Category: Baseball

It’s a late night in San Diego as the Padres host the Chicago Cubs in game 1 of the NL Wild Card series. According to MLB.com, LHP Matthew Boyd will start for the Cubs while the Padres will send RHP Michael King to the mound. First pitch scheduled for 9pm central time at Petco Park and the game broadcast for the Wild Card rounds will be handled by NBC/Peacock.

A year ago, the San Diego Padres and Chicago Cubs met in the National League wild-card series. What a difference a year makes.

The Padres are on almost the exact opposite trajectory now than they were in 2025: they're hitting the ball.

Fernando Tatis Jr, Manny Machado and Jackson Merrill all rebounded from slow starts to help spark a remarkable mid-season turnaround in San Diego as they finished out the year 41-18 after sitting at 50-53 entering July 24. The offense, paired with the deepest bullpen in baseball and getting guys back in the rotation from the IL, not only re-inserted themselves into the wild card conversation but shot them straight to the top of it.

The Cubs won the regular-season series 5-1, but their last matchup was on July 1, weeks before the Padres got it together. Now, they'll have a chance to redeem themselves against a Cubs team that eliminated them at Wrigley Field last October – and this time, it'll be at home in Petco Park.

Here are three factors that will decide the NL wild card series between the Padres and Cubs:

Just like that, the Astros are on the brink of elimination. White Sox 6. Astros 3.

What unfolded over the course of a late afternoon affair was a glaring contrast between the clubs going well beyond the final box score. Chicago’s core nucleus of young talent might be eventually as good as what Houston had back in 2015. The similarities of emerging from the doldrums are striking.

Munetaka Murakami brought in the game’s first run with an RBI Sac Fly, scoring Sam Antonacci. The Sox would increase their lead the following frame against Bryan King. Montgomery and Meidroth reached on singles and then Colston Montgomery was hit, loading the bases. Sam Antonacci once again produced, this time punching out a 2 run RBI single, making it 3-0. King faced 5 batters, allowed 4 hits and a HBP. The only reason there wasn’t more damage was due to a pair of K’s from Miguel Ullola who electrified the crowd with his velocity.   

All told on the day, Houston would run through 8 different pitchers. AJ Blubaugh in a starting role was wild throughout the opening stages, administering three walks. He threw 27 pitches and recorded just 2 outs. Not exactly the result Brent Strom was looking for when lured out of retirement a month ago.  

In the 4th, Colton Montgomery still smarting from the earlier HBP, launched a solo blast to center field making it 4-0 and you could feel the air and anticipation leave the ballpark. That would remain the score until the fifth when Chase Meidroth brought home Murakami.    

Houston finally got on the board in the bottom of the fifth. Nelson Velazquez homered to left, bringing home Lucas Spence. Chicago grabbed one of those runs back curtesy of a wild pitch.

In the bottom of the 8th, the Astros flirted with a comeback. Pena and Alvarez each singled and then Altuve reached on an error which was compounded by Murakami’s adventures in the outfield. That made it 6-3 and that would be your final.  

Game Notes:

Oft he previous 12 Wild Card matchups, 11 of the 12 teams to win game 1 of the series have won the series.

To Freddie Freeman, two years ago was “100 times worse.”

And if he could find his swing then, he is confident of doing so again now. 

Freeman’s 2024 postseason, of course, has become club legend at this point. How he played through ankle and rib injuries. How he slumped through the first couple rounds in his severely diminished state. And how, after a week off before that year’s Fall Classic, he tweaked his swing and produced one of the most memorable performances in World Series history — highlighted by his iconic walk-off grand slam in extra innings of Game 1 at Dodger Stadium.

This time, Freeman thinks a similar turnaround could be much more simple, despite battling another physical ailment down the stretch this regular season with patellar tendonitis in his right knee.

“I truly feel good right now, physically,” Freeman said on Tuesday, during a video conference with reporters ahead of the Dodgers’ first pre-National League Division Series bye week workout. “So it’s on me now to figure out the mechanics of the swing in the next five days. And I have all the confidence in myself that I will figure that out by [Game 1 on] Saturday.”

At the start of September, Freeman looked to be on the right track.

The former MVP was sporting a .300 batting average, accomplishing his primary preseason goal. He had looked more mobile at first base for much of the year, a byproduct of consistent health in his age-36 campaign. And though he was mired in a power drought, going 47 games between home runs at one point, he had nonetheless remained a key contributor in the heart of the Dodgers’ star-studded batting order.

Then, just as the stretch run started to heat up, Freeman’s right knee suddenly began to hurt.

There was no one play that caused the veteran slugger’s injury (at least not that he has pinpointed publicly). He tried to downplay the severity of the issue, despite missing a handful of games during the middle of the month.

But it nonetheless triggered a slump that put Freeman’s postseason productivity into question, making him perhaps the club’s biggest question mark after a similarly banged-up Shohei Ohtani.

“[The injury is] affecting him,” manager Dave Roberts said last week. “So how can he sort of navigate being compromised?”

For much of September, Freeman struggled to find an answer.

On Sept. 2, he snapped his long-ball drought in a two-hit performance that raised his season-high average to .306 and his OPS to .850. After that, he spiraled into a three-week slump for the remainder of the regular season, going 12-for-72 (.167) over his final 18 games. 

His final full-season numbers: a .288 average (his second-lowest mark since 2015), a .792 OPS (the lowest of his career excluding his 20-game cameo as a rookie in 2010) and just 16 home runs (another career low for a full-length season).

Freeman tried to tweak his swing a few times during that stretch, at one point focusing on catching the ball farther out in front in search of more pull power.

The one thing he did not do, however, was put the blame entirely on his latest physical problem. 

“I’m not going to make an excuse. I will never blame my knee,” he insisted after Sunday’s regular-season finale. “I didn’t play very well, and that’s just how it is. It’s on me now in the next five days to figure out my swing and be prepared for Saturday.”

By Tuesday, Freeman sounded optimistic about that mission.

He reiterated that “my body feels good” and maintained his stance that “I just didn’t play well the last couple months of the season.”

“Did I have some ailments in my knees? Yes, I did,” he said. “I don’t know how much that attributed to subconsciously trying to do stuff where it didn’t hurt as much … so maybe I created bad habits. But I won’t blame it on that. I just played bad. My knee is in a good spot now. That’s why the bye week is huge.”

Indeed, Freeman has a specific plan for the next couple days — not only in how many swings he will take (which could be upward of 400 between the batting cages, on-field batting practice and live BP sessions, he said) but also in how he will go about recalibrating his mechanics.

“I’m gonna try what I used in the World Series in ’24,” Freeman said, referencing a “step-out” mental cue that impacts how he plants his front foot and is intended to prevent him from cutting his swing across the plate. 

“That’s the thought going in today, and I’m very confident that that’s gonna help get things back in line throughout the course of the week.”

It certainly worked two years ago, when a clearly hampered Freeman went 7-for-32 before the Fall Classic, then emerged from his off-week reset by going 6-for-20 with four home runs in the World Series to earn MVP honors.

And the fact that Freeman already claims to feel significantly better physically has fueled optimism around the team that the worst of his struggles are behind him.

“I think that it is a mechanical thing with Freddie,” Roberts said, “and I do think that having five days to work through it gets him back to close to 100% — which I think he will be.”

The Dodgers could obviously use that version of the 10-time All-Star. If he and Ohtani (who the Dodgers also continue to insist is improving from his right arm and left knee injuries) are struggling at the top of their lineup, it could scuttle the team’s recently resurgent offense.

“Personally, it’s huge for me that I got five days to really work on mechanics,” Freeman said.

It paid off two Octobers ago. He’s counting on a similar rebound this year.

Manager Aaron Boone said Aaron Judge was “not quite ready,” which meant Heliot Ramos had to be.

Essentially stepping into the cleats of the 6-foot-7 superstar, who was held off the wild-card roster with a calf strain, was a 5-foot-11 trade-deadline pickup who was brought in to crush lefties and had done just that after a rough first few weeks to his Yankees tenure.

It was Ramos, and not Judge, who was hitting third against lefty Payton Tolle and playing right field as the first-round series against the Red Sox began in The Bronx on Tuesday.

Before the game, Ramos acknowledged that he cannot properly fill in for probably the best hitter on earth. And so he wasn’t going to try.

“At the end of the day, I’m me,” Ramos said, “and I know I’m ready for it, and I’m ready to go.”

There probably is not a Yankees player more upset to be unable to play than Judge.

There might not be a Yankees player more grateful to be playing playoff baseball than Ramos, who spent his first 4 ¹/₂ seasons with the Giants, never reaching October, and was thrilled to land with a team so popular in his home of Puerto Rico.

“Who would have thought I would have been here right now?” Ramos said. “It’s crazy that this is happening to me. It’s a blessing. A lot of guys take trades like to heart, kind of like in a bad way.

“But to me, obviously, it was a little bit of a change. But at the end of the day, the New York Yankees want me and I’m here to help. Honestly, I’m loving the experience. I’m loving where I’m at right now.”

The Yankees targeted Ramos not to replace Judge but to add a platoon bat with a strong track record of hitting lefty pitching. Among hitters with at least 100 plate appearances this season, Ramos’ .907 OPS against southpaws was the 23rd best in baseball (one spot behind Junior Caminero).

He did not start well with the Yankees, possibly because he was often facing righty pitching and playing every day with Judge sidelined (then because of his rib), but Ramos asserted himself once he saw lefties beginning at the end of August — and beginning when the Red Sox came to town.

In that series, Ramos launched his first Yankees homer (against Ranger Suarez) and reached base eight times in 12 plate appearances.

“When I faced Suarez and I took my first at-bat and it was a walk, I felt pretty good about it,” Ramos said about his Yankees turning point, which helped him earn trust that paid off Tuesday in starting the biggest game of his life. “I was, like, yeah, this is my time. I’m ready to go.”

Postseason baseball never disappoints, and tonight’s game in Houston was no different. As both teams leveraged an opener for the first time in MLB playoff history, the South Side pitching won out in the end, as Chicago ends the day with a 1-0 lead over Houston in the AL Wild Card series after a 6-3 win. There were 15 combined runners left on base, 13 pitchers between both teams, 11 White Sox hits, and nine innings of anxiety-ridden baseball before the South Siders grabbed their first playoff win since 2021.

Astros opener AJ Blubaugh made his first appearance this season as a starter in today’s game, which would probably have stressed me out if that was how the White Sox approached today’s game. While lefthander Hagen Smith has only opened one other time this season, his vast experience as a starting pitcher and his success in that one open likely helped him settle in easier, and he looked solid in the first frame and kept it up through his entire, three-inning outing.

The White Sox got off to a hot start in the first inning, striking first after scoring a run with the assistance from Blubaugh and the Astros. Selectivity was key for the South Siders, as they drew three walks off of the righty, but a throwing error from Christian Walker on an unorthodox double-play attempt allowed Chicago to take an early 1-0 lead.

Sam Antonacci had led the game off with a walk to put the very first batter of the game on. He was able to reach third after Walker’s throw went into the outfield, setting up the perfect situation for a sacrifice fly. Once Antonacci reached third, I was pretty much just yelling “BALL IN AIR!” in my living room, and because Miguel Vargas walked, Munetaka Murakami was the one to come through in the clutch with a sacrifice fly out to right center to drive in the first run. Blubaugh walked Andrew Benintendi on the next at-bat, and that triggered Joe Estrada to go to the bullpen to bring in lefthander Bryan King.

King was able to strike out Tristan Peters to end the first, but he didn’t have the same success into the second inning. Back-to-back base hits from Braden Montgomery and Chase Meidroth began a hit parade, and King got into some trouble after hitting Colson Montgomery on a 1-2 pitch to load the bases and flip the lineup back to the top of the order. Already amped after reaching base earlier in the game, Antonacci ripped a two-run single into the left-center gap, tallying two insurance runs for the South Siders, 3-0. Once again the Astros quickly went to the bullpen to bring in righthander Miguel Ullola, who managed to escape the inning without any additional runs scoring after shutting the Sox down in order: Vargas grounded into a fielder’s choice that got Colson out on the force at home, and both Mune and Benny ended the inning with two straight strikeouts.

On the other hand, lefthander Hagen Smith was absolutely locked in for the first three innings. Outside of a two-out base hit from Isaac Paredes in the first, and another single from Cam Smith in the third, Hagen was able to hold his own with an excellent first career playoff outing. With a runner on third base and Alvarez coming up for the second time in the bottom of the third, Hagen came right at him and forced a weak ground out to end the threat and maintain the three-run lead.

Once Ullola was in the game for Houston, he settled things down a bit as he retired six straight White Sox batters, even stranding the bases loaded in the top of the second and shutting them down once again in the third. Finallythe South Siders got to Ullola in the top of the fourth. Well, Colson Montgomery did at least, blasting a solo, 432-foot bomb to dead center to extend Chicago’s lead to four, 4-0.

Will Venable decided to go to the bullpen after the three frames from Smith, who ended the day on 38 pitches (28 strikes) and seven swings-and-misses,which ended up tying his teammate Grant Taylor for the most in the game. I was fully expecting Venable to go with Erick Fedde as the bulk reliever, but it seems the plan changed a bit once they had a four-run lead and Smith delivered three scoreless frames. Righthander Jordan Hicks came into the game in the top of the fourth, which is a fairly strange time for him, as he is typically a later-inning or high-leverage guy. As long as they get outs, I suppose, does it matter? It’s probable that the Sox are hoping to save Fedde for later this series.

The South Side offense continued to put the ball in play, putting up five runs on eight hits through five while going 4-for-9 with runners in scoring position, though they left seven on base up to that point. Murakami walked to lead off the fifth, and despite Randal Grichuk lining out sharply to deep center while pinch-hitting, the Good Guys tallied three straight hits. The rally ended with Chase Meidroth driving in an extra run to put the game out of one-swing territory, and the 5-0 lead took some of the pressure off of the Sox.

Venable’s pitching plan worked out just fine, as Hicks worked seamlessly through four straight batters (1 1/3 IP) before lefthander Sean Newcomb was called upon with one out in the bottom of the fifth. The southpaw immediately let up a hit to Cam Smith, and the Astros went with Nelson Velázquez to pinch-hit in the 9-spot. A clutch two-strike, two-run home run over the high wall in left field scored the first runs of the game for Houston, cutting the Sox lead to three, 5-2.

Thankfully, Newcomb forced a pop out from Jeremy Peña to get out of that inning, but Velázquez’s clout certainly injected some life back into the Astros. It’s unfortunate that the fatigue of the season might have caught up to Newcomb at the worst time, but he’s posted a 7.36 ERA in his last seven games (7 1/3 IP), though he is also being asked to wear as many hats as possible and at a point he can’t do it all.

It felt like the South Siders were going to get something going as Antonacci reached base for the third time of the game by getting hit by a pitch — shocking, I know — but the momentum was quickly killed by Kyle Teel grounding into a double play. Vargas ended the inning by flying out, and aside from walking in the first, the All-Star third baseman was cold at the plate.

Newcomb came back out to face Alvarez in a lefty-lefty matchup, and won the battle with a ground out to second for the first out of the inning. As Paredes stepped up to the plate, the South Siders went to the bullpen once again, and though the righthander typically starts, David Sandlin was excellent in relief and quickly navigated the final two outs with five pitches.

The Sox offense snagged one of those Houston runs back in the top of the seventh, after Murakami and Grichuk began the frame with back-to-back base hits. To put both runners in scoring position, Peters laid down a perfectly executed sacrifice bunt down the third-base line. Naturally, Chicago didn’t even score the run with a base hit after this, but lefthander Bennett Sousa struggled to control his slider and Mune scored on one of two wild pitches to make it 6-2, White Sox. In Sousa’s defense, the South Siders were whiffing on Sousa’s slider like crazy, but Yainer Diaz wasn’t able to wrangle it on his end behind the plate.

In a wild turn of events, Grant Taylor was called upon quite early in the bottom of the seventh, and while he did secure the final out of the inning, he ended up with a massive workload that he probably was not anticipating.

In the eighth, Taylor had 9-1-2 in the order, which was one of the biggest challenges the Chicago pitching staff faced. Velázquez stared at strike three on a 99 mph fastball down the middle, but Peña and Alvarez poked back-to-back hits to put runners on first and third with one out. Taylor buckled down and was able to strike out Paredes in a tense situation, bringing José Altuve up to bat. With two outs, Altuve tapped a soft grounder to third base, and while the throw barely beat the runner, it was off-line for an error, as Mune wasn’t able to hold onto first while stretching to catch the ball. The third run of the game scored for the Astros, cutting the lead in half, 6-3, bringing the tying run up to bat.

If we’re all being honest with each other, I felt like I was going to throw up for the next at-bat. It would be so Houston to hit a Mickey Mouse, three-run home run to tie the game, but Taylor was not going to let that happen on his watch. Working Diaz to a full count, Taylor slung a disgusting curveball that crossed-up the batter, as Diaz was likely looking for a fastball. By the time he was able to process the pitch, he had already struck out looking to end the inning.

Broadcast called out that the South Siders had mashed their 10th hit of the day off of left-handed pitching as Randal Grichuk slapped a hard-hit, two-out base hit, which was also Chicago’s 11th hit of the game. All this to say: The White Sox struggled against righthanders Ullola and Bryan Abreu, and thus weren’t able to make anything else happen in the ninth.

Into the bottom half, Venable shifted into video-game mode by letting Taylor finish out the game, looking to make a seven-out save with a three-run lead. The first at-bat nearly put me (and probably all of you) into panic mode, as he walked Christian Walker to lead off the inning. Taylor locked in like never before, and he struck out the next two batters to put the win with one out. In a stressful final at-bat, Taylor manufactured a ground out on his 54th (!) pitch to end the game and take a one-game lead over Houston. That was A LOT of outs to ask of Taylor in the playoff opener, but the righty rose to the occasion and struck out five in the process.

You read that right: WHITE SOX WIN!

The bats were hot all throughout the game, though they left nine on base as a team and hit .363 (4-for-11) with runners in scoring position, but if they could have driven in at least a couple more insurance runs, perhaps that game wouldn’t have been so stressful. Due to Hagen’s short open, Hicks wound up with the win — the first of his career in the postseason. If you forgot he pitched after all of that, I don’t blame you, but Sandlin also recorded a hold with his 1 1/3 innings of elite relief work, which is only a testament to how ability to get the job done when needed.

In Wild Card Series history, teams that win the first game of Wild Card Series have advanced to the LDS 15 out of 16 times, so the White Sox are now in the catbird seat to advance. We’ll be back again Wednesday with full coverage on Game 2, with Sean Burke projected as the starter.

MVP
Grant Taylor: 2 1/3 IP, 2 H, R (0 ER), BB, 5 K

Runners-Up
Hagen Smith: 3 IP, 2 H, 0 R, K
Sam Antonacci: 1-for-3, R, 2 RBI, BB, HBP
Jordan Hicks: 1 1/3 IP, 0 H, K, WIN
David Sandlin: 1 1/3 IP, 0 H, BB, Hold
Munetaka Murakami: 1-for-3, 2 R, RBI, BB, 2 K, SF
Colson Montgomery: 1-for-3, R, RBI, HR, GIDP, HBP

Cold Cat
Sean Newcomb: 1 IP, 2 H, 2 R, HR

Runners-Up
Miguel Vargas: 0-for-4, BB, K, E
Andrew Benintendi: 0-for-1, BB, K, left 2 RISP
Tristan Peters: 1-for-4, SAC, K, left 1 RISP

Chicago Cubs (0-0) at San Diego Padres (0-0), September 29, 2026, 7:00 p.m. PST

Watch: Peacock/NBCSN

Location: Petco Park – San Diego, Calif.

Listen: 97.3 The Fan

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No one needed a clean slate more than Austin Riley.

In what has been a gradual fall-off since his three straight top-10 NL MVP finishes from 2021-23, the Braves third baseman bottomed out this season. Not only was the power still diminished —a third straight season with less than 20 homers after he hit a combined 108 over the prior three seasons — but the average took a nose dive to a career-worst .219, a 41-point decline from last season.

In year four of a 10-year, $212 million contract, Riley hit sixth (32 games), seventh (40) and eighth (35) comfortably more times than he hit fourth (22) in the Braves batting order.

His Statcast profile was, frankly, a mess.

But the months of frustration that Riley has drawn from the Braves fanbase may have evaporated in a matter of seconds during Atlanta’s postseason opener

Because if one swing can negate a season’s body of work, Riley accomplished that when he jumped on a 100-mph fastball from Jhoan Duran and took it over the right-center field fence at Truist Park to turn a 3-2 deficit into a 5-3 lead in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s Game 1 NL wild-card series win over the Philadelphia Phillies.

“Man, it felt good, no doubt. Just trying to get something over the plate. Duran is a really good pitcher. He’s got some really good stuff,” Riley said after the game. “For me, it’s like, you try to just get something to push it out a little bit and I was able to and put a good swing on it. I felt really good.

“Everybody knows kind of how my season went, not the way I wanted it to. But that’s the beauty of the postseason. You kind of get a clean slate and go out there and try to do something for the boys and for this city. It’s definitely a good start.”

Chris Sale may have better summed up Braves Country’s reaction to the moment.

“I don’t think I’ve screamed that loud in a very long time,“ Sale quipped.

Braves manager Walt Weiss said he remained confident through Riley’s season-long struggles that he would find his form of old, when he was a rising star who seemed poised to be a face of the franchise for years to come.

It happened in moments but Riley never had a batting average better than .264 in any month.

“I think throughout the season, I always felt like virtually every time he got in the box, this is when it’s going to turn around,” Weiss said. “At times, it did. But he’s worked, obviously, all year for this moment, and good for him.”

Weiss raved about Riley’s character in his postgame press conference and spoke of how thrilled he was that, through the struggle that was Riley’s 2026 season, he still delivered probably the biggest moment of the campaign to date.

“I’ve seen him really good for a long time, and I see the work behind the scenes. I know the person. You bet on the person,” Weiss said. “Obviously a very talented guy. But you couldn’t tell this year if he was the leading MVP candidate in the National League or if he was struggling. I mean that. He’s the same guy every day. Stuff like this doesn’t happen if you ride that roller coaster of emotions as a player, this probably doesn’t end up happening. But he kept his head about him, kept doing the work, and has a great moment.”

“I think you try to be as even-keeled in this game as possible, never try to get too high, never try to get too low and just try to put one foot in front of the other and trust your work, trust your routines,” Riley added when asked about managing a season like this. “Once you get out there, when the game starts, everything, all your work and stuff is done, and you’ve just got to go out there and play the game.

“That mentality, that attitude of just trying to show up each and every day and try to get 1% better. Whether it was 0-for-4 or 4-for-4 the night before, whatever the case may be, you try to callous your mindset leading into the postseason.”

For whatever it’s worth, Riley’s postseason track record is strong. He now has six homers and 19 RBIs in 37 career postseason games.

And if the Braves get one more win in the next two days against the Phillies, he’ll have more chances to put his 2026 regular season in the rear-view mirror.

It will not feel like the fall when the Dodgers begin their postseason campaign on Saturday.

Especially if the Chicago Cubs win their wild-card series this week against the San Diego Padres.

Though the Dodgers will square off in their National League Division Series against the winner of the NL’s other wild-card series this week between the Braves and Phillies, the outcome of the Cubs-Padres matchup could suddenly have a profound impact on the Dodgers’ playoff opener.

If the Cubs advance to the NL’s other best-of-five division series against the Milwaukee Brewers, then the Dodgers will play Game 1 of their NLDS at 6 p.m. local time on Saturday at Dodger Stadium.

If the Padres win, then the Dodgers’ NLDS opener will be at 1 p.m. local time that day.

Normally, such a difference wouldn’t matter.

But this weekend, a heat wave is set to descend upon Los Angeles, which could see first-pitch temperatures of close to 100 degrees if the Dodgers were to get the earlier start time.

“It’s going to be a hot weekend,” manager Dave Roberts said. “And to play at night would certainly be more beneficial.”

That doesn’t mean Roberts and the Dodgers will be outright rooting for the Cubs in their wild-card series. In much the same way the Dodgers aren’t preoccupied about whether they face the Braves or Phillies in the NLDS, they aren’t getting hung up on Saturday’s to-be-decided start time.

Still, the uncertainty has already impacted them in at least one way.

Roberts said the club was not yet ready to name its starting rotation in the NLDS, citing not only the uncertainty of their opponent, but also the fact that they are “not sure about game times and things like that.”

The likeliest rotation order figures to be Yoshinobu Yamamoto in Game 1, Tarik Skubal in Game 2, Blake Snell in Game 3 and Tyler Glasnow in Game 4.

That alignment would allow Yamamoto to stay on his typical five-days-of-rest schedule between Game 1 and a potential Game 5, Snell to get extra time over the weekend to build up after his recent groin injury, and Glasnow to possibly be an option out of the bullpen earlier in the series (similar to how he was used last October).

For now, however, a final decision hasn’t been made.

The Dodgers still want to see who they are playing –– and when their potentially blistering playoff opener will begin.

Roman Anthony suffers Game 1 injury to same hand from regular season originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

Roman Anthony suffered a finger injury in late May that led to a long road back to the big leagues.

Just two at-bats into his postseason, he’s injured again.

Anthony, who batted leadoff as the designated hitter for Game 1 of the Wild Card Series against the Yankees in New York, was replaced by Andruw Monasterio for his third at-bat, after striking out twice on check swings earlier in the game.

After the game — which New York won 9-0 — manager Chad Tracy said that Anthony suffered an injury to the same hand that kept him out for three months this season.

“The hand,” Tracy said. “He took a check swing and then another swing, and his hand flared on him, and it got uncomfortable. So we had to make a move there.”

Anthony’s initial injury back in May also came on a check swing, with the Red Sox initially diagnosing it as a minor wrist injury. It ended up being a torn ligament at the base of his ring finger, something that prevented him from being able to swing a bat for most of the season.

Tracy could not confirm whether or not the recent injury is on the same exact area, but indicated that Tuesday’s discomfort was a new situation for Anthony.

“He’s obviously coming off that [injury]. Like, you’ll get a zinger every once in a while where you feel something and then it’s fine and it goes away,” Tracy said. “But today was — obviously coming out of the game — today some stuff happened that was more serious and was uncomfortable.”

Anthony did seem to aggravate his hand on Sunday, when the Red Sox played the Cubs in Tampa in the regular-season finale, a game which he left in the fifth inning. If that was the source of this injury, Anthony would be the second Red Sox bat lost in that final regular-season series, after Mickey Gasper tore his biceps in the first game of a doubleheader on Friday.

Tracy didn’t rule out Anthony for Game 2, saying, “it’s hard to say right now,” given the information that was available postgame.

Over the last two months of the regular season, no team had a more productive bullpen than the Dodgers.

And come the start of their postseason trek on Saturday, the team might be adding another key arm back to the group.

General manager Brandon Gomes announced on Tuesday that the club expects to have hard-throwing right-handed reliever Edgardo Henriquez available for its National League Division Series, an encouraging development after Henriquez missed the final couple weeks of the regular season with a strain in his back.

Prior to getting hurt, Henriquez was emerging as one of the top arms in the Dodgers’ resurgent relief corps (which led all MLB bullpens in August and September with 4.3 combined wins above replacement, according to Fangraphs, and ranked fourth in that stretch in combined ERA at 3.20).

A 24-year-old former prospect who has started to routinely eclipse 103 mph with his fastball, Henriquez ranked fourth among the team’s relievers (minimum 20 appearances) with a 2.85 ERA this season. He also struck out 70 batters in 60 total innings and converted each of the ninth-inning save opportunities he received.

Henriquez had hit his stride in August and early September, allowing just one run in a 17-game stretch that featured 25 strikeouts and only two walks and seven hits allowed.

However, after giving up two runs in a Sept. 13 appearance in Miami against the Marlins, he went on the IL with his back injury –– one that initially cast doubt on his postseason availability.

Luckily for the Dodgers, Henriquez’s status has improved since then. He resumed a throwing during the team’s final regular-season homestand. He recently completed a session of live batting practice without feeling any lingering discomfort. And while Gomes said “we still got a few steps to go” before Henriquez gets the green light to return, every indication is that he should be available for the club’s best-of-five NLDS.

“If that all goes well, then yeah, the expectation is he’ll be on the roster,” Gomes said.

“Given the body of work, what he’s done, the unique skill set, that could be huge for us,” manager Dave Roberts added, before correcting himself: “Will be huge for us.”

Indeed, Henriquez would figure to occupy a high-leverage spot in the Dodgers’ postseason bullpen. He gives them not only a trustworthy right-hander option –– along with Roki Sasaki, Evan Phillips, Brock Stewart and the recently resurgent Edwin Díaz –– but also one of the biggest fastballs in the game.

Henriquez’s 100.7 mph average fastball velocity ranked second among MLB pitchers this season, behind only star Padres closer Mason Miller. The team’s next-hardest thrower is Sasaki, whose heater averaged only 97.9 mph this year (though could increase in the playoffs as he shifts to a bullpen role).

Last October, Henriquez was a mixed bag in the playoffs. In two of his appearances (Game 1 of the wild card series and Game 5 of the World Series), he failed to record an out while allowing a hit and two walks in both outings. But in the other (Game 3 of the World Series), he pitched two scoreless frames in the team’s marathon 18-inning win, becoming an unsung hero in their Fall Classic triumph.

This time, Henriquez is set for a prominent role, assuming he gets through one more session of live batting practice OK.

“[He would make a] huge impact,” Roberts said. “I think he’s one of those guys that getting the bye has really benefited.”

SAN FRANCISCO — The best thing about Giants baseball this season? The groundskeeping.

After spending almost 40 minutes Tuesday answering for a finish that was the fourth worst in franchise history, manager Tony Vitello had to find one positive to hang his hat on.

He chose the grass.

“The shape that field was in was incredible all year long,” Vitello said. “We just need to play better on it.”

The Giants have a long way to go to do just that after completing a 97-loss campaign in which the only reason to tune in for the last two months was to see whether they would set the all-time record for the most players used in a season. (They only tied the 2025 Braves for the embarrassing spot in history, with 71, but it would have been theirs alone had they treated Zach Morgan with any semblance of respect.)

They called up the 26-year-old who grew up about two hours east of Oracle Park twice to their taxi squad in an otherwise-meaningless final month but never allowed him to make his MLB debut — just one more family given every reason to call itself former fans after this season.

The Giants weren’t just bad. They were embarrassing. Until they sank even lower: irrelevant, which is the position they’ve occupied for the better part of the past three months.

Yet, there was Buster Posey behind a microphone in the bowels of Oracle Park, flanked on either side by his handpicked manager and second-in-command, Zack Minasian.

The second-year president of baseball operations confirmed that the same leadership responsible for the disaster that was this season will get the chance to do it again next year.

“I don’t think there will be a ton of changes,” Posey said, besides the possibility of “a couple” on Vitello’s coaching staff that the front office plans to discuss this week.

The same leadership decided to fire Bob Melvin and make wholesale changes to its coaching staff after going 81-81, 16 games better than they finished this season. There wasn’t another MLB team that had a larger drop-off in its final record from the previous year.

And yet, somehow Posey came to a different conclusion.

The grand experiment to hire a coach straight from the college ranks was a gigantic failure in Year 1. So why not run it again and see if it produces a different result?

“If you’re asking if I think we can contend next year, I do,” Posey said.

Posey said he saw Vitello grow from a coach into a manager over the course of the season (an adjustment period they maybe should have had the foresight to see coming). But when Vitello was asked if he felt he had command of the clubhouse, he said that he “still see[s] myself as a teammate.” That doesn’t bode well for his chances to earn their respect in Year 2.

Likewise, Vitello was only able to muster the same platitudes about better communication when posed a question about how to avoid another debacle like the Pride Night fiasco.

“Ultimately, I need to voice my opinion probably almost as loud as anybody,” Vitello said, “at least everybody that’s downstairs [in the clubhouse].”

Almost as loud? If Vitello isn’t comfortable being the loudest voice in a room of major-league ballplayers after a full season at helm, is there any chance he ever will?

The Giants played like a team built by an executive with no prior experience and run by a manager who had never spent a second in a professional dugout.

They were about as allergic to winning at the margins as they were to winning four games in a row (something they didn’t do once all season). They committed the most errors in the field and would have had many more than 108 if mental mistakes counted, too. 

Even stuff as basic as knowing which plays to challenge from the dugout was too complex for Vitello’s staff, which only got 17 calls overturned in 46 tries, MLB’s lowest success rate.

Posey said “things just started to compound,” while Vitello suggested that the team’s confidence never rebounded from its season-opening sweep. They were nine games under .500 after only 37 games and didn’t finish a day with a winning record.

They stand no chance of building early momentum next year if Rafael Devers doesn’t find a way to thaw out of his ice-cold starts that have plagued him the past two seasons. By the time he started slugging like he was capable, the Giants had already dug too deep of a hole.

At least Devers eventually showed that he still had something left in him. That’s more than the Giants can say about the shortstop they still owe $130 million over the next five seasons.

And, yes, Posey confirmed, the Giants still view Willy Adames as a shortstop, even after a season of dismal defensive metrics and persistent back pain.

Not like there’s any history of back injuries being chronic issues or players’ production slowing down when they reach their 30s, as Adames and Matt Chapman have and Devers will next month.

Still, Posey said the Giants have “a ton of belief” in their position players — even Harrison Bader, who Posey confirmed was still in their plans for next season after his first season in San Francisco went up in flames when he rode his scooter into the back of a firetruck.

Posey took accountability for the failure to build a bullpen, acknowledging that he “probably overestimated some of the guys that we had in the ‘pen.” He admitted that they need to adjust their offensive philosophy to draw more walks and for their pitchers to issue fewer of them.

“There is a lot of work to be done, for sure,” Posey said. “There’s deficiencies that we know we have to address or attempt to address.”

He said he wants his pitchers to “own the zone,” which sounds nice. But what was stopping them this year? In reality, it’s only going to be harder next season, with the Giants down four starters rehabbing from elbow surgeries and a bullpen that has to be rebuilt from scratch.

Posey was given multiple chances to answer how he planned to address the Giants pitching, only made more complicated by a lockout looming Dec. 1, but didn’t give any reason to believe it will be any different from last offseason, when they faced the same questions.

“It’s the normal avenues,” Posey sighed. “We’ll look at free agents, we’ll have trade discussions and we’ll weigh internal options.”

It was obvious from the bags under Vitello’s eyes to the tone Posey took in many of his answers that the way this season went off the rails didn’t sit well with anyone at Third and King. But it wasn’t so clear that the people in charge had any idea about how to fix it.

There’s at least one piece of good news about a sixth straight season without postseason baseball on the shores of McCovey Cove. The playing surface will stay in pristine shape.

What we learned: Chad Tracy made bad call on Payton Tolle in Game 1 loss originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston

No matter which way you look at it, Game 1 between the Red Sox and Yankees was about one person and one person only: Cam Schlittler.

The soon-to-be Cy Young winner was dominant, allowing just two hits and one walk while striking out 10 Red Sox over 6.1 innings. He looked like a man amongst boys, and the Red Sox — who were dominated by Schlittler in last year’s playoffs and again in the regular season this year — had no answers.

Perhaps, then, it’s trivial to dissect and linger on anything else from the game. Wipe the slate, move on to a must-win Game 2, and see what happens.

But … that’s not how postseason baseball works. And the Red Sox didn’t make the playoffs by accepting defeat.

So it’s only fair to look back at a decision made by manager Chad Tracy in his first postseason game that immediately backfired.

It came in the bottom of the fifth, with starter Payton Tolle at just 83 pitches. Tolle had just retired Paul Goldschmidt on one pitch for the second out of the inning. He wasn’t dominating, but he was rolling, only allowing one run while working around five hits and a walk.

Tolle threw more than 83 pitches 20 times during the regular season. Yet Tracy decided on this night, in this spot, it was time to take out the man that he chose to be the Game 1 starter in the postseason.

It was a puzzling decision in the moment, one that you figured would at the very least come back to bite Boston later in the game when they had run out of their top bullpen arms early.

Yet as it turned out, it backfired immediately.

Tracy opted to replace the lefty Tolle with … the lefty Erik Miller, the Marcelo Mayer trade return who got off to a great start in Boston but fizzled significantly late in the year. Miller posted a 12.46 ERA and a 2.538 WHIP over his final five outings in the regular season, clearly losing whatever effectiveness he had when he first arrived in Boston.

And it only took three pitches for that to become clear, as Ben Rice — the man Tracy selected for Miller to erase in the fifth — clobbered a 97 mph fastball, sending a solo homer to straightaway center field.

The pitch was at the belt and split the plate in half.

The solo shot doubled the Yankees’ lead, and while Schlittler was in the midst of a special pitching performance, that extra cushion gave him an added margin for error in a game where the Red Sox really couldn’t afford to give him any more advantage than he already had.

What would have happened if Tolle had stayed in the game to at least get through the fifth and perhaps into the sixth (on a night when his counterpart set a career high with 117 pitches and made it into the seventh), nobody can say for sure. But the Red Sox certainly would not have been turning to career minor leaguer Alec Gamboa in the bottom of the seventh. (And the 29-year-old would have been spared from earning himself an ERA of infinity.)

In a season that was at times quite charmed, this decision by Tracy was distinctly the wrong one.

And in what is perhaps a perfect picture of how vastly things have changed in Boston, Tracy was asked nine questions before facing the obvious one: Why did you take Tolle out of the game?

“Not necessarily just the pitch count, but you’re trailing already, you’re moving through [the lineup for] the third time. [Ben] Rice had already hit a double in the gap off of him, and you have a nice lane there for for Miller. And obviously, he got him,” Tracy said. “So, just felt like it was a time to go.”

One of the main reasons Tolle was given the Game 1 start over Sonny Gray was his emotional disposition. Giving him the hook with nobody on and two outs in the fifth was deflating in and of itself. The homer that followed felt like a knockout blow.

Here’s everything we learned from the Yankees’ 9-0 win over the Red Sox in Game 1 of the Wild Card Series.

Roman Anthony got hurt

Despite an unimpressive and injury-plagued season, the Red Sox turned to Roman Anthony as the leadoff man for the playoffs. That postseason lasted all of two at-bats before he left due to injury.

Anthony struck out on a check swing in the first inning, and he struck out on another check swing in the third inning. He didn’t come out for his next at-bat, instead replaced by Andruw Monasterio.

Tracy confirmed postgame that Anthony got hurt on a check swing, injuring the same hand that kept him out of the lineup all summer. Anthony landed the injured list this year due to a check swing in Detroit in late May, tearing a ligament at the base of his ring finger that kept him out until Aug. 30.

Tracy said the hand “flared” on Anthony “and it got uncomfortable.” Tracy added that Anthony has felt occasional shots of pain in that injured hand but in this case, “some stuff happened that was more serious and was uncomfortable.”

He batted .245 with a .735 OPS in 55 regular-season games this year. Still, the Red Sox — who started Nick Sogard, Trevor Story and Jarren Duran in Game 1 — can’t afford to lose any bats, even if those bats are more about potential than production at this point in time.

Cam Schlittler used curveball to keep Red Sox guessing

Cam Schlittler is going to win the Cy Young this year, and it’s not because of his curveball usage. Schlittler primarily used his fastball, his cutter, and his sinker this season, using the curveball as his fourth pitch. It wasn’t all that successful either, with batters hitting .250 on the curveball. (They hit .162 on his fastball, by comparison.)

But in Game 1, Schlittler was using his curveball at an unheard of rate, and doing so with effectiveness. Schlittler threw his curveball 27 percent of the time in Game 1, compared to 10 percent on the regular season, with a 50 percent whiff rate when the Red Sox swung (8-for-16).

It was a wrinkle that allowed Schlittler to simply dominate Boston bats. The Red Sox mustered just two singled and a walk in 6.1 innings from Schlittler, who struck out 10 batters while setting a career high with 117 pitches.

Schlittler has owned the Red Sox since first facing them in the playoffs last year, and he utilized a secret weapon of sorts to keep that going in Game 1.

Caleb Durbin’s redemptive double play in fourth keeps game close

Through all of his ups and downs at the plate this season, Caleb Durbin has played an excellent defensive third base. It was peculiar, then, when he charged a George Lombard Jr. chopper in the fourth and whiffed. The ball took a dead hop off the dirt, and Lombard reached with a leadoff infield single.

Durbin got redemption later in the inning in a big way, though, when he caught a weird infield popup from Spencer Jones and then fired to second base to double up Lombard to end the inning.

The game was a bit shaky at that point, as Tolle walked Amed Rosario after the Lombard single. Erik Miller and Alec Gamboa both got to work in the bullpen, as the game was in danger of being broken open. Durbin’s play — aided by Lombard making a bad read on Jones’ contact — helped keep it a one-run game.

Later in the game, Nick Sogard started a spectacular 4-6-3, albeit when the game felt like it was already slipping away for the Red Sox.

Red Sox’ offensive woes are not Schlittler-specific.

Cam Schlittler shut the Boston bats down, of course, but that’s not necessarily a rare occurrence.

Over their final 21 games, the Red Sox averaged just 2.7 runs per game. They were shut out once, scored a single run five times, and scored two runs in four of those games.

So an offensive dud in this spot — against an elite pitcher or otherwise — certainly did not come out of nowhere.

The Red Sox managed to deliver just three hits in this one: A first-inning bloop single by Adley Rutschman, a seventh-inning single from Wilyer Abreu, and a double from Trevor Story with two outs in the eighth inning, the first and only time the Red Sox reached second base all game.

Brayan Bello had a chance to prove something; he did not

In what’s been a weird season for the Red Sox, nobody’s season has been weirder than Brayan Bello. He was an ineffective starter, he required an opener, he spent an extended time in Triple-A, and he was tremendously effective for a stretch.

When he entered a 4-0 game in the bottom of the eighth inning, the game was well in hand. Still, he had an opportunity to show he could be trusted to get outs in an adverse environment. He didn’t pass the test.

Bello entered the game with the bases loaded and one out, after Wyatt Olds loaded them up with a single and two walks. Needing to get a double-play ball to keep it close, Bello surrendered a sacrifice fly to No. 9 hitter Austin Wells.

A sacrifice fly wasn’t the end of the world, as the score was still somewhat manageable at 5-0. But Bello then walked Paul Goldschmidt before serving up a no-doubt-about-it grand slam to Ben Rice.

A once-competitive game turned into a laugher in a hurry, and Bello’s mystifying season added yet another sour chapter.

Speaking of Ben Rice …

Ben Rice killed the Red Sox in Game 1, going 4-for-5 with six RBIs.

He had three of the hardest-hit balls of the night, as he was all over just about everything he saw — right from the jump, too. His double in the first inning was the hardest-hit ball of the entire game at 110.3 mph. His grand slam had an exit velocity of 108.6 mph, and his solo homer was at 108.0 mph. Rice’s other hit — a single — had an exit velocity of 106.4, harder than all but one ball hit by the Red Sox all night.

So while Schlittler was the Red Sox’ biggest problem in Game 1, Rice was a very close second — and he’s someone the Red Sox will actually have to deal with in Game 2, when their season hangs in the balance.

Wilyer Abreu off the mark with second-inning throw to plate

What the Red Sox lack in offensive oomph they somewhat make up for in outfield defense, as Ceddanne Rafalea and Wilyer Abreu are two of the best outfielders in all of baseball.

Abreu, who will win the Gold Glove for a third straight year, flunked his first chance to show off his defensive prowess in the second inning. Austin Wells singled cleanly through the right side with Lombard on second base. Abreu was able to charge the ball, field it cleanly, and fire home. But his throw sailed up the third base line, allowing Lombard to score easily.

A great throw would have gotten Lombard easily. A good throw would have gotten him, too. Even a decent throw would have had a chance. Unfortunately for Abreu, he simply threw a bad one.

Payton Tolle carries quote from his late mother on glove

Payton Tolle lost his mother to colon cancer in 2024, and he honored her on Tuesday night with one of her quotes stitched into his glove: “You’re so pretty.”

That message is always on Tolle’s glove — it was a message his mother would say to him when he pitched in high school in order to keep him loose — but Tuesday’s start gave it some national attention.

History not on Red Sox’ side

As has been mentioned many times before, only once since the new Wild Card format was adopted in 2022 has the loser of Game 1 gone on to win the best-of-three series. The Red Sox know that history all too well, as they were the lone Game 1 winner to go on to lose the series a year ago in New York.

At the very least, though, they know that losing Game 1 is not a death sentence for the season. And the Sonny Gray-Max Fried matchup is a bit of a fairer fight than anyone vs. Cam Schlittler.

Fried pitched eight shutout innings with nine strikeouts against the Red Sox at Fenway in late April, but he allowed a run on three hits in 3.2 innings in his other start against the Red Sox in late August — his first start after spending time on the IL.

Gray faced the Yankees twice in June, allowing 3 runs in 6.1 innings at Yankee Stadium and pitching 7.1 shutout innings back at Fenway later that month.

The biggest story of the Giants’ nightmarish 2026 season was the Pride Night controversy.

Four Giants pitchers protested the team’s annual celebration of the LGBTQ+ community on June 12. Months later, the team declined to answer whether it intends to continue sporting the rainbow-colored “SF” hats on Pride Night next season.

Sam Hentges chose to wear the Giants standard baseball cap, rather than the custom hat for the event. JT Brubaker, Landen Roupp and Ryan Walker added a Bible verse to the side of their rainbow-colored caps.

Their actions sparked much backlash from the San Francisco community and beyond, which kickstarted a debate about the entire event.

MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred was forced to get involved and pointed blame at the Giants for failing to clarify to its player that wearing the Pride Night hat wasn’t mandatory.

“MLB agreed to allow them to utilize the hats/uniforms with the emblems provided that no player or uniformed staff would be required to wear them, and that the team would speak to the players to make sure they were comfortable with the apparel,” Manfred wrote.

“Unfortunately, this year the Giants’ communication with players was inadequate and not clear. Some players apparently did not understand that they had the option to wear their normal uniform and elected to add messages to their hats bearing the pride logo as a result. The Giants players were allowed to wear the hats with the biblical references for the entire game. After the game had concluded, my office issued a routine oral warning about the uniform policy violation – unfortunately it was issued before we became aware of the Giants’ lapse in communication.

“The players were neither fined nor disciplined, nor will they ever be.”

In late June, the buzz surrounding the Giants’ Pride Night controversy still hadn’t rolled over. President of baseball operations Buster Posey, however, refused to answer questions about the scandal when asked by the media.

It appears the team has taken the same silencing tone over Pride Night at the season’s end.

NEW YORK — Jazz Chisholm played in 137 games and hit 19 home runs for the New York Yankees this season. Yet the looming specter of Boston Red Sox rookie lefty Payton Tolle was enough to send Chisholm to the bench for Game 1 of the American League wild card series Tuesday, Sept. 29.

While Tolle has at least partially reverse splits, his dominant fastball might overwhelm Chisholm, who has gone from crushing fastballs a year ago to performing meekly against them this season. And former shortstop Anthony Volpe has been too effective down the stretch for Yankees manager Aaron Boone to roll with Chisholm.

Boone's perspective? It will take all 26 men to defeat the Red Sox in this best-of-three sprint.

"My expectation is he'll be ready to go and could play a crucial role as early as tonight," Boone said Tuesday to Yankees beat reporters before his nightly press conference.

Chisholm struck a confident tone a day earlier, telling reporters Monday in New Yor that he would be "ticked off" if he didn't start Game 1.

"Yeah, who wouldn't be?" he said. "As a competitor, who wouldn't be? It's the playoffs. You want to play."

Chisholm has a .170 batting average, three homers and a .607 OPS in 24 career playoff games. Volpe is at .252 with no homers and a .728 OPS in 21 career playoff games.