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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

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.

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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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.