SI:AM | Another Day Jam-Packed With Playoff Baseball

Plus, Zion Williamson’s long road back from his foot injury.

Good morning, I’m Dan Gartland. The wild-card round was a nice appetizer, but the LDS are when the MLB playoffs really get started.

In today’s SI:AM:

🏈 Matt Rhule gets canned

💪 Zion is back

🏊‍♂️ Michael Phelps on mental health

What to watch for as the playoffs start for real

Are you ready for another day packed full of playoff baseball? All four division series begin today, starting at 1 p.m. ET with the Phillies and Braves.

It’ll be interesting to see how the new playoff schedule affects this round. Will the top seeds, who haven’t played since last Wednesday, be well rested or rusty? Will the wild-card-round winners carry their momentum forward into this round, or would they have rather had the time off? The LDS and LCS schedules are also worth paying attention to. With more off days baked into the LDS schedules than the LCS, pitcher usage will be an important challenge for managers, as Tom Verducci explains.

To me, this is the real start of the playoffs. The wild-card round was a gimmick devised by MLB to boost television revenue. Now, the best teams in baseball—the ones with a legitimate chance of winning the World Series—get to play. I’m excited for it to get started. Let’s break down each series.

Phillies at Braves (Game 1 today at 1:07 p.m. ET on Fox)

I’ve got my eye on two guys in particular in this series: Bryce Harper and Spencer Strider.

Harper has struggled since coming back from a broken thumb in late August, hitting .227 with a .676 OPS in 35 games. But he did hit a home run in the Phillies’ clinching win over the Cardinals on Friday. If Harper can start hitting like he did during his 2021 MVP campaign, it’ll be a massive boost for the Phillies.

Strider has emerged as one of the best young pitchers in baseball, posting a 2.67 ERA in 31 appearances (20 starts) as a rookie this year. That’s why the Braves went out and signed him to a six-year, $75 million contract extension yesterday. Atlanta is still waiting to hear whether he’ll be available during this series, though. He’s been out since late September with a strained oblique, but manager Brian Snitker gave a promising update yesterday, saying Strider “was really good” in a bullpen session Sunday. If he’s able to make a start, or even just put out a fire coming out of the bullpen, the Atlanta pitching staff would suddenly be a lot more formidable.

Mariners at Astros (Game 1 today at 3:37 p.m. ET on TBS)

The Mariners are the feel-good story of the playoffs after breaking their two-decade postseason drought, but they face a stiff challenge here. The Astros are as good as ever, having won more than 100 games for the fourth time in the last five full seasons. Houston won the season series 12–7, but Seattle still has reason for optimism. All 19 of those games took place before the trade deadline, which means the Astros haven’t had to face new Mariners ace Luis Castillo yet. A lot has changed since these two last met on July 31, so don’t count out Seattle just yet.

Guardians at Yankees (Game 1 today at 7:37 p.m. ET on TBS)

After the Guardians squeaked past the Rays by scoring three runs in two games, they’ll have to hope their bats wake up against a Yankees team that scored the most runs in the American League (4.98 per game).

New York has concerns too, though. Several key players will either be missing or hampered due to injuries. Matt Carpenter, who came out of nowhere and hit 15 home runs in 47 games before breaking his foot in August, is expected to be on the roster and be used in a pinch-hitting or DH role. The hitter the Yankees still have questions about is D.J. LeMahieu. He was bothered by a toe injury during the final month of the season, and manager Aaron Boone said yesterday that he wasn’t sure whether the infielder would make the roster. The bullpen is also thin after Aroldis Chapman was left off the roster for skipping a workout. Rookie reliever Ron Marinaccio is unavailable due to a stress reaction in his shin, and top relievers Michael King and Chad Green are already out for the season.

Padres at Dodgers (Game 1 today at 9:37 p.m. ET on FS1)

These Dodgers were one of the best regular-season teams in MLB history, winning 111 games (tied for the fourth-most ever). But they’re not infallible. Craig Kimbrel lost the closer’s role on Sept. 23 and might not even make the postseason roster, president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman said. There’s also a hole in the outfield, as Chris Taylor deals with a neck injury and Joey Gallo struggles at the plate. Trayce Thompson, whom Stephanie Apstein profiled last month, figures to get the bulk of the playing time in left.

If the Padres want to stand a chance, they’ll need to hope their pitchers perform as well as they did against the Mets in the last round. Mike Clevinger, who didn’t pitch in the wild-card series due to a non-COVID-19 illness, will get the start tonight. Yu Darvish is lined up to start Game 2 after seven dominant innings in New York over the weekend, and Joe Musgrove showed in the clinching Game 3 what he is capable of. If those guys can go deep into games and help the bullpen get the ball to closer Josh Hader, the Padres might stand a chance.

The best of Sports Illustrated

Jeffrey A. Salter/Sports Illustrated

Today’s Daily Cover is Howard Beck’s cover story from the latest issue of the magazine, on Zion Williamson and his recovery from a foot injury:

​​We haven’t seen Zion soar for 17 months, leaving the world to wonder: Is he still the prince that was promised? Or just a phantom passing through the twilight? What will he be when he at last takes the court again on Oct. 19, in Brooklyn?

The Panthers are in worse shape after firing Matt Rhule than they were before he got there, Conor Orr writes. … Orr also has a list of candidates to replace Rhule in Carolina. … Julie Kliegman spoke with Michael Phelps about his mental health journey as we approach the seventh anniversary of the SI cover story detailing his time in rehab. … Rohan Nadkarni argues that it would have made sense for the Warriors to move on from Draymond Green even before he punched Jordan Poole. … Oklahoma’s three-game losing streak is raising serious questions about Brent Venables’s future in Norman, Pat Forde writes.

Around the sports world

Davante Adams will probably be hearing from the league office after he shoved a media member following the Raiders’ loss last night. … Teams are lining up to acquire some of the Panthers’ top players now that they’ve fired their coach. … The NWSL fired two Pride coaches after an investigation into allegations they engaged in retaliatory behavior. … Questionable roughing-the-passer calls like this one from last night’s game are going to be a topic of conversation all NFL season.

SIQ

True or false: On this day in 1992, Deion Sanders played in both a regular-season game for the Falcons and a playoff game for the Braves.

Yesterday’s SIQ: On Oct. 10, 1904, Boston Americans pitchers George Winter and Bill Dinneen threw complete games in both ends of a doubleheader against the New York Highlanders to give Boston the record for most complete games by a team in a season. How many complete games did Boston pitchers throw that season?

• 124
• 137
• 148
• 154

Answer: 148. That broke the record set by the 1899 Chicago Orphans, who threw 147 complete games in 152 games.

Boston used a grand total of five pitchers all season. Five! Those guys threw just 3.4% of their innings in relief.

The regular season lasted 154 games in those years, but Boston played 157 games. (That’s because, at the time, games that were called due to darkness or rain with neither team leading were declared ties. Rather than suspend the game and pick it up the next day, a tie game was played again from the start.) That means Boston pitchers made a total of nine relief appearances all season long.

But hey, when one of your five pitchers is Cy Young, you’re not going to need to go to the bullpen often. The rest of Boston’s staff was nearly as good as Young, too. The team allowed the fewest runs per game in the American League and won its second straight pennant. Unfortunately, there was no World Series that year, because Giants owner John Brush and manager John McGraw didn’t think the champion of the newer AL was worthy of playing the NL champs.

From the Vault: Oct. 11, 1999

Peter Read Miller/Sports Illustrated

Things may be bad for the Broncos right now, but they’re not as bad as they were in 1999.

After leading the team to a 14–2 regular season in 1998 and a second straight Super Bowl victory, John Elway retired, leaving Denver with a gaping hole at quarterback. Coach Mike Shanahan opted, controversially, to go with second-year pro Brian Griese over veteran Bubby Brister, who had won four starts in place of an injured Elway the year before. The move had shaken players’ confidence in their coach, Michael Silver wrote:

When Elway left, Shanahan became the unquestioned king of the Broncos. On Aug. 31 he made a move some players viewed as heavy-handed, benching popular veteran Bubby Brister without warning and handing the starting quarterback's job to second-year player Brian Griese. Had Denver gotten off to a good start, the decision would have been heralded as another sign of Shanahan's genius. Instead, Griese's struggles—and Shanahan's insistence on keeping him in the lineup—have served as a lightning rod for all the frustration surrounding the loss of a legend. Shanahan concedes that it's “human nature” for players to ascribe their struggles to Elway's absence, “but you just hope they have enough character to overcome it.”

Griese played well in the Broncos’ season-opening loss to the Dolphins, but after three straight stinkers (in which he threw just one touchdown and five interceptions), rolling with the youngster appeared to be a massive blunder for Shanahan. Denver was reeling at 0–4 and when running back Terrell Davis went down with a torn ACL and MCL in Week 4, the Broncos knew they were toast.

“We could very easily go 0–8, maybe finish 3–13,” one veteran player told Silver. “I hate to say it, but we're finished.”

The quote went the pre-Y2K version of viral and was a major topic of conversation in the locker room after the magazine hit newsstands. Shanahan wasn’t happy.

“I call people out,” the coach told reporters. “No. 1, if you say it and you won’t stand up for it, you're a coward. And if you feel that way after four losses, after the success that we’ve had and have given up on the season after four games, I don’t want you.”

The anonymous player was too pessimistic, it turned out. The Broncos won their next two and finished 6–10. Griese’s first season as the starter didn’t go very well (he completed 57.7% of his passes and threw as many interceptions as touchdowns), but Shanahan’s loyalty was rewarded when Griese was named to the Pro Bowl in 2000 as the Broncos went 11–5 and got back to the playoffs.

Check out more of SI’s archives and historic images at vault.si.com.

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