Welcome to The Pregame Lineup, postseason edition! We'll keep you up to speed on everything you need to know every weekday throughout the 2025 MLB playoffs. Thanks for being here.

The time for talk is just about over. We are only a few hours away from the first pitch of the 2025 World Series. 

That first pitch will come out of the hand of Blue Jays rookie right-hander Trey Yesavage, which is a big story in and of itself. But the bigger story will be standing in the batter’s box: Shohei Ohtani.

Last time we saw Ohtani, he was authoring a performance that has no equal: three LONG home runs at the plate to go with six scoreless innings and 10 K’s on the mound in a clinching game. His slump in the earlier rounds is a distant memory now; the NLCS MVP appears primed to take over the sport’s biggest stage. 

• 2 battles the Jays must win vs. Ohtani to down Dodgers

You could say the same about the ALCS MVP, Vladimir Guerrero Jr., who is in the middle of a historic playoff run. The Blue Jays’ leader is batting .442 with six homers in 11 postseason games. Vlad Jr. produced a 1.330 OPS against the Mariners, and his incredible 1.440 OPS for the postseason is the eighth best by any player through the LCS (min. 35 PA).

Ohtani and Guerrero. They are the headliners. They are the best hitters in this series. They are the faces of their respective franchises and the faces of baseball in their respective home countries. We all want to see stars perform like stars when everything is on the line. And with how locked in both of these stars are right now, we all might get just what we want.

So, which megastar is going to make the biggest impact tonight? That’s one of the top storylines of Game 1, according to Will Leitch. Click here to find out what else you should be watching for starting at 8 p.m. ET on FOX.

-- Brian Murphy

More than ever before, fans really need to be in their seats from the first pitch of each game of the 2025 World Series. Because there’s a decent chance the ball could end up in the seats, too.

That goes for the top and bottom halves of the first inning -- and not just because Shohei Ohtani (who paced the Majors with 12 leadoff homers this season) is one of the greatest power-hitting leadoff men in MLB history and George Springer is tied for third with 23 career postseason home runs.

It’s also because it could be the best pitch either guy -- and any of their teammates, for that matter -- sees to hit all game. As our Jared Greenspan broke down in his deep dive, during the 2025 regular season, 92.4% of pitches to begin the first inning were fastballs, compared to 47.4% overall. In addition, 59.1% of those first pitches were in the strike zone -- up from 50.7% overall.

Gone are the days of the leadoff man trying to see as many pitches as possible to help his teammates gauge what the opposing starter has going that day. In all, there were 51 first-pitch leadoff homers in 2025, the most since the pitch-tracking era began in 2008. By contrast there were just six in 2010.

Springer (ALCS Game 1) and Jackson Chourio (NLCS Game 2) have both led off games with first-pitch homers so far this postseason. Will there be more in the Fall Classic?

-- Ed Eagle

Never before has a World Series matchup held such global implications.

It's the first Fall Classic to feature teams from separate countries since Joe Carter touched 'em all for Toronto in 1993. And while the Blue Jays carry the spirit of an entire country behind them, the Dodgers -- with Shohei Ohtani, Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki, among others -- have ushered in a tremendous wave of international fandom in their own right.

Average MLB postseason viewership (4.48 million) is as high as it's been since 2017, having increased 13% from 2024. ALCS viewership for Mariners-Blue Jays skyrocketed a whopping 60% from last year (5.88 million to 9.39 million), and Game 7's unforgettable theatrics made it the most-watched Blue Jays game in Sportsnet history. Meanwhile, the Dodgers-Brewers series brought in more Japanese viewers than any NLCS ever has. 

As for the World Series participants, both teams feature in the top five most-followed MLB clubs on Instagram and X, while five players -- Ohtani, Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts, Clayton Kershaw and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. -- made the top 20 of jersey sales across MLB this year. To top it off, the Dodgers and Blue Jays rosters feature players from a combined eight countries and territories, the most since 2018.

-- Justin Morris

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Shohei Ohtani aren’t guaranteed World Series rings. They’ll have to earn those on the field by leading their team to victory. 

Infielder Buddy Kennedy and right-hander José Ureña, though? They’re already golden. Both players are in line to receive rings regardless of the outcome of this Fall Classic, because both played for Los Angeles and Toronto in 2025, and baseball tradition grants that honor to every player who appeared for a team in a championship season, no matter how briefly. It was indeed brief for these two journeymen, both of whom also played elsewhere this year (Kennedy for the Phillies; Ureña for the Angels, Mets and Twins).

Kennedy: 1 hit in 7 games for LAD | 1 hit in 2 games for TOR

Ureña: 3.00 ERA in 2 games for LAD | 3.65 ERA in 6 games for TOR

They may as well go ahead and get sized for those rings now.

-- Andrew Simon

The Blue Jays are welcoming back two franchise icons and World Series heroes to help this weekend’s two Fall Classic games at Toronto’s Rogers Centre get off to a roaring start.

Cito Gaston, who managed the World Series-winning clubs in 1992 and '93, will throw out the first pitch tonight, and Joe Carter, who delivered the '93 walk-off blast in Game 6 (the anniversary of which was yesterday), will handle the honors tomorrow night.

It's all part of the star-studded pregame festivities, which will include Pharrell Williams and the Voices of Fire choir performing both the U.S. and Canadian national anthems before Game 1, followed by popular American singer Bebe Rexha and Grammy Award-winning Canadian singer Alessia Cara each performing their country's anthem before Game 2.

Hey Joe, you'll never throw a bigger first pitch in your life! (Sorry, someone had to say it.)

Commemorate the Fall Classic by grabbing the 2025 World Series program. It features specialty graphics and in-depth features to celebrate this huge series. If you're a fan of either team, or just a collector, get pumped up for an epic clash that's sure to send the season off on a high note. 

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