Browsing: postseason

Oct 15, 2025, 01:34 AM ET

MILWAUKEE — Los Angeles Dodgers slugger Max Muncy set a franchise record by hitting his 14th career postseason homer in Game 2 of the National League Championship Series against the Milwaukee Brewers on Tuesday night.

Muncy’s 412-foot drive over the center-field wall in the sixth inning broke the Dodgers’ mark he had shared with Justin Turner and Corey Seager. The solo shot off starter Freddy Peralta extended Los Angeles’ lead to 3-1.

The Dodgers went on to win 5-1 to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.

“It means a lot to me,” Muncy said. “The Dodgers are a franchise that have been around for a very, very long time. A lot of very successful players have played in this organization. And to be able to break that record is kind of huge for me.

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“But the biggest thing I would say is it speaks to the fact that I’ve had a chance to play in so many postseason games. And that’s the biggest thing about being a Dodger. You know you’ll have a chance in October to play meaningful baseball games. To be able to have that chance every single year I’ve been here, that’s always been the most important thing to me. You get as many chances as you can to win that World Series. That’s the reason why you play this game.”

It was Muncy’s 70th postseason game with the Dodgers. Turner played 86 for Los Angeles from 2014 to 2022. Seager appeared in 61 from 2015 to 2021.

Muncy nearly set the team record in Game 1 when he hit a long drive to center that was inches from being a grand slam. That shot instead turned into an unusual 8-6-2 double play after the ball popped out of center fielder Sal Frelick’s glove.

Frelick attempted to make a leaping grab, but the ball bounced off the top of the wall before he controlled it and the Brewers ended up forcing runners out at home plate and third base.

Muncy was asked after Tuesday’s game whether he feared Frelick would make the catch when he saw the ball heading in that direction.

“I definitely thought he got it,” Muncy said. “That back wall is so close to the center-field wall. I didn’t see the ball bounce at all. When I didn’t see it bounce, I thought he came down with it again. And I was about to be very, very frustrated. But I saw him sit on the ground. That’s when I realized he didn’t have it.”

Muncy also holds the Dodgers record with 60 career postseason walks.

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Oct 14, 2025, 08:04 PM ET

NEW YORK — Major League Baseball is having its most-viewed postseason in the United States in 15 years.

Viewership is averaging 4.33 million through the division series, according to MLB and Nielsen, a 30% increase over last year and the best since 2010.

Last Friday’s 15-inning thriller between the Seattle Mariners and Detroit Tigers averaged 8.72 million viewers on Fox, Fox Deportes and streaming. The Mariners’ 3-2 victory in the fifth and deciding game of the AL Division Series was the most-watched division round game on Fox since Detroit’s Game 5 win over the New York Yankees in 2011 averaged 9.72 million.

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The two AL Division Series on Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 4.15 million, the most-watched division round on any network since the NL Division Series on TBS (Cubs-Cardinals and Mets-Dodgers).

The series between Toronto and the Yankees, which the Blue Jays won in four games, averaged 7.65 million in the U.S. and Canada.

Viewership for all four division series in the U.S. averaged 4.17 million, its highest since 2011, and a 17% jump from last year.

Blue Jays division series games in Canada averaged 3.65 million, a 10% increase from the team’s last ALDS appearance in 2016.

Sunday’s first game of the AL Championship Series between Seattle and Toronto averaged 10.02 million in the U.S. and Canada, including 5.31 million on Fox, Fox Deportes and streaming. The U.S. viewership is a 32% increase over last year’s Game 1 of the ALCS between Cleveland and the Yankees on TBS.

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Oct 12, 2025, 09:52 PM ET

TORONTO — The Blue Jays’ George Springer homered on the first pitch from Seattle’s Bryce Miller in the American League Championship Series opener Sunday, moving past the New York Yankees’ Derek Jeter into sole possession of fifth place on the career list with his 21st postseason home run.

Springer’s 385-foot drive to right field on a fastball at the outside corner put Toronto ahead with the first postseason leadoff home run in Blue Jays history. Springer has 63 leadoff homers in the regular season, second to Rickey Henderson’s record 81.

“I was just kind of looking for something to hit,” Springer said following Toronto’s 3-1 defeat. “It wasn’t anything specific.”

Manny Ramirez hit a record 29 postseason homers and is trailed by Jose Altuve (27), Kyle Schwarber (23) and Bernie Williams (22).

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Also in the first inning, Blue Jays outfielder Nathan Lukes fouled a ball off his right knee, falling in pain. He stayed in the game and drew a 12-pitch walk, then flied out leading off the third and was replaced by Myles Straw for the start of the fourth.

The team said Lukes bruised the knee. Manager John Schneider said imaging showed that Lukes did not sustain a fracture and that he might return in Monday’s Game 2.

Lukes went 4-for-12 with five RBIs in Toronto’s division series win over the Yankees, including a key two-run single in the Game 4 clincher. He also made a diving catch in Toronto’s Game 1 win.

Seattle has won three of four games at Toronto this year.

“Everybody knows, obviously, what we need to do,” Springer said. “If some balls fall, obviously it’s a little bit of a different story.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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  Bradford DoolittleOct 12, 2025, 01:30 PM ET

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  • MLB writer and analyst for ESPN.com
  • Former NBA writer and analyst for ESPN.com
  • Been with ESPN since 2013

Let’s ignore the fact that the 2025 MLB playoffs began on the last day of September and might end on the first day of November — because it’s always October when it comes to playoff baseball — and ask this: Who is this year’s Mr. October?

What if I told you that so far, it’s a certain Japanese-born star on the Los Angeles Dodgers with a nasty splitter? OK, admittedly that doesn’t narrow it down as much as you would think, but I’m guessing the first name that flashed in your mind was Shohei Ohtani. The right answer: Roki Sasaki. For now, anyway.

At least that’s the answer through the rubric of Win Probability Added (WPA, a metric that’s been around for a while now and has a lot of utility in putting numbers to the narratives that emerge as the October bracket plays out.)

How the Dodgers fixed Roki Sasaki

After a disastrous MLB debut, L.A.’s new ninth-inning man has unleashed jaw-dropping stuff in October.
Jeff Passan »

The Dodgers, the sole wild-card team remaining, have played an extra round, and Sasaki currently leads all players on baseball’s final four rosters in playoff WPA with .706. Here’s Sasaki’s game-by-game performance:

Oct. 1: .015 (Finished the last inning of an 8-4 wild-card win over the Cincinnati Reds, a relatively low-leverage outing. But he looked good doing it, setting the Reds down in order with two whiffs. Hmmm. Maybe this means something.)

Oct. 4:.099 (Closed out the Dodger’s 5-3 win Game 1 of the division series at the Philadelphia Phillies. Something is definitely brewing here.)

Oct. 6:.208 (Sasaki faced one batter! But it was the last batter of the game, Trea Turner, and there were runners on the corners with two outs with the Dodgers clinging to a 4-3 lead. Turner grounded out, and the Dodgers grabbed a commanding lead in the series. L.A., we might have a new closer.)

Oct. 9:.384 (Sasaki retired all nine batters he faced during the eighth, ninth and 10th innings of a 1-1 game. The Dodgers went on to win the series clincher, and any doubts that L.A. has found a lethal, high-leverage playoff reliever were erased.)

Numbers that function as narrative. That’s WPA. We’ve been keeping tabs on these numbers as the playoffs have unfolded — and will continue to do so. Our leaderboards and conclusions will be updated here as we move forward, so keep checking back.

Jump to:
Methodology | Top 5 | WPA hero of the day
Top 10 for eliminated players | Ohtani tracker | The all-time WPA champs

Methodology

The way WPA works is that play-by-play during a game, if you do something that improves your team’s chances to win, you get a positive credit. If you don’t, it’s a negative. In small samples, one play can have an outsized effect on WPA. A grand slam in a 10-0 game? Great for your stat line, but the blast does little to change the game’s outcome. Hit the same homer with your team down 3-0 in the eighth, and you’ve made some history. Because of that, there is a bias toward players who end up in a lot of close games — but only if they come through.

All we’ve done here is to marry the hitting and pitching versions of WPA together based on the version of the system at Baseball-Reference.com. Why add pitching and hitting WPA together in 2025, the era of the universal DH?

Well, you know why — Mr. Ohtani — and it was his historic debut as a two-way postseason player this season that inspired us to watch the WPA results a little more closely this October. So far, Ohtani has been pretty quiet during this postseason, but these leaderboards can change fast, so don’t write off Ohtani just yet.

Top 5 alive

Best postseason WPAs from players on teams still playing

1. Roki Sasaki, Dodgers | .706

The current 2025 Mr. October.

2. Andres Munoz, Seattle Mariners | .598

Munoz went 4-for-4 in posting positive WPAs during Seattle’s tense five-game win over the Detroit Tigers in the ALDS. Munoz put up 5â…“ scoreless innings during his four outings.

One-stop shop for 2025 MLB playoffs

We have everything you need to keep up with all the action this October. Schedule, bracket, more »

3. Alex Vesia, Dodgers | .591

Vesia is a good example of why WPA can be more telling than traditional stats in the short series of October. His postseason ERA is 6.00. Egad! But that’s because he gave up two low-leverage runs in the first game against Cincinnati, a Dodgers rout. Vesia hasn’t been dinged in four subsequent outings that had a lot more weight to them, including the last inning of L.A.’s extra-inning, close-out win over Philadelphia, when he came on for Sasaki.

4. Blake Snell, Dodgers | .581

Snell was dealing in both of his outings so far, one in Game 1 against Cincinnati, the other in Game 2 against Philadelphia, the terse affair in which Sasaki recorded the last out.

5. Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Toronto Blue Jays | .434

We all saw what Guerrero did against the Yankees — 9-for-14 with three homers and nine RBIs. Because Toronto won so many lopsided games in the series, it limited the chances of any of the Jays to roll up WPA points. But the early damage Guerrero did in those contests were enough to land him here.

About last night

Golden Guy: Chad Patrick, Milwaukee Brewers (.240)

Patrick retired all five batters he faced during a midgame stretch in which the Brewers led the Chicago Cubs just 2-1. He replaced Aaron Ashby in the sixth with two runners on base and one out, getting Seiya Suzuki on a long fly and striking out Ian Happ to escape the threat. FanGraphs measured those two plate appearances as the first- and third-highest leverage plays of Game 5.

This was Patrick’s third straight game leading the Brewers in WPA. It’s been quite a run for the rookie, who was moved to the bullpen for the postseason after making 23 largely successful starts during the regular season.

Good while they lasted

Top 10 postseason WPAs from players on eliminated teams

1. Will Vest, Tigers | .848

2. Tarik Skubal, Tigers | .609

3. Kerry Carpenter, Tigers | .591

4. Aaron Judge, New York Yankees | .579

5. Jose Ramirez, Cleveland Guardians | .482

6. Keider Montero, Tigers | .441

7. Cristopher Sanchez, Phillies | .349

8. Garrett Crochet, Boston Red Sox | .348

9. Cam Schlittler, Yankees | .314

10. Brad Keller, Cubs | .283

Ohtani tracker

Since Ohtani inspired all of this, we should keep tabs on him.

Through the NLDS:

Hitting WPA: minus-.257

Pitching WPA: minus-.062

WPA: minus-.319 (267th of 284 players this postseason)

It can only get better from here, right? Ohtani is 4-for-27 at the plate (.148) with two homers. Both dingers came in Game 1 against Cincinnati and one of those was with the Dodgers already leading 6-0. Ohtani posted a good line in his lone pitching outing so far — six innings, three runs, nine strikeouts. But the runs he gave up were early and with the Dodgers down three runs for much of his outing, that limited his chances to compile WPA.

The WPA pantheon

Top 10 single-season postseason WPAs since 1903

Note: It’s a big time frame, but the cumulative nature of the leaderboard heavily favors the recent decades when there have been more playoff rounds.

1. David Freese, 2011 St. Louis Cardinals | 1.908

2. David Ortiz, 2004 Red Sox | 1.892

3. Curt Schilling, 2001 Arizona Diamondbacks | 1.748

4. Alex Rodriguez, 2009 Yankees | 1.704

5. Yordan Alvarez, 2022 Houston Astros | 1.646

6. Carlos Beltran, 2013 Cardinals | 1.582

7. Bernie Williams, 1996 Yankees | 1.545

8. John Wetteland, 1996 Yankees | 1.522

9. Eric Hosmer, 2014 Kansas City Royals | 1.443

10. Mariano Rivera, 2003 Yankees | 1.420

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Ohtani is unique as a full-time two-player in a series, but not the first. For one, Babe Ruth won two games on the mound and played in left field during the 1918 series, though he did not start any of the games as a position player. But there have been pitchers who have had big postseasons with the bat.

Here are the four instances in which a player posted at least .200 WPA on both the hitting and pitching sides during the same postseason. This is the list we thought Ohtani might join. He has some work to do to get there, but at least we know that if he doesn’t do it, in 2025 baseball, no one else will.

• Christy Mathewson, 1913 New York Giants (1.054 WPA | .447 hitting; .607 pitching)

• Rube Foster, 1915 Red Sox (.883 WPA | .303 hitting; .580 pitching)

• Babe Ruth, 1918 Red Sox (.710 WPA (.209 hitting; .501 pitching)

• General Crowder, 1935 Tigers (.923 WPA | .207 hitting; .716 pitching)

• Jake Arrieta, 2016 Cubs (.480 WPA | .218 hitting; .262 pitching)

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NEW YORK, NY – OCTOBER 08: Louis Varland #77 of the Toronto Blue Jays pitches during Game Four of the American League Division Series presented by Booking.com between the Toronto Blue Jays and the New York Yankees at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday, October 8, 2025 in New York, New York. (Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

I know that there are a lot of baseball fans who dream of a day when we can once again see a Madison Bumgarner-style ace take a team and carry it on his back to a World Series title.

Instead, we have games like Wednesday, where the Blue Jays knocked out the Yankees in a game started by reliever Louis Varland and finished by a never-ending wave of seven additional Blue Jays relievers.

Love them or hate them, the bullpen game is a strategy that is working consistently for playoff teams. We wrote about this last year, and if anything the trend has grown since.

This postseason, teams are 5-0 in bullpen games, and no team that has used a bullpen game has been eliminated, at least yet. The Blue Jays are in the ALCS having used a bullpen game to knock out the Yankees.

The Brewers are one win away from a spot in the NLCS having used a bullpen game. And the Tigers, who love the bullpen game more than anyone, are playing a deciding Game 5 against the Mariners.

Last year the Dodgers used a trio of bullpen games in the postseason on their way to winning the World Series. The Mets used the strategy in winning the Division Series. It didnâ€t work in the LCS against the Dodgers, but they were foiled by a Dodgers team that was bullpenning themselves.

Between the 2024 and 2025 postseasons, teams are 10-4 in bullpen games. Teams using bullpen games have won eight postseason series in the past two years (a number that would climb if the Tigers and/or Brewers win their series). Since 2019, teams are 19-15.

From 2015-2018, there was no postseason game that could be called a bullpen game. Since then, they have quickly become a fixture in the playoffs.

Defining a bullpen game can be tricky. For these purposes, weâ€re not calling a game where a team uses an opener and then hands it over to a starter to hopefully turn over the lineup two times.

The Blue Jays ALDS decider was indisputably a bullpen game. Not one Blue Jays pitcher threw two innings in the deciding game that eliminated the Yankees.

What happened in the other ALDS game was a little trickier. On the same day in Detroit, the Tigers staved off elimination in a game where Casey Mize, one of the teamâ€s starters, threw three scoreless innings, and then was pulled to turn the game into a bullpen game.

Mize is a starter, but  the design was to only let him pitch three innings, even when he dominated early on.

“When I talked to Casey, I took him in the tunnel. Those cameras are a funny thing; they follow me everywhere. I just wanted to tell him that the best chance for us to not only keep this game close but win this game was to continue to throw different pitchers at them. It’s been a successful strategy for us. Casey definitely could have gone out, but when the game dropped us off at Naylor and we have our full allotment in the pen, including Troy, Tyler, I knew Finnegan, Vest was going to throw career-high pitches if we needed, we were all hands on deck. And so the aggressive move to the pen was to try to give them a lot of different looks,†Tigers manager A.J. Hinch said.

It seemed like a risky move at the time, as Tyler Holton, following a short Mize outing for the second straight time this postseason, failed to get an out.

But Kyle Finnegan, Troy Melton (a starter in another Tigers†bullpen game this postseason) and Will Vest held Seattle relatively silent as the Tigers rallied back to beat the Mariners and force a deciding Game 5.

The Brewers used Aaron Ashby and Jacob Misirowski in shortened stints earlier this week to go up 2-0 in their NLDS series.

This year, weâ€ve already seen five bullpen games this postseason. Last year there were nine. Even with none in 2022, there has been an average of five per year since 2019.

And all of that makes what Cam Schlittler did this postseason seem even more special.

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(Photo by New York Yankees/Getty Images)

MLB viewership numbers are off to a strong start this postseason, as the Wild Card Series recorded its highest ratings since adopting the best-of-three format in 2022.

According to ESPN (which aired all 11 games), the average Wild Card game drew 4.6 million viewers, which was good for 64% a year-over-year increase. Game 3 of the Red Sox-Yankees series drew 7.4 million viewers, with a 15-minute peak of 8.4 million.

ESPN set multiple #MLB Wild Card Series viewership records ðŸ‘

âš¾ï¸ Avg. audience across 11 games: 4.6M viewers, up 64% from ‘24
âš¾ï¸ Red Sox–Yankees Game 3: 7.4M viewers: largest ESPN MLB audience since ‘21
âš¾ï¸ Viewership among fans under 35 up 89%

More: pic.twitter.com/yiwANJ17Yk

— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) October 6, 2025

Those numbers represent dramatic increases for the Wild Card round. The average rating this postseason is better than any previous Wild Card game of the best-of-three era, while the viewership for the New York vs. Boston finale was 3.38 million more than the previous record for a Wild Card series game under the current format.

Here are a few numbers to help put the increase in perspective:

• More people watched the Yankees’ Wild Card clincher this year than Game 7 of the Rangers-Astros ALCS in 2023 (6.77 million).

• The 4.6 million average viewership for this year’s wild card round is almost equal to the 4.66 million the 2022 NLCS drew on Fox (Nielsen ratings have been adjusted in recent years to include out-of-home viewing, which may account for some of the increase).

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TORONTO (AP) — Rookie Trey Yesavage set a Blue Jays postseason record by striking out 11 in 5 1/3 no-hit innings, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. hit the first postseason grand slam in team history and Toronto beat the New York Yankees 13-7 on Sunday to take a 2-0 lead in the ALDS.

Daulton Varsho had two home runs among his four extra base hits, and Ernie Clement and George Springer also both homered as Toronto reached double figures in hits (15) and runs for the second straight game.

The Blue Jays had three home runs among their 14 hits Saturday in a 10-1 victory. They have as many home runs (eight) as strikeouts (seven) through two games.

Varsho went 4 for 5 with two doubles, scored four runs and drove in four. Guerrero went 3 for 5 and scored twice.

Cody Bellinger homered and drove in three runs and Ben Rice had two hits and two RBIs in a five-run seventh but Toronto won for the eighth time in nine home meetings with New York. The Blue Jays went 2-4 in six games at Yankee Stadium, where the series shifts for Game 3 on Tuesday night.

Yesavage (1-0) was selected by Toronto with the No. 20 pick last year in the amateur draft. The 22-year-old right-hander rose through four minor league levels this season before joining the Blue Jays and going 1-0 in three September starts.

Yesavage needed fewer than four innings to beat Torontoâ€s previous record for postseason strikeouts, eight, held by Dave Steib, David Price (twice) and Juan Guzmán.

Known for his elite split-finger fastball, Yesavage set a Blue Jays record by striking out nine Rays batters in his Sept. 15 debut. Eight of his 11 strikeouts Sunday came on the splitter. The other three came on fastballs that reached 96 mph.

Yesavage opened the game by striking out Trent Grisham on a splitter. He walked Aaron Judge on four pitches, then fanned Bellinger and Rice to start a streak of 12 straight outs that ended when Jazz Chisholm Jr. reached on Guerreroâ€s fielding error in the fifth.

Yesavage responded by getting Ryan McMahon to pop up and fanning Anthony Volpe for his 11th strikeout.

Yesavage struck out six straight over the third and fourth innings as Volpe, Austin Wells, Grisham, Judge, Bellinger and Rice were retired.

Left-hander Justin Bruihl came on to face Grisham after Yesavage threw 78 pitches, 48 for strikes. Manager John Schneider was booed as he came out to remove Yesavage with Toronto leading 12-0. The crowd of 44,7564 then roared until Yesavage came out for a curtain call, lifting his arms over his head at the top of the dugout steps.

Bruihl retired Grisham on a grounder before Judge reached on an infield single for New Yorkâ€s first hit. Bellinger followed with a homer.

Yankees left-hander Max Fried (0-1) allowed seven runs and eight hits in 3-plus innings. He gave up seven runs in 33 1/3 innings in five September starts.

Fried went 11-1 with a 1.82 ERA in 16 starts after a Yankees loss in the regular season, but suffered another difficult start in Toronto. He was 0-1 with a 6.35 ERA in two regular season road starts against the Blue Jays, giving up 10 runs, eight earned, five walks and nine hits, including two home runs.

Up next

Toronto RHP Shane Bieber, the 2020 AL Cy Young winner with Cleveland, is scheduled to start against Yankees LHP Carlos Rodón in Tuesdayâ€s Game 3. Bieber went 4-2 with a 3.57 ERA in seven starts after returning from elbow surgery in August. Rodón allowed three runs and four hits in Game 2 of the Wild Card round against Boston, striking out six in six innings.

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TORONTO — Sunday in Toronto, a star was born.

Trey Yesavage had the Yankees seeing ghosts, the highest-scoring offense in baseball suddenly baffled by a 22-year-old with a pitch that plummets from the sky and disappears.

Game 2 of the ALDS will forever be remembered for what Yesavage did on the Rogers Centre mound, striking out 11 Yankees over 5 1/3 innings of no-hit ball, the strikeouts a postseason franchise record in his debut. It was one of the greatest performances in this organizationâ€s history, the type of moment weâ€ll still be talking about years from now, comparing everything that comes after it to what Yesavage just did.

When manager John Schneider finally strolled out to lift Yesavage, there were boos mixed in with the raucous ovation about to build. Everyone wanted to see more.

Yesavage, by the numbers:
• Set a new record for strikeouts by a Blue Jays pitcher in the postseason (previous record, 8, shared by David Price twice, Juan Guzman and Dave Stieb).
• Yesavage (22 years, 69 days) is the 2nd-youngest pitcher with a double-digit strikeout game in postseason play (John Candelaria struck out 14 at 21 years, 335 days in the 1975 NLCS G3)
• His 10 strikeouts through four innings were tied for the most in postseason history (Patrick Corbin, 2019 NLCS G4)

The moment that captured Yesavage best came in the very first inning. Heâ€d walked in from the bullpen a few minutes prior, a close-up of his own face towering above him on the video board as the crowd roared for him. Soon, he had leadoff hitter Trent Grisham in a 1-2 count, set up perfectly for that splitter, which has turned hitters inside out all season. Grisham called time and stepped out of the box to take a couple of swings and a breath.

Yesavage? He just stood there.

Already set for the pitch with the ball high in his glove, Yesavage stood completely still on the mound, glaring in at Grisham as if to say, “Take your damn time, Iâ€ll be here.” When Grisham finally stepped back in, there came the splitter and there went Grisham, back to the dugout as Yesavageâ€s first of 11 strikeouts.

From then to the moment Yesavage strolled off the mound, nodding his head and sneaking a look at the crowd heâ€d just given the performance of a lifetime to, we saw a pitcher in complete control of the moment. He earned the second curtain call of the night, climbing those steps just an inning after Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and thrusting both hands straight up into the air to another eruption of sound from the crowd.

All of this from the youngest postseason starter in Blue Jays history, a 2024 first-rounder who threw his first professional pitch six months ago in Single-A. Yesavage started this season mowing down teenage hitters in mostly-empty Single-A stadiums, then came High-A, Double-A and Triple-A. Heâ€s touched every level of this organization in a single season, joking that he knows just about everyone now. Itâ€s the type of development arc teams dream of, but can almost never pull off.

Now, everyone can begin to dream on the next start and the next. Yesavage, the biggest and brightest surprise of the season, has officially arrived.

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If you’re interested in attempting the famed 9-9-9 Challenge at a Philadelphia Phillies game this postseason, the club has you covered with a ready-made kit … sort of.

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Confused as to what the 9-9-9 Challenge is? The premise is simple: A participant must consume nine hot dogs and nine beers over the course of the nine innings of a baseball game.

With scores of fans certain to be flocking to Citizens Bank Park for the 2025 postseason, the Phillies decided to make the challenge easier for fans by packaging it into a convenient one-stop bundle purchase.

Well, a version of the challenge, that is.

Presumably aiming to be a little more approachable for the average fan, Philadelphia’s 9-9-9 Challenge box reins things in a bit. The hot dogs are “fun size,” and the beers are “petite.”

The Phillies have a 9-9-9 Challenge box for the Postseason 😭

It comes with 9 “fun size” hot dogs and 9 “petite” beers, and even features a scoreboard to keep track of your progress 🤣 pic.twitter.com/UsIFJzS4gg

— MLB (@MLB) October 3, 2025

The box does come with a built-in scoreboard, so fans can check off the hot dogs and beers as they’re consumed throughout the game. It will be sold in Section 128 and will cost $54.99.

The Phillies’ postseason run — and an unknown number of mini 9-9-9 Challenges — will begin on Saturday, with the Los Angeles Dodgers traveling to Citizens Bank Park for Game 1 of the National League Division Series.

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Yankees RHP Cam Schlittler (Photo by Daniel Shirey/MLB Photos via Getty Images)

The never-ending rise of MLB velocity keeps forcing us to recalibrate what is considered top-tier velocity. Broadcasts uses to use flame graphics to highlight pitches that were in the upper 90s. Now, that’s just routine.

But even by today’s velocity standards, these playoffs are already special. This is the postseason of the 100+ mph starting pitcher.

Triple-digit heat was once reserved for the game’s best closers. Then it filtered down to other relievers. Now, it’s a benchmark multiple starters can reach, even if they throw more than 75 pitches.

During the 2025 regular season, starting pitchers fired a record 761 pitches at 100 mph or harder, nearly triple last yearâ€s total of 264. As recently as 2018, there were fewer than 200. The velocity surge is widespread: a record 23 starters touched triple digits this season.

That has carried into October. In the wild card round alone, starters have already unleashed 51 pitches at 100+ mph. That’s more than the entirety of the previous record in the 2020 postseason (48) with three rounds left to go in 2025.

That’s more 100+ mph pitches than starters and relievers combined to throw in the entirety of the 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 postseasons. Maybe that isn’t surprising when you consider how much harder pitchers thrown now than they did just 10-15 years ago.

But it’s also more 100+ mph pitches than starting pitchers threw in the 2021-2024 postseasons combined. There was just one all last postseason (Michael Kopech). This week we’ve seen Hunter Greene (28), Tarik Skubal (11), Cam Schlittler (11) and Garrett Crochet (1) all join the postseason Century Club.

Schlitter’s 11 100+ mph pitches in his postseason debut is already tied with Skubal for the ninth-most triple-digit pitches by a starter in the Statcast era (2008-2025), and more than twice what he managed in 73 regular-season innings. Greene and Skubal have both reached 101 mph this October, something only eight other postseason starters have ever done. And with Skubal advancing and Shohei Ohtani readying to make his first October start, more are likely coming.

But for all of this premium velocity, the gold standard of Statcast era postseasons remains Yordano Ventura. The Royals righthander joined Justin Verlander as the only two starters to throw 102 mph as a postseason starter. Ventura’s 10 101+ mph pitches in 2014 remains the postseason record for starting pitchers, as does his 32 100+ mph pitches in that postseason.

Ventura passed away in a car accident in Jan. 2017, but he left a lasting mark on the game and plenty of wondering of what could have been.

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