For us baseball enthusiasts, few days are higher than the only now we have these days. Four postseason video games, back-to-back-to-back-to-back. Well, technically, there’s some overlap, however that’s even higher! More video games method flipping channels, which means that much less of a possibility we’ll have to take a seat thru ads for erectile disorder drugs. Anyway …
We’ll get to peer 8 of the 12 playoff groups play this weekend, and, as just a little of a warmup, let’s run thru 8 stuff you will have to know—one for each and every crew taking part in these days—heading into the postseason.

Realmuto is slashing .311/.366/.591 with 17 domestic runs and 11 stolen bases in 71 video games because the get started of July.
Eric Hartline/USA TODAY Sports
1. So much has been written about how the Guardians play a throwback taste of baseball. They are the hardest crew to strike out and they don’t hit for far chronic. They pitch smartly and play cast protection. They are a laugh to observe as a result of they devise motion. My favourite Guardians stat: They had simply 8 extra domestic runs (127) than they did stolen bases (119). Leaguewide, groups averaged 91 extra domestic runs than stolen bases.
2. The Rays have the worst OPS (.678) in opposition to right-handed pitching amongst this 12 months’s 12 playoff groups. Cleveland’s righties have blended for a three.42 ERA this season, excellent for 3rd excellent within the majors. On the turn facet, Guardians batters have the bottom OPS (.646) in opposition to lefthanders, whilst Tampa Bay’s southpaws in combination have a 2.99 ERA, which additionally ranks 3rd amongst all left-handed staffmates.
3. Albert Pujols is now not treasured simplest as a platoon participant. Since the All-Star ruin, he’s hitting .284/.342/.578 with 8 HR and a 157 wRC+ in 114 plate appearances in opposition to right-handed pitchers. That’s a excellent factor for the Cardinals, who’re set to stand two of the most efficient righty starters in baseball, Zack Wheeler and Aaron Nola, of their first two video games.
4. Phillies catcher J.T. Realmuto is broadly thought to be one of the most excellent backstops within the league, however he someway nonetheless turns out underrated. This 12 months was once his excellent but. He ranked 5th within the National League with 6.5 WAR, and he was once considered one of 9 MLB gamers with a minimum of 20 domestic runs and 20 stolen bases this 12 months. He and Trea Turner had been the one NL gamers with a 20/20 season.
5. Blue Jays shortstop Bo Bichette led the American League in hits (189) for the second one 12 months in a row. That wouldn’t have came about if no longer for his torrid ultimate month of the season. In 32 video games since Sept. 1, Bichette batted .406 and racked up 54 hits, 10 greater than the participant with the following maximum knocks, Carlos Correa.
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6. Julio Rodríguez is the Mariners’ excellent participant, however let’s give some like to power-hitting 3rd baseman Eugenio Suárez. Since the beginning of the 2017 season, simplest Aaron Judge (216) and Nolan Arenado (188) have hit extra domestic runs than Suárez (186). This 12 months, his first with Seattle, Suárez led the crew with 31 homers and 87 RBIs.
7. Pete Alonso feasted on Padres pitching this season. In 5 video games in opposition to San Diego, the Mets’ first baseman went 7-for-14 with two doubles and a house run. It’s true that 5 video games is a small pattern measurement, however he has fared smartly in opposition to the Friars all through his occupation, if to not the level that he has this season. In 18 video games (70 plate appearances) vs. the Padres, Alonso is hitting .286 with a .429 on-base proportion.
8. Juan Soto is returning to the playoffs for the primary time since he received the 2019 World Series with the Nationals. In 17 postseason video games, Soto slashed .277/.373/.554 with 5 domestic runs, together with two game-tying blasts—one off Clayton Kershaw and any other off Gerrit Cole—and a go-ahead shot off Justin Verlander in Game 6 of the World Series.
Quick reminder that we’ll be again on your inbox the next day to come and on a daily basis all through the 2022 postseason. If you’re studying this version on-line, I’d inspire you to join loose to get this text delivered without delay on your e mail.
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1. THE OPENER

Lindor and Alonso couldn’t prevent raving about their new postseason equipment at the day prior to this’s exercise day.
Frank Franklin II/AP
“Francisco Lindor will make $341 million over 10 years with the Mets, but he cannot buy the thing he most covets. A World Series ring, sure. But also a World Series sweatshirt.
“He showed up at work Thursday, the day before his Mets face the Padres in the three-game National League wild-card series, to find the next-best thing waiting for him at his locker: a bunch of stuff with the word POSTSEASON inscribed across it.”
That’s Stephanie Apstein, writing in her a laugh column from closing night time about how a lot the gamers love their postseason attire.
Baseball Players LOVE Their Playoff Merch through Stephanie Apstein
Only quite much less coveted than the postseason berth itself, the extremely expected playoff paraphernalia is an MLB ceremony of passage.
2. ICYMI
Let’s run thru a few of our other nice SI baseball tales from this week.
AL Wild-Card Series Predictions for Guardians-Rays and Mariners-Blue Jays through SI MLB Staff
Which groups might be shifting directly to the American League Division Series subsequent week? Our MLB writers make their choices.
NL Wild-Card Series Predictions for Mets-Padres and Cardinals-Phillies through SI MLB Staff
Which groups might be shifting directly to the National League Division Series subsequent week? Our MLB writers make their choices.
We additionally previewed the keys to each and every collection:
World Series Predictions Entering the MLB Playoffs through SI MLB Staff
Let’s take but any other stab at choosing the crew that can win all of it.
And, in non-playoff information, now we have this:
Inside the MLB Culture Wars That Led to Joe Maddon’s Firing through Joe Maddon and Tom Verducci
How may just a World Series–successful supervisor with 19 years of enjoy lose his task over a 12-game pattern? The solution is set a lot more than only a shedding streak.
3. WORTH NOTING from Tom Verducci
Shohei Ohtani is not going to win the AL MVP Award, no longer with Aaron Judge hitting 62 domestic runs, however his 2022 season was once much more wonderful than his ‘21 season, when he did win the award. Ohtani became the first player with enough innings and plate appearances to officially qualify as a pitcher and a hitter. But more than qualifying, he dominated.
Ohtani finished fourth in home runs (34) and fourth in ERA (2.33), a mind-boggling achievement. He led AL pitchers in strikeouts per nine innings (11.9) while showing more elite weapons on the mound than any other pitcher.
Late in the season, Ohtani added a new pitch, a high velocity two-seamer with serious run. That gave Ohtani five pitches that rank among the best by any starting pitcher in the majors:
- Slider: most horizontal movement (7.5 inches above average)
- Sinker: highest perceived velocity (97.9 mph)
- Splitter: second-lowest batting average against (.125)
- Four-Seamer: third-highest perceived velocity (98.2 mph)
- Cutter: third-highest perceived velocity (91.4 mph)
4. W2W4 from Nick Selbe
**Checks notes, clears throat, taps mike** PLAYOFF BASEBALL!!!!
Clear your schedule, because the wild-card round hits the ground running with four games Friday, beginning with the Rays and Guardians at 12:07 p.m. ET. There’s one thing intriguing to observe in each and every matchup: Shane McClanahan vs. Shane Bieber, Albert Pujols again within the postseason together with his One True Team and the Mariners taking part in a playoff recreation for the primary time in over 20 years. But if we will have to select one recreation to domestic in on, it’s Padres-Mets.

The Mets signed Scherzer within the offseason to shape the nastiest one-two punch within the majors. He will get the ball in Game 1 of the wild-card collection this night at domestic.
Dale Zanine/USA TODAY Sports
In one dugout, you may have a Mets crew with the league’s perfect payroll that noticed a ten.5-game department lead vanish down the stretch. In the other take a seat the Padres, who in a similar fashion have long gone all in with competitive trades and huge contracts, but haven’t any resonant accomplishments to turn for it. The winner of this collection will face the Dodgers within the NLDS. The loser may have a protracted, lengthy offseason to stare within the reflect and sweetness the way it all went fallacious. I discuss for impartial observers all over the place once I say that I will’t wait.
5. THE CLOSER from Emma Baccellieri
I’d been all for how the brand new playoff layout would have an effect on pitching control—how groups would possibly use their bullpens within the wild-card collection whilst having a look forward to a possible divisional collection, as an example, or whether or not they’d hassle to place their fourth starter at the roster at interested in a best-of-three. I did no longer ponder a state of affairs like what the Mets have given us with Jacob deGrom: taking into consideration no longer throwing him in Game 2 in the event that they win Game 1, in order that he can also be stored within the match of a sweep to kick off the NLDS, having the ability to pivot and use him as a substitute if wanted for a win-or-go-home Game 3. The good judgment is obvious. It all is sensible. Yet it however moves me as too lovable through part. Which is a reminder of possibly the most efficient a part of this new layout: There are surprises available! Even if you happen to assume you’re ready, get in a position.
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