Mariners-Tigers, Blue Jays-Yankees, Phillies-Dodgers, and Brewers-Cubs.

You have two extremely fiery divisional rivalries, a series featuring two of the biggest powerhouses in the sport, and Mariners-Tigers.

We’ll start with Mariners-Tigers, because that’s probably the easiest series to predict.

(2) Seattle Mariners vs. (6) Detroit Tigers

This series could very well have multiple close games, but barring a complete implosion on the Mariners’ part, I don’t see this series taking more than 4 games.

The pitching matchups for the Seattle games are as follows:

You’ll probably end up with Gilbert-Mize and Miller/Hancock-Flaherty.

In this interview, you can infer that it is extremely unlikely that Woo pitches in the ALDS. A huge loss for the Mariners, but potentially only one that hurts them if they get to Game 5. If they get to that game, I do wonder if he opens for the M’s and goes once-ish through the order. That’ll all depend on how Kirby pitches in Game 1. The Mariners lined up their rotation based on home/away splits, not based on talent. Kirby has been pretty bad at Comerica throughout his career, and Castillo is significantly worse away from T-Mobile Park. I think the Mariners probably lose Game 2, for what it’s worth. Skubal at T-Mobile could be truly nightmarish for the Mariners. If the Mariners find a way to win that game (either by driving up Skubal’s pitch count or by just knocking him out early), then this series will most likely be a sweep. I don’t think the rest of the Tigers’ rotation will hold up against a non-Cleveland offense that can actually, you know, hit the ball.

Key for Mariners: Get offense going early and often.

Key for Tigers: Prevent the long-ball, get enough timely hits.

(1) Toronto Blue Jays vs. (4) New York Yankees

This series is much harder to predict. The Blue Jays’ pitching staff is horrible at keeping the ball inside the park, and the Yankees are the best team in the league at hitting the ball outside of the park. It’ll be Gausman-Gil in Game 1. The Jays have not yet announced their Game 2 starter. The Yankees have Fried, Rodon, and Schlittler for 2, 3, and 4. If the Blue Jays don’t win Game 1, they are in serious trouble. That’s the only pitching matchup that I could feasibly say they have an advantage in. The Blue Jays have been good against LHP all year (111 wRC+), so that should bode well for them against Fried and Rodon. They’ve also been one of the best offenses in the league against fastballs, which should bode well against Gil and Schlittler. I really can’t see this series not going to a deciding Game 5, and it’s really hard for me to foresee how these offenses will do. The Yankees really didn’t score all that much in the Wild Card, and Blue Jays’ offenses have a bad history in the playoffs. We’ll see which team can take advantage of the other’s bullpen more often. Both teams have big home park advantages, so we’ll see if the Yankees can win a road game.

Key for the Blue Jays: Keep mashing lefties, get good starting pitching performances.

Key for the Yankees: Take advantage of the Jays’ pitching staff’s long ball problem.

The regular season means nothing in October… Yankees in 5.

(2) Philadelphia Phillies vs. (3) Los Angeles Dodgers

Boy, is this series going to have some fireworks. Bryce Harper, Kyle Schwarber, Trea Turner, Cristopher Sanchez, Jhoan Duran, Shohei Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell.

Getting excited just thinking about this series. This series has almost unlimited potential to entertain.

The key to this series is the bullpen. Both teams have had ‘pen problems all season, but the Phillies added Jhoan Duran to the backend of theirs. I trust the Phillies’ pitching staff much more than I trust the Dodgers’. Both bullpens could be exploited if their starters don’t go 6+ each night. We saw the cracks in the Dodgers’ bullpen, even against the lowly Reds’ offense. It’s of the utmost importance that the Dodgers get as much as is humanly possible from their rotation.

Here are the starting pitcher matchups:

Plain and simple, the Dodgers need Ohtani to go 6 innings. They can’t open up their bullpen early in Game 1. Bullpen familiarity becomes a real issue, even for the best bullpens, and for the Dodgers’ bad bullpen? Becomes extremely problematic. Both offenses and rotations are in the top echelon among the respective units in MLB. It really does come down to starter length and offense.

Key for the Phillies: Get to their bullpen. Get 7 innings from SP, close with Strahm-Duran.

Key for the Dodgers: Get to their bullpen. Pray that yours doesn’t get shelled.

(1) Milwaukee Brewers vs. (4) Chicago Cubs

All we know about the starters in this series is in Game 1 – Peralta vs. Boyd. I’d assume Priester gets the Game 2 nod, and Imanaga for the Cubs.

The big question in this series is if the Brewers’ regular season offense can finally translate to the postseason. If it can? No problem for Milwaukee. If it can’t? Your pitching has to be fantastic.

The Cubs weren’t able to take advantage of a pretty shaky Padres rotation and were almost completely shut out by their bullpen. That’s a problem.

I have no idea what to make of this matchup. It’ll be extremely fun, though, as all divisional playoff series are. Both Dodgers-Padres and Guardians-Tigers last year produced fireworks, so hopefully this (and the TOR-NYY ALDS) live up to expectations.

These two teams are intimately familiar with each other – no surprises there. The Brewers’ pitching staff is, as a unit, significantly better than the Cubs’. This seems like an inevitably low-scoring series, so we’ll see who gets more timely hits. Given the Cubs’ offense’s proclivity for the long ball, I give them a slight advantage. But, the Brewers have been able to string together big hits all year. This is really, really hard to predict. The Brewers are, probably, the more complete team, though.

Key for the Brewers: Get just enough hits with RISP to make the difference.

Key for the Cubs: Wake up the offense.