Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today, brought to you by David Adler. The World Series is two days away. Here's how ABS might impact who wins.
This is going to be the first World Series ever with ABS, but here's a question for you: Will ANY hitters challenge?
You might say: Obviously! They've been challenging calls all playoffs! But there's something funny going on here.
The two teams in the Fall Classic -- and these are two of the smartest teams in baseball we're talking about here -- do not like to challenge when they're at the plate. They really don't like it. Mike Petriello takes a deep dive into that today.
The Rays and Brewers both operate under the philosophy of: "Save the challenges for the catchers." This postseason, their hitters have combined to challenge only four of the 43 overturnable calls that have gone against them.
And when we say "combined to challenge four overturnable calls," what we really mean is, "The Brewers have challenged four overturnable calls."
The Rays? The Rays have not challenged AT ALL this postseason as the batting team.
Yes, really. Fun fact: Rays PITCHERS have challenged more times in the 2026 playoffs (1) than their hitters have challenged (zero). Pitchers basically never challenge!
(Who was the Rays pitcher who did? Shoutout Griffin Jax. Not only is he the only pitcher to pull the trigger this postseason, he successfully turned a walk into a strikeout by doing it.)
Now we need to take a second to appreciate the King of Not Challenging. That would be one Yandy Díaz.
Díaz hasn't challenged one single time ALL YEAR. Not just in the playoffs. In the regular season, too.
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