#mlb-playoffs

#mlb-playoffs

Manager Terry Francona was Ken Macha's bench coach in 2003, and his first base coach is former Oakland outfielder Collin Cowgill. As for players, the Reds had utilityman Miguel Andujar (acquired in mid-season from the Sacramento A's, so he'll go down as the first Oakland/Sacramento Athletic to appear in a playoff game) and reliever Emilio Pagan, appeared in 55 games with the A's in 2018 after being acquired from the Mariners for Ryon Healy.

The playoffs started this week, and you have questions. Who's the best team? Can I, a casual, start calling Aaron Judge a choker? Wait, they let a CANADIAN team take the one-seed in the AMERICAN League? Is that legal? And which team has the wettest guys on its roster, and why is it the Phillies? Those questions, and more, are the subject of the week's Distraction episode.

This, citizens, is why you put your kids into youth sports and then spent all those extra hours yelling at other parents' children. This is why you bought all those unnecessary rounds at the tavern and needed to leave your car behind to get home. This is why you blocked out all those Sundays and didn't attend family gatherings because there were games into which you needed to immerse yourselves. All for this, a day with three win-or-go-golfing games in succession.

It'd be kind of dumb for the Guardians' cosmically-blessed season to end this way, but dumb is what the playoffs are all about. Imagine the epic, undeserved ascent to the division, in the context of a wholly undeserved season, getting smashed on the rocks of "haha you had to play a three-game series." ZiPS actually has the matchup as slightly tilted towards Cleveland today, so maybe their season will end tomorrow and not today.

CLEVELAND -- Tarik Skubal tied a franchise postseason record with 14 strikeouts and the Detroit Tigers defeated the Cleveland Guardians 2-1 on Tuesday in Game 1 of their AL Wild Card Series. Will Vest recorded the final four outs for Detroit, surviving a tense ninth inning after Cleveland star Jose Ramirez got hung up between third base and home for the second out.

Hosts Alex Kirshner, Ben Lindbergh, and Lindsay Gibbs speak to Fried Egg Golf's Kevin Van Valkenburg about the American crowds, President, and golf lapses at the Ryder Cup. Ben previews the MLB playoffs, and the hosts discuss the purchase of Electronic Arts by Jared Kushner and a Saudi investment fund. For Afterballs, Ben dusts off a copy of Robert Redford's oft-forgotten and underrated ski film, Downhill Racer.

Stop us if you've heard this before: Ceddanne Rafaela notched a walk-off extra-base hit to top off a comeback win for the Red Sox in an important game. His latest clutch knock occurred Friday night, which clinched Boston a playoff spot with a 4-3 win in epic fashion. Rafaela nearly hit another walk-off home run, but he settled for a triple to plate Romy Gonzalez and solidify a spot for the Red Sox in the MLB postseason for the first time since 2021.

Here are three things to keep an eye on headed into the final weekend of the regular season: 1. Playoff races still up for grabs: Eight teams (the Blue Jays, Yankees, Mariners, Phillies, Brewers, Cubs, Dodgers, and Padres) have punched their tickets to October already. That leaves four spots up for grabs headed into the final weekend of the regular season. Here's a quick overview of the teams still fighting for a spot, with playoff odds courtesy of FanGraphs:

I remember that a few weeks ago, Michael Baumann at FanGraphs ran an article, the gist of which was, "the lack of playoff races means the system is working," in the sense that if there are six playoff spots per league and there's no fight for any division or Wild Card spot, then six is the "right" number of seeds because it plainly cleaves between "deserving" and "non-deserving" teams.

The baseball team announced Monday that post-season tickets will go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. ET on Thursday. The sale includes the maximum number of potential games to be played at Toronto's Rogers Centre during the first two rounds of the post-season American League Wild Card Series beginning Sept. 30 and Division Series beginning Oct. 4.

The Padres clinched a playoff berth with a 5-4, 11-inning win against the three-time NL Central champion Milwaukee Brewers on Monday night. Freddy Fermin, acquired from Kansas City at the trade deadline on July 31, drove the first pitch he saw from Grant Anderson to center field with one out in the 11th, singling in automatic runner Bryce Johnson and setting off a wild celebration in front of a sellout crowd of 42,371 at Petco Park.

Which playoff team most needs to win the World Series? This is a question we try to answer around this time every year. What builds the pressure to win right now? The answer is a little different for every team, and the force of that pressure changes with each passing season. Teams age. Free agents leave and arrive. Playoff disappointments pile up. Playoff absences chafe.

We're just about a week away from the start of the 2025 MLB playoffs, and that means this year's top contenders are lining up their rotations with hopes of making a deep October run. With that in mind, we decided to rank the starting pitching options for the teams currently in the playoff field with an eye for how they will be used in the postseason.

The MLB playoffs are just around the corner and shaping up to be a wide-open affair. For the second consecutive season, there is not a single team on pace to win 100 or more games. That means there is plenty of parity across the majors, which is bound to carry over to October.

Donovan is hitting .279/.348/.402 across 476 plate appearances, with nine homers and 25 doubles, showcasing his contact skills after moving to the top of the lineup.

Eury Perez's emergence as a budding ace and the resurgence of the Marlins' offense is evident, with 122 runs scored in the last 30 days, a notable improvement.