How defense has turned Cardinals into contenders — and set up a trade deadline dilemma
IN CREPT WILLSON CONTRERAS, closer and closer to home plate, to the point that it started alarming his St. Louis Cardinals teammates. Contreras is in his first season as a first baseman, and even if the situation called for him to crash toward the plate — eighth inning, 1-0 lead, runners on first and second with no outs and Kansas City’s Jonathan India squaring to bunt on the first two pitches — Contreras stationed himself 51 feet away, like a bunt scarecrow, as if to invite a swing from someone who routinely hits baseballs more than 100 mph.
“Scoot back a little,” Cardinals third baseman Nolan Arenado hollered across the diamond. Cardinals coaches urged Contreras to do the same. He did not oblige their requests.
“I was afraid [India] was going to take a swing and kill him,” Cardinals starter Miles Mikolas said.
None of this surprised the Cardinals. Contreras has embodied the team’s defense-first mentality — adopted last year and actualized this season — that flipped the fortunes of a franchise fallen on hard times after decades of unrelenting excellence. St. Louis is 27-23, currently in second place in the National League Central and firmly in the postseason hunt during what was supposed to be a transitional year, thanks to perhaps the best defense in baseball. And Contreras’ positioning, as much as any moment over the first quarter of the season, illustrated who the Cardinals have become.
“I don’t care. I’m not afraid,” Contreras said. “If I’m gonna die, I’ll die right there.”
With Contreras perilously close — the only first baseman in the player-tracking era to stand closer to home on a bunt attempt, according to Statcast, was Contreras’ old Chicago Cubs teammate Anthony Rizzo — India backed away from bunting and took a strike from reliever Kyle Leahy. Contreras didn’t budge. India stared at another pitch to even the count. On the fifth pitch, India hit a one-hopper to second baseman Brendan Donovan, who flipped to shortstop Masyn Winn for the force. Winn then wheeled around, ran toward third and fired to third baseman Nolan Arenado to cut down Drew Waters, turning a perilous situation into two outs.
None of it happens, Cardinals players and coaches said, without Contreras’ daring. “He’s a savage,” left fielder Lars Nootbaar said, and that can be repeated for every Cardinal around the diamond this season, from an infield of Arenado, Winn, Donovan and Contreras to Nootbaar, Victor Scott and Jordan Walker in the outfield to Pedro Pages behind the plate. All have been average or better. Arenado, Winn, Contreras and Scott are among the best in baseball at their positions, according to publicly available metrics as well as the models of three other teams surveyed by ESPN that validated the numbers. And as was the case in the May 17 game that ended with a 1-0 win in Kansas City and plenty more, the Cardinals’ gloves have carried them into contention.
“Guys wanted to take a ton of pride in their defense,” manager Oliver Marmol said. “When we look at what we can control this year, we knew we were going to have our ups and downs, but we can control the effort and being locked in every pitch. And that’s one thing I can say with confidence: We don’t give up a whole lot. Guys are making plays left and right. They’re on point. They’re locked in every pitch.”
COMING INTO SPRING TRAINING, the Cardinals looked scarcely different than the 83-79 team that was outscored by 47 runs a season ago. They signed one free agent: reliever Phil Maton, on a one-year, $2 million contract, in mid-March. They didn’t make any trades. Cardinals fans, among the game’s most die-hard, responded accordingly: attendance at Busch Stadium cratered by more than 7,000 a game to 28,464, the lowest average, outside of the 2021 season played under some pandemic restrictions, since after the strike in 1995.
Fans could not have known what they would be missing. Not even Cardinals players themselves could have foreseen this group into a constant highlight reel of glovework.
“Early on, we didn’t talk about defense,” Arenado said. “It was: ‘We’ve got to score runs. We don’t score runs.’ So that’s all we were talking about. But then as spring went on, we’re like, all right, our defense is actually kind of good. And then as the season has gone on, it’s been like, damn, dude, we’re really good defensively.”
How the Cardinals became arguably the sport’s best defensive team is a story of process and buy-in. For decades, the Cardinal Way — the team’s ethos, codified in an 86-page handbook — was their bible. In a game dominated by objective data, St. Louis’ philosophy grew stale — and the franchise with it. President of baseball operations John Mozeliak is in his last year on the job, with former Boston chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom taking over at season’s end. Clean defense, long a hallmark, bottomed out in 2023, when the Cardinals ranked among the worst in baseball. Their pre-pitch positioning, in particular, lagged severely behind more analytically inclined organizations.
“We kind of as a team knew we weren’t in the right positions in ’23, but you have to go based off of whatever [the positioning suggestions given to players] says,” Nootbaar said. “So we did that last year, and it didn’t feel as bad, but you really felt a stark difference from being where it felt like you were never in opportunistic positions. Now it feels like we’re starting to get there.”
Positioning is just the beginning. With former big leaguers Stubby Clapp coaching the infield and Jon Jay the outfield, players were given specific areas to improve. For Scott, who was taking over in center field from a top-flight defender in Mike Siani, he needed a better first step and direction to complement his high-end speed. Nootbaar planned to work on his jumps. Walker, who was among the game’s worst defenders the past two seasons after moving from third base to right, needed to get better in all facets.
During spring training, Jay set three cones in a triangle, cued players to break toward one and tossed a racquetball at them. The outfielders would then break toward another cone and catch another ball, which required soft hands because of the racquetball’s bounciness. He encouraged outfielders to station themselves low, with knees bent, which ensured their engagement in every pitch, a Marmol must.
“It’s so hard to lock in every single pitch, and you don’t know which one’s going to be the one that is coming your way,” Marmol said. “So your ability to be mentally tough enough to do that usually leads to attention to detail in other areas.”
The new approach has paid off. Scott is near the top of leaderboards in publicly available defensive metrics. Nootbaar, Cardinals players and staff said, is playing the best defense of his career, with his first step a tenth of a second faster than last year, something he attributes to focusing on shagging balls during batting practice. Walker has acquitted himself well enough to earn praise from scouts, who had him pegged as a lost cause in right.
And the improvements go beyond St. Louis’ outfielders. Contreras has similarly surprised evaluators, who were unsure how he would fare at first after starting just four games there in his previous nine major league seasons, the majority of which he spent at catcher. With catching duties going to Pagés and 24-year-old Ivan Herrera, whose bat has been a revelation, Contreras’ shift to first to replace four-time Gold Glove winner Paul Goldschmidt was a risk the Cardinals needed to take. And it has rewarded them handsomely.
“He might be one of the best first basemen I’ve ever seen,” Mikolas said. “I knew he’d be bodying it up, and I knew he’d be picking it, but his range and his arm — he’s doing something special there at first base. I think he’s surprising a lot of people. Probably not himself. He knows how good he is.”
It has been matched throughout the infield. Donovan, a 28-year-old utilityman, has settled into second and leads the NL in hits. Winn, whose weakness going to his backhand side was mitigated by an arm that rates among the best in the game, improved his first step and is getting to more balls than ever. At 34, Arenado — a 10-time Gold Glove winner who is regarded as perhaps the best defensive third baseman ever — is moving better than in recent seasons and looking ageless in the field.
“I don’t want to get ahead of myself,” Arenado said, “but I don’t see a defense that’s better than us — so far that we played against — in the big leagues.”
IN BASEBALL, DEFENSE does not win championships. Sometimes it doesn’t even get a team to the postseason. None of the No. 1 defensive teams this decade has made a World Series, let alone won one. But most of the top units are at the very least successful, and if that trend continues, the Cardinals will face one of the most interesting Julys in the sport.
Coming into the season, the expectation was that St. Louis would be among the most active teams in moving players at the trade deadline. Closer Ryan Helsley is the sort of arm every contender covets. Multiple teams seen as smart with handling pitchers planned to target left-hander Steven Matz, who has excelled out of the bullpen. Right-hander Sonny Gray remains a high-strikeout, low-walk, playoff-caliber arm. Fellow right-handed starter Erick Fedde is solid, even with his lack of strikeouts, and has allowed only three home runs in 52⅓ innings. Maton has a 133 ERA+ this season and has pitched in four of the past five postseasons.
If the Cardinals spend the next two months playing like they have the first seven weeks, the prospect of them shipping off their best arms diminishes greatly. Because if anyone knows how a team can back into October and find magic, it’s the Cardinals, who turned an 83-78 regular season in 2006 into their 10th championship and a 90-win wild-card campaign into their 11th title five years later.
“I mean, a lot of us are still kind of growing,” Donovan said. “We’ve had the luxury of seeing people do it for a long time with the Cardinals and around the league, so I think it’s guys just kind of learning how to come into their own.”
Marmol has relished the growth. Now in his fourth season as manager, he has amalgamated players around a new identity of focus and structure — tenets that evoke the Cardinal Way, only modernized. Before the Contreras daredevil game, he invited a number of players into his office to give them concrete data on just how much they had improved defensively, the sort of feedback modern players particularly appreciate because of the objective nature. Gone are the bad vibes from a 12-17 start, replaced by a team that found its footing in series wins against the New York Mets, Pittsburgh, Washington, Philadelphia and Kansas City before losing a series of close games against the team with the best record in MLB, Detroit.
“The buy-in has been through the roof,” Marmol said. “And then when they can see the improvement in numbers, however many days in, it just reinforces: don’t let up.”
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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?
1:42
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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