The Dodgers could head to the World Series with a win in Game 6 tonight.
With the Yankees finishing off the Guardians in five games last night, it’s now left for the National League to settle its champion. The Dodgers and Mets are in action in Game 6 tonight with LA holding a 3-2 edge in the series. If the Dodgers win this one, it’s over. If the Mets pull it out, then it will come down to a Game 7 for all of the pennant marbles tomorrow.
The teams that remain, including the Yankees, are the biggest payrolls out there in MLB. That’s pretty boring, but that’s how it’s worked out this year. Money doesn’t buy a title every year but it does, if used wisely, buy you a better chance to push for one. For the Dodgers and Yankees, the big money guys have helped them get this far.
That’s a bit less true of the Mets, who paid about $62 million to other teams to have Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer pitch for them this season. To a lesser and more Orioles-connected degree, they’re also paying $8 million to not have James McCann play for them. Their biggest money guy Francisco Lindor is delivering, so that’s something for them.
I remain just so slightly preferring that the Mets pull this one off, since they haven’t won a World Series since 1986. On the other hand, maybe the Dodgers are better positioned to go toe-to-toe with the Yankees, so is that a preferable outcome even though LA last won in 2020?
There are those (I’m not one of them) who feel that LA’s title in the pandemic season doesn’t even count, so if one was to take that out, they go back to 1989. That’s also quite a while. Taylor Swift was not born yet the last time that the Dodgers won a World Series following a 162-game season.
Dodgers lineup
- Shohei Ohtani – DH
- Mookie Betts – RF
- Teoscar Hernández – LF
- Tommy Edman – SS
- Max Muncy – 1B
- Enrique Hernández – 3B
- Andy Pages – CF
- Will Smith – C
- Chris Taylor – 2B
It’s going to be a bullpen game for the Dodgers, or at least their listed starter is reliever Michael Kopech. There is something aesthetically displeasing about the idea of a team regularly patching together postseason games using only its bullpen. Surprisingly, my personal aesthetic preference is not usually connected in any way to successful outcomes in baseball or in life in general.
Mets lineup
- Francisco Lindor – SS
- Brandon Nimmo – LF
- Mark Vientos – 3B
- Pete Alonso – 1B
- Jesse Winker – DH
- Starling Marte – RF
- Tyrone Taylor – CF
- Jeff McNeil – 2B
- Francisco Alvarez – C
In this win-or-go home game for the Metropolitans, they turn to Sean Manaea, who sported a 3.47 ERA over 32 regular season starts. That’s pretty good! He’s allowed five earned runs across three postseason starts, including two runs allowed in five innings earlier in this series.