Attention baseball fanatics! The 2025 MLB playoffs season is reaching its climax and the excitement is in the air. This Friday, two games promise to keep us on the edge of our seats, with the possibility of witnessing historical moments.
Clash of Giants in the American League
In the first game of the day, the Toronto Blue Jays will face the Seattle Mariners in the crucial Game 5 of the American League Championship Series. The winner of this duel will be one step away from the World Series, which adds palpable tension to the match.Dodgers Seek Sweep in National League
Later, the current champions, the Los Angeles Dodgers, could complete a sweep over the National League leaders, the Milwaukee Brewers, in Game 4 of their series. The pressure is on both teams, and every play could be decisive. Join us to analyze the keys to each match! We’ve got you covered, from pre-game stories and lineups to key moments and final conclusions.Key link:
What should we expect from Friday’s games?ALCS Game 5: Blue Jays vs. Mariners
How can the Blue Jays maintain their momentum in Game 5?Toronto’s ace, Kevin Gausman, arrives fully rested and ready to pitch. He could draw inspiration from Max Scherzer’s work, who was effective against the Mariners in Game 4 by decreasing the speed of his pitches. Seattle’s hitters seemed prepared for fastballs against Scherzer, but he opted for variable-speed pitches. Gausman has an exceptional variable-speed pitch weapon in his split-finger fastball.
Buster Olney
What must the Mariners do differently to save their last home game of this ALCS?Keep hitting the ball hard! Few teams have managed to dismantle the Mariners’ pitching staff in Seattle as the Blue Jays did in the first two games. They connected on 21 balls with an exit velocity over 100 mph, with 16 of those hits and 11 of them resulting in extra bases. The Blue Jays had the lowest strikeout rate in the majors in the regular season and showed how lethal their offense can be when they put the ball in play. Also, it’s a big help that Andrés Giménez, the number 9 hitter, has hit two home runs, and especially when Vladimir Guerrero Jr., after going 0-7 in the two games in Toronto, is 6-9 in the two games in Seattle.
David Schoenfield
Bryce Miller lifted the entire Seattle team by pitching so well with little rest, less than 48 hours after the incredible Game 5 victory against Detroit in the AL Division Series, and because of how Games 3 and 4 developed here, Miller faces similar pressure in Game 5. The Blue Jays hitters are on a roll, after accumulating a mountain of offense in the last two days. Mariners manager Dan Wilson may be aggressive with his bullpen again, particularly with closer Andrés Muñoz and regular season ace Bryan Woo.
Buster Olney
Pitchers definitely need to generate more swings and misses against the Blue Jays, but Seattle’s offense needs to produce. It’s one thing to face Tarik Skubal twice, as the Mariners did against Detroit, but Skubal isn’t pitching in this series. In nine playoff games, the Mariners are batting just .215 and several key players are struggling: Randy Arozarena has an OPS of .536 with 16 strikeouts, Eugenio Suárez has an OPS of .475 with 14 strikeouts, and Victor Robles, who was benched in Game 4, has an OPS of .474. Dominic Canzone, a key player in the second half who hit .300 with an OPS of .840, is 2-19 in the postseason. Against the right-handed Gausman, his left-handed bat is important.
David Schoenfield
NLCS Game 4: Brewers vs. Dodgers
What should the Brewers do to avoid the sweep in Game 4?First, they need to wait for Jackson Chourio to be healthy enough to play. And then, they really need to do a lot of what they did in Game 3: put pressure on early, keep the score close, and force the Dodgers manager, Dave Roberts, to use his bullpen earlier than he’d like. The Brewers, of course, need to hit much better (especially Christian Yelich, who is 1-11 in this series). But the Dodgers aren’t built to win many games where their relievers need to get 10 outs to maintain a small lead. That they did it successfully in Game 3 doesn’t mean they can do it again in Game 4.
Alden Gonzalez
What do you expect from Shohei Ohtani in his first NLCS start?How’s the hitting? The Brewers have accumulated nine hits in the first three games of the series. Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow allowed three each in their starts. Blake Snell gave up one in his start. Alex Vesia and Roki Sasaki allowed one in a relief appearance. And that’s it. They have scored a total of three runs. Striking out 30% of the time doesn’t help, and the fact that they’re facing someone like Shohei Ohtani, who had nearly a 7-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in the regular season, only intensifies the need to find something now. The Brewers need to be better in every aspect to turn the tide of this series, but scoring runs is the number 1 priority.
Jeff Passan
Ohtani will be on the mound with 12 days of rest. The last time he had so much time off between starts was September 16, when he faced the Philadelphia Phillies after an 11-day break from pitching. What followed was five hitless innings against one of the best offenses in the sport. The Brewers’ lineup isn’t as threatening as the Phillies’, but the team will play desperately and, unlike Game 3, won’t have to bat in the shadows. Ohtani, however, will be in shape, regularly reaching three digits with his fastball. The question is whether he can overcome his offensive slump. On opening days during the regular season, Ohtani’s batting line fell to .222/.323/.556.
Alden Gonzalez
Because Ohtani has been slow-played to build up his outings after his second elbow reconstruction, it’s easy to have overlooked that his stuff has returned immediately, which isn’t always the case with major surgeries. Ohtani has never thrown his average fastball harder, and his sweeper remains one of the best pitches in the game, flexible and confounding. Milwaukee didn’t particularly handle velocity of 97-plus mph well during the regular season, and what makes it particularly problematic is the wide array of other pitches Ohtani has to keep them off balance. His first postseason start lasted six innings, the same as his previous start to finish the regular season. If he does the same in Game 4, the Dodgers should be in a good position.
Jeff Passan
Alignments
Toronto Blue Jays vs. Seattle Mariners (6:08 p.m. ET)Series tied 2-2 Starting pitchers: Kevin Gausman vs. Bryce MillerAlignments
Toronto: To be defined Seattle: To be definedMilwaukee Brewers vs. Los Angeles Dodgers (8:38 p.m. ET)Los Angeles leads the series 3-0 Starting pitchers: To be determined vs. Shohei OhtaniAlignments
Los Angeles: To be defined Milwaukee: To be defined
