Tuesday, August 25

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Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, a weekday newsletter that gets you up to speed on everything you need to know for today’s games, while catching you up on fun and interesting stories you might have missed. Today’s edition is brought to you by David Adler.

Two of the big dogs in the National League are going head-to-head starting tonight, and playoff seeding is at stake.

The Braves and Dodgers open up a huge three-game series in Atlanta (7:15 p.m. ET, TBS / MLB.TV). The big storyline of tonight’s opener: the return of Tyler Glasnow for L.A. after 3 1/2 months on the injured list.

The two powerhouses are also fighting for a coveted first-round playoff bye. Right now the Brewers, with the best record in the Majors, hold the top seed in the NL playoff picture. But the Dodgers and Braves are right behind them. And only two of the three teams can earn that bye.

NL standings entering play today

1. Brewers: 81-50
2. Dodgers: 80-51 (1 game back of MIL)
3. Braves: 76-55 (4 games back of LAD)

So we’ll have our eyes on this one. Who wouldn’t want to see superstar showdowns like Shohei Ohtani vs. Ronald Acuña Jr., and Freddie Freeman vs. Matt Olson?

We have a full preview of the Braves-Dodgers series here, but here are three things to watch for:

1) Season series up for grabs

The Braves took two of three games from the Dodgers when these teams met in L.A. in May — and they didn’t even have Acuña for that series. 

So if the Braves win this week’s series, they win the season series over the defending champs, which could pay off in October if playoff seeding comes down to tiebreakers. The Dodgers would have to sweep the series here to take the season series from Atlanta.

2) The Dodgers are the hotter team 

Even though both teams have had rocky stretches recently, the Dodgers have bounced back to win six games in a row entering this series, albeit against the Rockies and Pirates, two teams not at the Braves’ level.

But those Braves have also dropped seven of their last 10 games, and are currently trying to stave off the charging Phillies in the NL East. Hitters like Acuña (.150 batting average over his last 10 games) and Olson (.184 average) in particular are scuffling.

3) Yamamoto-Sale duel to end it

They’re saving the best for last. In Thursday’s series finale (7:15 p.m. ET, FS1 / MLB.TV) we get Yoshinobu Yamamoto vs. Chris Sale in a battle of Cy Young-caliber aces (non-Jacob Misiorowski division). 

Sale, who got outdueled by Misiorowski in his last start, ranks second in the NL with a 2.20 ERA. Yamamoto ranks third with a 2.61 ERA. That ought to be a good one. 

 

GAMES OF THE NIGHT

Besides the Dodgers-Braves series opener, here are three other games to watch. 

Astros at Yankees (7:05 p.m. ET, MLB.TV) 

These two rivals always bring it. One big thing to watch as the Astros and Yankees face off this week is Yordan Alvarez taking his Triple Crown quest to New York. Yordan is a Yankee killer: He’s a career .318 hitter with 11 home runs and a 1.009 OPS in 35 games against the Yankees overall, and a .313 hitter with nine home runs and a 1.133 OPS in 18 games at Yankee Stadium specifically. 

Guardians at Angels (9:38 p.m. ET, MLB.TV) 

The Guardians have won five games in a row to get back to .500 and move into the third AL Wild Card spot. Plus they’re just 2 1/2 games back of the White Sox in the AL Central. And they have ace Gavin Williams going, fresh off his sixth double-digit strikeout game in his last eight starts. Williams just broke the 200-K mark for the first time and ranks third in the Majors.

Pirates at Padres (9:40 p.m. ET, MLB.TV) 

Paul Skenes’ struggles get more magnified with each passing start, and now he has to face one of baseball’s hottest lineups. These two teams have been going in opposite directions over the last month. On July 23, the Pirates were 53-50 and the Padres were 50-53. Since then, the Padres are 21-8 and the Pirates are 11-19, with San Diego jumping into Wild Card position and Pittsburgh falling well back in the race. 

CLAY AND THE CUBS, NAME A BETTER DUO

This is one we all kind of saw coming, but it’s fun to see the results so fast. Clay Holmes pitching in front of the Cubs’ elite defense is a match made in heaven. 

Holmes makes his fourth start for the Cubs tonight against the D-backs (9:40 p.m. ET, MLB.TV), and he’s starting to look really good, with just one total run allowed over his last two outings. 

A big part of that is how his pitching style meshes with his new team. Holmes hasn’t been striking out a ton of hitters, but he is a ground-ball machine. And the Cubs’ infielders vacuum up ground balls — Chicago has the second-best infield defense in the Majors (even though Dansby Swanson’s injuryhurts).  

Check out some of these numbers:

• The sinkerballer Holmes has induced 38 ground balls in three starts for the Cubs — the most of any pitcher in the big leagues over that time. 
• The Cubs have turned 32 of those 38 ground balls into outs — giving Holmes the most ground-ball outs in the Majors since his Cubs debut. (And that doesn’t include the extra outs resulting from Holmes’ two ground-ball double plays induced, which would take the total to 34.) 
• Overall, Holmes is inducing a 72% ground-ball rate with the Cubs — the highest of 125 pitchers with at least 50 batted balls against them this month.
• The Cubs’ defense behind Holmes has been worth +3 Outs Above Average — only three pitchers have gotten better defensive support in August.

 

A PITCHER WHO TRULY LOVES HORSING AROUND

Everyone should love something as much as Camilo Doval loves horses.

Perla Paredes has a very wholesome story about the Pirates reliever, who’s such a big horse guy, he used to ride one to the ballparkwhen he was playing in the Dominic Republic.

The horse in question was a gift from Doval’s grandfather, who helped inspire his love for the animals.

Now Doval has 10 horses of his own. He visits them when he returns home in the offseason and during the All-Star break. 

As he puts it simply in the story: “Horses are the best thing there is.” 

250 FOR 250: LEGENDARY WALK-OFFS

For today’s 250 for 250, we have a good one: the top 10 walk-offs in MLB history.

Kirk Gibson. Buckner. Big Papi. 

These are some of the most legendary moments to ever take place on a baseball field. Go crazy, folks, go crazy. 

 

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