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 Dodgers-Phillies National League Division Series is a showdown between two powerhouse franchises. Emphasis on the “power” part.

It is headlined by the likely two leading vote-getters for NL MVP, Shohei Ohtani and Kyle Schwarber. They were the top two home run hitters in the Senior Circuit this season, with Schwarber edging out Ohtani, 56-55.

But of course, this isn’t just a matchup of two big boppers. Before these designated hitters slug it out during this best-of-five series, they will go head to head in the first inning of Saturday’s Game 1 at Citizens Bank Park (6:38 p.m. ET on TBS, truTV and HBO Max).

That’s because Ohtani will be making his postseason pitching debut, becoming the first player in Major League history to start at least one postseason game as a pitcher and at least one as a non-pitcher in the same year.

It’s an appropriate assignment for Ohtani, since he finished the regular season looking like a Game 1 ace. Over his final four starts, he allowed one earned run over 19 2/3 innings with 27 strikeouts and four walks. That span includes five no-hit frames vs. the Phillies on Sept. 16. Schwarber faced Ohtani for the first two times in his career and came away 0-for-2, with a strikeout looking and a flyout to left.

But the Phillies can enter Game 1 with the knowledge that they can prevail even when Ohtani is untouchable. Once Ohtani departed after the fifth, Philadelphia attacked the Dodgers’ bullpen for six runs in the sixth en route to a 9-6 triumph at Dodger Stadium.

Getting that win was important. But so was getting a glimpse of Ohtani’s nasty stuff. Schwarber knew that first look could be vital down the road.

“Moving forward, if we do see [Ohtani],” Schwarber said after that game, “we feel like we can have somewhat of a better understanding of what the ball’s going to do.”

• 'That's his sacred space': Schwarber uses batting cage as laboratory for greatness

The Phillies will indeed see him Saturday. And Schwarber is usually at his most beastly when we see him in October. He has a .906 career OPS in the postseason -- 60 points higher than his regular-season mark – and his 21 playoff homers are the fourth-most all time.

Ohtani vs. Schwarber. It’ll be power vs. power on the mound and at the plate. Only the strongest will survive ... and advance.

-- Brian Murphy

Thirty-six years ago, Pat Murphy, then the baseball coach at Notre Dame, had a young shortstop who was making a few too many misplays for his liking. To shore up his glovework -- and maybe harden him up a bit -- Murphy sent him out to his position and had him face a series of tough grounders. One of them took a tricky hop and broke his nose.

An hour later, Craig Counsell was back out there with his nose reassembled, ready for more.

“That taught me everything I needed to know,” Murphy said in 2015. “One, that he was destined to be undenied."

The other thing Murphy realized was that he probably needed to ease off a bit. But this sort of give and take defines their relationship: From the
start, the two baseball lifers have learned greatly from each other.

Decades after Murphy coached Counsell, he served as bench coach for eight seasons under his former charge, who managed the Brewers. And then when Counsell departed to steer the division-rival Cubs, Murphy slid in seamlessly to take his place as Milwaukee’s skipper.

This terrific feature co-written by Adam McCalvy and Jordan Bastian recounts in great detail the duo’s winding and intersecting roads, which led to their meeting of the minds in the NLDS starting tomorrow (2 ET, TBS). One thing is for certain: No matter what happens on the diamond this week, the two will remain tight off it.

"I know people would love for us to get in a fight and go back and forth
between the Cubs and us, and have fights and all that stuff,” Murphy said. “Maybe that will happen, I don’t know. But we will always still be friends.”

-- Bryan Horowitz

The Blue Jays, on the basis of their 8-5 record vs. the Yankees this season, held the all-important tiebreaker that allowed them to secure their first AL East title since 2015 despite both clubs finishing tied for the best record in the league at 94-68.

However, as you look at our position-by-position breakdown for the series, the Yankees would seem to have a decisive edge heading into Game 1 on Saturday (4 p.m. ET on FOX) at Rogers Centre, where Toronto won six of seven this year.

So, who really has the best chance to advance to the ALCS? It could come down to which of the teams’ marquee superstars -- Aaron Judge and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. -- can carry their team on their shoulders.

If not for Cal Raleigh’s historic season, we’d be talking about Judge cruising to his third AL MVP Award after leading the Majors in average, OBP, slugging, OPS+ and WAR while notching his fourth career 50-homer season. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., meanwhile, had a solid if unspectacular year at the plate (23 HR, 133 OPS+) after signing a 14-year extension worth half a billion dollars in April.

Seems like a slam dunk in this one-on-one matchup, right? Not so fast. In the AL Wild Card Series, the Red Sox clearly took advantage of Judge’s ailing right elbow, making him a defensive liability of sorts in right field. Guerrero, meanwhile, is a former third baseman with an accurate arm who isn’t afraid to use it to make a game-changing play. Vladdy Jr. can also pick it at first, as evidenced by his 2022 Gold Glove Award, and he’s always hit well vs. the Yankees, including a 1.007 OPS in 13 games this year.

Judge still obviously gets the nod here for his otherworldly offensive talents, but if Guerrero can keep pace with the Yanks’ best player, the Jays have to like their chances to advance.

-- Ed Eagle

If the postseason is meant to pit the best against the best, the Tigers-Mariners ALDS will make good on that pledge, at least in one cool way.

At some point -- likely in Game 2 and perhaps even again in a decisive Game 5 -- we'll get to see Tigers ace Tarik Skubal face Mariners slugger and MLB home run leader Cal Raleigh. In other words, the likely AL Cy Young winner against a top candidate for the AL MVP Award. It'll be a classic case of power vs. power and just the type of drama we like to see in October.

A Cy Young vs. MVP postseason matchup isn't all that rare, but it definitely adds intrigue to a series. Such a pairing last happened in the 2022 ALCS, when eventual Cy Young winner Justin Verlander and the Astros faced eventual MVP Aaron Judge and the Yankees. Another notable example? Game 1 of the 2010 NLDS, when Phillies ace and Cy Young winner Roy Halladay no-hit MVP Joey Votto and the Reds. The last time the Mariners were involved in this type of postseason matchup was in the 2001 ALCS, when MVP and Rookie of the Year Ichiro Suzuki faced Cy Young winner Roger Clemens and the Yankees.

So, what can we expect from Skubal vs. Raleigh? Their previous head-to-head matchups don't tell us much. Raleigh has just nine plate appearances against Skubal dating to last season, and he's 2-for-9 (.222) with a homer and two RBIs. The bulk of those ABs came this season, as Raleigh was tormenting pitchers to the tune of 60 homers. But he was 1-for-6 against Skubal in 2025 -- the lone hit being a single -- with three strikeouts. 

However, in a fun twist, Raleigh was able to get a unique perspective on the lefty, as they were the starting battery in the All-Star Game. They even teamed up for the first use of the ABS challenge system in the Midsummer Classic, which resulted in a strikeout. Now they’ll be on opposite sides.

-- Jason Foster

The Minor League season may be over, but you can catch many of baseball's top prospects in action when the Arizona Fall League kicks off its 33rd season on Monday, with the Peoria Javelinas facing the Scottsdale Scorpions.

Rosters are once again packed with talent, including 13 of baseball's Top 100 prospects, led by shortstops Kevin McGonigle (MLB Pipeline's No. 2 prospect) and Sebastian Walcott (No. 6). Having a pair of prospects this highly ranked is rare -- and reminiscent of the 2011 AFL season with Bryce Harper and Mike Trout.

McGonigle earned the title of best pure hitter in the Minors this season after slashing .305/.408/.583 between High-A and Double-A, while Walcott, a big-time signing out of the Bahamas in 2023, has some of the biggest raw power in the prospect ranks. And they're far from the only intriguing players to keep an eye on.

Righty Rhett Lowder (No. 80) and southpaw Hagen Smith (No. 88) are the top-ranked pitchers competing, and outfielder Braden Montgomery (No. 35) and first baseman Charlie Condon (No. 61) are advanced college hitters from the 2024 Draft. Check out the top player each team is sending to compete in the AFL.

-- Ben Weinrib

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