MLB: 2025 Postseason

In all seriousness, when Safeco Field became T-Mobile park, it got a magenta makeover.

It’s mostly done via lighting, but still, it’s part of the branding. I’m mildly surprised they didn’t do a similar thing in Milwaukee. But maybe in the future, as you say. :slight_smile:

Yeah. Ref @kenobi_65’s picture, nothing else says “good beer” to me like greenish gray.

Good news is you’re busy absorbing all the moisture now, so on Thu it’ll be nice and dry albeit cool. If you go to the game, wear layers.

Very clever planning of you. :wink:

LA better settle down real soon or they’re gonna literally throw the game away. Too many puppy uppers before leaving the clubhouse?

It’s possible that we are going to end up with a weird stat this year: “The Dodgers were 0-6 against the Brewers in the regular season but 4-0 against them in the playoffs.”

Another probable but as yet unproven weird stat: Both of the teams with initial home field (TOR & MIL) lost both initial home games.

Be especially meaningful if SEA & LAD both make short work of their opponents while at home on the West Coast so neither TOR nor MIL return home for unneeded games 6 & 7.

I would honestly be surprised if it was quite that open and shut; I fully expect somebody to need 6 games to get a decision. But the early noise is real one-sided in both leagues. Which is itself pretty unusual.

As a Brewer fan, this is all hard to watch. :frowning:

I’m a Dodgers fan but I don’t want to see the sweep and frankly I wouldn’t mind too much if the Brewers came back to take the series.

That was beautiful! Yamamoto pitches a complete game. First Dodger complete in playoffs since early 2000s.

I bleed Dodger Blue and I want a sweep!

Is that even legal anymore?

Japanese pitchers do it all the time. Yamamoto had something like 14 complete games in Japan.

Hopefully it won’t interfere with him pitching if this series goes 5 or more games.

I wasn’t paying great attention to the yakyak and I definitely don’t watch any pre- or post-game commentary. But it sounds like a couple of teams are really sucking wind on their bullpen. Such that their starters all need to deliver a solid performance as to both quality and quantity of innings.

But it’s not clear to me which teams are viewed as in better or worse shape on pitching right now. Anyone?

First postseason complete game by any team since 2017!

Well, I didn’t see anyone arrest him after the game, but it’s possible it’s just a civil offense, not a criminal one.

Assault and battery.

Side question. The starters for the next two games in the NL series have been announced. Is there a rule as to when they need to announce this or is it just a custom?

They have to provide the complete lineup to the umpire before the game starts, and they have to provide the lineup to the league office at least 15 minutes before releasing it publicly.

Naming the starting pitchers before that is a marketing tool. And because professional sports decisions are never influenced by the betting markets, I assume there is no pressure from the bookies to announce early.

I get the sarcasm but isn’t the proliferation of online betting much more recent than giving out starting pitcher information or am I being naive about the influence of bookmaking going back decades?

Is there a penalty for starting someone else because the manager changed their mind fifteen minutes prior to start time? I assume that the selection of batters is influenced by who’s pitching.

During the regular season, each team has a relatively set rotation of 5 or perhaps 6 starting pitchers. Obviously, this can change due to factors such as injury or ineffectiveness, but one can always look at the upcoming MLB schedule and see who will be pitching for each and every team 2, 3, or maybe even 4 days in advance.

In postseason play, this rotation can and probably will change, but, for the most part, teams will adhere to the custom of announcing starters a couple of days in advance, as @hajario noted. And, yes, the batting lineup is certainly influenced by the opponent’s starting pitcher.

Which always reminds me of this clip. I will usually plan my baseball games based on fun pitching matchups - it’s always disappointing if something changes. Imagine the disappointment here:

Betting opened up a lot in 2018 when SCOTUS struck down a law that had banned it in many states, but it was still a big deal before that. That said, I’ve seen no evidence that betting markets have any influence on teams announcing their pitchers in advance. Betting markets seem to be the primary beneficiary of the practice, but it’s nothing more than conspiracy theories that it’s at all connected, and I probably shouldn’t have made a joke about it.

There is not a penalty for switching before the lineup cards are provided to the umpire, but purposely lying about the starting pitcher goes against the unwritten rules that are very popular in baseball. A team would catch a lot of shit if they switched pitchers at the last minute to try to game their opponent’s starting lineup. I’m sure it has happened, but it would be regarded as a jerk move, not brilliant strategy.