For possibly the final time in 2025, there are two MLB playoff games on tap. And the stakes are high for all four teams.
In the early game Friday, the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners will meet in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, with the winning team moving one victory away from the World Series. Later on, the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers could complete a sweep of the top-seeded Milwaukee Brewers with a win in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series.
We’ve got it all covered for you with pregame storylines and lineups, plus top moments during the games and takeaways after the final pitches.
Key links: Bracket
Lineups
Series tied at 2
Starting pitchers: Kevin Gausman vs. Bryce Miller
Lineups
Toronto
1. George Springer (R) DH
2. Nathan Lukes (L) LF
3. Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (R) 1B
4. Alejandro Kirk (R) C
5. Daulton Varsho (L) CF
6. Ernie Clement (R) 3B
7. Addison Barger (L) RF
8. Isiah Kiner-Falefa (R) 2B
9. Andres Gimenez (L) SS
Seattle
1. Julio Rodriguez (R) CF
2. Cal Raleigh (S) C
3. Jorge Polanco (S) DH
4. Josh Naylor (L) 1B
5. Randy Arozarena (R) LF
6. Eugenio Suarez (R) 3B
7. J.P. Crawford (L) SS
8. Dominic Canzone (L) RF
9. Leo Rivas (S) 2B
Los Angeles leads series 3-0
Starting pitchers: Jose Quintana vs. Shohei Ohtani
Lineups
Los Angeles
TBD
Milwaukee
TBD
What we’re watching in Friday’s games
ALCS Game 5: Blue Jays-Mariners
How can the Blue Jays keep their momentum going in Game 5?
Buster Olney: Toronto ace Kevin Gausman is fully rested and ready to go, and he could draw upon the work of Max Scherzer, who was effective against the Mariners in Game 4 by slowing everything down. Seattle hitters seemed to be geared up for fastballs against Scherzer, and instead, Scherzer kept dropping in off-speed pitches. And Gausman has an exceptional off-speed weapon in his split-fingered fastball.
David Schoenfield: Keep hitting the ball hard! OK, seriously, few teams have come into Seattle — arguably the toughest place to hit in the majors — and dismantled the Mariners’ pitching staff like the Blue Jays did in the first two games here. They hit 21 balls with an exit velocity of 100-plus mph — with 16 of those going for hits and 11 of those 16 hits going for extra bases. The Blue Jays had the lowest strikeout rate in the majors in the regular season and they showed how lethal this offense can be when it’s putting the ball in play. Oh, yeah, it helps when Andres Gimenez, your No. 9 hitter, has homered twice, and it especially helps when Vladimir Guerrero Jr., after going 0-for-7 in the two games in Toronto, is 6-for-9 in the two games in Seattle.
What must Seattle do differently to salvage its final home game of this ALCS?
Olney: Bryce Miller lifted the entire Seattle traveling party by pitching so well on short rest less than 48 hours after the incredible Game 5 win over Detroit in the AL Division Series, and because of how Games 3 and 4 played out here, Miller is facing similar pressure in Game 5. Except now the Blue Jays hitters are rolling, after piling up a mountain of offense the past two days. It’s possible that Mariners manager Dan Wilson will be aggressive with his bullpen again — particularly with closer Andres Munoz and regular-season ace Bryan Woo.
Schoenfield: The pitchers definitely need to get more swing-and-miss against the Blue Jays, but the Seattle offense needs to produce. It’s one thing to face Tarik Skubal twice, like the Mariners did against Detroit, but Skubal isn’t pitching in this series. In nine playoff games, the Mariners are hitting just .215 and several key guys are scuffling: Randy Arozarena has a .536 OPS with 16 strikeouts, Eugenio Suarez has a .475 OPS with 14 strikeouts and Victor Robles, who was benched in Game 4, has a .474 OPS. Dominic Canzone, a key player in the second half who hit .300 with an .840 OPS, is 2-for-19 in the postseason. Against the right-handed Gausman, his lefty bat is important.
NLCS Game 4: Brewers at Dodgers
What must the Brewers do to avert a sweep in Game 4?
Alden Gonzalez: First off, they need to hope Jackson Chourio is healthy enough to play. And then they actually need to do a lot of what they did in Game 3: apply pressure early, keep the score close and force Dodgers manager Dave Roberts to go to his bullpen sooner than he’d like. The Brewers, of course, need to hit a lot better (especially Christian Yelich, who is 1-for-11 in this series). But the Dodgers aren’t built to win many games in which their relievers need to get 10 outs to maintain a small lead. That they did it successfully in Game 3 doesn’t mean they can do it again in Game 4.
Jeff Passan: How about hit? The Brewers have mustered nine hits in the first three games of the series. Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow allowed three each in their starts. Blake Snell yielded one in his start. Alex Vesia and Roki Sasaki gave up one in a relief appearance. And that’s it. They’ve scored a total of three runs. Striking out 30% of the time doesn’t help, and the fact that they’re facing someone in Shohei Ohtani who had nearly a 7-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio in the regular season only intensifies the need to find something now. The Brewers need to be better in every regard to turn around this series, but putting runs on the board is priority No. 1.
What do you expect from Shohei Ohtani in his first start of the NLCS?
Gonzalez: Ohtani will be taking the ball on 12 days’ rest. The last time he had that much time off between starts, it was Sept. 16, when he faced the Philadelphia Phillies after an 11-day layoff from pitching. What followed was five no-hit innings against one of the sport’s best offenses. The Brewers’ lineup isn’t as menacing as the Phillies’, but the team will be playing desperate and, unlike in Game 3, won’t have to hit in the shadows. Ohtani, though, will be sharp, regularly hitting triple digits with his fastball. The question is whether he can shake his offensive slump. On his start days during the regular season, Ohtani’s slash line dipped to .222/.323/.556.
Passan: Because Ohtani has built up slowly to get deep into outings coming off his second elbow reconstruction, it’s easy to have missed that his stuff has returned immediately, which is not always the case with major surgeries. Ohtani never has thrown his average fastball harder, and his sweeper remains one of the game’s best pitches, bendy and confounding. Milwaukee did not handle 97-mph-plus velocity particularly well during the regular season, and what makes it particularly problematic is Ohtani’s wide variety of other pitches to keep them off balance. His first postseason start went six innings, the same as his previous start to end the regular season. If he does the same in Game 4, the Dodgers should find themselves in a good position.