How Oilers coach Kris Knoblauch became master of the midseries adjustment
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Ryan S. Clark
SO OFTER THE details get lost in the big picture — which might be the most apt way to describe what Kris Knoblauch has done over the past 18 months to make the Edmonton Oilers one of the NHL’s top Stanley Cup challengers.
Every path has an origin. Initially, it might appear that the Oilers’ march to a consecutive Western Conference finals first began with their first-round rally against the Los Angeles Kings after going down 2-0.
But a deeper look suggests the Oilers’ first steps were in November 2023 when they decided to move on from Jay Woodcroft to hire Knoblauch. Since then, Knoblauch has guided the Oilers to what has arguably been the most prosperous stretch the franchise has enjoyed since their last Stanley Cup back in 1990.
“He’s a pretty analytical guy and pretty composed,” Oilers forward Connor Brown said. “I think he sees it clearly in these high-pressure situations. I think his judgement is pretty clear. When he got hired last season, we ended up putting together a couple win streaks. It was the beginning. We were crystal clear on our positioning, our roles individually and then we started to roll from there.”
Coaching is a nuanced profession by nature. There is the macro view — looking at the totality of a team — while blending in the micro, weighing how each player works or doesn’t work within the system. It’s knowing that those real-time, in-game decisions can be the difference between being a winning franchise or one that wonders what would have been if better choices had been made.
It’s about having confidence in Plan A. But it’s about having even more confidence in knowing when to shift away from Plan A in favor of Plan B, Plan C or an entirely different plan altogether at a moment’s notice.
Knoblauch has gotten to this stage by navigating those lanes while understanding the consequences of those actions. That becomes even more amplified upon the acknowledgment that this is still his first NHL head coaching job.
Regardless of what happens in a Game 1, the adjustments made in Game 2 are going to play a role in how a series moves forward. This is a lesson Knoblauch knows well, and it’s what makes Friday even more alluring. He watched the Oilers build a 3-1 lead in Game 1 against the Dallas Stars — only to see his team surrender five unanswered tallies in a 6-3 loss.
Now it’s a matter of seeing what alterations Knoblauch makes as the Oilers seek a return to the Stanley Cup Final.
“He pushes the right buttons, and we have an experienced group in here that knows how to play the right way and knows what it takes to win hockey games this time of year,” Oilers star center Leon Draisaitl said. “That part helps a lot, of course. But we’ve seen him do a great job of sending the right messages at the right times.”
IT’S NOT LIKE recent Oilers teams hadn’t encountered success before hiring Knoblauch. They had, but it was a different kind of success. They qualified for the playoffs in four straight seasons between 2019 and 2022, with their crowning achievement coming during the 2022 postseason when they reached the conference finals.
The last time the Oilers had more than four straight seasons in which they made the playoffs was between 1996 and 2001 when they did it in five consecutive campaigns.
Advancing to consecutive conference finals is something the Oilers haven’t experienced since 1987 and 1988. So what is Knoblauch doing to get the best out of a roster, bringing the most prosperity in the past 30 years?
“His demeanor, that calm demeanor works for our group,” Brown said. “It works really well with our group. We’re a very self-motivated team. You don’t need as much rah-rah, especially in the playoffs because guys are ready to go. Having that composed demeanor behind the bench is beneficial for us.”
Knoblauch’s demeanor — and the impact it can have — was on display throughout their second-round series against the Vegas Golden Knights. Even after the Oilers allowed the first two goals in Game 1, Knoblauch remained calm behind the bench before using intermission to make necessary adjustments.
Those adjustments resulted in the Oilers allowing just one shot on goal in the second period — and also led to them scoring four unanswered goals over the next two frames. How each coach reacted to the comeback was also an exercise in contrast. Golden Knights coach Bruce Cassidy was visibly frustrated from the bench, whereas Knoblauch was the same throughout the game despite the fact the Oilers had reason to celebrate.
Not only did they win their first game of a playoff series in nearly a calendar year, but it was also their fifth consecutive comeback win in the postseason, which set an NHL record. The Oilers used another comeback effort to take Game 2 en route to winning the series against Vegas in five games; notably, three contests were decided by one goal, with two of them going to overtime.
“It’s just not changing our mindset or the way that we want to play,” Oilers defenseman Darnell Nurse said of that stretch. “We never really go chasing a game. We stick to our game and know that if you do enough things the right way, the results will come in our favor. I think that’s the biggest thing about our group. There’s no real panic. We’re just sticking to our game and not getting away from it.”
But that’s the thing about Knoblauch: He gets his teams invested in a way where players don’t panic. It’s not just a one-time event. It becomes so frequent that it is an ingrained part of the team’s identity.
THE GOLDEN KNIGHTS were fifth in goals per game in the regular season, and in the top 10 in shots per game, scoring chances per game and high-danger chances per game. They had 11 players finish with more than 30 points, and 11 players finished with more than 10 goals.
But against the Oilers, they struggled to get consistent offensive production from their primary and secondary scorers. They didn’t get a single goal from top stars like Jack Eichel and Tomas Hertl, while breakout performers like Pavel Dorofeyev, who missed the first two games, and Brett Howden, who scored a career-high 23 goals, were also held without a goal.
Knoblauch and his staff created a plan that held the Golden Knights to zero goals in Games 4 and 5, after Edmonton lost Game 3 on a fluky, last-second goal. They did all this after reinserting goaltender Stuart Skinner into the lineup after Calvin Pickard sustained an injury. Bear in mind that Mattias Ekholm — one of their top defensemen — has missed the entire postseason with an injury.
“He’s a smart coach,” Edmonton forward Corey Perry said about Knoblauch. “Those are things that smart coaches do in-game, in game-to-game, day-to-day and it’s worked, it continues to work and hopefully it continues even more.”
What is it that allows Knoblauch to unlock his team’s potential while keeping opponents guessing?
“I think when you have a lot of good players and you have a good team that when you hit Plan B, things look like that was a good plan and that was a good idea to do that,” Knoblauch said.
But before he continued, he had someone who was near him telling him to “take the credit.”
“In my time here, we’ve had a lot of good players and a lot of guys who maybe haven’t been in prominent roles,” Knoblauch explained. “Then when you change things up, it gives them a little spark, a little energy, a little just — it changes things up. You also think sometimes, when you don’t make a change, things were going to change anyway. It was just the flow of the game.”
AFTER EXPLAINING HIS PHILOSOPHY, Knoblauch dives in on how the decision to make a change is balanced by knowing when to not make a change.
This isn’t just a coach saying the right things for the camera. This is how he operates, and it’s an approach that his players have become quite familiar with.
“He has a knack for making adjustments at the right time and not making an adjustment just to make one,” Nurse said. “I think if the game is not going the way you want it to go sometimes, there are adjustments that are made that are probably unnecessary. But he’s got a great mind to see when they are necessary.”
Nurse said that became evident from the moment Knoblauch took over the Oilers in November 2023, and it’s been part of the Oilers’ identity since.
Knoblauch inherited a team that won three of its first 13 games before he and his staff laid the foundation for them to win 46 of the next 69 contests. It was about finding those additional lanes that allowed Zach Hyman to become a 50 goal scorer, or Evan Bouchard to cement his place as a top-pairing defenseman, while seeing other players carve a place so that the Oilers become more than superstars Connor McDavid and Draisaitl.
Then it was a question of whether it could carry over into the 2023/24 postseason. Knoblauch replaced Skinner with Pickard in Games 4 and 5 in the second round against the Vancouver Canucks, before Skinner returned in Game 6 to help them win the series in seven games.
They fell into another 2-1 series hole in the Western Conference finals against the Dallas Stars, only to come back and win in six games — and avoid a winner-takes-all battle against what might be the greatest Game 7 coach in North American sports history in Peter DeBoer.
Yes, they lost the first three games of the Stanley Cup Final. But they came back to force Game 7, and were within one goal of pulling off what would have been arguably the greatest comeback in Stanley Cup Final history.
Brown, like McDavid, was part of an Erie Otters team in the OHL that went from missing the playoffs to making them in Knoblauch’s first full year with the club.
“He was like that even back then too,” Brown recalled. “He took a team that was struggling and put together some amazing series in Erie and it’s a lot of similarities from back then. I think he’s done a good job of staying true to himself and sticking to what has worked for him.”
FAST-FORWARD TO this year. Knoblauch handled being down 2-0 to the Kings in the first round after giving up 12 goals in two games; he went back to Pickard, made the changes to win the series and start a comeback streak that extended into the second round. And then when Pickard got hurt, he tapped Skinner, who authored shutouts in Games 4 and 5.
Another adjustment that now looks brilliant? The decision to play Kasperi Kapanen — whom the Oilers claimed on waivers in November — in Game 5. Kapanen scored the game- and series-winning goal in overtime, making him the 14th Oilers forward who scored this postseason.
0:53
Oilers call series after Kasperi Kapanen scores OT winner
Kasperi Kapanen somehow gets his stick on the puck last on a scramble in overtime as the Oilers clinch the series vs. the Golden Knights.
These are more than just good moves. They are living, breathing proof that Knoblauch and his ability to make adjustments are the details that might get lost in the big picture — in fact, they’re one of the major reasons there’s a big picture in the first place.
They are also why in a league in which there is so much shuffling among coaches that Knoblauch is the 10th-longest-tenured head coach in the NHL — and why he might be one of the premier minds behind a bench right now.
“I think there’s a deep sense of belief in this team,” Brown said. “So when we’re down, the seed of doubt isn’t in our head. We truly believe we can come back on any lead on any team. When you believe that, you stick to business and it happens.”
Knoblauch said coaches throughout the NHL are always thinking about the different avenues they can take to make their teams better. One of the ways he’s tried to do that is by getting feedback from his players.
Say there’s a player who is doing well. Knoblauch is going to remember what works. But when they’re not doing well? He’s going to think back to the conversations he’s had with players about who they like playing with, in the hope that creating a new line can help a struggling player turn into a successful one.
“Those are things I take note of and obviously, the coaching staff [does too],” Knoblauch said. “It’s thinking about if we need to be a little more physical against this line. Or we have to be a little more defensive. A little more speed to it.
“Then we have those conversations also and during the game when we have to make that decision, it’s ‘Who is playing?’ and then all that information you took before, you can use it to make your next decisions.”
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Bradford Doolittle
CLEVELAND — For two games and five innings, the Detroit Tigers’ offense was constantly knocking but when it mattered most, no one seemed to answer. Finally, Dillon Dingler opened the door to a clinching win.
Dingler’s sixth-inning homer off Cleveland lefty Erik Sabrowski broke a 1-1 deadlock, igniting a late Tigers rally that put the Tigers into the ALDS with a 6-3 win at Progressive Field on Thursday.
The victory not only gave the Tigers a 2-1 AL wild-card series win over the rival Guardians , it avenged last year’s loss to Cleveland in the ALDS.
“We were able to flip it right there, and we had a huge (seventh) inning, able to score some runs and be in the driver’s seat a little bit,” said Dingler, a northeast Ohio native playing in a ballpark he visited as a youth. “It was a big one.”
Before Dingler’s homer, the Tigers had managed just four runs in the series — through two games and five innings — and were a maddening 3-for-28 with runners in scoring position, putting their season in peril despite outplaying Cleveland for the most part. Two of the runs they scored were unearned.
Enter Dingler, a second-year catcher playing in his first postseason. He had started his playoff career 0-for-9 at the plate until he connected against Sabrowski, sending a changeup up in the zone into the seats in left-field, putting Detroit ahead.
“I was scratching and crawling a little bit,” Dingler said. “I was able to get a pitch to hit and do a little damage. Momentum, I feel like the momentum in the series was the biggest thing.”
And how. The aftermath of Dingler’s homer had the aspect of a boiler’s release valve being turned on, allowing bursts of steam to escape into the air.
In the seventh, with the Guardians rolling out a parade of relievers from one of baseball’s best bullpens, the Tigers finally started spinning the merry-go-round, racking up one clutch hit after another.
The rally started when Parker Meadows beat out what was meant to be a sacrifice bunt after Javier Baez led off with a double. Gleyber Torres was retired on a comebacker to a pirouetting Hunter Gaddis, then Kerry Carpenter was intentionally walked, his fourth time reaching base in the game, to load the bases.
This was exactly the kind of the spot the Tigers had faced, and failed, throughout the series. Not this time.
Wenceel Perez, Spencer Torkelson and Riley Greene followed with RBI singles, plating four runs in all, and giving the Tigers a commanding lead. Up to that point, the trio had gone 1-for-13 combined with runners in scoring position during the series.
That’s what momentum looks like.
“I don’t know why in baseball it seems like one good thing happens and then two, three, four, five at-bats in a row were exceptional,” Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said. “We wanted to get even more greedy and do more, but it was nice to separate and breathe a little bit, knowing they weren’t going to give in.”
The loss brought a sudden halt to Cleveland’s building Cinderella story, one that saw them overcome a 15 1/2-game deficit to Detroit to win the AL Central, then force Thursday’s Game 3 after dropping the series opener. While coming back from the brink again and again, the Guardians forged an identity of a never-say-die team. As glorious as the run may have been, losing to the Tigers doesn’t hurt any less.
“There’s no ending of the season,” Guardians manager Stephen Vogt said. “It doesn’t end gradually, it just halts. We’ve been with each other every day for eight months. More time with each other than our family. Working together, laughing together, crying together, yelling together, you name it. Now it stops, and I had so much fun with this group.”
With the series win, the Tigers are building a budding comeback story of their own. For much of the season, Detroit was poised to land the AL’s top overall seed but a second-half slump capped by a 7-17 September landed them in Cleveland, as the road team in a wild-card series.
Now the Tigers are on their way to play the Seattle Mariners in the ALDS, beginning Tuesday, and if you had any doubts about it entering the wild-card round, you can now safely assume that the Tigers have turned the page on their lackluster finish.
“It only gets better from here,” Hinch said. “And I’m proud of our group for continuing to learn and grow and mature and fight off some of the negative thoughts that come along the way when people doubt you or you start struggling a little bit. You’ve got to stay in there.”
Last weekend delivered an action-packed, wire-to-wire college football slate. In Week 6, the sport’s collective attention is centered on a pair of rather distinct but equally intriguing ranked matchups: Alabama–Vanderbilt and Florida State–Miami.
It has been nearly 365 days since the Commodores downed then-No. 1 Alabama in a stunning upset last October. No. 16 Vanderbilt, still led by quarterback Diego Pavia, appears to be even more formidable this fall as coach Clark Lea leads the Commodores to Bryant-Denny Stadium (3:30 p.m. ET, ABC) this weekend. But they visit Alabama to face a Crimson Tide team led by a surging quarterback in Ty Simpson and a team that has only improved since the program’s Week 1 defeat at Florida State.
No. 18 Florida State hosts No. 3 Miami after suffering its first loss in a back-and-forth, overtime thriller at Virginia in Week 5. Florida State and a shaky Seminoles defensive front will run into an even stiffer test at the line of scrimmage Saturday night (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC) against a Hurricanes rushing attack led by Mark Fletcher Jr. with ACC title race and postseason implications hanging over this early fall meeting of in-state conference rivals.
With a pair premier matchups ahead Saturday, our college football experts broke the matchups between Alabama-Vanderbilt and Florida State-Miami, reveal five freshman newcomers who have impressed in the first month of the 2025 season and recap the best quotes of Week 6. — Eli Lederman
Jump to:
In-state showdown | Vanderbilt-Alabama
Five freshman to know
Quotes of the week
What do Miami and Florida State need to focus on to win?
Miami: Given what Virginia did to Florida State on the ground last week in a thrilling 46-38 double-overtime win, Miami should focus on controlling the line of scrimmage and dominating on the ground. Good thing for the Hurricanes, they have plenty of experience doing that this season. Take their last game against Florida, for example. In the second half, they wore down the Gators up front and took control by continuing to run the ball. Miami rushed for 184 yards as Mark Fletcher Jr. went over 100 yards rushing for the second straight game. Last year against Florida State, Fletcher rushed for 71 yards and scored a touchdown, only days after his father, Mark Fletcher Sr., died unexpectedly.
Fletcher said this week he plays with his dad in mind every week, so this week is no different. But his play has sparked the Miami run game, as he has become the featured back after Jordan Lyle was injured in the opener. CharMar Brown has emerged to form a solid 1-2 punch out of the backfield.
“Mark is hard to tackle,” offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson said. “He’s very big, very strong, very physical, and he runs with passion. He’s a great example for that room, because they’re all running that way right now, which is good to see.”
Miami expects Lyle to be ready to go against Florida State. If Lyle is back to 100%, his speed and shiftiness will provide a nice counter to the power with which Fletcher has been running this season. Miami has the type of balance that coach Mario Cristobal has wanted since his arrival with the Hurricanes. He has preached building his team from the inside out, and against Florida State, the Hurricanes will have a chance to show that again. — Andrea Adelson
Florida State: Florida State’s defensive front figured to be among the best in the ACC, led by behemoth tackle Darrell Jackson Jr. and Nebraska transfer James Williams. The unit certainly looked the part in the Seminoles’ Week 1 win over Alabama, completely stifling the Tide’s ground game to the tune of only 87 yards on 29 carries.
But was all of that a mirage?
Alabama’s rushing attack hasn’t improved by leaps and bounds in the weeks since, and last week’s FSU loss to Virginia can be traced back, in many ways, to a failure to stifle the Cavaliers’ ground game.
“They made plays throughout, and they were able to do a good job in the run game against us,” coach Mike Norvell said after his team coughed up 211 yards and four touchdowns on the ground. “Virginia did a good job of staying multiple in what they did with a lot of different run schemes. They’re a good offense. We have to do better. They were able to create some seams. There were times when we weren’t all on the same page from where we needed to be, and they exposed that.”
Miami’s ground game can be every bit as dynamic but unlike the Hoos, who were down several of their top O-linemen — seven of their top 10 were injured or out for the game — the Hurricanes feature arguably the best offensive line in the country.
Still, for all of FSU’s struggles in containing Virginia, the Seminoles actually ran for more yardage than the Cavaliers. So stopping Miami is a necessity, but the Canes will be faced with a similar task. The team that slows the ground attack better is likely to be the one on the winning side Saturday. — David Hale
What do Vanderbilt and Alabama need to capitalize on?
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Vandy’s Clark Lea looks to replicate last year’s success vs. Bama
Lea looks to make the game about the No. 16 Commodores, focusing on eliminating the crowd as he highlights the No. 10 Crimson Tide’s strengths they need to minimalize.
Vanderbilt: The Commodores aren’t going to surprise anyone this season, especially the Crimson Tide. Last year, Vanderbilt beat Alabama for the first time in 40 years with a 40-35 upset of the No. 1 Tide in Nashville.
If the Commodores are going to do it again, they might want to follow the same recipe: convert third downs, control the clock and keep Alabama’s offense off the field. Vanderbilt converted 12 of 18 third-down plays and had the ball for more than 42 minutes in 2024. The Commodores rank No. 2 in the SEC with 223.4 rushing yards per game, and they’ve got three good options to carry the ball in quarterback Diego Pavia and running backs Sedrick Alexander and Makhilyn Young.
Alabama had problems stopping the run in last week’s 24-21 win at Georgia. The Bulldogs averaged 6.9 yards per carry and piled up 227 yards on the ground. But the Crimson Tide defense did a good job of stopping Georgia’s offense when it mattered; the Bulldogs were just 2-for-8 on third down and 0-for-1 on fourth. — Mark Schlabach
Alabama: Aside from getting Kadyn Proctor more involved in the passing game? His catch and bulldozing run against Georgia will certainly make an all-time college football highlight reel, but that play is an example of what is working well now for Alabama.
Over the past three games, the Crimson Tide have been able to keep teams off balance with their offensive play selection — particularly in the passing game. Ty Simpson has grown more comfortable as the season has progressed, and is equally adept at finding his receivers on crossing routes as he is launching deep balls to Ryan Williams and Germie Bernard.
Though Alabama could use more consistency in its run game, the way the Crimson Tide are playing on third down, and the way Simpson is converting those third downs with good decision-making, is a big step forward from Week 1 against Florida State. Vanderbilt, it should be noted, has given up a conference-high nine touchdowns through the air. So, in short, keep throwing the ball. — Adelson
Five freshman who impressed in the first month of the season
Malik Washington, QB, Maryland Terrapins
The 6-foot-5, 231-pound quarterback has thrown for 1,038 yards across a 4-0 start, trailing only Jayden Daniels (Arizona State) for the second-most passing yards by a freshman through four games since 2019. Washington enters Week 6 level with Cal’s Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele for the FBS freshmen passer touchdown lead (eight), and ESPN’s No. 3 dual-threat passer in the 2025 class is also taking good care of the football (two turnovers). Washington accounted for three touchdowns in his Big Ten debut at Wisconsin on Sept. 20, powering the Terps to their first Big Ten road win since Nov. 2023. With its talented freshman under center, Maryland has already matched its win total from a year ago and has a chance to go 5-0 for only the 10th time in program history when the Terps host Washington on Saturday (3:30 p.m. ET, BTN).
Jaron-Keawe Sagapolutele, QB, California Golden Bears
A late-riser last fall who bounced in, then out and back into the Bears’ 2025 class after signing with Oregon, Sagapolutele has delivered from the jump this fall. He leads freshmen passers with 1,242 passing yards and ranks second among FBS freshmen in completion percentage (59.5%). The left-handed Sagapolutele showed off his arm strength in early-season wins over Oregon State and Minnesota, then flashed maturity and late-game poise at Boston College in Week 5 when he led a nine-play, 88-yard, fourth-quarter scoring drive to complete a comeback win that improved Cal to 4-1. Sagapolutele’s four turnovers are a problem so far, but only five games into his college career, he stands among the sport’s most exciting quarterback talents and has already turned the Bears back into late-night appointment viewing.
Malachi Toney, WR, Miami Hurricanes
After reclassifying from the 2026 cycle, Toney arrived an under-the-radar, three-star recruit in Miami’s 2025 class. But there has been nothing understated about his emergence with the Hurricanes this fall. Through four games, Toney led FBS freshmen with 22 receptions and 268 receiving yards. The speedy, 5-foot-11 receiver announced himself with six catches for 82 yards — headlined by a 28-yard touchdown grab — in the Hurricanes’ Week 1 win over Notre Dame, and Toney enters Week 6 as quarterback Carson Beck‘s most targeted downfield option (28) so far. His next opportunity comes Saturday when Miami hits the road to visit Florida State (7:30 p.m. ET, ABC).
Sidney Stewart, DE, Maryland Terrapins
Two Terps on one list? Indeed. Stewart, a three-star recruit from Joppa, Maryland, has been the most productive freshman pass rusher in the country over the first month of the season. His four sacks through four games lead first-year defenders and leave Stewart tied for fifth nationally. Per ESPN Research, Stewart has created 11 pressures so far; for context, Maryland teammate Zahir Mathis and Syracuse’s Antoine Deslauriers trail behind him in second among freshman defenders in the category with five pressures each. Stewart and an aggressive Terps defensive line could be in line for another productive Saturday in Week 6 facing a Washington offensive line that has given up 12 sacks in 2025, 21st-most nationally.
Dakorien Moore, WR, Oregon Ducks
ESPN’s No. 1 wide receiver in the 2025 class, Moore has been an immediate factor in the Ducks’ passing game and early favorite for Oregon quarterback Dante Moore this fall. No FBS freshman pass catcher has been thrown to more often (29 targets) than the 5-foot-11, 195-pounder from Duncanville, Texas, and he enters Week 6 pacing all first-year skill players with 296 receiving yards. Moore’s most impressive performance was his most recent one, when he led the Ducks in catches (seven) and yards (89) in Oregon’s 30-24 overtime win over Penn State in Week 5. A contributor from day one in 2025, Moore already looks like a difference-maker on a potential national-title contender, and his role in the Ducks’ downfield attack should only grow as the season progresses. — Lederman
Quotes of the Week
“It’s just an absolute coaching failure. I don’t know another way to say it. And I’m not pointing the finger, I’m pointing the thumb. It starts with me, because I hired everybody, and I empower everybody and equip everybody.” — Dabo Swinney on Clemson 1-3 start
“That’s not indicative of who we are. Our student body, our kids, are phenomenal. So don’t indict us just based on a group of young kids that probably was intoxicated and high simultaneously. Maybe I shouldn’t have said that as well, but the truth is going to make you free. But BYU, we love you. We appreciate you and we support you.” — Deion Sanders on Colorado’s fans disparaging BYU.
“The No. 1 thing is, you have to get used to change. You know, your whole life there’s going to be change. So how we handle that, our attitude on how we handle that, will determine how quickly we improve.” — Bobby Petrino, on reorienting Arkansas after taking over as interim head coach.
It’s win-or-go-home Thursday in the MLB wild-card round!
After losing their series openers, the Cleveland Guardians, San Diego Padres and New York Yankees all rebounded with Game 2 wins on Wednesday — setting up a dramatic day with three winner-take-all Game 3s. It’s only the second time in baseball history to host three winner-takes-all playoff games in one day.
Who has the edge with division series berths on the line? We’ve got you covered with pregame lineups, sights and sounds from the ballparks and postgame takeaways as each matchup ends.
Key links: Megapreview | Passan’s take | Bracket | Schedule
Jump to a matchup:
DET-CLE | SD-CHC | BOS-NYY
3 p.m. ET on ESPN
Game 3 starters: Jack Flaherty vs. Slade Cecconi
One thing that will decide Game 3: Perhaps it’s a wide brush, but Detroit’s ability to get the ball in play and convert scoring opportunities into actual runs — or not — is likely to decide Thursday’s game. The Tigers have managed to get quality at-bats early in innings and generate plenty of traffic on the bags, but they’ve been completely unable to turn those scoring chances into runs. Their 15 runners left on base in Game 2 was a record for a franchise whose postseason history dates back to 1907. Over three potential elimination games going back to last year’s ALDS matchup, the Tigers are a combined 3-for-38 (.079) with runners in scoring position. That must change or Detroit will be done. — Bradford Doolittle
Lineups
Tigers
TBD
Guardians
TBD
5 p.m. ET on ABC
Game 3 starters: Yu Darvish vs. Jameson Taillon
One thing that will decide Game 3: Look, this is going to be a battle of the bullpens. Yu Darvish and Jameson Taillon are both going to be on a very quick hook, even if they’re pitching well. But the difference might be which of those starters can get 14 or 15 outs instead of 10 or 11, especially for the Padres given that Adrian Morejon and Mason Miller both pitched in Games 1 and 2 and might have limited availability.
Darvish had a reputation early in his career as someone who couldn’t handle the pressure of a big game, but he has turned that around and has a 2.56 ERA in his six postseason starts with the Padres. Taillon, meanwhile, was terrific down the stretch with the Cubs, with a 1.57 ERA in six starts after coming off the IL in August. This looks like another low-scoring game in which the team that hits a home run will have the edge. — Schoenfield
Lineups
Padres
TBD
Cubs
TBD
8 p.m. ET on ESPN
Game 3 starters: Connelly Early vs. Cam Schlittler
One thing that will decide Game 3: Whether Connelly Early can give the Red Sox some length. Alex Cora’s aggressive decision to pull the plug on Brayan Bello’s start after just 28 pitches in Game 2 led to him using six Red Sox relievers. Garrett Whitlock, Boston’s best reliever not named Aroldis Chapman, threw 48 pitches. Chapman didn’t enter the game but warmed up for the possibility. Left-hander Kyle Harrison, a starter during the regular season, and right-hander Greg Weissert were the only pitchers in Boston’s bullpen not used in the first two games. Early doesn’t need to last seven innings. Harrison, who hasn’t pitched since last Friday, could cover multiple innings. But a quick departure would make the night very difficult for the Red Sox’s bullpen against a potent Yankees lineup. — Jorge Castillo
Lineups
Red Sox
TBD
Yankees
TBD
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