Let it also be noted that Max Muncy has more playoff home runs than anyone in Dodger history.
LOL! The D’s freaking sweep them! I’m shocked at the pitching overall, especially with Dodger starters.
Doesn’t matter if Dodgers get 2 or 3 batters in a slump. Someone seems to pick it up regardless.
And AL might be done Sunday. Seattle is also totally loaded.
Are you really shocked by a rotation of Glasnow, Ohtani, Snell and Yamamoto? With a better bullpen, this Dodger team could match the 2001 Mariners. It doesn’t really matter which team wins the AL..I’d be surprised if the WS goes beyond five games.
I just read online that the Dodgers starting rotation of those 4 pitchers had a cumulative 0.63 ERA over the course of the four Brewers games.
Are there any stats for single game WAR? A 7 inning shutout and 3 HR could be the highest ever (and you would need to replace Ohtani with 2 players)
Starting rotations in 2025 NLCS:
Dodgers: 28 2/3 IP, 2 ER, 35 K
Brewers: 9 IP, 7 ER, 7 K
Hah!!
Link to the Ks and HRs in order.
Yeah, that plucky $1.3B rotation really dug deep to pull one out against the high-flying Brewers.
For reference, the Brewers had one active player (Yelich) that would be in the Dodgers top-15 in 2025 salary. (The Brewers second highest-paid player, Hoskins, didn’t play in the series).
ETA: And to add to that, the bullpen (where the Dodgers also spent a ton of money) would be a complete dumpster fire if not for the fact that the Dodgers got Sasaki too (which MLB could easily limit by restricting foreign fee agents to team with smaller payrolls, or make them go in the draft).
Toronto’s decision, leading 2-1 in the eighth inning, to summon maybe the seventh best pitcher in the bullpen was certainly a choice, and might well cost them the pennant.
They’ve become bizarrely addicted to using some guys and not others. They just keep rolling out Louis Varland and Brendan Little, and have forgotten Eric Lauer, who had a terrific season, exists. They’re going to start Trey Yesavage again in Game Six, even though the Mariners were not at all impressed by him, despite the fact Chris Bassitt, who was unbeatable in Toronto this year, is available; they are going to lose Game Six as a result. I just don’t get it, and one has to feel bad for guy s like Little and Yesavage, who are being asked to do things they’re clearly not up to doing.
To my eyes, Toronto is a better team, but they’re not actually using the entire team, and going to second rate relief pitchers cost them Game 5 and to a much lesser extent helped lose Game 1.
The decision to pull the starter there is both perfectly in line with how manager’s run postseason games now and something that would have been entirely unfathomable to someone that last watched baseball in 1995.
I don’t think it’s made the game better, but it will take some rules update to get back to the days of any SP other than bonafide aces going deep into starts.
Why do you think that’s desirable?
IMO it’s a team sport. It takes a team of pitchers and a team of fielders to play 9 innings of defense. The difference is the team of pitchers all stand in the same place but work one at a time across different timespans each, whereas the fielders all stand in different places but all work the whole timespan of the game.
While we can do things like move the mound back to reduce K’s (maybe: at longer distances pitches will break more), the recent trend to de-emphasize starter’s innings seems more fundamentally baked into the game’s evolution to just be legislated away. What are you going to do, mandate 10 man pitching staffs? Arms are already falling off hither and yon.
Probably just nostalgia.
It also tends toward the high-K high-HR environment we are in (although it’s not clear if that’s a cause or an effect).
I just get a bit bored by the parade of 100-MPH relievers with the wipeout sweepers just mowing guys down until maybe they walk a few or give up a dinger.
As to solutions, I think there are plenty of ideas worth trying (roster restrictions, named available pitchers for each game, rules that make it beneficial to leave in a starter longer - maybe you lose the DH when your starter comes out?), but it’s probably off-topic for this thread.
For what it’s worth, I think that two of those “starters” for Milwaukee were “openers,” who were only intended to go an inning or two anyway.
Regardless, the Dodgers’ starters were masterful, and absolutely shut down the Brewers.
Which, given that the Brewers went 6-0 against the Dodgers in the regular season was NOT really predicted.
New pool: The Over/Under on how many new plaques Ohtani tags the pavilion with next season.
Announcers are being reduced to just saying “Ohtani” now when he does something else amazing because they’ve run out of other ways to express it.
Any predictions for tonight’s game?
As a Dodgers fan, I’d like to see the ALCS go 7 games for obvious reasons. That makes me a Toronto fan for the evening, although I guess I hope the Mariners beat them in game 7. It would be great for the Mariners fans who have waited a very long time for this, even if they don’t win the WS.
I’m pulling for Seattle but it might go 7.
I’m a Giants game so I’m rooting against your Dodgers, and I’ll want Seattle to win it all.
But, damn, @Disinfectus they’ve got a juggernaut of a lineup. You have a great team there. One helluva team. I feared this when Magic bought into the team. He knows what it takes to have a winning organization, and he’s a smart guy.
I just don’t see how anyone beats LA.
A Dodgers fan wants the Mariners for the home field alone and the easier travel schedule. It’s less important that it goes to seven games. Also it would be better to lose to the Mariners since they haven’t won before.