Dodgers the favorites? The next Darvish … or Clemens? What we know as we await Roki Sasaki’s decision
Happy Roki Sasaki Week!
After announcing his intention to come to MLB at the start of the 2024-25 offseason, the 23-year-old Japanese free agent immediately became the most coveted pitcher available this winter thanks to his combination of talent and age, and the parameters of his contract.
With the 2025 international free agent signing period opening Jan. 15 and Sasaki’s posting window closing on Jan. 23, we could find out where Sasaki is headed as soon as Wednesday.
Because Sasaki decided to come to the majors before his 25th birthday, he is limited to a minor league deal with a signing bonus coming from a team’s international bonus pool (capped at just over $7.5 million). That makes the emerging ace a rare free agent star every team can afford to sign.
As we wait for Sasaki’s destination to come into focus, we asked our MLB experts what makes him so good, which major league pitchers he reminds us of, and which teams seem most likely to land him.
What makes Sasaki such a coveted free agent?
Bradford Doolittle: He’s young, accomplished and with measurable tools that might make him baseball’s top prospect right now. But he’s not a prospect in the “maybe he’ll be ‘X’ if he reaches his ceiling” but one that’s already been successful in a high-level league and can slide into a big league rotation. A limited workload threshold, for now, is the only thing that’s really holding back Sasaki’s 2025 projection. With his full collection of team control seasons intact, there is no risk to signing him. And as good as he is now, he has room to grow in terms of his arsenal and how he fills out physically. You just don’t get a combination of factors all lining up like this, not the least of which Sasaki was so anxious to make the jump that he was willing to make max earnings a secondary factor.
Buster Olney: As we’ve seen with Yoshinobu Yamamoto and with Juan Soto — as we’ve witnessed all the way back to Alex Rodriguez — excellence at a young age is everything. Sasaki is expected to be a high-ceiling talent already at 23, and the team that lands him will have years of control while paying him relative pennies.
Kiley McDaniel: In describing his client’s upcoming potential nine-figure deal to me this winter, an agent underlined why he was confident that would happen, even if he had a down year, by saying: “age is a hack.” Rosters are getting younger, thus teams have more money to spend, but don’t want to offer long-term deals to older players, so they are (generally) seeking short-term free agent deals or trades for players with a year or two of control. That means long-term deals are generally acceptable to a large swath of teams only when they can land a standout young star still in his peak years. (like the Red Sox chasing Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Juan Soto, extending Rafael Devers, but not offering huge money to any older players). Sasaki could be under team control for his entire peak of a bona fide ace, at a price every team can afford: a true unicorn of an opportunity for all 30 teams.
David Schoenfield: He is entering his age-23 season and it’s not a stretch to say he has the potential to be the best starter in baseball. In four years in Japan, he has a 2.02 ERA, averaging 11.4 strikeouts per nine. He has hit 102 mph and is 6-foot-3 and athletic. You can argue that he’s right up there on the Stephen Strasburg/Paul Skenes scale as a pitching prospect, except he has already dominated as a professional.
Which current or former MLB pitcher does he remind you of on the mound?
Schoenfield: With his power fastball/splitter combo, I think of two former MLB greats: Roger Clemens and Curt Schilling. There are certainly some similarities as well to Shohei Ohtani, although Ohtani slowly ramped down his splitter usage and didn’t use it much in 2022-23, going more often to his sweeper. In Japan in 2024, Sasaki induced a 57% whiff rate on his splitter, which would have ranked second in MLB behind Reds (now Yankees) reliever Fernando Cruz.
Doolittle: I don’t know that there is any one guy. The splitter kind of reminds me of the one Logan Gilbert throws, one with a spin rate so low it’s kind of freaky to watch in slow motion. The easy, heavy, hard stuff he offers kind of reminds me of Kevin Brown, only with a different fastball. The thing that’s most exciting about Sasaki is that it’s hard to call him the next so-and-so. He’s his own thing, and novelty is a great and too-rare thing in sports these days.
McDaniel: There isn’t a perfect comp, and Sasaki is still changing as a pitcher, so I’ll point out some players with qualities that are similar. Hunter Greene had a similar combination of arm speed and hype at the same age, along with some questions on his fastball shape and breaking ball quality. Obviously, Sasaki’s standout splitter has a number of comps to former NPB pitchers but only a handful of U.S.-born players, such as Clemens and Schilling. The total package (power fastball, slider, and splitter-ish offspeed pitch) is similar to Paul Skenes’, though Sasaki’s command and fourth and fifth pitch are areas he’ll need to address to have a chance to truly stand up to Skenes’ MLB debut.
Buster Olney: He reminds me of Yu Darvish, with his build and his rangy athleticism. He looks like he’ll have an ability to make adjustments, as needed. Darvish is known for being able to mimic the deliveries of other pitchers, and watching Sasaki move, it would not surprise me if he had the same gift.
Are there any concerns about how his game will translate from Japan to MLB?
McDaniel: Sasaki’s fastball shape and velocity regressed last season, his slider velocity also tailed off even more, he likely needs to add a fourth and maybe fifth pitch, and his execution within the strike zone could be a bit better. These are all simple enough on their own to be addressed in the first half of 2025 as long as Sasaki chooses a strong pitching development club, as I suspect he will. Some mechanical adjustments and mental cues could do a lot of the heavy lifting as these things can all be related. I would expect to see glimpses of Sasaki’s potential in 2025 while we wait until 2026 for the first dominating string of five or six starts in a row.
Olney: We really need our colleague Eduardo Perez to jump in here, because he’d be the one to tell us if Sasaki has any blatant tells such as pitch-tipping. That’s what Yamamoto experienced in his first months with the Dodgers. But Sasaki could have such excellent stuff that it doesn’t matter. His splitter seems to be so good that it won’t be hit even if the batter knows it’s coming.
Doolittle: Well, the different ball means we don’t know exactly how the measurements on his pitches will change, but that’s not a major concern. He looked great in the World Baseball Classic which offers a nice preview of that adjustment. It’s really durability. He has never thrown a lot of innings, his best pitch is a splitter and his velo was down last season. These things would be much more worrisome if he was getting a Yamamoto-like contract, but he’s not. I’ve seen his splitter carry an 80-grade and when you match that with a triple-digit fastball that moves and a track record of plus command, health is the only thing there is to worry about.
Schoenfield: The same as every starter: Health and durability. He has topped out at 20 starts and 129 innings in Japan, back in 2022. His fastball velocity was down a bit in 2024 as he missed time with a torn oblique and shoulder fatigue. He’ll also have to adjust to facing more power hitters than he faced in Japan.
Are the Dodgers the team to beat as his decision approaches?
Doolittle: They always are.
McDaniel: They are the most likely landing spot and have been seen that way for a while, but don’t underrate how little we truly know about Sasaki’s process of eliminating and ultimately choosing a club. We have some clues and potential leans, but don’t truly know very much right now.
Olney: Sure, because they seemingly land every player they want, with a bottomless pit of money. The Dodgers will be the team to beat for years on the field, and off.
Schoenfield: I’ll say no. I’m betting on Sasaki wanting to forge his own path and signing with a team that doesn’t already have Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto.
Which other teams do you think have the best chance of landing him?
McDaniel: The Padres, led by their ultra-aggressive GM A.J. Preller, are perceived as the second-most-likely landing spot behind the Dodgers, and San Diego clearly needs Sasaki more: He would change the outlook for the whole franchise. Beyond that, we’re mostly guessing from teams we know he has met with that seem to have a good environment for Sasaki to develop and compete in meaningful games: the Giants, Mariners, Mets, Yankees, Cubs, and Rangers seem to come up the most but I can’t even say that’s a complete list of teams getting a long look.
Doolittle: For me, the Mets stand out. Sasaki and his representation have been pretty opaque when it comes to offering glimpses of his thinking, which has led to a lot of reading between the lines. It’s such a rare thing for a player of this caliber to be able to choose any team he wants with money barely being a part of the equation. So who knows? The Mets offer a good pitching environment, a strong possibility of sustained contention and a budding pitching development program highlighted by the pitching lab they built in Port Saint Lucie. Why be another Dodger?
Olney: It’s pretty evident that Sasaki is not afraid to ignore conventional wisdom, in the same way Ohtani did when he arrived — he passed up many, many tens of millions of dollars by pushing to get to the majors now, rather than just waiting. With that in mind, I think the Padres will be the most intriguing alternative to the Dodgers, because of the weather, Darvish’s presence and the chance to play against the best, in the same division.
Schoenfield: If Sasaki is primarily concerned with his own development as a pitcher, is there a better place than Seattle? Unlike the Dodgers, the Mariners have kept their young starters healthy. They also play in a great pitcher’s park, they play on the West Coast and it’s not like Seattle doesn’t have a chance to win. But we haven’t heard much about the Mariners being in the running.
For the first time, MLB is putting some of the sport’s top geographical battles together in a rivalry weekend that begins Thursday night.
Because the matchups are built around natural location rivalries, some of this week’s series will bring the heat (Juan Soto‘s return to the Bronx for a Mets-Yankees showdown, for starters) while others have significantly less juice (Rockies-Diamondbacks, we’re looking at you).
With that in mind, we took the liberty of putting the rivalry weekend matchups in tiers, from the spiciest showdowns to the biggest stretches — then we identified the true current rivals for every MLB team.
The most heated rivalries
What makes it a rivalry: This is one of those old, intrastate civic rivalries that bubbled in the minors (the Texas League in this case) for decades and grew slowly at the big league level once interleague play began. This one really took off a little more than a decade ago with the Astros joined the Rangers in the AL West. It has a name — the “Silver Boot Series” — and plenty of on-field enmity emerging in recent years. They represent Texas’ two biggest metro areas, both of which stake claim to being the hub of the Lone Star-verse, and compete for the same things: the AL West, the AL pennant and the right to claim Nolan Ryan as their own.
One thing to watch: There have been a lot of high-powered offenses in these rivalry matchups, but this year the pendulum has swung towards run prevention for both teams. The Astros have featured an offense that’s been a little below league average, a level to which the Texas batsmen would love to reach. But both pitching staffs rank in the top 10 by ERA+. Expect tight, low-scoring tussles. — Bradford Doolittle
Each team’s true rivals
Rangers: Astros. To a lesser degree, AL West rivals such as the Angels, Mariners and Athletics
Astros: Rangers — plus the added weight of basically being everyone’s hated rival since the franchise was rocked by scandal a few years back
What makes it a rivalry: The Subway Series, like most matchups on this list, derives from geography. New York City has a rich baseball history, and these are its two baseball franchises. About 10 miles and a 50-minute subway trek with a transfer at Grand Central separate the two ballparks. They’re so close that, in 2003, they played the first game of a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium and the second at Shea Stadium. But there’s more than geography here. The two clubs have battled for the city’s attention since the Mets debuted in 1962 — with the Yankees almost always boxing out their Queens counterparts. They met in the 2000 World Series when Roger Clemens threw a piece of lumber at Mike Piazza. And, a quarter century later, little brother (the Mets) seem poised to challenge big brother’s standing for years to come after convincing Soto to leave the Bronx behind.
One thing to watch: Soto’s return to the Bronx will be cinema. The right fielder’s relationship with Yankees fans in his one season in the Bronx, particularly with the Bleacher Creatures beyond the right-field wall, became a storyline of its own. They showered Soto with love and he gave it right back. They chanted “Re-sign Soto!” and he played along. Then he didn’t re-sign and all that love went off the RFK Bridge. Soto will undoubtedly receive raucous boos from offended crowds who still can’t believe he chose the Mets over their team. If Soto’s history is any indication, the scorn will fuel him. — Jorge Castillo
Each team’s true rivals
Yankees: Red Sox, Mets
Mets: Braves, Phillies, Yankees
What makes it a rivalry: Mizzou. Not entirely, but the University of Missouri sits right smack between Busch Stadium and Kauffman Stadium. When innumerable high school grads from the state head to Columbia, there they encounter a whole population of baseball fans rooting for the wrong team. Having experienced this directly, I can recall stories of lines being drawn inside of fraternity houses during the 1985 World Series, keeping fans of the combatants separated. And of course there’s that World Series, now 40 years ago, the outcome of which Cardinals fans of a certain age still whine about.
One thing to watch: Both teams are rolling, having rebounded from sub-.500 starts to leap into the playoff chase. In a reversal of the recent fortunes of the franchises, the Royals’ snap-back was expected and it’s the Cardinals’ sudden rise that is the shocker. However you frame it, the Royals and Cardinals will clash with both teams riding sizable waves of momentum. — Doolittle
Each team’s true rivals
Cardinals: Cubs
Royals: Cardinals — and the Yankees for a time in the 1970s
What makes it a rivalry: Separated by 5.5 miles on the L (subway), the Cubs and Sox are natural rivals, divided by the North and South sides of the city. Growing up a fan of one undoubtedly means not being a fan of the other. The rivalry ebbs and flows as both teams are rarely good at the same time though that hasn’t stopped the two fan bases from duking it out — oftentimes in the stands. A home plate collision — and brawl — between catchers A.J Pierzynski and Michael Barret in 2006 only heightened tensions between the clubs.
One thing to watch: Before assuming the Cubs will sweep the lowly White Sox, consider the teams give up nearly the same amount of runs per game. In fact, the South Siders have a better bullpen by the numbers. And perhaps this is the game where Luis Robert Jr rights his season. He has a career .992 OPS against the Cubs including a 1.063 mark at Wrigley Field. Keep an eye on those fights in the stands. There’s usually a couple that go viral. — Jesse Rogers
Each team’s true rivals
Cubs: Cardinals, with the Brewers a close second, then the White Sox
White Sox: Twins, Cubs
These matchups should be fun
What makes it a rivalry: About 250 miles via Interstate 71 separate these in-state rivals, as there’s no love lost between Cleveland and Cincinnati. Cleveland has mostly owned this matchup, winning 76 of the 135 times (.563) they’ve played. In fact, the Reds haven’t won the season series against Cleveland in a decade, last beating them 3 out of 4 in 2014. Terry Francona facing his old team should add some spice to the match-up.
One thing to watch: Francona’s reception from the Guardians faithful will have to wait until next month when the teams square off in Cleveland so this weekend is about the Reds trying to break that decade-long slump against their rivals. They’ll have to contend with Jose Ramirez, who has a career .935 OPS against Cincinnati including 12 of his 45 interleague home runs. — Rogers
Each team’s true rivals
Guardians: Twins
Reds: Cardinals
What makes it a rivalry: “Bay Bridge Series” no longer works now that the A’s have moved out of Oakland and into Sacramento, about 90 miles away. That’s a shame — there used to be some real juice here, highlighted by an encounter in the 1989 World Series, an A’s sweep in a series best remembered for a terrifying earthquake. But the real rivalry here was among the fans. And given how betrayed the people of Oakland feel after watching their baseball team relocate, that element is long gone.
One thing to watch: Matt Chapman represented a better time in A’s history. The organization drafted him in the first round in 2014, then watched him come up and star on teams that made three consecutive playoff appearances from 2018 to 2020. Chapman was traded shortly thereafter, yet another symbol of the frugality that has plagued this franchise for decades. The A’s haven’t done much right since then, but they’ve held Chapman to four hits and zero home runs in 25 at-bats over these last two years. — Alden Gonzalez
Each team’s true rivals
Giants: Dodgers, Athletics
Athletics: Giants, Angels
What makes it a rivalry: Nothing spices up a rivalry quite like a shared interstate highway and media rights drama. The Beltway Series is just two decades old — the Expos crossed the border to become the Nationals in 2005 — and it has lacked much on-field intrigue. Off the field, particularly inside courtrooms, is another matter. A synopsis: Baltimore was the incumbent team in the region before the Nationals existed. To appease the Orioles, who opposed a franchise entering their market, MLB ordered Nationals games to be broadcasted by MASN — the Orioles-owned television network in perpetuity. Soon enough, the franchises disagreed on the rights fees MASN should pay the Nationals. The Orioles took the matter to court in 2014, igniting a legal battle that finally ended in March when MLB dissolved the agreement, allowing for the Nationals to pursue selling its local TV rights on the open market. This is their first meeting since. Drama.
One thing to watch: These two teams feature exciting young cores on slightly different championship contention timelines. Or so that was the expectation. While the Nationals are, as projected, in fourth place in the NL East and en route to not reaching the postseason for the sixth straight season, the Orioles have face-planted out of the gate with World Series aspirations after consecutive postseason appearances. The Orioles can’t stand to sit in last place much longer. All eyes are on whether they can dig themselves out of this hole. — Castillo
Each team’s true rivals
Nationals: Phillies
Orioles: Yankees and Red Sox
What makes it a rivalry: They share a spring training complex in Peoria, Arizona, neither franchise has won a World Series, and they used to make a lot of trades with each other — indeed, the Mariners’ top two relievers, Andres Munoz and Matt Brash, were acquired from the Padres in two separate trades made on the same day in 2020. The Mariners’ largest comeback in franchise history came against the Padres, a 16-13 victory in 2016 after trailing 12-2. But this is hardly a heated rivalry — it really came about only because neither team had a logical opponent back when interleague play began in 1997.
One thing to watch: With both teams battling for first place, it’s been forever since either team won a division title: 2006 for the Padres and 2001 for the Mariners. Both teams also have early MVP candidates to focus on: Fernando Tatis Jr. leads the NL in WAR and Cal Raleigh is among the leaders in the non-Aaron Judge mix in the AL — and has played every game, starting at either catcher or DH. — David Schoenfield
Each team’s true rivals
Padres: Dodgers (arguably the best rivalry in the game right now!)
Mariners: None, really. The Astros would be the most hated among Mariners fans right now, but you can say that about every team in the AL West.
Well, the geography does line up …
What makes it a rivalry: Back in 2011, the Dodgers were navigating Frank McCourt’s financial mess and Angels owner Arte Moreno saw an opportunity. He signed Albert Pujols and inked a lucrative cable deal that came with the hopes of supplanting the Dodgers as the “it” team in Southern California. The opposite occurred. Guggenheim purchased the Dodgers in spring 2012, then signed an even bigger cable deal, hired Andrew Friedman to lead baseball operations, and the franchise eventually became the industry’s standard-bearer. The Angels, meanwhile, are trending toward a 10th consecutive losing season and saw Shohei Ohtani spurn them for the Dodgers two offseasons ago. Moreno and his lieutenants despise the Dodgers, but the gap between the two teams has become so wide — in track record, financials, resources and reputation — that it doesn’t matter.
One thing to watch: Clayton Kershaw makes his return from offseason toe and knee surgeries Saturday, and the Dodgers need him far more than they ever anticipated. Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell and Roki Sasaki are all on the injured list with shoulder injuries. Ohtani, meanwhile, is still methodically going through his pitching rehab and isn’t expected back until some time after the All-Star break. Kershaw is in his age-37 season, but he has looked sharp through five rehab starts, posting a 2.57 ERA in 21 innings. — Gonzalez
Each team’s true rivals
Dodgers: Giants, Padres, Diamondbacks, Braves, Astros, Yankees
Angels: Rangers, Mariners, Astros
What makes it a rivalry: Let’s be honest here, this isn’t even the best rivalry between Tampa and Miami. The NHL version between the Lightning and Panthers is much more intense and competitive, with both franchises having won Stanley Cups this decade (the Lightning in 2020 and 2021 and the Panthers in 2024). The Rays have dominated the head-to-head play of late, going 24-4 since 2019.
One thing to watch: The Rays have to view this as a chance to jump-start their season given their recent dominance over the Marlins. Chandler Simpson is fun to watch with his blazing speed but hasn’t really been all that valuable for the Rays. For the Marlins, they need Sandy Alcantara to get going, but the former Cy Young winner has struggled in his return from Tommy John surgery. He should start on Sunday. — Schoenfield
Each team’s true rivals
Rays: Yankees (although obviously the Rays aren’t the Yankees’ biggest rival)
Marlins: Braves. As Marlins fans can point out, they do have more World Series titles than the Braves since 1997
What makes it a rivalry: If playing in the same state isn’t enough to define a rivalry, then how about playing in more than 2,300 games against each other to do it? From 1969 to 1994, the Phillies and Pirates were both in the NL East, giving each city ample time to dislike the other side, each and every year. Though the Phillies have been the better team recently, it’s the Pirates who own a decided edge in the all-time series, winning 1230 games to 1085 for Philadelphia. Pirate favorite Andrew McCutchen went to the other side for three seasons before returning to earn boos from the Philly faithful who used to cheer him.
One thing to watch: When it comes to the Pirates these days, there’s literally one thing to watch: Paul Skenes. This will be his first time facing Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber and a Phillies offense that ranks in the top 10 in OPS. Skenes is coming off one of his better outings in a loss to the Mets on Monday — though he only struck out six in six innings. In fact, Skenes hasn’t hit double digits in strikeouts in a single outing this season. That trend might continue this weekend, as the Phillies are one of the tougher teams to whiff this season. — Rogers
Each team’s true rivals:
Phillies: Mets (with the Braves gaining ground)
Pirates: The Phillies — but the Cubs aren’t far behind
What makes it a rivalry: “The Border Battle” — the uninspired moniker for this rivalry — is almost entirely a product of geographic overlap. As best I can tell, insofar as there is bad blood between Milwaukee/Wisconsin and Minneapolis/Minnesota, it’s as much a carryover from the Packers-Vikings rivalry in the NFL as anything. And of course the Wisconsin-Minnesota college football rivalry is the most played of all the traditional rivalries. In baseball, the Twins and Brewers were briefly in the same division and were both in the AL for a long time. But other than claiming rights to Larry Hisle and Paul Molitor, it’s always struck me as too friendly. Midwest nice.
One thing to watch: The Brewers have yet to get hot this season for any prolonged stretch, though they did recover from their wretched season-opening series at Yankee Stadium; Milwaukee has hovered around .500 all season. That’s where Minnesota is as well but they got there in different ways. The Twins started slow and have gotten red hot lately. Their problem is that all the non-White Sox teams in the Central have been hot, so Minnesota has hardly gained any ground in the standings. When this series begins, both rivals are still establishing whatever their 2025 identities turn out to be. — Doolittle
Each team’s true rivals
Brewers: Cubs, Cardinals
Twins: Royals, White Sox, Twins
What are we doing here?!
What makes it a rivalry: Once upon a time, this was a heated AL East affair. That changed when the Tigers moved to the AL Central in 1998. Still, just a four-hour, 230-mile/370-kilometer drive separates the two cities and, with the Expos long gone, the Blue Jays don’t have a Canadian sibling franchise to loathe. Maybe the recent tense U.S.-Canada relations will make for a zestier-than-usual weekend in Toronto.
One thing to watch: The Tigers are proving their stunning finish to the 2024 season was no fluke. They own the best record in the American League behind a starting rotation headed by reigning AL Cy Young Award winner Tarik Skubal. The good news for Toronto is they won’t face Skubal this weekend as they seek to remain within striking distance in the AL East. The bad news is Chris Bassitt and Kevin Gausman, two of their three best starters, won’t toe the rubber either. — Castillo
Each team’s true rivals
Blue Jays: Expos
Tigers: White Sox
What makes it a rivalry: This is always a fun series for history buffs since the Braves and Red Sox are both “Original 16” franchises, but they’ve never met in a World Series and this rivalry is really just based on the fact that the Braves played in Boston from 1876 to 1952. That doesn’t have much relevance for 2025. Seven Hall of Famers have played for both franchises: Babe Ruth, Cy Young, Jimmy Collins, Al Simmons, Orlando Cepeda, John Smoltz and Billy Wagner.
One thing to watch: We get a stellar pitching matchup on Friday between 2024 Cy Young winner Chris Sale for the Braves and 2025 Cy Young contender Garrett Crochet for the Red Sox. Sale is 1-3 with a 3.97 ERA, but has fanned 64 in 47⅔ innings. Crochet is 4-2 with a 1.93 ERA and 65 Ks in 56 innings. — Schoenfield
Each team’s true rivals
Braves: Probably still the Mets, but Braves-Phillies has escalated since 2022
Red Sox: Yankees
What makes it a rivalry: They’re … both kinda new? (The Rockies were born in 1993, the Diamondbacks in ’98.) They’re … kinda close? (It’s a two-hour flight or a 13-hour drive between their respective cities.) They … like the color purple? (The D-backs recently brought theirs back.) OK, we’re getting a little too cute. It’s not like there’s nothing here. They play in the same division, and they really got after it twice: 2007, when the D-backs won the NL West and the Rockies swept them in the NLCS; and 2017, when they met in the wild-card game. But there hasn’t been much since.
One thing to watch: Corbin Carroll slashed .299/.426/.529 in 25 games against the Rockies from 2023 to 2024, a two-year stretch in which they lost a combined 204 games. Carroll is off to a blazing start, and now he’ll get to feast on a Rockies pitching staff that holds the worst ERA in the majors. The D-backs have won 19 of 26 games against the Rockies over these past two years. That should come as no surprise. — Gonzalez
Each team’s true rivals
Diamondbacks: Dodgers, Padres
Rockies: Dodgers
WASHINGTON — Andrei Svechnikov scored the go-ahead goal with just under two minutes left and the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Washington Capitals 3-1 in Game 5 on Thursday night, winning the second-round series and advancing to the Eastern Conference finals for a second time in three years.
Captain Jordan Staal scored his first goal of the playoffs, and Frederik Andersen stopped 18 of the 19 shots he faced, including several on Alex Ovechkin.
After a give-and-go with defenseman Sean Walker, Svechnikov’s shot got through Logan Thompson from a bad angle with 1:59 remaining, and that was the difference in a back-and-forth game.
Seth Jarvis sealed it with an empty-net goal with 26.1 seconds left.
The Hurricanes improved to 10-5 in potential closeout games in seven trips to the postseason with coach Rod Brind’Amour. They will face either the Florida Panthers in a rematch of the 2023 East finals or the Toronto Maple Leafs in a reminder of 2002. The Panthers are up 3-2 in their series with the chance to eliminate the Maple Leafs as soon as Friday night.
Carolina is 35-7-2 through 82 games and then two rounds when scoring first.
Despite an unassisted goal by Anthony Beauvillier and some important saves among the 18 from Thompson, the Capitals saw their season end after finishing atop the conference and the Metropolitan Division, and beating the Montreal Canadiens in the first round to win a playoff series for the first time since their Stanley Cup run in 2018. Washington started strong, got a few quality scoring chances but could not get through tight-checking defense to prolong the series.
After giving up the backbreaker to Svechnikov, Thompson was pulled for an extra attacker and the Capitals were unable to equalize and let Jarvis get to the loose puck for his empty-netter.
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