What we learned in the NLDS and ALDS: Bullpens, big hitters, Steven Kwan is back

Four teams remain, each with a 25 percent chance of winning the World Series. If you ask them now, they all feel like they have a 99.99 percent chance of winning, and that's just adorable.

The New York Mets face the Los Angeles Dodgers in the battle for the National League pennant. The New York Yankees face the Cleveland Guardians for the American League pennant. In a few weeks, three of these teams will experience nightmares and regrets. One of them will have confetti in their hair. It's cruel, but so is this sport.

Here's what we learned from the Division Series in both leagues.

The Dodgers will go as far as their bullpen will take them

The Dodgers were told they had to fight their way to a championship, and that hasn't changed. They may have won Game 5 with two solo home runs in a solid 2-0 game, but they're not going to average two runs per game in the NLCS and still win the pennant.

Except, I don't know, maybe they can?

A list of Dodgers relievers who didn't allow a single run in the NLDS:

• Evan Phillips (4 1/3 innings pitched)
• Blake Treinen (3 2/3 IP)
• Michael Kopech (3 1/3 IP)
• Anthony Banda (3 IP)
• Alex Vesia (3 IP)
• Daniel Hudson (2 1/3 IP)
• Landon Knack (1 IP)

Michael Kopech, 102 mph jet fuel. ⛽️ pic.twitter.com/xTOonN9cI6

— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) October 12, 2024

An explosion entered this group, and the San Diego Padres might have still had a chance at their first World Series title. However, that's more than 20 innings of bullpen perfection, and championship teams were built from less.

It's not like these people all come from nowhere either. Three of them were closer. Daniel Hudson has fought through fire and swamp to come back from all sorts of injuries, including two Tommy John surgeries, so he shouldn't be intimidated by a seventh-inning outing in a silly NLCS.

Yu Darvish reminded everyone that good pitching can limit any team, even the stacked Dodgers. He hit brilliantly and made as many (if not fewer) errors as Yoshinobu Yamamoto. The Dodgers can counteract this if their bullpen is perfect or close enough. If the lineup scores eight runs like it did in Game 4, it won't matter much. However, when things get tense and exciting, they need another flawless streak from at least five of the seven relievers who were perfect in the NLDS. — Grant Brisbee

Mark Vientos is on the verge of becoming a household name

Mind you, we're talking about households that intentionally watch baseball. The majority of regular households still believe that Derek Jeter is active, and half of them believe that he played for the Dallas Cowboys. Forget these objectively misguided, albeit normal, households. Focus on the baseball sick. You might think of Mark Vientos more in the next two weeks than in your entire life.

Vientos was a second-round pick out of high school in the 2017 MLB Draft and was just 17 years old in his first professional season. Since then, it's been a bit of a struggle, as baseball careers often are. He was challenged with a promotion to Double A after the minor leagues resumed in 2021, and he continued to hit and hit wherever he was deployed… except for his brief cameos in the majors in 2022 and 2023. The strikeout -to-walk ratio was always a bit suspect, so battling against big league pitchers didn't seem out of place. Maybe he was just a Quad-A hitter?

Seems unlikely at this point. Vientos hit 27 home runs in just 111 games during the regular season and took the Mets to the NLCS in the postseason with a silly .563/.611/1.063 slash line, with two doubles and two home runs. His sense of timing was also impeccable, which is important for a Mets team that likes to wait until the end of the inning to score and give their fans a good scare.

Don't let the bronze medal on his Cooperstown plaque melt away just yet – he had just three singles in three games against the Milwaukee Brewers – but pay attention to his offense. To get this far, the Mets needed more than Brandon Nimmo, Francisco Lindor and Pete Alonso. Here's one of the guys who helped. — Brisbee

Giancarlo Stanton still has a chance to become a Yankees legend

The reason we aren't tired of the long-winded discourse about Aaron Judge's grip or mental toughness is because we didn't have to go there. Judge had a patient but calm ALDS, and his career postseason numbers are still closer to Didi Gregorius's than Mickey Mantle's. An early exit from the postseason would have made this a much bigger deal than anyone would have liked.

However, the reason the Yankees' season didn't end so early is because of another extremely big hitter. The Yankees have paid Giancarlo Stanton just under $200 million over the last seven seasons, and he has had more than WAR in just one two from them. He's averaged a WAR of 1.3 over those seven seasons and hasn't had a really good (or healthy) season since 2021. The odds were overwhelmingly in favor of him being a symbol of what went wrong with the Yankees when they didn't win a championship during his tenure.

Giancarlo Stanton's start last night marked his twelfth career start #Offseason Home run! 💥

(MLB x @GoogleCloud) pic.twitter.com/TSDvDtZG7u

– MLB (@MLB) October 10, 2024

The chances are good Despite it in favor of that legacy if the Yankees don't win, but the ALDS provided a glimpse into an alternate universe where Stanton is as celebrated as Scott Brosius and Aaron Boone (the player), if not some of the franchise's more prominent heroes. Stanton had the most important hit of the series, according to Nerd Stats, an eighth-inning home run that broke a 2-2 tie in Game 3 and gave the Yankees the series lead, and he added an insurance RBI in Game 4 I also stole a base that totally inspired me MeSo I can't imagine how this impacted the Yankees' dugout.

Certainly, at 1-for-18 and 10 strikeouts, he is away from becoming a total Yankees idiot in the public eye. But with another good series and some well-timed things, he could be the face of the entire postseason. This is what the Yankees have been waiting for all along. — Brisbee

The great version of Steven Kwan is back for the Guardians

On June 19, Steven Kwan, the Guardians' smooth left fielder, collected two hits and raised his batting average to .397. The rapid, Ichiro-like pace was one of the reasons the Guardians posted a 51-26 record, creating enough of a cushion to stay off the field in the AL Central. Kwan hit .352 in the first half before taking a precipitous fall after the All-Star break. He hit just .206 in the second half, a decline that may have been due in part to back pain that eventually landed him on the injured list in September.

Well, guess what: It looks like the rest did Kwan some good. Because he's a terror on the battlefield again.

Kwan finished the American League Division Series 11-for-21 (.524) against the Detroit Tigers, one hit shy of the aforementioned Ichiro Suzuki and Edgar Martinez, who had the most hits in an ALDS. He had three hits in Game 5, including one during a five-run fifth inning against Tarik Skubal. He also scored six runs in five games. He was everywhere.

We understand the historic nature of the Guardians bullpen. We also know about José Ramírez, who has been so criminally underrated for so many years that he probably has just about the right amount of value among baseball fans right now. But if Kwan continues to go crazy at the plate, keep this bookmarked. After facing the red-hot Tigers, the Guardians suddenly look more like the team that turned the American League upside down in the first half. This is a team that could cause problems for the Yankees in the ALCS. — Rustin Dodd

(Photo by Steven Kwan: ​​Nick Cammett/Getty Images)