Clayton Kershaw is starting Game 1 of the NLDS for the Dodgers, and that’ll be a welcome sight for a team that wasn’t sure if he’d even be able to make it back for the playoffs at all. There’s no replacing Kershaw’s presence, and there’s no replacing Kershaw’s stuff. When Kershaw returned from the disabled list, he brought his stuff. And it turns out he even brought something extra!

In a start against the Rockies, Kershaw twice dropped his arm slot. That wasn’t much, but it was something new, and I put something together on the subject. Kershaw was inspired to mess around by teammate/apparent superstar? Rich Hill, who’s made a habit of varying his looks. It turns out Kershaw used to throw from a lower slot in high school, so the twist didn’t come completely out of nowhere, but it was still worth wondering after that game whether Kershaw would re-visit the trick. It could’ve easily been a one-off.

We can say now the trick has been re-visited. Maybe it’ll be a two-off, but Kershaw dropped his arm five times in his last start against the Giants. This is now something for the Nationals to be aware of, and this is now something for you to look out for from home.

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The recipe for winning in the playoffs really shouldn’t be that complicated. You want your good players to do well, and you want the rest of your players to do well enough. It shouldn’t take any more than that, so, for the Rangers, they came into the ALDS against the Blue Jays hoping to lean on Cole Hamels and Yu Darvish, which is totally fine. Those are two outstanding pitchers; you expect them to have outstanding games. Hamels, yesterday, allowed seven runs, and couldn’t get out of the fourth. Darvish, today, allowed five runs, and couldn’t get into the sixth. Now the Rangers are probably screwed. What do you do? They just got baseballed.

Darvish’s problem was that he allowed four homers. And I’m not going to try to defend him — you have to work pretty hard to give up four homers. But we should at least be able to excuse him for one of them. Behold Kevin Pillar doubling what was, in the moment, a one-run lead. I’d argue that Pillar might’ve done a worse job of executing here than even Darvish did. No, that sounds stupid, but, you know what I mean. What is this!

Literally just the other day, Pillar knocked a double against a pitch that was similarly high, but that double could’ve been caught, and at least the pitch was somewhere over the plate. Pillar went up and Pillar went in to take Darvish yard, and I just honestly don’t know what you’re supposed to do with this. This isn’t the pitch that Darvish wanted to throw, but it should’ve just put him behind 3-1 in the count, not 3-1 on the scoreboard.

Here’s a plot of all the 2016 home runs, with data borrowed from Baseball Savant. I put righty and lefty home runs on the same scale, such that pitches on the left are inside, and pitches on the right are outside. You can easily see here that Pillar’s home run is exceptional, relative to the pack.

Maybe it’s not the single most exceptional home run. Maybe it is? I don’t know. But it’s out there. It’s above most of the group, and it’s to the left of most of the group, and it’s both of those things at the same time, which makes it bizarre. It doesn’t reflect well on Pillar that he swung at this pitch in the first place while ahead in the count. It’s probably no mystery why Pillar is the owner of a career 85 wRC+. But on the other hand, maybe that is a mystery, because if Pillar can go yard against a pitch like this, what’s to stop him from going yard against almost literally anything?

I am a professional baseball analyst, writing for a website founded upon baseball analysis. So often, around this time of year, my analysis comes down to a “welp.” Pillar put a…good? swing on the ball. I don’t even know, man. But it sure was a dinger, all right.

Corey Kluber and David Price will on the mound later today when the Indians host the Red Sox in Game 2 of the ALDS. Before each faces his first batter, he will go through a warmup routine. The Cleveland righty and the Boston lefty will do so in a similar manner, but with a few notable differences.

Both will begin by playing catch in the outfield approximately 30 minutes before the start of the game. Price specified 35 minutes. Kluber didn’t give a specific time, but he’s no less structured. He told me that everything is mapped out, including when he begins long-tossing on the field. His routine on the road begins five minutes earlier, as he won’t be pitching in the top half of the first inning.

Kluber throws “30 to 35 pitches” once he gets on the bullpen mound. Price throws “40 to 45 pitches,” which he said is “probably more than most guys.” As you’d expect, each begins at a lower intensity — “about 70% effort for the first 10-15” for Price — before ramping up. Fastball command is the primary goal at the beginning of the session.

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After a few months of mostly meaningless regular-season baseball, the Cubs begin their pursuit of a World Series title tonight. This is the best team the Cubs have had in a very long time, and 108 years since their last championship, Cubs fans are understandably excited about the possibility this roster provides. After spending most of their lives waiting until next year, this really could be the year they’ve been waiting for.

Unfortunately, it feels like this Cubs team will be defined by these next three weeks of baseball. The team is so good that they’ve created their own heightened expectations, and with the best roster in baseball, anything short of ending the World Series drought will be seen as a failure. But the unfortunate reality of postseason baseball is that the Cubs are far more likely to fail than they are to succeed.

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You get into a bubble sometimes. Even when that bubble doesn’t look like other bubbles, it’s there insulating you from seeing something you should see. I’m always looking for that new thing, that change, that great new pitcher, that guy overperforming his expectations. That’s the fun thing to look at! An ace, pitching like an ace again, with wipeout stuff? Huh. Somehow, that might be my blind spot.

But then again, sustained excellence can do that to you. We didn’t really write about Jon Lester this year, for example. Jon Lester was excellent, of course. But he was excellent in the way he’s usually excellent. It’s worked out for the Cubs, but there’s material there for analysis.

Corinne Landrey’s been the only one to write about Yu Darvish so far this year, even though he was the second-best starter by strikeout percentage in 2016 while also the author of the best walk rate of his career. We should regularly write about excellence, and here’s Darvish taking on the Blue Jays for Game Two. Here’s an opportunity to pop the Yu bubble.

The thing is, it looks like he hasn’t changed much since he was so excellent before his Tommy John surgery. It looks that way. I’m not sure that’s true.

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The Orioles lost Tuesday night without using Zach Britton, one of the game’s best relief pitchers. It was a do-or-die game that went to extra innings, but Buck Showalter held his closer for a save situation because the closer is the closer. While there’s some argument for maintaining bullpen roles and hierarchies over the course of a 162-game season, sticking to that kind of mentality in a single-elimination game defies comprehension. If there were ever a time to use your closer early, it’s when a single run could end your season. Showalter didn’t and he’s watching the ALDS from home rather than a dugout.

On Thursday, Terry Francona took a different approach. In Game One against Boston, Francona went to Andrew Miller, his own relief ace, with two outs in the fifth inning. His club led 4-3 with Brock Holt, Boston’s No. 2 hitter, coming to the plate. Francona made the decision that Trevor Bauer was done and it was time to go to the pen. Francona called on Miller for six outs, followed by Bryan Shaw for two and Cody Allen for five.

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The bullpen revolution was televised in Cleveland. While Buck Showalter was reaching for a short iron to lay up on a par five within reach of the green from the fairway of a golf course somewhere in Florida, Terry Francona was walking out to the pitcher’s mound at Progressive Field in the fifth inning of a one-run playoff game to summon the world’s best relief pitcher and make the bullpen of the future a reality in the present.

Andrew Miller pitched a fifth inning for the first time since 2013, and then he pitched a sixth inning, too, and a seventh inning for good measure. The Indians’ go-to high-leverage relief weapon — that’s the closest thing you’ll find to a properly titled relief role in Cleveland — struck out four Red Sox batters in two scoreless innings of work while throwing a season-high 40 pitches. Miller faced eight batters, though Terry Francona was reportedly willing to let Miller face as many as 12, a strategy that would have allowed him to face David Ortiz twice.

“He didn’t put a number on it,” Miller said when asked of his pregame discussions with Francona regarding what inning he would enter. “But I knew to be ready early.”

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When I used to come in to pitch, I’d take my eight warm-ups from the mound, and almost without fail I’d hear loud shouts from the other dugout that “this guy’s got nothing!” For the most part this was because they were right, I had nothing, I should’ve been terrible, but what I think kept me from being truly terrible was their own overconfidence. I was never the best pitcher on my team, and opponents would swing like I was the worst pitcher on my team, but thanks to that overeager aggressiveness, there were surprising numbers of clean whiffs and pop-ups. I was as surprised as they were, but at some point it stops being a fluke.

Marco Estrada is better than he’s ever been. When he was younger, he threw about a league-average fastball. Now he’s four ticks below the league mark. Marco Estrada is a finesse pitcher, and as a general rule, finesse pitchers are worse than non-finesse pitchers. But the best ones — they succeed in part because of their own abilities to locate, but they succeed also by turning hitters against their own selves. Power pitchers force a hitter to shorten up. Finesse pitchers tempt a hitter to lengthen. They tempt hitters to come out of their shoes, as if a 500-foot homer means more than its 400-foot equivalent. Facing a Marco Estrada is a test in self-discipline. As we’ve all experienced for ourselves, when pressure starts to mount, self-discipline can unravel.

Estrada dominated the Rangers on Thursday, Texas hitters frequently swinging out of their shoes. Even knocking Estrada around might not have done much: The Blue Jays won by nine runs. But Estrada came close to a complete-game road shutout, and his finesse-y repertoire worked out just peaches. Too often, the Rangers couldn’t help themselves but overswing. Here now are their five worst swings, along with one honorable mention.

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Come playoff time, you tend to see a lot of team-to-team comparisons. And when you see team-to-team comparisons, the people doing the comparing frequently lean on regular-season statistics. And, you know, in theory that makes plenty of sense. Those numbers are readily available all over the place, and, isn’t the regular season a hell of a sample? Doesn’t the regular season pretty adequately reflect the level of talent on a given roster?

I’m not going to argue that regular-season numbers are or aren’t more important than, say, postseason numbers. The regular season obviously has the biggest and therefore the most meaningful sample. But as should go without saying, things change come October. Rosters are optimized, and usage patterns shift. For example, during the year, Rangers hitters had a 98 wRC+. Rangers hitters on the roster today averaged a weighted 106 wRC+. During the year, Rangers relievers had a 100 ERA-. Rangers relievers expected to relieve in the playoffs averaged a weighted 75 ERA-. The Rangers aren’t what they were for six months. No team is, entirely. So what do we have now? What does the actual, weighted playoff landscape look like?

Time for some tables of numbers. That’s almost as fun as actual baseball!

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Last night, during Madison Bumgarner’s latest playoff masterpiece, someone asked me in our live blog whether Bumgarner’s postseason heroics have already been great enough to get him into the conversation about potential Hall of Fame pitchers, even though he’s obviously far short on regular season totals. And there’s no question that Bumgarner’s playoff numbers are staggering; he’s now thrown 97 1/3 innings with a 1.94 ERA, good for a 53 ERA-. He’s already thrown three complete game shutouts in his postseason career; the all-time Major League record is four. Bumgarner has already cemented himself as one of the best playoff pitchers in history, and he’s still just 27.

But while we’re all rightfully marveling at Bumgarner’s dominance today, it’s worth remembering that, for whatever reason, the current crop of Hall of Fame voters have shown no interest in enshrining quality starting pitchers, even ones with similarly unbelievable postseason numbers. For comparison, here’s Bumgarner’s career postseason numbers compared with those of Curt Schilling.

If Bumgarner throws another 40 innings at his current postseason pace, he’ll essentially match what Schilling did during his postseason career. Except Schilling also threw 3,261 excellent regular season innings, worth +80 WAR by FIP (#20 all-time) and +81 WAR (#32 all-time) by runs allowed. And the BBWAA members with Hall of Fame ballots haven’t cared at all.

In 2013, Schililng’s first year on the ballot, he got 39% of the vote. As the ballot got more crowded, he dropped to 29% in 2014, then bounced back to 39% in 2015. Last year, encouragingly, he got up to 52% of the vote, which puts him within striking distance of the 75% needed. Most guys who get over 50% within their first few years eventually get in, so Schilling has a shot at getting inducted.

But think about what we’d require from Bumgarner to get to Schilling’s career numbers. Not only does he have to throw 40 more amazing innings in the postseason, he’s almost 2,000 regular season innings behind; we’d basically need him to keep throwing 200 innings per year for the next ten years. And it’s not like Bumgarner got a late start on his career; he debuted at 19, and would still need to be throwing 200 innings per year at age 36 in order to get up to Schilling’s career innings total, without any injuries between now and then.

And if Bumgarner does that, his closest statistical comparison would be the kind of guy that voters kind of shrug their shoulders at, not sure whether he was worthy of the Hall of Fame or not. That’s just nuts.

Bumgarner, at this point, has more work to do to put himself in Hall of Fame consideration. He just hasn’t pitched enough at this point to be a strong candidate. But there’s no question that he’s put together one of the best postseason resumes we’ve ever seen, and if he remains a quality pitcher for most of the next decade, how could we possibly deny him entry?

But that’s what we’re doing to Schilling. If you’re awed by Bumgarner’s October dominance — and you should be — then you should support Curt Schilling for the Hall of Fame. I know he’s not the most likable guy in the world, but the Hall of Fame is for honoring the greatest players of all time, and Schilling was one of those. When you watch Bumgarner pitch, remember that Schilling was just as good for even longer, and then lobby your favorite Hall of Fame voter to recognize the guy who was doing this before Bumgarner came along.