The first round of playoffs are now behind us. The Philadelphia Phillies, Houston Astros, Boston Red Sox, and Chicago Cubs all saw their season come to an end in the wild card round. Today we begin the divisional round with four games on the schedule.
Before we get into that, though, there was a whole lot going on here at Redleg Nation yesterday and we’re going to give a few quick links just in case you missed out on some stuff.
- MLB Trade Rumors released their projected arbitration raises. The Reds have 12 players who will be arbitration eligible in 2027 if they keep everyone around. We looked at their projected salaries and how that could cut into some of the money they have coming off of the books.
- Michael Toglia was claimed off of waivers by the Seattle Mariners. Called up in mid-August he only played in 10 games and in that final one he injured his shoulder making a diving catch in left-center. He would need surgery and miss the rest of the year.
- Will Benson elected free agency. He was the third player who spent time with Cincinnati this season who was outrighted to Triple-A at some point this year to choose to become a free agent when the season ended, joining P.J. Higgins and TJ Friedl.
- Elly De La Cruz was named the 1st team All-Star shortstop by Baseball America.
Now that you are caught up, let’s look at each of the four playoff games today.
Chicago White Sox vs Cleveland Guardians
This game will be on TBS and is scheduled to begin at 1:00pm ET. The White Sox are going with reliever Hagen Smith to start the game. He posted a 3-3 record with a 1.29 ERA in 18 games this season, throwing 28.0 innings with 16 walks and 41 strikeouts. The lefty did make one start in the regular season, throwing 2.0 innings against Pittsburgh, and then he started against Houston in the wild card series and threw 3.0 shutout innings.
The Guardians counter with their own lefty as they send Parker Messick to the mound. One of the best pitchers in baseball since he was called up last season, he’s posted a 2.59 ERA in his 39 career starts for Cleveland, throwing 226.0 innings with 55 walks and 231 strikeouts during that time.
Cleveland won the division on the final weekend of the season, topping the White Sox by one win overall as they went 85-77 to Chicago’s 84-78. It was the White Sox, though, that won the season series between the two AL Central clubs as they went 7-6 in their 13 games.
Atlanta Braves vs Los Angeles Dodgers
This game will be available on Fox and is scheduled for a 4:00pm ET first pitch. The Dodgers are going with Tarik Skubal to open up the playoffs (they had a bye for the wild card round). One of the best pitchers in baseball, Skubal went 12-7 with a 2.72 ERA this season with the Detroit Tigers and the Dodgers in his 26 starts where he threw 158.2 innings. As of my writing this, Atlanta has not named a starting pitcher for the game.
Atlanta and Los Angeles faced off six times this season. It did not go well for the Dodgers. Los Angeles won their first meeting of the season on May 8th. They would then lose the final five games of the year between the two. Atlanta swept them in a 3-game series late in August.
New York Yankees vs Tampa Bay Rays
This matchup between AL East foes is going to be on TBS and first pitch is scheduled for 6:30pm ET. Gerrit Cole will get the ball for the New York Yankees today. He went 10-9 in the regular season, making 22 starts and throwing 127.0 innings with 25 walks and 131 strikeouts. For the most part he’s dominated in the playoffs where he’s thrown 133.1 innings and has a 2.77 ERA.
The Rays are going to go with right-handed starter Drew Rasmussen. In 2026 he went 16-5 with a 2.67 ERA in his 30 starts. Rasmussen had 174 strikeouts and just 32 walks in his 172.0 innings this season.
Tampa Bay won the AL East this season, besting the Yankees by 4.5 games with 98 wins on the year. The season series between the two clubs was close, but the Rays won seven of the 13 games. In the final week of the season the two teams played a 4-game series that could have decided the division. Tampa Bay won three of the four games in New York.
San Diego Padres vs Milwaukee Brewers
This game will be on FS1 and first pitch is scheduled for 8:30pm ET. Milwaukee had the best record in baseball this season, going 103-59. They’ll play host to begin the series and they are giving the ball to NL Cy Young frontrunner Jacob Misiorowski. He went 16-5 this season with a league best 1.80 ERA and 252 strikeouts. In his 30 starts he threw 174.2 innings and had just 44 walks.
San Diego had to get through the wild card round against the Cubs but did so with a 2-0 sweep. They are going with lefty Robbie Ray on the mound tonight. He went 13-8 this season with a 3.59 ERA, but after being acquired at the trade deadline he went 3-2 with a 5.02 ERA in nine starts for the Padres as his walk rate exploded and his strikeout rate plummeted.
These two teams played six games this season. San Diego won the season series 4-2. In May the Brewers took two of three in Milwaukee. When they met in California in mid-August it was the Padres pulling off a 3-game sweep.
Doug,
I think you got the win-loss between the Dodgers and the Braves backward.
The Braves are 5-1 against the Dodgers. The last game played, Chris Sale threw a shutout, with the Braves winning 1-0.
They sure are! I’ll fix that.
Dodgers will fix that on their own.
Go Braves … Go Sox!!!
Sox. Three straight 100 L seasons. Now victors in Wild Card game and a game up in ALDS. Go Sox!
It’s a great story to be sure.
Also a pretty strong indictment on the Reds.
The Reds have been “rebuilding” for the past decade. During that time, they’ve made the playoffs twice but never won a playoff game, haven’t had a single season where they won more than 83 games, and have an overall winning percentage of .458.
If the White Sox can go from doormat to viable playoff team in 3 seasons, why can’t the Reds?
The Reds don’t have The Pope on their side (for baseball purposes).
Well, for one thing, the White Sox got rid of some deadwood, like Luis Robert, Jr., who a significant number of people wanted the Reds to acquire. But hey, the Mets got him and he had a …….what kind of season did he have?
They also acquired a player from Japan in Murakami that hit 35 homers, but again only batted .207 for the season.
The biggest thing is that their pitching got better. The Reds mythical pitching is kind of stuck. Hunter Greene, hurt again, out for 2028. Nick Lodolo, hurt again. Rhett Lowder and Brandon Williamson, hurt for a good part of the season. Andrew Abbott, went to the post but had a pretty lousy year overall…..is he out of shape?
And Singer went to the post every time, but frankly was pretty lousy a lot of the time.
And Chase Burns.
And the Bullpen was hurtin’ for a stretch, which cost the Reds.
So pitching for the Reds was not very good for 2026.
One interesting element about the 2026 chisox was their bullpen: “Most relief outings of more than 1.1+ innings in mlb history: 209”.
It was a different time with different rules, but the Reds did something similar in 1960-61. They won 67 games in 1960, then 93 games in 1961.
1960 lineup was 1B Robinson 2B Martin SS McMillan 3B Kasko C Bailey LF Post CF Pinson RF Bell P Purkey Hook O’Toole McLish Henry & Brosnan.
1961 lineup was 1B Coleman 2B Blasingame SS Kasko 3B Freese C Zimmerman/Edwards LF Post CF Pinson RF Robinson P Jay Purkey O’Toole Hunt Henry & Brosnan.
@ Scott
It seems a lot of baseball managers are stuck on no more than one inning for reliever. I think the idea is that preserves them for the next day, if needed. Using a reliever for multiple innings usually means that they can’t pitch the next day (unless it was Pedro Borbon).
But that is an interesting point about the Chisox.
I do not care much about the Rays and Yankees game but I can’t wait for Padres and Brewers. How do we fast forward through the next two hours?
The Brewers tie it up. 🙂
Would that have been a home run? Would it have stayed fair? Crazy that we will never know. Imagine being on that Padres team right now and having to wonder.
Yeah, I think it would have been a homer, scoring the go ahead runs, in any stadium without a roof. Ty France absolutely bombed that pitch.
The Brewers were lucky, and Chourio gets credit for catching that ball after it hit the rafters and was deflected.
” Chourio gets credit for catching that ball after it hit the rafters and was deflected.”
Yeah. That can’t be easy. lol
I’ve been a proponent of all new stadiums having a retractable roof but that was definitely a downside although it is extremely rare for it to happen.
To move on, the Padres are now forced to win 4 games out of 5 against a team that won 103 games in the regular season. Good luck.
Terrible closer for the Padres. The Brewers play their game by getting players on base (walks), then a base hit to win it. Home runs happen but it’s not the center of the Milwaukee offense.
3 of 4; the divisional playoffs are best of 5.
I’ve been fortunate to be able to visit most cities in this country and Every time I do i I thank God I was born and raised and lived most of my life in Cincinnati. I just think it is the greatest town in the USA.
But my gosh it is tough being a sports fan in this town. Especially in the 21st century. Looks like another tough season for the bengals and of course our reds are stuck in the mud.
I want to look forward to college hoops but I think both XU and UC seem.to be a little over matched in their conferences at this time. Ugh.
I was born and lived here 1951-74 and now again 2022-26. The first part, I agree. The second time around, not so much.
Both Chicago and SLC Utah were better places to live than Cincinnati is today.
But we have chili and beer.
Both of those places have beer. Cincinnati style chili is an acquired taste.
As one who loves chili, it’s amazing that Cincinnati wins out over San Antonio, Tx. as the Chili Capital of America.
I have lived in Hamilton County my entire life. I was born in the 80s. I haven’t traveled the world but I’ve traveled some and Cincinnati is far from the worst city I’ve been to but it’s nowhere near the best. It has gotten much better in my memorable lifetime over the last 30 years since I have been able to get into the city on my own.
Little stands out compared to big cities but there isn’t something that feels like it is missing except a more robust public transportation system. Cincinnati is a B-level city. The sports are not on par with the city.
I haven’t lived there, but I’ve always loved Cincinnati and still do. It has everything bigger cities have, except sometimes on a smaller scale. I call Cincy America’s premiere Big/Small Town
Brewers pull out game 2. Lead series 2-0. Cool 🙂
Imagine setting up your playoff rotation and Yoshi Yamamoto is your #3 starter.
As I’m watching the Braves beat the Dodgers I just keep thinking about how funny it would be that tHe DoDgErS aRe RuInInG bAseBaLl thing is and how the owners are going to war using that as their excuse to try and get a salary cap and they might not win their divisional round.
Of course they could still come back and win tonight and sweep the series and then the next one and then the world series. But it would be real funny if they didn’t.
Im rooting for the Dodgers to win . Just to shed light on the absurdity of the league right now. Of course because I am rooting for them the rule is they must loose lol
Lose
Do you really believe any one series in MLB tells a lot about the league? Eight of the 10 ten teams in terms of payroll made the playoffs. Four of the other 20 teams made the playoffs. This isn’t about who wins a particular series. It’s about a league that is structurally tilted in favor of a few teams.
I believe that it would be very funny if the Dodgers who are the face of dominance and the reason baseball is unfair lose their first series and that while the owners do not care about the Dodgers payroll at all want to use it to lower the payroll on their team or increase the money they get from teams like the Dodgers go to the offseason with the Dodgers having gone home by October 10th. A Brewers or Rays champion would be the cherry on top of my iced cream sundae.
I truly don’t care who wins. I have barely watched any postseason baseball this year. The system is completely broken. The Dodgers are spending $60 million a season on Kyle Tucker, basically half of the Reds’ entire payroll. Teams like the Reds get all the scraps that are left over after the large market teams raid the free agent buffet each year. And with an incompetent front office and scouting department, the scraps the Reds pick up are often rotten.
i think it is lack of talent that is the key factor in why there is such a discrepancy between the payrolls.
Drive around any town. you rarely see kids playing baseball anymore . It is all foot ball with soccer a close second. occasionally you will see a few kids shooting baskets but I think even basketball has really taken a hit as well. and this has been going on for decades now and it is really starting to hurt the game at the major league level.
i look at guys like Matt McClain, TJ Friedl, KBH… nice guys and all … but HOW are these guys still in the league? they should be doctors and lawyers and used car salesmen.
the key is not to spread the talent more evenly around the league by salary cap, the key is to get more talent into the league to begin with.
I think it starts at the youth level. I feel pitching and catching is introduced way too early in youth baseball. 7 and 8 years olds shouldnt be pitching and catching. have the kids hit off the tee for a much much longer time. let the kids actually have some fun. not be demoralized by the time they are in 3rd grade because they struck out 4 times or got plunked in the back by a pitch. the base running, the fielding is what makes baseball fun.
We just need to get the Jamar Chases of the world and Joe Burrows of the world playing baseball again. that will help more than any salary cap
Friedl had 107 OPS+ (100 is average) just last year. He made 1 error in OF this year. Hayes hit 100 points higher (still not great) but won a Gold Glove last year. He is the #1 ranked active 3B on defense. McLain had a superb year on defense at 2B this year.
All three had poor years on offense.
Joe Burrow makes $53 M per year as a QB. Why would he play baseball?
The decision to play football over baseball wasn’t made because of the contracts or the pay of the player down the line. For most people it’s made when they are 8-years-old and their parents find out that travel baseball requires $5-10,000 a year and it’s basically required if you want to be serious about the game. That just isn’t the case for football or basketball.
Joe B. makes 53 mill a year and the Bengals are still the Bengals.
Bernie getting it done. Good to see the Bravos head home even.
Casually following the games and outcomes.
Cleveland Rocks … but the ChiSox head home up 2 games. Puts them an and advantage.
Cincinnati’s own Brent Suter getting a taste of playoff baseball, on the mound for the Braves. Good for him. Has had a nice career.