Ace pitchers take center stage in decisive Game 5

Good morning, I'm Dan Gartland. This could be college football's biggest weekend of the season, with a number of big matchups including Ohio State-Oregon, Texas-Oklahoma, LSU-Ole Miss and Kansas State-Colorado. If a ranked team plays away, which game will I attend? Missouri at UMass, of course.

In today's SI:AM:

🤯 Chaos in the WNBA finals
😈 Drinking twins commit
🗽 The Yankees move on

Are you ready for one of the best postseason baseball weekends in years?

Earlier this week, all eight teams still alive in the MLB playoffs split the first two games of their division series –the first time Since the playoffs were expanded to eight teams in 1995, all four LDSs were tied 1-1 after two games. While two of those series ended in four games, the other two are now deadlocked at two games each, leaving two crucial games looming this weekend. It will be The first time since 2019 that several division series go the distance.

The action begins Friday night with Game 5 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Diego Padres (8 p.m. ET on Fox), followed by the Cleveland Guardians and Detroit Tigers on Saturday night (8 p.m. ET on TBS and Max).

The Dodgers-Padres series was the best of them all. Two of the games were a disaster, but the series was extremely tense and personal hostilities arose between the two teams reach a boiling point. We'll see if there are any more extracurricular activities in Game 5, but hopefully the focus is on an exciting game. The Dodgers will put Yoshinobu Yamamoto on the mound against Padres starter Yu Darvish, which is an intriguing pitching duel for a variety of reasons.

For one thing, it will be the first time in MLB history that two Japanese-born pitchers will face each other in a postseason game. What's more, Darvish is a former Dodger whose brief tenure in Los Angeles ended with two disastrous World Series starts in which he couldn't escape the second inning. However, Darvish, pitching on the same mound where he was shelled by the Houston Astros seven years ago, had an outstanding performance in Game 2 of that series, allowing one run on three hits over seven innings. Friday night's game will be an opportunity for further postseason redemption.

Yamamoto will also try to shake off the memory of a poor playoff performance — and one more recent than Darvish's. He started Game 1 of that series and was thrown for five runs on five hits in just three innings. The Dodgers managed to come back and win the game, but Yamamoto's problems put them in a serious hole. The good (and bad) news is that there's no one Los Angeles would rather have on the hill when it comes to life and death than Yamamoto. The Dodgers made a big splash last winter, signing him to a 12-year, $325 million contract. And he lived up to the hype – until he was sidelined for three months due to a shoulder injury in mid-June. He hasn't been the same pitcher since his return, as he hasn't thrown more than five innings in any of his five starts. But for a Dodgers team that has struggled with numerous injuries to its starting players, the best hope for a win in Game 5 is for Yamamoto to return to his pre-injury form.

Darvish and Yamamoto are great pitchers, but Tarik Skubal is even better. Skubal, the projected AL Cy Young winner, will get the ball for the Tigers in Game 5 on Saturday. Skubal's dominance is a key reason Detroit is in the postseason at all. He has allowed more than three runs in a start just three times since June 19 and had a 1.94 ERA in his last nine starts as the Tigers clawed their way out of a late-season hole. And he was nearly untouchable in his two postseason starts, allowing no runs and seven hits in 13 innings. He has 14 strikeouts and just one walk.

The Guardians' pitching situation is more fluid. The team has not yet announced who will start in Game 5, but it will likely be Matthew Boyd, who started Game 2 against Skubal and had good pitching (4 ⅔ scoreless innings with four hits).

Skubal is the only pitcher the Tigers have used as a traditional starter in these playoffs. In the games in which he didn't start, Detroit walked several relievers, many of whom pitched less than an inning. In Game 1, the Tigers used five different pitchers. In both Games 3 and 4, six different pitchers took the mound. The day off between Game 4 on Thursday and Game 5 on Saturday will help Detroit's overworked relievers catch their breath, but the Tigers will still need their ace to get deep into the game.

Games like these are where players define their October legacy. Pitching is only half the battle, but with the quality of starters on offer this weekend, it would be a shock if the heroes in Game 5 weren't the guys on the mound.

…things I saw last night:

5. Dylan Guenther's overtime goal to give the Utah Hockey Club its second NHL victory.
4. David Frys Starting signal for the home run for the guards.
3. No. 1 pick Macklin Celebrini's first NHL goal– a spinning shot from the faceoff circle that fortunately bounced off a defender's skate.
2. Laviska Shenaults 97-yard kickoff return.
1. Courtney Williams' four-point game in the last seconds of regulation.