmates in the remedial walk room. Read the rest of this entry »

This week kicks off with two exciting players who should leave a huge impact on the sport over the next decade, and concludes with two who left their fingerprints all over the last one.

Monday, May 3, 9:38 PM ET: Tyler Glasnow vs. Shohei Ohtani

Outside of a deGrom-Ohtani matchup (which, All-Star Game, if you’re listening…) you’d be hard pressed to come up with a more exciting combination of starting pitchers. Tyler Glasnow, a pitcher who’s been abandoned by consistency at times in the past, is turning his question marks into periods. The looming issue with Glasnow was always when, not if, his strikeout numbers would reach kick-ass status. Like many of his fellow right-handed power pitchers, getting out of Pittsburgh was a great start. In his first full season with Tampa – albeit in just 12 starts – Glasnow made it over the 30% K-rate hump for the first time. His second full season with the Rays ended with a 38.2 K% and a trip to the World Series. This season, he’s still climbing, and hitters are getting completely neutralized.

Notching 10 or more strikeouts in three of his last four starts, including a career-high 14 on April 12 against the Rangers, Glasnow’s strikeout percentage is a robust 39.2%. With Blake Snell and Charlie Morton out of the picture, Glasnow is still bulldozing everything in his path, and he’s on an immaculate pace.

The most elementary reasons for that? Rather than going all in on fastballs and curveballs – pitches he threw a combined 95.4% of the time last season – Glasnow has scaled back the curve and introduced a slider-cutter hybrid. He’s spoken about the increased confidence that came from working with Tampa Bay’s coaching staff and their support, stating that they instructed him to “out stuff” guys rather than trying to dot the corner. When he only had two pitches though, his stuff was too predictable. Enter the “slutter,” a pitch that Glasnow admits has made things easier on him, which I’m sure he and his Boy Meets World good looks really needed. Read the rest of this entry »