Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, postseason edition! We'll keep you up to speed on everything you need to know every weekday throughout the 2025 World Series. Thanks for being here. Is this it? Does the Blue Jays' 32-year World Series title drought -- and the 2025 MLB season -- end tonight? Rogers Centre will be rocking. The Blue Jays will be amped up. All Canada's team has to do is win one game. Easier said than done, however, because that means getting past arguably the best starting pitcher in these playoffs: Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Toronto had no answer for Yamamoto in Game 2 as he went the distance in a 5-1 Dodgers win. After a long first inning, Yamamoto breezed through the Blue Jays' lineup for his second straight complete game. Might he pull off the hat trick tonight? The Dodgers -- and Game 7 enthusiasts -- would obviously love to see it. Besides the fact that no pitcher has recorded three complete games even during the regular season since 2023, a third consecutive complete game in the playoffs would link Yamamoto to Curt Schilling (2001), Orel Hershiser (1988) and Luis Tiant (1975) as the only pitchers in the past 55 years to do that. The last pitcher to toss two complete games in a World Series was the Braves' Tom Glavine in 1992 against … the Blue Jays in a series Toronto won in six games. In the Expansion Era (since 1961), only two pitchers -- Mickey Lolich in 1968 and Bob Gibson in 1967 -- have thrown multiple World Series complete games on the road. As detailed in depth by our own David Adler, Yamamoto's incredible run has been made possible by pinpoint control -- especially with his splitter and curveball -- and by keeping batters guessing with his six-pitch arsenal. That brings us to the biggest question in tonight's matchup: What, if anything, can the Blue Jays do to solve the L.A. ace? Two keys stand out, as explored by Martín Gallegos. Limit the strikeouts. Yamamoto has a 4.52 career ERA (playoffs included) in games where he K's fewer than six batters. In games where he gets six or more strikeouts, that ERA falls to 1.94. Lay off the curve and the split. Yamamoto's one ragged postseason start this year -- NLDS Game 3 against the Phillies -- occurred in part because Philadelphia didn't chase his two aforementioned wipeout pitches. In World Series Game 2, the Blue Jays saw 29 curveballs and splitters out of the zone and swung at 14 of them. If Toronto's lineup can make consistent contact and spit on pitches out of the strike zone, we may crown a champion tonight. If not, we could have to buckle up for a Game 7. -- Brian Murphy |
THE EARLY BIRD GETS THE ... |
There's one more way that the Blue Jays can continue to fly high in Game 6, despite Yamamoto's prowess. And it dovetails with the strategies mentioned above. As Toronto manager John Schneider put it: "Be ready to hit." Or, more precisely, be ready to swing early in the count. As Manny Randhawa notes, it's something that the Blue Jays have done with great success so far this postseason. Let's run through a few numbers: 37.6% - Toronto's first-pitch swing rate in the postseason, tied for first with the Mariners and up 5.6 percentage points from the team's rate during the regular season. 14 - First-pitch hits for Toronto against the Dodgers, the most by a team in any World Series since the Angels had 14 (in seven games) in 2002. The Jays' total includes three home runs, including Davis Schneider's off Blake Snell, on the very first pitch thrown in Game 5. .800 - Toronto's slugging percentage on first-pitch swings in the World Series. This after ranking 25th during the regular season, with a .539 first-pitch SLG. Keeping the trend going in Game 6 may be a different matter. As noted above, Yamamoto mixes up his six-pitch arsenal and will throw any pitch in any count to keep hitters off-balance. During his Game 2 start, he threw his four-seam fastball on the first pitch to only six of the 32 batters he faced (18.8%). Toronto went a modest 2-for-5 on Yamamoto's first pitches in that game, but one of those was a bloop single and the other an infield popup that eluded Freddie Freeman. If the Jays become World Series champs tonight, it may be because they find a way to crack Yamamoto's early-count code. – Andrew Simon |
Facing elimination in Game 6, the Dodgers will have all hands on deck -- including Shohei Ohtani out of the bullpen. But where things could get really interesting is if the Dodgers can win without putting Ohtani on the mound in Game 6, leading to a for-all-the-marbles Game 7 on Saturday night. Such a scenario could give the Dodgers a few ways to leverage Ohtani's two-way ability in pursuit of a championship-clinching victory. As an opener, likely ahead of Tyler Glasnow: This would be the simplest way to make sure Ohtani could make his pitching mark on Game 7, and it would allow him to follow his normal routine. When Ohtani returned from his elbow injury this season, he essentially served as an opener while ramping up his workload, so this would be nothing new. As a closer: If you watched the breathtaking end of the 2023 World Baseball Classic, in which Ohtani closed out Japan's title against then-Angels teammate Mike Trout and Team USA, then you simply can't help but daydream about a repeat … in World Series Game 7. Ohtani facing off against Vladimir Guerrero Jr. with the whole season on the line? Yes, please. As a reliever, then an outfielder: This may sound crazy, but it's not that crazy. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts left the door opener for it on Thursday, and Ohtani did make seven brief appearances in the outfield for the 2021 Angels. If Ohtani starts on the mound, he can continue to serve as a DH once he's done, but if he enters as a reliever, moving him to the outfield if/when he exits would be the only way to avoid losing the DH spot. All eyes being on Ohtani is nothing new, but a Game 7 would maximize the Shotime intrigue. -- Andrew Simon |
THE BEST OF POSTSEASON STATCAST |
The playoffs are always full of incredible highlight-reel plays. We came up with 10 of the best of 2025, with some help from Statcast.
We've got the longest home runs of the postseason, the fastest strikeouts, the best catches and more.
Re-live moments like:
- Shohei Ohtani's three-homer game, including the 469-footer over the Dodger Stadium right-field pavilion that was one of the longest postseason homers of the Statcast era
- Aaron Judge's home run off the foul pole at Yankee Stadium off a 99.7 mph fastball from the Blue Jays' Louis Varland that was six inches off the plate inside
- Tarik Skubal mowing down the Guardians on triple-digit fastballs in the very first game of the playoffs
- Pete Crow-Armstrong robbing Manny Machado with a 10% catch probability grab in the winner-take-all Game 3 of the Wild Card Series
And with Game 6 of the World Series tonight, there's still time to add a few more plays to the list before the season is over.
-- David Adler |
The two main things arguably most synonymous with October are the MLB postseason and Halloween, in that order -- for our purposes at least. But we've had quite a few instances where these beloved fall staples align. In the spirit of spooky season, here are our favorite baseball moments from Halloweens past in descending order, as we wait to see what the Blue Jays and Dodgers have in store for us tonight. And while you wait for gametime, try our Halloween-inspired baseball trivia quiz.
Honorable mention: Juan Soto has a knack for delivering in the clutch, and that includes saving Halloween for the 2019 Nationals and their families.
5. They just ... keep ... coming The 2015 Royals gave their opponents fits because you just couldn't keep them down. They gave the fans at Citi Field nightmares on Halloween, rallying yet again to stun the Mets in Game 4 en route to a World Series championship.
4. Into thin air A year after entering Fenway legend status as the architect of the curse-busting 2004 Red Sox, then-Boston GM Theo Epstein stunned Red Sox Nation on Halloween night by (temporarily) departing his post when he left a team party at Fenway Park in a gorilla costume to avoid reporters mingling outside. That was an all-time Halloween trick, but the Cubs enjoyed a treat six years later, as Epstein signed on to help them end their curse.
3. A hero emerges Madison Bumgarner is a bona fide postseason legend, and the genesis was Game 4 of the World Series in 2010, when he shut down the hard-hitting Rangers as a 21-year-old Giants rookie.
2. Eye of the beholder Take it from someone who witnessed this phenomenon first-hand, plenty of people dressed as Alex Rodriguez in New York City on Halloween in 2009, pulling double duty in honor of both the holiday and Game 3 of the World Series. A-Rod was appropriately very much in the middle of the action, smacking the first-ever postseason homer to be awarded after a review.
1. Howl at the moon Despite what most seasonal imagery would tell you, a full moon on Oct. 31 is very rare. It most recently happened in 2020; before that, you had to go all the way back to 2001, when the Yankees and D-backs played Game 4 of their epic World Series. After Tino Martinez's clutch homer sent it to extras, Derek Jeter strode to the plate literally at the stroke of midnight, signifying the first time baseball had ever been played in November. The rest … is Samhain history. -- Bryan Horowitz |
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