Zyhir Hope is one of the youngest and least experienced players participating in the Arizona Fall League. Acquired by the Los Angeles Dodgers in the January deal that sent Michael Busch to the Chicago Cubs, the 19-year-old outfielder has just 315 professional plate appearances, in part because he missed three months this season with a shoulder injury. The raw tools are impressive. Since being selected in the 11th round of last year’s draft out of Stafford, Virginia’s Colonial Forge High School, Hope has slashed .289/.419/.492 with a dozen home runs and a 143 wRC+.

How he would define himself as a hitter is a question he wasn’t quite sure how to answer when I posed it to him on Wednesday.

“I try my best,” responded Hope, who is suiting up for the Glendale Desert Dogs. “I have amazing coaches and a lot of resources to kind of help me find myself, find my swing. I’m working every day, trying to stay consistent, trusting the process.”

Asked if his setup and swing are essentially the same as when he signed, he said that they are. As for how much he studies the intricacies of his craft, let’s just say that Hope is a believer — at least to this point of his young career — in keeping things as simple as possible.

“I don’t really think about that stuff, about mechanics,” explained Hope, who takes his cuts from the left side. “I just go out there and swing, to be honest. I love to just go out there and swing. It’s just feels, man. Just feels. I’ve been that way my whole life. See ball, hit ball.” Read the rest of this entry »

It’s likely not too many people have heard of or seen the movie Wolfs, even though it features Brad Pitt and George Clooney in a crowd-pleaser action movie, throwing witty banter at each other for two hours. However, the film dropped three weeks ago on Apple TV+. No wide release, little marketing power behind it, and available only on a streaming service that lags behind Netflix, Hulu, and other platforms. Likewise, the MLB playoff picture began to take shape around the same time, and casual fans of the sport probably hadn’t heard or seen much of the Detroit Tigers or the Cleveland Guardians, who play in the AL Central and don’t receive much national media attention.

Nevertheless, the two teams met in an ALDS that spanned the full five games. The Guardians outlasted the Tigers 7-3 in Game 5 on Saturday to earn a trip to the ALCS, where they’ll meet the New York Yankees in a best-of-seven series with a World Series berth on the line.

In Wolfs, Pitt and Clooney play fixers who are sent in to clean up messy situations created by people with enough money and power to avoid facing consequences for their actions. The two are assigned to the same job despite this being the type of work better suited to a lone wolf. The dual fixer scenario highlights how the two men who have never worked together still generally follow the same playbook. They ask the same questions, follow the same procedures, and tap into the same network of resources. Both fancy themselves not only the best at what they do, but Clooney declares, “No one can do what I do,” mere moments before another character proclaims, “No one can do what he does,” in reference to Pitt. Read the rest of this entry »

Forget second-guessing — I first-guessed Dave Roberts as the fifth inning of Game 5 ended. It was partially his hugging form – a little too hands-off-y for my tastes – but mostly, it was who he gave the hug to. Yoshinobu Yamamoto is the highest-paid pitcher in baseball history. Eleven months ago, he pitched the game of his life in the biggest spot of his career. His complete game, 14-strikeout masterpiece in Game 6 of the Japan Series was one of the great playoff performances of the 21st century. Against the Padres, he looked nearly untouchable. He rolled through five innings on just 63 pitches, and he seemed to be picking up steam as the game wore on.

Roberts didn’t agree. The top of San Diego’s order was due up for a third time the following inning, and Yamamoto has exclusively turned in short outings since returning from injury in September. He simply hasn’t had a ton in the tank, and the Padres had roughed him up in Game 1 of the series. The Dodgers bullpen has been dominant, and had just turned in nine shutout innings to force this deciding game.

Maybe Roberts felt like he had no choice. Yamamoto’s counterpart, Yu Darvish, was no slouch himself. He’d allowed a second-inning home run to Enrique Hernández, but other than that, he’d given up pretty much nothing. He did it with smoke and mirrors – or, to be more specific, a curveball that vanished like smoke into the night every time the Dodgers took a swing. He threw that hook a whopping 19 times, more than any other pitch, and the Dodgers managed to put exactly one into play, a harmless groundout off the bat of Mookie Betts. Read the rest of this entry »

Well that’s not how it was supposed to go. The Phillies came into this season as one of the World Series favorites, having won the pennant in 2022, then reached the NLCS in 2023. They were the best team in the National League for most of the year, and — having won the club’s first NL East title since 2011 — were expected to at least repeat the deep playoff runs of the past two seasons. Ideally, they’d improve on it and go all the way.

Instead, they’re out on the first hurdle, having lost 3-1 in the NLDS to — and this might be the most galling part — a hated division rival who sneaked into the playoffs on the final day, then needed a lightning strike of a rally off Devin Williams to eke out a three-game win in the Wild Card series. But over four games, the Mets were comprehensively the better team. If Nick Castellanos hadn’t had his eyes glaze over white and milky as he accessed a higher plane of consciousness in the last four innings of Game 2, this could well have been a sweep.

A team this talented and well-resourced would be within its rights to shrug and run it back in 2025. Indeed, that’s what the Phillies did a year ago, when they were nine outs from going up 3-0 in the NLCS, then lost consecutive would-be clinchers at home. Now, having spit the bit twice in as many playoff series, the Phillies are going to have to at least consider changing more than their postgame playlist. Read the rest of this entry »

The postseason is at its most fun when both teams have something to prove. The ZiPS projections may have been bullish on the Cleveland Guardians coming into the season, but the computer was in the minority, with most observers thinking the Minnesota Twins were the clear favorites in the division. The Guardians are no longer the habitual losers they were from the 1960s-80s, but their last World Series championship was still in 1948. For their part, the Detroit Tigers dominated the AL Central 15 years ago, but lost both of their World Series, dropping eight of nine games. And Detroit wasn’t even supposed to be here; the team traded Jack Flaherty at the deadline and if someone had bowled them over with an offer, Tarik Skubal might be wearing a different uniform this month.

Game 4 was do or die for Cleveland, with the Tigers’ plan of “Tarik Skubal and then pitching chaos” winning two of the first three games. With a bullpen whose second-half performance led the American League with a 2.50 ERA and 3.0 WAR (the Tigers weren’t far behind with a 3.00 ERA and 2.8 WAR), the Guardians had high hopes that they’d be able to send the ALDS back to Cleveland for one winner-take-all showdown. And that’s precisely what they did, winning a closely fought game that was one of the most entertaining we’ve seen so far this October.

Cleveland struck first and in old-school fashion, with a single and a stolen base from Steven Kwan, and singles by Kyle Manzardo and Lane Thomas, the latter of which scored Kwan. But Will Brennan’s groundout on a low changeup allowed Detroit starter Reese Olson to escape the first having only surrendered one run. Read the rest of this entry »

After Jazz Chisholm Jr. told reporters, “They just got lucky,” in reference to the Royals’ 4-2 win over the Yankees in Game 2 of the ALDS on Monday night, some teams might have pinned that quote to their figurative bulletin boards and set out to earn a decisive win in front of their home crowd in Game 3. In its full context, Chisholm Jr.’s quote focused more on the Yankees’ missing opportunities to positively impact the game than actually discrediting the play of the Royals, but along with their elite athlete genes, pro ballplayers carry a special gene that allows them to get 27 varieties of riled up over even the smallest perceived slight.

Aaron Boone, former player and current manager of the Yankees, knows this as well as anyone and tried to throw water on his third baseman’s incendiary comments during his own session with the media, saying: “I don’t think they got lucky. I think they did a lot of really good things, and came in here and beat us.” Boone went on to reframe the issue as the Yankees’ getting unlucky on some hard-hit batted balls, which sounds better in theory but still attributes some randomness to the Royals’ win.

Wednesday night opened in Kansas City with a sea of fans adorned in royal blue booing their lungs out as Chisholm Jr. was introduced to the crowd at Kauffman Stadium. He soaked in the moment with a wide smile and seemed to mouth, “I love it” multiple times as the vengeful cries rained down around him. However, by evening’s end the masses fell silent. The Yankees emerged victorious with a 3-2 win over the Royals to carry a 2-1 series lead into Game 4 on Thursday. Read the rest of this entry »

If you’re into relief pitching and pinch-hitting, boy was Game 3 of the ALDS between the Cleveland Guardians and the Detroit Tigers the game for you. On the surface, it was fairly straightforward, a low-scoring affair that featured good pitching and a couple of timely hits. But look beneath the surface and you’ll see that it was quite a quirky game, one that would be difficult to explain to casuals (not derogatory!). Why was a healthy hitter pulled before he got an at-bat? Why did one of the biggest offensive threats on the Tigers get pulled in the fifth inning? Truly, it was a dream game if you love talking about the intricacies of baseball with your friends. And lucky for me, you’re all my friends today.

Let’s establish a few of the details before we dive into some of the nerdier aspects of Wednesday’s game. The Tigers won 3-0 to take a 2-1 series lead against their division rivals. Just as he had the last few months, A.J. Hinch put his faith in his bullpen, a unit that posted a 3.00 ERA (fourth in the game) in the second half as the Tigers put together the best record in the American League over that stretch. They delievered another superlative performance, and now his team has a chance to close out a playoff series at home Thursday night. Imagine telling Tigers fans that was possible in July!

There are 26 players on each of these flawed but fun AL Central rosters. Realistically, four of those 52 players (the starting pitchers from Games 1 and 2) weren’t going to appear in Game 3 unless it went a gazillion innings, leaving 48 who might see action. The Tigers used six pitchers and the Guardians used seven. Both teams used three pinch-hitters, while the Guardians also called on Austin Hedges as a defensive replacement (he ended up getting an at-bat), making for seven total substitutions between the two teams. Add those hurlers and pinch-hitters to each team’s starting lineup, and you end up with a whopping 38 players used! Not quite every player, but for a nine-inning game, that’s a lot! And all that mixing and matching added a fascinating dimension to the chess game, especially the pinch-hitting. Read the rest of this entry »

NEW YORK — As Francisco Lindor stepped in against Phillies reliever Carlos Estévez with the bases loaded, one out, and the Mets down a run in the sixth inning, the Citi Field fans were still singing his walk-up song:

When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May.

The Mets shortstop called time, retreated, and regrouped. The singing continued.

I guess you’d say,
What can make me feel this way?
My girl, my girl, my girl
Talkin’ ‘bout my girl, my girl

They punctuated their sweet serenade with three letters, shouted repeatedly in succession. “M-V-P! M-V-P! M-V-P!”

Lindor returned to the batter’s box, tapped the outside edge of the plate, then the inside one. Now, he was ready to break the game open. Read the rest of this entry »

Who would you pitch in a pivotal Game 4? Let’s say, just for the sake of argument, that your best starter is available on three days’ rest, and he didn’t throw a full complement of pitches in his last start. He could pitch tonight’s game – or he could pitch a potential fifth and deciding game on full rest. But if resting him and letting him go in the next one seems like the obvious answer, let’s add another wrinkle: There’s no one else available to start. If your ace doesn’t go, it’s all bullpen, all the way.

The Padres and Dodgers both faced that decision Wednesday. They chose differently – the Padres sent Dylan Cease to the mound, while the Dodgers countered with reliever Ryan Brasier. The decision wasn’t exactly identical, but it was nearly so. The Dodgers used three relievers in Game 3, while the Padres used four. The relievers San Diego used were better – but then, their bullpen is better overall. Both teams had good full-rest options for Game 5 even if they opted to use their aces on Wednesday, with Yu Darvish set to take the ball for the Padres and Jack Flaherty available to do so for the Dodgers if Yoshinobu Yamamoto pitched Game 4 on short rest. (Dave Roberts said after the game that he has not yet settled on a Game 5 starter, with everything from Yamamoto, Flaherty and another bullpen game on the table depending on how everyone is feeling after Thursday’s workout.)

Cease came out with what seemed like the kind of adrenaline you’d expect from a guy trying to knock the Dodgers out of the playoffs. His first fastball to Shohei Ohtani was 99.6 mph. The slowest fastball he threw in the first inning was 97.5 mph, half a tick faster than his average fastball this year. His slider had more hop. His sweeper had more sweep. Oh yeah – he also hung a fastball middle-middle that Mookie Betts launched for a solo home run.
Read the rest of this entry »

Do you have a favorite flavor of baseball? Maybe you enjoy a crisp, clean pitching duel, or maybe you prefer the luxurious mouthfeel of a decadent slugfest. But if what your tastebuds really crave is yelling – the sharp, mouth-puckering tartness of unbridled emotion and constant, heartfelt screaming audible through the on-field microphones – then Game 3 of the National League Divisional Series between the Dodgers and Padres was the contest for you. The San Diego fans screamed pretty much all game long and the players screamed whenever anything big happened, which is to say often.

With the series tied at one coming into the game, drama was the watchword of the day. The Padres had roasted the Dodgers, 10-2, in Game 2 on Sunday. The fans threw things at the San Diego players. Manny Machado threw a ball into the Los Angeles dugout. Dave Roberts asked the league office to investigate the throw, which, he said, was directed at him with “something behind it.” When Zapruder-esque video of the toss surfaced online, that something was revealed to be petulant but ultimately harmless. Tensions were high enough that before the game, the Padres released a statement reminding their fans that throwing things at the Dodgers is frowned upon. So rather than throw, the fans just screamed. For hours.

The game featured plenty of action, all of it stuffed into the span of one inning. The teams combined for 10 runs in the bottom of the second and the top of the third, and then, when it looked like the onslaught might never stop, the bats went cold and the game turned into a one-run nailbiter headlined by unhittable bullpens. If you had Walker Buehler surrendering six runs on your bingo card, congratulations on having a bingo card full of extremely probable outcomes. If you had him getting through five innings, then you lucked out. But if you somehow had both of those outcomes, you should probably upgrade from bingo to the Mega Millions, because fortune is smiling upon you. Meanwhile, the Padres started Michael King, who ran a 2.95 ERA this season and threw seven scoreless innings in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series. What looked for all the world like the world’s most lopsided pitching matchup ended up as very nearly a draw.

In the end, the Padres pulled out a 6-5 victory, and they now have a chance to end the Dodgers’ season on Wednesday night. If they do, it will mark the third straight time that the Dodgers have won the division but failed to make it to the League Championship Series. Read the rest of this entry »