Mike Petriello

The biggest names in the 2025 World Series need no introduction, and really don’t even need to be identified by their full name – merely saying “Shohei, Vladdy, Mookie, and Mad Max” tells you about all you need to know. But as we’ve long learned by now, the main characters

In the regular season, no team's batters had a lower strikeout rate than the Blue Jays, and no team's pitchers struck out more batters than the Dodgers. Sometimes, the World Series narratives write themselves: Can the Blue Jays make enough contact against a pitching staff specifically designed to eliminate contact?

One month ago Tuesday, Roki Sasaki was in Tacoma, Wash., warming for his second career Triple-A relief outing. He entered in the sixth inning, getting two grounders and a strikeout as he retired a prospect and a pair of hitters who’d combined to hit .234/.268/.308 in the Majors this year

The Blue Jays make a ton of contact. They put the ball in play. It’s what they do. No team had a lower strikeout rate this season. No team has a lower strikeout rate this postseason. They scored the fourth-most runs in the regular season, and so far have the

Think about what you know about ballparks and which ones are conducive to hitting home runs. Then think about how that might affect the NLDS between the Dodgers and Phillies when it moves to Los Angeles for Game 3 on Wednesday, with the home team looking to complete a sweep.

“We’ve capitalized on pretty much every error, every defensive mistake and every pitching mistake,” Brewers hitting coach Connor Dawson said this summer. “That is our philosophy. That is our identity.” “We want to make people play the game and we want to drag them through hell doing it.”

Over the last two seasons, two teams are tied for the most victories in baseball: • 191, Dodgers • 191, Phillies OK, then! This might not be the World Series, or even the National League Championship Series, but it might be as good of a “matchup between the two best

For the first time since 1984, somehow, the Cubs and Padres are set to square off in the National League playoffs. It hasn't been quite that long since they've seen each other this season, but it might feel like it; while the two clubs split their six games in 2025,

The Dodgers are in the postseason, once again. They’ll have Shohei Ohtani atop the lineup, once again. But: How will they use him? In what role? Or roles? Baseball’s most interesting man – and only official “two-way player” – offers so many options for Dave Roberts to choose from, now

Two things we know to be true, as September threatens to turn into October: 1. Bullpens matter so, so much in the playoffs, more than in the regular season, and: 2. The bullpen you have now quite often bears little to no resemblance to the one you had in April.

Who are the best players born on each day of the year? We have a list for every day on the calendar. Here’s a subjective ranking of the top five for Sept. 20.

The 2024 Dodgers famously won the World Series in spite of their pitching, not because of it. Last year’s group had a 4.50 October ERA, one of the highest marks of any Series-winning teams ever, and you probably remember the various mound contortions they had to go through just to

Cal Raleigh still has targets left to hit, and none of them will carry more resonance than the one that wouldn't actually break any kind of record. We’re talking about 60 homers, because even though that won’t be 73 (Barry Bonds’s single-season record from 2001) or 62 (Aaron Judge’s American

You know Nick Kurtz’s name because two months into his rookie year, he put up one of the greatest single games the sport has ever seen. On July 26, he became the first rookie ever to put up a four-homer game, in the midst of going 6-for-6 against the Astros,

Who are the best players born on each day of the year? We have a list for every day on the calendar. Here’s a subjective ranking of the top five for Sept. 5.

Three months ago, we dug into Juan Soto’s slow start, trying our best to actually provide analysis without just repeating, “Knock it off, he’s Juan Soto, the underlying stats are all fine, he’s going to be fine,” a few dozen times in a row. As it turns out: He was

A decade into his time in the bigs, Kyle Schwarber is having what you might call "a career year," which is pretty impressive for a slugger who’d already put together quite the career ever since he was drafted No. 4 overall by the Cubs way back in 2014. At 32

The Brewers have the best winning percentage in the Majors, and they’re on track to break the all-time franchise wins record by kind of a lot. When they open a series at Cincinnati on Friday, they will have a chance to tie for the longest win streak in franchise history

Pete Crow-Armstrong is a truly elite defensive outfielder. That is maybe the most obvious statement you’re going to read on this or any other baseball site this season, given the years-ago scouting reports that called him “the game's best defensive prospect” and the seemingly endless highlight-reel plays he’s made this

Paul Skenes can’t really ever be underrated, because he was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2023 Draft, and then barely more than a year later was named the 2024 National League Rookie of the Year. He started the All-Star Game for the NL in both of his first