Parity abound in MLB postseason as big spenders and budget squads collide
USA TODAY Sports’ Bob Nightengale breaks down parity in the MLB Postseason and why teams like the Padres are excelling despite cutting their budget.
Sports Seriously
A blitzkrieg of raucous, roller-coaster playoff baseball is about to reach its zenith: A quadrupleheader featuring a pair of potential closeout games and two more pivotal Division Series Game 3s.
From the moment the Detroit Tigers greet a Comerica Park crowd awaiting its first playoff game in 10 years until the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres exit the stage – perhaps for good in the Dodgers’ case – some nine hours of taut, tense postseason play will unfold.
It’s the last day there’ll be so many games to track until 2025, and for the first time, all four Division Series began with 1-1 splits. As this day of reckoning arrives, USA TODAY Sports breaks down what to watch in these pivotal hours:
Guardians-Tigers, 3:08 ET (TBS): Hitting accelerator in Motown
After two games at Cleveland’s Progressive Field, which can feel claustrophobic, the Guardians and Tigers return to the spacious confines of Comerica Park, their ALDS tied 1-1.
And the Tigers are surely thrilled with the chance to not only play in front of their home fans, but stretch their legs on the base paths.
Detroit led the major leagues with a 49% rate taking extra bases in 2024, and since third base coach Joey Cora led a fiery August meeting that touted the upside of aggressive baserunning, the Tigers have gone first-to-third more than any team in the majors.
And after they took Cleveland’s best punch in Game 1 – the Guardians scored five runs before the Tigers recorded an out – the series has settled down considerably. Cleveland has scored just two runs in 17 innings since that breakout, while Detroit managed just one run-scoring hit – Kerry Carpenter’s stunning three-run homer off peerless Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase in the ninth inning of Game 2.
Now, the series is square, back on Detroit ground and perhaps on their terms. A day off has rested their bullpen and with right-hander Alex Cobb starting for Cleveland, they can throw speedy Parker Meadows back atop the lineup.
Sure, Comerica remains a tough yard to hit a ball in the seats. But don’t take your eye off the Tigers, lest they steal away with another win against the AL’s top seed.
Phillies-Mets, 5:08 ET (FS1): End of the road?
Once again, Mets slugger Pete Alonso is facing his potential Last Home Game At Citi Field, a road first crossed way back on Sept. 22, when New York closed its home schedule with a Sunday night win over the Phillies.
That launched the Mets into a furious flurry of elimination baseball, 10 consecutive road games bridging the regular season and playoffs until finally, Tuesday, the Mets hosted Philly again for Game 3 of their NLDS.
And Alonso made sure this improbable party raged on, his second-inning homer off Aaron Nola ensuring the Mets never trailed in their 7-2, series-turning win.
Yes, today, Alonso, a pending free agent and four-time All-Star, could play his final home game in Flushing. But this time, odds are he won’t.
The Mets hold a 2-1 lead in this NLDS, with two shots to close out the Phillies: In Game 4, behind Jose Quintana, or back in Philly, where they’d have to topple Phillies ace Zack Wheeler again.
But all the pressure, suddenly, is on the other side of the field.
The Phillies have taken terrible at-bats in almost all the 27 innings of this series, save for a late uprising in Game 2. Their hopes rest on Ranger Suarez’s left arm, and while he’s been a clutch playoff performer he did not finish the year in good form.
And it’s more useful to ponder what the Phillies might be frittering away.
Their 95 regular season wins, for naught. An undeniable feeling that, for all the good vibes at Citizens Bank Park, they are backsliding: Pennant winners in 2022, NLCS losers in 2023, NLDS exit in 2024.
Simply, it will be a nauseous evening in both dugouts Wednesday night. Yet for the Mets, it will be anticipatory; for the Phillies, simple dread.
“This whole experience,” Alonso said after Game 3, “has just been incredible.”
Yankees-Royals, 7:08 ET (TBS): Same as it ever was?
After their own 17-day road odyssey, the Royals are finally home. And Salvador Perez is once again saying that 2015 “feels just like yesterday.”
The Royals certainly hope so. Their classy old ballpark will host its first two playoff games since beating the Mets in a five-game World Series conquest in 2015. Perez, the respected and likely future Hall of Fame catcher, is of course the only soul remaining from that roster.
It is quite a hornet’s nest for the Yankees to happen upon.
They are tied 1-1 in this ALDS. They face a daunting matchup in veteran right-hander Seth Lugo, who dominated them at Yankee Stadium exactly a month ago, striking out 10 in seven shutout innings. And while they love their own starter, Clarke Schmidt, he’s made just five starts since returning from a nearly four-month absence due to a strained right lat.
It would help if he gave them some length. Right now, the only element firing properly for the Yankees is their bullpen, which has absorbed 9 ⅓ innings and given up just one run.
That feels unsustainable. And the Royals have managed to score nine runs in two games while their greatest player, shortstop Bobby Witt Jr., goes 0 for 10 with four strikeouts.
He’ll have a far more welcoming crowd greeting him in Game 3. The Yankees would do well to get out of town with their season intact – which will require a win Wednesday or Thursday night.
“Now the boos are going to be for them, not for us like it was in New York,” Perez said Tuesday. “Super excited. I can’t wait for tomorrow.”
Dodgers-Padres, 9:08 ET (FS1): Going for the kill
It’s going to be a hot mess.
There’s really no other way this crazy NLDS can end, and end it probably will in Game 4, with San Diego tapping ace Dylan Cease on three days’ rest to suppress the Dodgers once and for all.
It’s been a crazy fall for the Dodgers, who once engendered huge hopes entering the postseason, only for the strangest calamities – some self-inflicted – to befall them.
Now, they’re going on two consecutive years of staggering into October with uncertain pitching plans and, unsurprisingly, failing in occasionally spectacular fashion. One more loss, and they’ll be eliminated in the NLDS a third consecutive season – twice by the Padres.
Yet unlike last year’s sad sweep at the hands of Arizona, these Dodgers fight back. Sure, they lost a crucial Game 3 at Petco Park 6-5, but given that they trailed 6-1 and pushed every last high-leverage Padres reliever into the fire is not an insignificant victory.
Now, to parlay that win into the momentum provided by the next day’s starting pitcher….
“It’s a bullpen game,” manager Dave Roberts said after Game 3. “I see one of our relievers starting.”
Ah, well.
The Dodgers aren’t just ailing in the arms department. Shortstop Miguel Rojas aggravated an adductor injury and first baseman Freddie Freeman once again couldn’t complete nine innings on a bum ankle, though of course he banged out a base hit before hobbling off.
L.A. got to Cease in Game 1, or more specifically Shohei Ohtani did, wiping out an early deficit with a three-run homer. Padres manager Mike Shildt says Cease will have “some bullets” for Game 4, and said his bullpen will be “ready to rock” despite absorbing four high-stress innings Wednesday.
“It’s good to get two,” says Shildt, “but it doesn’t matter until we get three.”
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