Here are three things we’ll be keeping an eye on around the baseball world headed into the weekend:
1. ALDS to conclude:
The ALDS will wrap up tonight as the Tigers and Mariners head back to Seattle for a decisive Game 5. The game is scheduled for 5:08pm local time and will see the Tigers send ace Tarik Skubal (2.21 ERA) to the mound opposite righty George Kirby (4.21 ERA). Skubal is the reigning AL Cy Young Award winner and likely to win it again this season after another dominant campaign. That excellence has extended into the postseason, as he’s posted a 1.84 ERA with an eye-popping 41.8% strikeout rate in two starts so far.
Elite as Skubal has been, he’s not completely unbeatable. The Mariners themselves managed put together a win in Game 2 of the ALDS when Skubal threw seven innings of two-run ball thanks to a slip by the Tigers bullpen. Kirby, meanwhile, surrendered two runs in five innings while striking out eight when he faced Detroit in Game 1 of this series. The winner of tonight’s game will go on to face the Blue Jays in ALCS, which kicks off Sunday. Toronto would have home field advantage over either club for the series.
2. NLDS wrapping up in Milwaukee:
Though the Brewers jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the NLDS, the Cubs battled back and won two straight elimination games at Wrigley Field to take the series back to Milwaukee. The decisive Game 5 is scheduled for Saturday at 7:08pm local time. Neither team has announced their starter, though the Cubs would have southpaw Shota Imanaga (3.73 ERA) on regular rest while the Brewers figure to have both Jacob Misiorowski (4.36 ERA) and Quinn Priester (3.32 ERA) available for what’s sure to be an all-hands-on-deck game for both teams. The winner of the series will head into the NLCS, where they’ll face the Dodgers with Game 1 scheduled for Monday. The Brewers would hold home field advantage in the NLCS if they advance, while the Dodgers would have it over the Cubs.
3. Phillies head into the offseason:
The Phillies’ season ended last night on a heartbreaking walk-off error by Orion Kerkering, and with the end of the season comes the start of the club’s offseason. It would be a surprise to see the Phillies move on from the generally successful partnership of Rob Thomson and Dave Dombrowski, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t some real potential for change this winter. Kyle Schwarber, J.T. Realmuto, and Ranger Suarez are all ticketed for free agency. Reuniting with or replacing those players, and Schwarber in particular, figures to be the main storyline of Philadelphia’s offseason. Between Suarez’s free agency, Zack Wheeler’s thoracic outlet surgery and Aaron Nola’s 2025 struggles, the Philadelphia rotation is facing some uncharacteristic uncertainty this winter, too. Like most clubs, the Phillies should be expected to hold an end-of-season presser at some point in the coming days that could provide hints to their offseason plans.
So, I’m 1/2 on my picks so far. I was surprised that Philly couldn’t even win one game at home in this series.
Let’s hope the Motor City Kitties & the Little Bears win so I can be 3/4.
who cares???
@Chooch Ruiz
I care! I’m important!
Unless your a Detroit fan I don’t know why you would rather see Motor City (with skubal as the only star) instead of stacked Mariners trying to do something never done before in seattle
If it’s Detroit vs Toronto it’s going to be like 2023 where it’s not as fun as other years
@sad tormented neglected mariners fan
I don’t have a lot of faith in the M’s winning in the playoffs. They were up 2-0 and had a chance to put the Motor City Kitties away and instead we’re back to game 5. The baseball gods don’t like the M’s.
We’ll see, maybe they will prove me wrong… Again!
Actually, that was the only division series that was not 2-0. The M’s did survive Skubal winning Game 1 .
@Bucket Number Six
Didn’t he start game 2?
Everything in this thread is wrong. Tigers went up 1-0 after winning game 1 in extras, the Mariners managed to win game 2 despite Skubal starting, Mariners won game 3, and then the Tigers won game 4.
Yes, he did. Our short term memories are not what they used to be.
My Cubs-Tigers 1945 World Series Replay is still alive but hanging by a thread!!!!!!!!
I was game 2…Tigers took game 1
I read it as sadtormented referring to their rotation as stacked.
OR, I was trying to interpret the comment where it made sense and not in an instantly critical way. As far as be better, take your own advice.
Okay, I’m sorry your life is such that your behavior is like this online. Hopefully you are more mature IRL.
Stevie Steve- Give us the correct interpretation to the statement since you can be better than everyone else’s interpretation/opinion.
Made up information like “lol you ppl are delulu” is lower-case ‘s’ stupid.
But boy you capital ‘S’ Stupid when you can’t complete terrible reading comprehension with a sentence that’s half âss structured like this instead “lol u ppl r delulu”
Be better.
I thought the cubs had a better record than the Dodgers.
Dodgers have the higher seed because they won their division
And the whole “division winner” home field regardless of record thing needs to go.
It goes away for the world series. Seattle win be at Chicago for game one of World Series.
Why?
No, division winners need to have advantages.
Especially if a WC team has a better record.
No, but the Toronto will be in Los Angeles.
@avenger65
Dodgers had 93 wins to the Cubs 92. Dodgers were also the Division winner so their seeding rank is #3 vs. Cubs #4.
Dodgers won the division, Cubbies did not. And the dodgers actually did win more games anyway, 93 vs 92
Exactly, the Dodgers won more games and were also the higher seed. This gets them home field advantage against the Cubs but not the Brewers.
Avenger – The Dodgers won more games than the Cubs, and also won their division.
Winning more games should be the only thing that matters. Not winning the division.
This is pretty easy to look up.
They did not. And it wouldn’t matter anyway, because the Dodgers won their division.
Wait, can someone tell me if the Dodgers won the division?
Vegas – That’s highly confidential information that they don’t like to be made public, sorry.
Sure.
This doesn’t matter because seeding, but no: the Cubs were 92-70 and the Dodgers were 93-69.
Does anyone know, with certainty, that an injury replacement in the playoffs HAS to be approved by the commissioner’s office and if yes, does that office have independent doctors/trainers to verify Ben Brown or Aaron Civale or Mike Soroka’s incoming bent eyelid.
Does Cade Horton get the start tomorrow in Milwaukee????
Per mlb.com/glossary/transactions/postseason-roster-ru…: “A club may request permission from the Commissioner’s Office to replace a player who is injured during the course of a series, but that player is then ineligible for the rest of that round and the subsequent round, if there is one. A pitcher may be replaced only by another pitcher, and a position player only by another position player.”
I don’t believe they employ independent doctors. The fact that a player removed from the roster for injury isn’t eligible to return until after the next series is the mechanism for dissuading abuse of the system.
I doubt it.
Why?
Steelers- I asked the same thing. Can a guy come off the IL to play in a Playoff Series even though he wasn’t on the original roster? It seems to me that if it works one way it should work the other. But I don’t know the rules. Seem one of the writers for this site could step up and provide an answer. Either way when the Cubs win Saturday they will have Cade for the NLCS!
Yes, Cade can be activated tomorrow. One of their active pitchers must be injured though and would be ineligible for the next series. That’s why I am doubting Horton will be activated because who is truly injured on the active pitching staff right now?
Why does a CURRENT pitcher HAVE to be injured? It should be treated as any other day in the season as if I’m off the IL and just take someone off the present day roster. OK I was injured and so I can’t pitch when it started but now I can so I can’t play? Seems like a completely unnecessary and stupid rule that people dream up. It’s just ridiculous. You need a crystal ball to run a baseball roster I guess.
Unclemike…this is the reason of my original question of if the injury move HAS to be approved by commissioner office?? If it’s a transactional move and the Cubs knowing that Horton would replace any of the three mentioned in the next round anyway…there is zero risk in putting as an EXAMPLE Soroka on the IL and activating Horton.
There has to be some approval mechanism as bringing Horton back with no obvious injury flat out roster manipulation.
Im just looking for an educated person that knows the rules much better than I.
I asked the question in the chat. Let’s see if it gets answered! It’s not as exciting as answering will the Cubs re sign Kyle Tucker for the 2000th time but more relevant.
It was very classy of the position players on Philly to rally around Kerkering after his error. They recognized that a bad throw will be remembered, but one run in 11 innings doesn’t get anything done
Too bad the same thing can’t be said about their fans
There’s a reason fan is short for fanatic.
Or people making snide comments about their fans.
Because every player knows it could easily have been them so they have empathy for their teammate. Good for them.
It is unfortunate. Kerkering is going to have to go through his career now with a black mark. He made the error at the worst time and his name will be etched in MLB history for all the wrong reasons. Fred Merkle, Fred Snodgrass, Bill Buckner… each one when you look at them rationally, they didn’t cost their team everything. They just have the unfortunate distinction of making an error at just the wrong time.
i think the bigger question will now be how much of this will go to his head. I knew nothing about Kerkering so I looked up his numbers. Only 24, looks like a fairly reliable reliever. He wouldn’t be the first player to buckle under the stress of one bad moment. For his sake, I hope he can deal with it.
The team only scoring 1 run in 11 innings should be the bigger topic. A tough error, but if made in the 5th inning, nodody would be talking about it.
His error was he had no shot at a force at home and only had to throw to first to end the inning but he panicked.
Agreed on all counts. if you make an error in the fifth costing a run and your team loses by one run, it’ll get mentioned but forgotten by the masses pretty quickly.
Case in point and sorry to rub this in, the 2006 World Series. The Tigers lost that series due to a lot of errors. But none of them were in the final inning in a clinching game of the series (at least I don’t recall any). So none of them are really mentioned in the same breath as Kerkering’s error will be.
Unfortunate. I hope the guy doesn’t let it ruin his career.
I think this is getting blown way out of proportion. He didn’t cost them a World Series title. They were 2 series away from that. It’s tough right now for him and the Phillys and their fans, but this will get forgotten pretty soon.
Buckner’s mistake happened in the World Series. That’s why it’s memorable.
True. I had a coach early on when I started playing who pounded it in my head to say to yourself on every pitch what am I going to do if the ball is hit to me. Plus know the situation. The runner at 3rd has a 30 foot head start plus he kicked the ball. Even when he picked it up he still had a better shot at 1st than he did at home as all he needed was any out and the run wouldn’t have scored. It’s an old time fundamental that current big leaguer’s are too proud to learn or can’t be bothered with to know anymore.
It’s an old time fundamental that current big leaguer’s are too proud to learn
========================
Probably 0% it has anything to do with the play. He botched it and probably didn’t want to waste time looking at 1st, not when a half-second counts. He looked at the runner and the catcher and took what he thought was the sure out.
Just the fact that he missed the catcher pointing towards 1st means the play was moving too fast for him.
Sadly he will have an entire offseason to rerun that one play in his mind. It will be hell for him, but he has to turn the page somehow. If we ever forget what a difficult game this is to play, this is a reminder.
I hope Counsell doesn’t start ‘home run waiting to happen’ Imanaga on Saturday…
Shota will be in the game at some point. He might be the follower like in Game 2 against SD.
I’m really hoping for Colin Rea to get the start. He was pitching lights out to end the season and he’s well rested. While it’s going to be a challenge to win G5, I still thinks it’s wise to just let Imanaga get that extra rest he clearly needs and be ready as the G1 starter of the NLCS. Cubs have the arms they need to get through G5. Ultimately, it’s gonna fall on the Cubs offense and having the insane bursts of productivity that have come to define the team.
Cubs choice and path is much easier than the Brewers. Brewers have to use probably up to eight different pitchers and they all have pitch well.
If the Brewers win, come back Sunday and the chatter will be….Counsell has to live all winter with starting his #5 instead of his #3 in a do or die game…..OR Counsell knew Shota’s form has been shaky the last month, how could he have started him a do or die game?
Expat, you are 100% correct—Counsell being right or wrong on the starter will most likely fall on the offense.
I agree about the offense, Mike. It’s good to see it starting to rev up again with six runs in Game 4. Game 3 was the first time the Cubs scored at least four runs in a playoff game (breaking a streak of 14 games) since the crazy NLDS Game 5 in DC during 2017 . I wouldn’t be surprised to see another game like that one tomorrow.
Imanaga can’t get he start on Saturday. Heck if Counsell can get 6 innings out of the Rea, Civale, Brown combo he should consider himself way ahead of the game.
Colin Rea has pitched much better than Shota lately. While Imanaga has been throwing batting practice, Rea had 18 K’s and allowed only one earned run in his last two starts. He should’ve started Game 2.
And do the Brewers really have faith in Quinn Priester given his game 3 start?
One bad outing, guy has been good this year
Been good this year—but pretty brutal against the Cubs.
Including playoff appearance: 15 innings, 19 hits, 13 walks, 14 earned runs
I really hope the Brewers take advantage of their home-field advantage for game five and win the game and the NLDS. that would force the Dodgers to have to go to Milwaukee to play the NLCS..
I’d rather see the Dodgers start on the road too. Their defense at home has been so lackadaisical this postseason….
Would love to see Milwaukee win the NL because I haven’t seen a moneyball team get far in the playoffs (except the royals 10 years ago)
If by ‘Moneyball’, you mean a low cost roster, the Royals were running the 13th highest payroll the year they won. They spent above normal levels to win that year.
No team has won a World Series in this century with a bottom 10 payroll other then one of those fluky Florida Marlins teams where they added guys and then dumped everyone right after.
If you mean ‘Moneyball’ as an ideology, most teams now use some version of the philosophy, with the Red Sox probably being one of, if not the first to win a title doing it.
I know moneyball technically means money per on base percentage guys but I just think of it as winning a lot with very low payrolls
How could I forget the 2020 Tampa bay rays
I’d start Colin Rea over Imanaga.
Phillies like the Yankees have an older group. At some point, very difficult decisions will have to be made. Both teams are similar, and the window is closing. I was hoping for a 2009 rematch this year.
I’d start Justin Turner over Imanaga( Oops they tied it again) right now. If it was me Imanaga doesn’t see the field Saturday.
Kerkering didn’t lose us the series, it was our bats that went cold in the clutch again.
This is more on the players than anything, but I would be shocked if coaching changes aren’t made. You need to do something, we’ve had four great teams in a row with nothing to show for it.
Also the Dodgers pitching, if they can avoid the deeper parts of their pen, is filthy.
I love Shota, but he has not been good…seems logical to start Rea and just keep everyone on a short leash.
Pitching. kinda important.
Ima keep it a buck, rotation is looking booty.
Another year goes by of high expectations….and dashed hopes..
m’s look good but hard to pick against skubal in this situation (in any situation really)
meanwhile Imanaga has been awful for months and is serving up dingers like its candy on halloween.
brew crew + motor city advance
Except Skubal has started 3 games against Seattle this year and Detroit has lost all 3 of those starts. In the 2 regular season games, Skubal was responsible for giving up the winning run, so it wasn’t even like the bullpen blew it.
Seattle never crushed him, but they did enough to beat him every time. He’s not some insurmountable obstacle.
You can’t beat him all year long. When you have a good streak against someone it eventually comes to an end. The only reason they beat him is because the batters didn’t get many hits and few runs. With the Tigers they have a tentacy to not score runs for certain pitchers. They don’t score many for Skubal or Olsen but do score for Mize and Flaherty. In the past they couldn’t score for Verlander but did for Schewser. If Detroit can score at least 5 runs tonight there is a good chance they head to Toronto.
Phillies window is closing. They better resign JT and Kyle or it’s over for them. Harper looks to be aging quickly now.
@Mercenary.Freddie.Freeman
Harper & JT are cooked. Time to move on and start the new rebuild.
Harper had 3.5 WAR while underperforming his peripherals. Realmuto 2.0 WAR. The club does need to find a new catcher soon, though a reunion with Realmuto probably wouldn’t cost much while buying another year or two.
@Brad Johnson
I don’t care about your geek stuff. I used the eye test and can see it. Please bookmark this for next year when both of them put up 20 WAR seasons and you can laugh in my face!
What exactly do you see with your eyes?
He mentioned something about Greek stuff.
@vtadave
I see what’s in front of me. What do you see with your eyes?
And we can all trust your eye test (over the “geek stuff”) because you work for which MLB front office?
Also, the fact that you said “both of them put up 20 WAR seasons” means you 100% don’t understand what WAR measures, or even what a good WAR is.
Yes, I work in the MLB. (M)y (L)ivingroom (B)asement.
@OY,
Please. We would never laugh in anyone’s face when we can do so behind their back.
Old York…I agree REALMUTO , Harper very slow
Or accept that you aren’t going to win with JT and Kyle because, well, they haven’t. Maybe accept that the window has closed.
It’s not Kyle’s fault that they didn’t win. He had a great year.
Kyle hit 56 home runs and 2 more in the Dodgers series. Time to dump him??? You can’t be serious.
I hope to god the mariners have that nationals magic from 2019 in them to get past skubal another time, but if he goes over 6 innings we will lose the game
@sad tormented neglected mariners fan
Daaaaaa Mariners win!!!
Start spreading the news…
As a Dodger fan, Kerkering was absolutely filthy up seeing him up close in October. Fantastic right arm. I feel bad for him but there’s no crying in baseball. He will be an integral part of that bullpen going into 2026. The throwing error doesn’t discount how nasty he was against the Dodgers lineup.
FWIW, Christopher Sanchez will be the best SP the Dodgers will face in this year’s NL bracket and they somehow won both the games he started in. Should’ve been an all star outright. Reminds me of Sabathia in terms of mound presence and keeping guys off balance. Scared the hell out of me that they had to face him twice. Congrats to Phillies fans, even though the outcome was not what you guys wanted, it was a fun series to watch from a baseball perspective. Absolute star power and gut wrenching moments. Good luck in the offseason, and hope Wheeler is Wheeler for you guys next year and comes back healthy.
True, Sanchez is a beast. Glasnow paced him pretty well, though.
I’m still irked that the Phillies won that game in a 1-0 shutout, and one blown strike call ruined an otherwise thrilling series.
It should be the infamous Alex ‘Call,’ but nobody is talking about it.
The Phillies hitters didn’t show up. Again. Full stop.
And yet they rightfully won that ballgame. And outscored the Dodgers over the series.
And in the three losses, they managed a total of seven runs.
.212/.299/.358 isn’t winning a lot of series.
Rightfully won? Hahaha, are you new to baseball?
The Dodgers won the game.
There were several borderline calls in the game, on both sides. Why are you only focusing on one? And why are you assuming game would’ve played out exactly the same way?
Even with how bad the non-strike call to Call was, the Phillies would have still needed to get 7 more outs. It was not “rightfully won”, because you cannot say the next 2+ innings would have played out the same way.
So the Dodgers have home Field if the Cubs advance despite the. Cubs winning the season series? Is this because the Dodgers won the NL West?
Yes. Simply put. Division winners have Home Field over Wild Cards.
Thank you Unc. That’s what my initial thought was but I jast wanted to make sure.
@BlueSkies- I appreciate you as well.
Log…while it’s true now…you throw away the division winner/wild card thing in the world series. Its best record there. IF the Mariners and Cubs play in WS, the Cubs are the home field advantage team despite being a WC because they won more games during the season.
Because the Dodgers were higher seed by winning their division. They also won more regular season games than the Cubs (93 vs. 92).
How “successful” has the Dombrowski-Thomson partnership really been? They have the fourth-highest payroll, a bunch of overpaid former stars yet get thumped in the playoffs annually and earlier each successive year. The Phillies generate hype and little else.
@There a lemon,
Nonsense. If you’re not a fan, just say do and don’t be a d¡ck about it. The Phillies organization is successful, but postseason loses suck, especially for us fans.
Championships matter. Full stop. The Phillies are equivalent to an NFL team that makes the playoffs and perennially loses in the first round. You find that successful. I’m a fan since 1967, but I do not.
Championships absolutely matter, but are by no means the sole measure of success. If that were the case, we’d all be living pretty miserable lives.
I’ll eventually get over the Phillies early exit from the playoffs, knowing there was a lot to enjoy about the 2025 season.
CC has to step outside the box and NOT start Imanaga.
Skubal is pretty elite. The hitters have just basically been learning about pressure hitting this year. The start shocked everyone perhaps even themselves. Its been a fantastic season for the team no matter what happens tonight. Moving into the final 4 would be phenomenal.
They have a real good team. A young team. Its only going to get better in Detroit. I think they’ll win. GO TIGERS !
Cubs forced a game five back in Milwaukee. I’ll admit when I was wrong, I had no hope for them but a game five is wild. I’ll go ahead and eat crow now!
“No hope” is a pretty natural mindset for a Cubs fan to adopt, the team having trained their fanbase over the decades of its inevitable outcome. But even after witnessing their 2016 World Series comeback from 3-1 (erasing both the deficit and my own feelings of hopelessness), I settled right back into it when they went down 0-2. I had to keep reminding myself that this isn’t a team that lost many games in a row all season long, and that bringing things to even at Wrigley was not a tough assignment to see through successfully. Didn’t they only lose 3 in a row late in the season, maybe against the Giants on a west coast trip and only lost 4 in a row at the very end when they were resting players and on the verge of wrapping up WC1?
Game 5 is gonna be tough. From a season-long perspective, Milwaukee is the better team. But there have been times this year when the Cubs were the better team, and all you need to do is reproduce those interludes of greatness for a short time to win the post-season- and it looks lately like the Cubs might be entering one of those interludes. At least, I hope they are lol.
Everything you said is true and yes I believe they only lost games towards the end of the season when they were resting guys. Being a Chicago fan means you expect to lose lol
That expectation to lose is so depressing lol but also not lol.
I didn’t realize how deeply ingrained it was until 2021 and Cubs doing their typical collapse and not only allow Milwaukee to catch up to them at the end, but lose the division tie breaker game, and now they’re stuck playing the one-game wild card, and it’s late in the game, and I’m at my neighborhood bar watching it, and I shouted at the tv, “I am a Cubs fan and I deserve to be happy, now hit a home run!”
The thing was, I didn’t sound too confident- as a Cubs fan- that I did, in fact, deserve to be happy. Even after the spiritual cleansing of 2016, I still wasn’t so sure.
The Cubs of course ended up blowing that effing game.
We would probably need the Cubs to do what Houston Astros have done, go on almost a 10-year run of playoffs and win maybe two World Series championships to really feel better lol
Crossing my fingers for a Mariners vs Brewers World Series!
Meanwhile, I feel awful for Kerkering. I hope he knows he shouldn’t let that play define his career and that he has lots of time to make positive history.
I have Bill Buckner on line one.
“Elite as Skubal has been” is NOT proper English. You can’t just leave out “as” at the beginning because you feel like it. You’re a professional writer so grammar isn’t optional.
Also, “meanwhile” has to START the sentence, not come in the middle between commas. And there shouldn’t be a comma before “too.” My goodness. Deeds is a stinky, stinky writer.