The Division Series begins with four staggered start times on Tuesday, as Phillies vs. Braves gets us started at 1:07 p.m. ET, Padres vs. Dodgers finishes the evening at 9:37 p.m. ET and the two AL series take place in between. Mariners vs. Astros starts at 3:37 p.m. ET and then Guardians vs. Yankees goes off at 7:37 p.m. ET.
Whether or not it will be a great and dramatic day of baseball remains to be seen, as every game features a favorite of -200 or more. I refer to the MLB Playoffs as a “Tournament of Variance”, so I’m sure at least one of the dogs will find a way to win, if not more. After all, the underdogs won three of the four Wild Card Series.
Check out my ALDS previews and NLDS previews along with my thoughts on today’s four-pack of matchups.
The playoffs are typically a low-scoring environment, but we’ve seen this total balloon all the way to 7.5 after opening as low as 6.5. All of the 7s are off the board, but the books are dealing heavy under juice on the 7.5s, so we may get back there before the early first pitch.
There are a couple of games today that show what teams are forced to do in order to win the Wild Card Round and advance. Instead of having Zack Wheeler or Aaron Nola, the Phillies have to send out Ranger Suarez against a right-handed-heavy Braves lineup. Every starter in the postseason is going to be above average in some way and Suarez fits that description with a 3.65 ERA and a 3.87 FIP. His problem is that he pitches to a lot of contact against a lineup prone to swing and miss, but the positive is that he’s an extreme ground ball guy with a 56% worm-burner rate for his career. It’s cliché to say “keep the ball down”, but against this Braves lineup, that’s what you have to do and Suarez does it well.
He also limited hard contact with a 34.7% Hard Hit% in his 473 batted ball events. The Braves were second in baseball in Hard Hit% this season, with over 43% of their balls in play having an exit velocity of at least 95 mph.