Hi Everyone —
Well, today is going to be an extraordinary day of baseball. Historic, even. For the first time since 1981 — and really, does the strike year of 1981 even count? — we will have THREE elimination games on the same day. Three!
3:08 p.m. Eastern: Win or go home, Guardians and Tigers!
5:08 p.m. Eastern: Win or go home, Cubbies and Pads!
8:08 p.m. Eastern: Win or go home, Yankees and Red Sox!
Today also happens to be Yom Kippur, the day of atonement, which means Sandy Koufax won’t pitch. Fortunately for Dodgers fans, they’re the one team that did advance on Wednesday, their exploding bullpen notwithstanding.
So, how will I commemorate this holy day?
Well, on Tuesday, in The Clubhouse, I tried something a bit crazy — I spent all day watching baseball and writing a 4,000-word stream of consciousness filled with bad jokes and half-baked thoughts. To my surprise, Clubhouse members loved it and are demanding more. So I’ll be back in there tomorrow.
What’s The Clubhouse? Well, I can’t really say — the first rule of The Clubhouse and all that. But if you want in on tomorrow’s ride, you can knock on the door.
Today’s scorecard comes from Brilliant Reader Jerry, who scored a 1909 Strat-O-Matic game between the 1909 Pirates and Tigers. Tom Jones drove in the winning run for Detroit; Jerry did not let us know if women then threw underwear at him.
Incidentally, in 1910, the real Tom Jones reportedly had three separate operations to fix a broken nose. My best guess is the third one didn’t work either, but he grew tired of trying.
The Big Story: Dodgers Move On
Here’s the wonderful thing about a baseball season: Even when things go EXACTLY as you expected, there are still surprises, quirks, unforeseen twists and turns. Take the 2025 Los Angeles Dodgers. They are exactly where we all thought they’d be — in the division series, where they will face the Philadelphia Phillies on Thursday.
This is exactly what every single baseball fan would have predicted.
But the Dodgers don’t exactly feel like the team we thought they would be — or at least the team I thought they would be. Yes, the pieces are all there. Shohei is Shohei. Mookie (thankfully) is back to being Mookie (four hits and three doubles in the Dodgers’ 8-4 win over the Reds). Freddie is Freddie. The Dodgers’ top starters — Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell — all feel like they could go out on any given night and throw seven no-hit innings.
And yet, the team feels off kilter. Why? You know why. The bullpen. The Dodgers were never for a minute in danger in their two-game sweep of the Reds, and yet it all felt fragile, perilous, because anyone who comes out of that Dodgers bullpen these days seems capable of giving up as many runs as necessary to blow the game. It’s truly remarkable.
They came into the year having signed two dominant relievers who seemed sure to make the Dodgers’ bullpen the best in baseball.
Tanner Scott was one of the best relievers in baseball the last two years. He posted a 2.04 ERA with 188 strikeouts in 150 innings. This year? He has a 4.74 ERA, a 4.70 FIP, and a negative WAR.
Kirby Yates was one of the best relievers in baseball last year. He had a 1.17 ERA and struck out 85 batters in 61 innings. This year? He has a 5.23 ERA, a 4.70 FIP, and a negative WAR.
So, um, yikes. But it isn’t just them. Blake Treinen is all but unpitchable now in key situations. Alex Vesia has been having trouble getting outs for two months. Manager Dave Roberts is left trying to retrofit starting pitchers into relievers on the fly. Sometimes it works (Rōki Sasaki looked like the dominant version of himself in the ninth on Wednesday). Sometimes it doesn’t (Emmet Sheehan looked utterly shaken and was pulled mid-batter).
Either way, it’s not exactly the game the Dodgers want to be playing in October.
But this is their identity right now. When you have a bullpen this bad, well, I believe it gives teams hope. Maybe Sasaki’s return will change the vibe — one baseball friend says Sasaki might be the most important player on the Dodgers right now — but I imagine the Phillies will feel pretty confident if they go into the final innings with the game close. That’s not the aura of inevitability that the Dodgers wanted to project.
Apparently, I’d be starting if this series needed a Game 4
Here are some of the most famous elimination pitching matchups in memory.
1968 World Series: Mickey Lolich v. Bob Gibson
1975 World Series: Don Gullett v. Bill Lee
1991 World Series: John Smoltz v. Jack Morris
2001 World Series: Roger Clemens v. Curt Schilling
2025 AL Wild Card Round: Connelly Early v. Cam Schlittler
Yes, that’s right, for the first time ever, two rookies — Early is making his fifth big-league start for the Red Sox and Schlittler will be making his 15th big-league start for the Yankees — will face off in an elimination game.
And this is not just ANY elimination game. This is an epic elimination game between baseball’s greatest rivals. This is Batman and the Joker, Skywalker and Vader, Chrissie and Martina, Neo and the Agents, Tom and Jerry, Mozart and Salieri, Rocky and Apollo, Maverick and Iceman.
To be as fair as we can, both Early and Schlittler have shown some promise in their very short big-league careers, but I mean, has it really come down to this?
The other pitching matchups are:
Detroit’s Jack Flaherty vs. Cleveland’s Slade Cecconi.
San Diego’s Yu Darvish vs. Chicago’s Jameson Taillon.
It’s going to be a wild day.
