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 »

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 »

Everyone thought it was gone. Jurickson Profar hopped around, ostensibly upset that Mookie Betts’ fly ball had dropped into the left field seats. The camera panned to Betts triumphantly rounding the bases. The scorebug flipped from zero to one under the Dodgers logo. And then, a few seconds later, all was clear: Profar had pulled a Julio Rodríguez, fooling everyone into thinking it was a homer before whipping the ball back into the infield. He wasn’t hopping out of frustration, it turned out; on second look, he was engaging in some well-earned taunting, goading the assembled Dodgers fans after his excellent defensive play.

JURICKSON PROFAR ROBS MOOKIE!!! #NLDS pic.twitter.com/bvByqwsAKB

— MLB (@MLB) October 7, 2024

Profar’s first-inning home run robbery and subsequent gloating was a sign of things to come. In a tense clash between these two Southern California rivals, the Padres came out on top, 10-2, to level the NLDS at a game apiece, battling their opponents both on and off the field throughout the course of this bizarre evening.

The weirdness peaked in the seventh inning, when the game was delayed for over 10 minutes while fans threw things — including baseballs and beer cans — onto the field, pausing the action. While security guards attempted to get the crowd under control, Padres manager Mike Shildt gathered his fielders, issuing a fiery impromptu pep talk as the team huddled around their appointed leader. After the inning, an even larger group meeting was held in the Padres dugout, this time led by the on-the-field leader, Manny Machado, who issued marching orders to the rest of the San Diego roster. Read the rest of this entry »

Three of the best handful of hitters on the planet were on the same field at Yankee Stadium yesterday, and the Phillies/Mets rivalry is as venomous as any in baseball, but take a straw poll of the real sickos and they’ll tell you the marquee Division Series tilt is the one between the Dodgers and Padres. It’s not only a bitter intradivisional matchup, it marks the MLB playoff debut of the Face of Baseball and features so many of the game’s stars that this paragraph would need to cup its hands together to carry all of their names. Game 1 absolutely delivered on the hype, as the teams traded haymakers every other inning for the first half of an incredibly tense contest before the Dodgers’ relievers snuffed out whatever embers of a rally the Padres could muster from the fifth inning on. Los Angeles won 7-5 to take a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five series. Read the rest of this entry »

The NL West race may have been settled in favor of the Dodgers this year, but everybody goes back to the starting gate in the playoffs. The only difference is the possible extra home game the Dodgers get in each individual series, though home field advantage has been far from a valuable perk for teams except for sales of tickets, hot dogs, and $59 foam fingers. With Los Angeles getting a few extra days to try and heal up a little more, the Padres got here the hard way, having to win the best-of-three Wild Card Series against the Atlanta Braves, a team that still managed to squeeze out 89 wins without Spencer Strider and mostly missing Ronald Acuña Jr.

While some of baseball’s best rivalries are the classic ones that have endured for the last century, such as Yankees-Red Sox and Dodgers-Giants, this one between the Dodgers and Padres is a good example of how new rivalries can pop up and be a lot of fun, too. Despite the fact that the two teams have played in the same division for more than five decades, only in recent years has the so-called I-5 Rivalry really heated up. San Diego has infrequently sustained runs of relevance – this is only the second version of the Friars to string together three winning seasons in a row – leaving Dodgers fans with few nightmares featuring a brown-and-mustard palette. But these Padres have been aggressive, and unlike in the past when short-term bursts of ambition were tempered quickly with brutal fire sales, they’ve consistently tried to make the Dodgers uncomfortable at the top of the NL West. Even as the Padres traded Juan Soto over the winter, they acquired their Wild Card Series Game 1 starter Michael King in that deal and then traded for Dylan Cease, who’ll start Game 1 of the Division Series, just before Opening Day. Yet, ultimate success has proven elusive for San Diego, with two disappointing playoff misses in 2021 and 2023 and still no returns to the World Series since 1998’s debacle.

The Dodgers enter the Division Series with something to prove as well. While they do have a World Series trophy from the COVID-shortened 2020 season, with five 100-win seasons in the last seven normal years, they crave to have more hardware to show for their success. Sure, we’re used to the idea that when you have large playoff formats, winning the World Series takes a lot of luck, but neither fans nor history care much about that. Winning the World Series this year would wipe out most, if not all, of that disappointment; taking care of business in this series would get the Dodgers one step closer to that while also giving them a little revenge against the Padres for knocking them out in the 2022 NLDS, after Los Angeles won a franchise-best 111 games.

So, how do the teams stack up? Let’s start with the ZiPS projections. As I type this, Joe Musgrove has been officially ruled out for the NLDS due to his elbow injury, which has now been confirmed to require Tommy John surgery. That means no Musgrove this postseason – or next season – but for now, we’ll just deal with the impact of the news on this series.

For contrast, here are the projections for if Musgrove had been able to pitch in this five-game set.

Replacing Musgrove with Martín Pérez, likely the next man up, basically flips the win probabilities for Game 4. Where every game previously favored the home team in the projections, now the Dodgers are expected to win on the road against Pérez.

Even though the Dodgers are favored to win with Musgrove out, it would still be wrong to call them overwhelming favorites. This is a close series overall, but also a swingy one, with four of the five games projecting to be at least a 55-45 split, meaning that for the most part, these games aren’t projected to be coin flips despite the tightness of the series as a whole. “Breaking serve” here by winning on the road has quite a lot of value. If the Padres can get to Yoshinobu Yamamoto or Jack Flaherty and win one of the first two games, they would expose one of the Dodgers’ current weaknesses: a thin rotation due to injuries. Walker Buehler had only three quality starts out of his 16 outings since returning from Tommy John surgery in May; his performance was shaky enough that in mid-June the Dodgers optioned him to the minors, where he spent two months trying to get right, before they brought him back up to start on August 20. And despite a superficially appealing ERA, Landon Knack would be about the 12th choice for Los Angeles if everyone were healthy. If the Dodgers are able to get out to a 2-0 lead without any bullpen-exhaustion events, like an 18-inning game, they might be in a position of strength to run a bullpen game and axe one of their uncertain starters from the NLDS rotation.

Where the Dodgers have the advantage is their front-line offensive talent, which gives them what appears to be the superior offense overall, an edge large enough that it isn’t erased if you view players such as Jurickson Profar and Donovan Solano with less skepticism than ZiPS does.

Dylan Cease is a terrific pitcher, but ZiPS thinks the Dodgers’ Big Four of Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, and the good platoon side of Max Muncy has a fighting chance of getting to him. It’s more of an uphill climb against Yamamoto; ZiPS has Luis Arraez as the only San Diego batter projected to have a .300 OBP against Yamamoto, and it gives none of the Padres a .450 SLG projection against him. Now, contrast that with the projections at home against Knack and Buehler.

One of San Diego’s other advantages, at least in the eyes of the computer, is its bullpen. While ZiPS has both teams performing similarly overall, it much prefers the depth of the Padres’ unit. To test their bullpens, in each simulation, ZiPS was instructed to knock out both starters after two innings in one game and have another game last 15 innings; in these scenarios, the odds of the Padres winning the series go from 42% to 47% – nearly a coin flip. In a short series, things like roster construction can make a real difference. Look at the way the Nationals were configured in 2019, with four good starters, two relievers they trusted, and a dumpster fire behind them. That kind of distilled performance meant that even when Washington won 13 fewer regular-season games than Los Angeles that year, ZiPS projected the teams as nearly equal when they met in the 2019 NLDS.

Here’s what I get from these reams of data: The Dodgers should stay the course with what’s worked for them all year, trust their elite hitters, and avoid the temptation to get too cute with their managing tactics, but the Padres ought to be aggressive. If they see an opening to get to Yamamoto or Flaherty, treat that game like it’s Game 7 of the World Series. San Diego can’t afford to save any wacky tricks for later. If the Padres can push the Dodgers back on their heels quickly and early, the latter may run out of time to right themselves.

One thing you’ll hear a lot (in all four series), especially early on, is the claim that the layoff is a big disadvantage for teams. Don’t believe it. If the Padres upset the Dodgers here in the five-game series, it won’t be because Los Angeles was too rested. Instead, it’ll be because the Padres played better.

One year after they missed the playoffs in maddening fashion, the Padres are advancing to the National League Division Series after holding on to beat the Braves, 5-4, in Game 2 of the Wild Card Series on Wednesday night at Petco Park.

If Game 1 of this series was a beautiful ballet choreographed by San Diego starter Michael King, with a result that was never in doubt, then Game 2 was a far more uncertain thriller.

Atlanta struck first, when leadoff batter Michael Harris II smoked a first-pitch double down the right field line, advanced to third on a groundout, and scored on a sacrifice fly. Then the Padres came to bat against Braves lefty Max Fried, and things looked like they were about to get out of hand.

San Diego loaded the bases on back-to-back singles by Luis Arraez and Fernando Tatis Jr. and a Jurickson Profar chopper in front of the mound — Fried fielded it but his throw to second was late and everyone was safe — before Fried buckled down. He struck out Manny Machado, got Jackson Merrill to ground into a 3-2 fielder’s choice, and induced a grounder to short by Xander Bogaerts to get out of the inning without allowing a run.

This was when I thought Fried was going to have one of those postseason starts. Escaping a bases-loaded, no-out jam unscathed is one of the most difficult things to do as a pitcher, and dang it, Fried did it in the very first inning against San Diego’s 4-5-6 hitters. The adage is that you’ve got to get to great pitchers before they can settle in, and the Padres almost did that in the first. Additionally, Fried actually looked sharp despite those three baserunners; none of the balls in play left the infield. A great early narrative was brewing in San Diego, with momentum temporarily favoring the Braves.

There was one problem, though. Fried avoided trouble, but he couldn’t avoid the 99.8-mph liner that Tatis ripped off the pitcher’s hip/butt area.

Braves manager Brian Snitker told ESPN’s Buster Olney during the game that the area in which Fried got hit was bothering him, perhaps contributing to the pitcher’s unraveling. The Padres took a different tack in the second inning, when they lulled Fried into a false sense of security by making the first two outs in quick succession before laying the hammer down. Kyle Higashioka homered to tie it, and then all hell broke loose. Fried allowed three straight singles to load the bases before Machado lined a two-run double into the left field corner. Next up was Merrill, who tripled over Harris’ head in straightaway center to plate two more runs. In a 15-pitch span, the Padres went from trailing by one to leading by four.

MERRILL MADNESS!

The rookie comes through with a 2-run triple ? pic.twitter.com/GTdlyCLMbz

— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2024

This game was far from over, though, especially because Padres starter Joe Musgrove left the game with two outs in the fourth with an injury of his own. Two slower-than-usual curveballs prompted an eagle-eyed Higashioka to visit his pitcher on the mound, followed by the pitching coach, manager, and trainer. Musgrove shook his arm out in obvious discomfort, and the injury update was indeed among the most ominous possible: right elbow tightness.

Turning to any bullpen for 16 outs is far from ideal, but it should be an easier pill to swallow for the Padres, who bolstered their relief corps in late July; just before the trade deadline, they acquired Tanner Scott and Bryan Hoeing from the Marlins and Jason Adam from the Rays. And following King’s seven-inning gem on Tuesday, everyone in San Diego’s bullpen was rested and ready to go. This game wasn’t exactly over, but the Padres certainly had the advantage, especially because Atlanta’s bullpen was running on fumes.

And yet, the Braves relievers were the ones who silenced the Padres, not the other way around. Dylan Lee, Daysbel Hernández, Pierce Johnson, and Joe Jiménez kept Atlanta in the game and set up an exciting finish as San Diego’s bullpen stumbled.

Hoeing replaced the injured Musgrove, got four key outs, and then gave up a 600-foot home run to Jorge Soler. (Please note that my distance estimate is indisputable, as Statcast didn’t register a distance or exit velocity for the ball.)

Jorge Soler hit this baseball to a different universe ? #Postseason pic.twitter.com/Ww7RB3r3bw

— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2024

After the home run, Hoeing retired the next three Braves batters in the fifth before manager Mike Shildt called on Jeremiah Estrada to start the sixth. Estrada had a 28.2% strikeout rate this season, but he clearly didn’t have his best stuff on Wednesday. He allowed two singles, recorded two hard-hit outs, and got just three whiffs on 16 swings. Shildt replaced Estrada with the left-handed Scott to face lefty slugger Matt Olson with runners on the corners and two outs in a three-run game. The Atlanta cleanup hitter lined out to left field to end the inning. Scott pitched a scoreless seventh inning, but he was a bit shaky; only eight of his 24 pitches were in the strike zone.

Facing Adam after Braves shortstop Orlando Arcia singled to lead off the eighth, Harris jumped on the first pitch again, this time launching it over the center field wall for a two-run homer.

MONEY MIKE BRINGS THE @BRAVES WITHIN A RUN! pic.twitter.com/bQ7ACpECRJ

— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2024

That blast energized the Braves dugout to a level unseen over the first 16 innings of the series; if you’re a believer in momentum, it certainly lay squarely in the visitor’s dugout at this point.

But if momentum exists at all, it sometimes exists to only be wiped away, to give a false sense of hope, to create wishes for a longer fall before the harshness of winter and the offseason sets in. Adam and closer Robert Suarez hunkered down to retire the next six Braves. After beating the Mets to clinch a playoff berth in the final regular-season game on Monday, Atlanta’s season ended on Wednesday.

Maybe swift disappointment was the only way it could end, emblematic of a trying season for Snitker’s ballclub. The Braves hoped that Spencer Strider’s elbow injury wouldn’t be too serious, only to learn that he’d need season-ending internal brace surgery. They hoped that Ronald Acuña Jr. would miss about a month or so, only to hear that he’d suffered the second torn ACL of his career and would be out for the season. They hoped Austin Riley would be back for the playoffs after breaking his hand in August, only to find out that he’d require more recovery time. And, most recently, they hoped Cy Young frontrunner Chris Sale would be on the mound for them this October, only to discover his back had flared up and he wouldn’t be able to pitch in the Wild Card Series.

All that hope will now turn to 2025, when the injured players are expected to return and bring the rejuvenated nucleus together once again. Hopefully, anyway.

As for the Padres, they’ll ride this series sweep to Los Angeles, where they’ll face off against their rival Dodgers in the best-of-five NLDS. San Diego outperformed the Dodgers in the season series, and even if Musgrove’s injury keeps him off the mound, the Padres’ pitchers are significantly healthier than the Dodgers’ staff. And because the Wild Card Series ended in just two games, San Diego can start ace Dylan Cease in Saturday’s Game 1. Then, the Padres would have Yu Darvish or King on short rest for Game 2, with the other one getting the nod in Tuesday’s Game 3.

In your most prim and proper ballet teacher voice, repeat after me, “Demi-plié and stretch. Demi-plié and stretch.” The demi-plié is the first foundational move taught to new ballerinas. Its name translates from French to “small bend.” When pitching from the windup, Michael King comes set, gently bends at the knees, then stands tall for a moment before delivering the pitch. Setting aside his lack of turnout and hinge at the hip, King went about his business on Tuesday with the precision and artistry of a dancer.

Ballerinas value efficiency of movement above all else, and King needed just 89 pitches to complete seven shutout innings, while allowing just five hits, walking absolutely no one, and striking out 12. His performance earned a standing ovation from the Petco Park crowd, which went home happy after the Padres orchestrated a 4-0 win over the Braves in Game 1 of the best-of-three NL Wild Card series.

King stole the show with a well-choreographed approach that has served him well all year, and he executed every step at a high level. And lest we forget, this is King’s first season in a full-time starting role, his first year strategically piecing together his complement of pitches into the rhythm and flow of a start. Knowing that his goals now include facing batters of both handedness multiple times and throwing six or more innings each time out, King has evolved the three-pitch arsenal he debuted with to a five-pitch ensemble that he deploys with specific intent. Read the rest of this entry »

With the 2022 change to a 12-team playoff format, the addition of the Wild Card Series, and the decision to do away with winner-take-all tiebreaker games, Major League Baseball thought it had stuck a fork in Team Entropy and done away with end-of-season scheduling chaos. But with the league’s failure to approach last week’s scheduled Braves-Mets series in Atlanta with the necessary level of proactivity in the face of Hurricane Helene, the two teams were forced to play a doubleheader on Monday to determine the final two NL Wild Card berths. While the Braves squandered leads of 3-0 and 7-6 in the late innings of the opener, the teams ultimately split the doubleheader; both finished 89-73 and made the cut, while the Diamondbacks, who played their final game as scheduled on Sunday, missed it because they lost their season series against the pair. The Braves had to fly cross-country on Monday night in order to make their date with Padres (93-69) in San Diego.

It’s a banged-up Braves team at that. Not only are they missing Ronald Acuña Jr., Austin Riley, and Spencer Strider due to season-ending injuries, but they’re now without Chris Sale. The 35-year-old lefty may well collect the Cy Young award that has long eluded him, but he hasn’t pitched since September 19. Much was made of the Braves’ plan to start him just once in the final week instead of twice, and just when the baseball world expected him to start the must-win second game of Monday’s doubleheader, he was ruled out due to back spasms. Manager Brian Snitker said after the win that he doesn’t expect Sale to pitch in the Wild Card Series, and added that this is something the pitcher has dealt with on and off this season. President of baseball operations Alex Anthopoulos told reporters prior to Sale’s scratched start that he would not be going on the injured list. [Update: Sale was left off the roster submitted to the league on Tuesday morning.]

As for the Padres, after a disappointing 2023 season in which they won just 82 games and squandered a franchise-record $255 million payroll and a full season of Juan Soto, they’re back in the postseason for the third time in five seasons. It took awhile for the Padres to hit their stride; they were just 50-49 at the All-Star break but went a major league-best 43-20 (.683) thereafter. Not only did they secure the top NL Wild Card spot (and thus home field advantage here) but they even put a scare into the Dodgers before the latter won the NL West. Read the rest of this entry »

The Detroit Tigers have been baseball’s hottest team, rattling off 31 wins in 43 games to go from eight games under .500 to 11 games over and into the postseason for the first time in a decade. That they’ve done so is nothing short of remarkable. Not only were most outside expectations relatively low coming into the campaign, the A.J. Hinch-led team has dominated September with a starting staff largely comprising of Tarik Skubal, unheralded rookie Keider Montero, and an array of openers. On the season, Detroit Tigers starters have thrown 748-and-a-third innings, the fewest in the majors (notably with a 3.66 ERA, fourth best in the majors).

There is obviously more to why the Tigers have emerged as a surprise team — not to mention a legitimate postseason contender — than the presence of an ace left-hander and Hinch’s expertise in mixing and matching starters and relievers. That is a deeper dive than fits here in Sunday Notes, but I did ask the “Why are the Tigers good?” question to three people who saw them sweep a series just this past week. I asked a second question as well: “What was the atmosphere like at Comerica Park?”

“From an atmosphere standpoint it was one of the best we’ve seen this year,” said Tampa Bay Rays broadcaster Andy Freed. “What impressed me most is that our first game there was supposed to be a night game, and because of rain coming in it was moved to the day. We thought, ‘What are they going to get, 5,000 people?’ It was a Tuesday and school was in session, but they got a great crowd. People decided they were still going to come to the baseball game. It reminded me how great of a sports town Detroit is. And they were into every pitch. It was the closest I’ve felt to a postseason atmosphere all year, except for maybe Philadelphia. Read the rest of this entry »