Two programming notes: First, I don’t know why the hell I said yesterday that we’d have the college football recap up in the morning. That was hubris. The model’s running now, and we might have the outputs posted before tonight, but I don’t think we’ll have the recap until tomorrow. Second, these are getting published after the Packers kick off, but they’re written before the Packers kick off, and that’s just the way it’s going to be.
The Packers Are in London
The quirk that the Packers are the last NFL franchise to play in London has three possible explanations (and I’m sure someone else has dug into this and told us which is the truth, but I didn’t listen, so here we are):
The first is that this is random happenstance.
The second is that the NFL didn’t think Packers fans would travel to London.
The third is that the NFL prioritizes games happening in Green Bay more than anywhere else.
Obviously, it’s not strictly a trinary choice, and there are bits of overlap and things (road games, divisional opponents, etc.) which affect it all, but it does at least seem possible that this last one’s the case, which would be a pretty cool thing to say about Lambeau Field’s television value.
As for the game itself: Only Devonte Wyatt is an injury inactive, beyond those on the injured reserve. It’s a healthy unit, and the expectation in a game like this is that the Packers should win it comfortably enough. But while it’s an expected win, it’s also potentially a big one. With the Cowboys in Los Angeles and the Eagles in Phoenix (the Vikings host the Bears), there’s a decent path to the Packers being one of just three one-loss teams in the NFC when Week 5 ends, with none undefeated above them. That Vikings loss still stings, but it’s hard to find an argument that the Pack have that much to worry about from Minnesota so long as they, the Packers, take care of business the rest of the way. That’s getting ahead of ourselves on today, but it does put these games in context. Including this one, the Packers have eight games the rest of the way they absolutely should win. They probably won’t win all of those, but that’s an 11-win baseline, and the remaining five are all winnable, even if the spread currently looks likely to be within four or five points. Would a 13-4 mark be enough to get the bye? I’m not sure. But the path is there, and at this stage, this is largely a proxy war with the Eagles.
The Best Three-Game Postseason Series of All Time
I’m still not sure how I feel about the three-game Wild Card Series. I think a piece of it I didn’t adequately adjust for, during the regular season in my head, is that this is more like the Wild Card Game than the Division Series, and so teams who get the 3-seed aren’t as “in the playoffs” as they seemed to be in September. Division champions are no longer safe. I think this is a good thing—it removes a big advantage of playing in a weak division—but it’s a shift.
That’s a little beside the point, though. The point is that I wish we got more Rays/Guardians games.
There’s a lot to be said for the Manfred Man or the Zombie Runner or whatever you want to call the guy on second base in extra innings in the regular season. In the playoffs, though, a 15-inning 1-0 game is a hell of a lot of fun. There might not have been fireworks yesterday in Cleveland, but we got heroism time and time again, starting with Tyler Glasnow managing to stretch himself through five innings and continuing with Jason Adam working out of that jam and extending, eventually, to Oscar Gonzalez’s walk-off home run off of Cleveland legend Corey Kluber. (Side note: Did he walk up to the Spongebob music for that? I hope he walked up to the Spongebob music for that.)
The Guardians are certainly underdogs against the Yankees, but they also get to start Shane Bieber in Game 2 on an extra day of rest after tossing Cal Quantrill up there against Gerrit Cole in Game 1, and it’s hard to not feel good about Triston McKenzie pitching in Cleveland in Game 3 after what he did yesterday. On paper, of the remaining teams, the Guardians are the worst, but on paper, of the remaining teams, the third-worst is the Yankees. This has been a good path for Cleveland, and they may well continue to capitalize on it.
One thing with that schedule, though: Because the ALDS goes Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday, Bieber’s starting a maximum of one game in the series unless he goes on short rest in Game 5. Cole, meanwhile, can start twice, and could go as early as Game 3 if the Yankees were desperate enough to put him up there after just three days idle. We’ll talk a lot more about this series tomorrow or Tuesday, but Cleveland may need to get to Cole at some point. And it’s probably going to need to win when it can have Bieber and McKenzie on the mound.
In the game in Toronto…those poor Blue Jays (especially Teoscar Hernández, who takes his seat alongside Juan Yepez in the category of guys who did legendary things but won’t be remembered as such because the exit was so quick). But holy hell, what a moment for the Mariners. What a combination of rallies. And what a performance by the parts of the Seattle bullpen that were not expected to play the roles they had to play, specifically necessary closer George Kirby. Welcome to playoff baseball, rookie.
The regular season record between teams is largely meaningless, but since we’ve already mentioned it in our heads, Seattle went 7-12 against Houston over the course of the regular season, though they haven’t played one another since the end of July. The Mariners have the starters to match up with the Astros’, even accounting for rest, and the bullpens are comparable, but at the plate, there’s a gap. This is where Jesse Winker’s absence really hurts Seattle. The dropoff from him to Jarred Kelenic and Dylan Moore is large. And every bit does matter.
Having a financial stake in the Cardinals losing, and having spent the last two decades perturbed by Yadier Molina, the Phillies did escalate my heart rate in that ninth inning. But Zach Eflin survived again, we got another great Bryce Harper playoff moment, and the Phils—possibly the most unheralded team in the original field—are moving on. Like the Guardians, they face a little starting pitching disadvantage from having played this series, but with it unlikely Spencer Strider returns and Max Fried not quite on Gerrit Cole’s level, the Phils are in a little better position. They already cast their lot a little, opting not to start Aaron Nola in Game 1, but with the bullpen situation we talked about on Friday being what it was, that was the right move. Now, they just need to adjust, and hope they can steal one in Game 1 and grab a major upper hand in the series.
Finally, we’ll get one Game 3, and it features arguably the two best teams in action in the Wild Card round overall. Max Scherzer and Jacob deGrom will be absent tonight (unless Scherzer convinces Buck Showalter to do something phenomenally dumb and very geared towards losing the Division Series if they do make it), but since the middle of June, Chris Bassitt’s been the better pitcher than Joe Musgrove by nearly a full run of FIP. Musgrove did not finish the year all that strong, posting a 4.32 FIP over his final eighteen starts and failing to last six innings in four of his final six trips to the mound. Bassitt was up and down towards the end, but he tossed a few gems in there.
Looking at bullpen availability: Blake Snell only lasting four innings merely cost the Padres Nick Martinez. Adrian Morejon threw 29 pitches, but that would have happened anyway, it appears, and everyone else on the staff should be fresh. The fact San Diego’s rolling with Musgrove instead of Sean Manaea implies some confidence in the former, as well, and it also leaves Manaea available if this goes the way of Cleveland and Tampa Bay. On the Mets side, it’s much worse. Adam Ottavino threw 35 pitches last night, many of them high-stress. Edwin Díaz threw 28 pitches, and got down and up once. Seth Lugo didn’t have to do much, but he’s thrown on back-to-back nights. The Mets left Carlos Carrasco and Trevor Williams off the roster for this series, too. They have the starting pitching advantage, and even a sub-himself Díaz is a great option, but the later this game goes, the more the advantage shifts to San Diego, and if you believe the atmosphere in the stadium has some impact, I’m not sure it’ll be a positive one if things are coming down to the wire, given how the Mets fanbase seems to feel about losing the division.
**
Viewing schedule, second screen rotation in italics:
MLB Playoffs
- 7:07 PM EDT: San Diego @ New York (NL) – Game 3, Musgrove vs. Bassitt (ESPN)
NFL (of interest)
- 9:30 AM EDT: New York Giants vs. Green Bay (NFL Network)
- 1:00 PM EDT: Los Angeles Chargers @ Cleveland (CBS)
- 4:05 PM EDT: Dallas @ Los Angeles Rams (FOX)
- 4:05 PM EDT: Philadelphia @ Arizona (FOX)
- 8:20 PM EDT: Cincinnati @ Baltimore (NBC)
Motorsports (that we cover)
- 2:00 PM EDT: NASCAR Cup Series – Bank of America Roval 400 (NBC)
