Last night, MLBTR readers weighed in on the National League Division Series. With both series knotted up 1-1 at the time, readers heavily favored the Padres to upset the Dodgers while giving a slight edge to the Phillies to take down the Mets. The lower seeds each prevailed at home tonight to put the NL’s top two teams on the brink of elimination.
Tuesday was a travel day in the American League. Those series are also squared at a game apiece, providing an opportunity to check in on those sets. The Guardians destroyed the Tigers in Game 1, but Kerry Carpenter hit a game-winning homer in the ninth off Emmanuel Clase to give the Tigers a 3-0 win in the second game. The Royals rebounded after dropping a back-and-forth contest against the Yankees in Game 1. Kansas City rode a four-run fourth inning to a relatively easy 4-2 victory in Game 2.
Cleveland and Detroit will kick off play on Wednesday afternoon. The Guardians are turning to Alex Cobb in what will be just his fourth appearance in a Cleveland uniform. Cleveland landed Cobb from the Giants at the deadline to address a rotation that was the team’s biggest weakness. Cobb had spent the first few months of the season on the IL rehabbing last fall’s hip surgery. Blisters and a cracked fingernail on his throwing hand limited him to a trio of regular season appearances. Cobb pitched well in that brief action, allowing five earned runs with 10 strikeouts and three walks over 16 1/3 innings. This will be his first game in almost six weeks.
The Tigers haven’t announced a starter to oppose Cobb. Detroit has mostly ridden bullpen games behind ace Tarik Skubal and second starter Reese Olson. They’ll probably have Olson lined up for Game 4 with Skubal on tap if the series gets a decider. Tomorrow is likely to be an all hands on deck affair. Cleveland could go back to respective Games 1 and 2 starters Tanner Bibee and Matthew Boyd after tomorrow.
There’s a more conventional pitching matchup in Kansas City. The hosts will turn to Seth Lugo, who turned in an even 3.00 earned run average across 206 2/3 innings during his first season with the Royals. The potential Cy Young finalist tossed 4 1/3 innings of one-run ball with six strikeouts against Baltimore in the clincher of last week’s Wild Card series — the first postseason start of Lugo’s career. New York counters with Clarke Schmidt, who’ll be starting a playoff game for the first time himself. The former first-round pick had a 2.85 ERA over 16 starts in the regular season. He lost three months midseason to a lat strain but was excellent when healthy.
New York and Kansas City already list Gerrit Cole and Michael Wacha as the respective probable starters for Game 4. Neither team has announced its pitcher for a potential Game 5. That’d likely be a rematch of Monday’s pitching matchup between K.C. ace Cole Ragans and Yankees southpaw Carlos Rodón with both pitchers on regular rest by Saturday.
Which teams will vie for the ALCS next week?
Tigers, Yankees in 5
The site deleted my original comment. But go Tigers!
Tigers royals padres and Mets all have an opportunity to upset the world
And I think they all will
Vegas and networks are hoping your wrong.
All the more reason for it to happen!!!
I suspect the Yankees will win over the Royals, but I want the Royals to go all the way.
Off topic but the Dodgers are a group of spoiled wannabes that will never win anything of significance
You’re out of your mind. Do you know anything about the Dodgers at all? Ohtani is the most gentlemanly player in major league baseball. I’ve never someone check on another team’s player or the Umpire as often as he has. He is polite and a good human being.
I feel the same about Mookie betts. He’s an All-Star outfielder but if you ask him to play second or short he does it. No whining no complaining. Pure professional ball player.
Freddie Freeman same way. Kiki hernandez. We’re not going to play you everyday but we need you in center and short and second and third Etc okay no problem.
Yamamoto the pitcher Japanese of course polite beyond belief. Need I go on? Really not sure where your comment came from and I think it’s 100% off base.
Ohtani is the biggest drama queen in sports. So what else do you have?
A gambler?
“Drama Queen” ?? You started off with a stupid comment and then dug the hole even deeper.
Ranger – No offense but it certainly does seem like you’re taking aim at the top guy, trying to bring him down. It’s a common thing for some, resentment of other people’s success.
Funny thing is your original post had nothing to do with politeness, you just wrote the Dodgers were spoiled wannabes.
Did they try to buy a championship? Yep.
Did Ohtani pull a LeBron/Miami? Yep.
But it’s hard to imagine a team that hasn’t won a legit championship since 1988 as being “spoiled”, and it’s even harder to imagine a player who never played in a postseason game until last week “spoiled”.
In Ohtani, Betts, Freeman, Roberts etc you have some of the classiest and humblest guys in the game.
And I’m not a Dodgers fan BTW.
Fever, a spoiled wannabe is not very polite. They want what they want and they want it now even if they don’t deserve it. They’re a handful in many ways.
And a polite person is not a spoiled wannabe. They don’t act out, they’re not high maintenance and they’re actually a pleasure to be around.
Can you see the connection I made? That their actions and professionalism show they’re not spoiled wannabes?
Gary – Thanks for the explanation. You’re right, I didn’t connect spoiled wannabe with politeness.
LACK of politeness. Fever you’re one of a kind.
Gary – There’s miscommunication going on here I think.
I genuinely appreciated your explanation, and when I used “politeness” in that context it encapsulates all degrees from a lot of politeness to none at all.
I am agreeing with you, I don’t know how else to put it.
Okay I appreciate it. You definitely deserve benefit of the doubt.., you’ve always been fair with me.
But I know you also have a sense of humor and you’re sharp. So I thought you were giving me a couple little Jabs. Didn’t want those to go without proper recognition lol.
Gary – Nah we’re good, we’ve been good for a long time. I don’t do sarcasm, in large part because I myself have a hard time figuring out if someone is being sarcastic or not.
And you’re right, I should have worded it better …. should have written lack of politeness, or level of politeness. Hey I’m not perfect, with all the writing I do I’m bound to make some mistakes …. especially when I’m multi-tasking.
BTW – When I do sometimes tease, I’ll usually follow it with a smiley face or winky face.
I love it. Thanks for taking the high road with a sincere gesture, while I’m over here making mountains of molehills.
And you wonder why they suck.
Dallas Cowboys 2.0
If Hinch is being honest he’s thinking two wins with Skubal on the hill and find a way to win one of the other 3. And with the way they’re playing right now I think that happens.
NY pretty much has the same thing in Cole but with a much better overall roster.
How is Cole going so far ?
Yankees win ALDS, Yankees win ALCS, Yankees win WS. Theeeeeeeeeee Yankees win!! Ahahaha!
As a Guardians fan, I agree. If Skubal goes again in a Game 5, I’d lean toward the Tigers in that game. The Guardians have enough hitters that can handle lefties but Skubal isn’t just any lefty and he’s been pretty much dominant so it doesn’t matter who’s facing him.
The Tigers need to score more to have a chance though. The Guardians don’t have a ton of depth to their lineup, but it took the Tigers like 16 innings to even score at all and I don’t think you can reasonably expect another rally against Clase.
If it gets down to bullpens (which it might), I think the Guardians have the edge even though I like Detroit’s bullpen too. If I’m Vogt, I’m giving my starters a short leash and letting the bullpen take over.
I’d also throw any one of their three lefties against Carpenter and either let his .400 OPS without the platoon advantage be what beats me, or I’d try to force Hinch into pinch hitting for him. Quite literally, Carpenter is Juan Soto against righties and Austin Hedges against lefties.
Mets in 4
Padres in 4
Tigers in 4
Royals in 4
I love it! What a postseason!
Ignorant – Much like last year!
MLB hates it, but for folks who bet on the longshots way back in April …. it’s absolutely AWESOME!!!!!
@Fever
I got the Mets at +3500… unfortunately I only put $5 on it lol.
its – My biggest longshots are $20 at +100,000 (exact WS outcome) but some of them involved the Brewers, Mariners and Orioles so those are worthless now. LOL
its– that’s going to be a nice little payout if it holds true!
Yanks are trash. In the easy east, meanwhile they wouldn’t even be in if they were in the central.
East was good, but money can’t match good baseball minds and good draft picks.
Any team can win a best of five series but to your point on the Yankees not being able to contend in the ALC, they went 24-7 against the ALC this year.
24-7 against the central, but sure “they wouldn’t make it” lol of all the moronic comments….
It’s easy for the Central to bully the hapless White Sox. They’re records outside of beating Chicago isn’t all that impressive.
Everyone got to play the White Sox. Other divisions got to play more games against the Angels, Marlins, Rockies, Blue Jays, Athletics, and Nationals. Yet, somehow three playoff teams came from the AL Central.
Yankees and Indians. Both in 5.
If the Tigers win in 5, I’ll be there to witness it!
Hoping for a 40th Year Reunion of the 1984 World Series between the Tigers and Padres. They could have Goose Gossage throw out the first pitch but have Kirk Gibson hitting! Haha
I’m going today and tomorrow at Comerica, but not traveling to Cleveland. Go Tigers!
Rooting for the Tigers. Nothing against Cleveland, but I like to see the underdog win out every now and then.
I’ll say Tigers in 5. Skubal is about as automatic of a win there is in the league so they just need to find a way to win one of the next two. Flip a coin for the other series.
Yankees in 5. I hope.
Detroit has a better chance to take it, Cleveland had a middling road record at 42-39
KC has a good home record, however, the Yankee had the best road record at 50-31
Detroit in 4
Yankees in 4
My bet is that the Yankees and Guardians still figure it out and advance, but postseason baseball is the biggest crapshoot of any sport’s playoffs, so I wouldn’t be shocked at all to see the Tigers and Royals advance. This new format favors whoever gets “lucky” and makes it out of the wild card series, IMO.
The Royals have the best starters and the Guardians have the best relief pitching. The Royals have the best defense.. The Yanks have the most pressure and need Judge, Stanton, and Soto to hit to win.. The outlier is that the top relief pitchers have already blown saves.. Pickinn a team with logic is fruitless in a short series, but I would say the Royals and Guardians win, and the Guardians lose to the Padres in the series, making another first in baseball.
Tigers in 5 makes sense to me given how good Skubal has been. I just can’t see Cleveland not winning 1 out in Detroit, and if the Yankees/royals get lucky they’d use Skubal in a game 5, advance to the CS and could end up being beat before Skubal gets into 2 games.
But I’m rooting for Cleveland.
What did I say about pitching to Ramirez?
That’s twice.
Oh well. It was fun while it lasted. The Tigers did gain incredible experience and sped up the rebuild. Now, management is under pressure to make improvements to a playoff team. Tigers could use a SP and they need to do something about the infield.