Postseason baseball begins with four Wild Card games on Tuesday | Morning Lineup (MLB Daily Recap)

All of the important storylines from 9/29/2025 across MLB including: All four Wild Card series begin on Tuesday, with Tigers vs. Guardians, Padres vs. Cubs, Red Sox vs. Yankees and Reds vs. Dodgers

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Knowing you’ve got four playoff games tomorrow out of the best out of three, you’re going to bed with a different feeling, knowing you’re waking up with a chance to, to go on this run that ends in a World Series title from mlb.com. This is the Morning Lineup podcast. I’m your host, Anthony Kervin. Today is Tuesday, September 30th. And let me tell you, there’s nothing like October baseball, even when it takes place in September. Today is the first day of the MLB postseason with four, count them four, best of three wild card series matchups beginning this afternoon and running all through the night. Give me about 10 minutes of your time and I’ll have you prepared for today’s postseason action and also get you caught up on the managerial goings and stayings taking place among the also rans. Let’s get to it. Your postseason platter begins at Cleveland’s progressive field where the rival Guardians and Tigers met just last week and now meet again in game one of the wild card series at 1:08 p.m. Eastern time on ESPN Cleveland just completed the biggest come back in MB history to win a division or pennant and they did it at the Tigers expense in September. The Guards went 27 with an MLB best 2.61 team, er, a and one bonkers moment after another right field, it’s deep. So the Guardians have momentum. What they don’t have is Tarik Skubal, who is quite likely to receive his second straight American League. Cy Young, you’re gonna hear a lot about how the Guardians beat SBA twice in the season’s final two weeks. And it’s true, but they beat him by scoring a grand total of two earned runs in two starts. The only earned runs they scored in 28 innings against Skubal this year. So, yeah, Scuba is still quite good. Here’s what he had to say about facing Cleveland yet again, you can kind of, you get a feel for hitters and what they’re trying to hit. I mean, I’ve said this all year , it just comes down to executing pitches. It really does. Um, you can have a great scouting report and a great plan if you don’t execute, what’s the plan doesn’t matter, you know what I mean? So, um, you know, we’ll have a great plan and, and great game plan, but at the end of the day when I’m out there, it’s about competing and about executing pitches and that’s all that matters. The Guardians will start Gavin Williams who’s no slouch himself. In fact, he had a 1.06 a with 29 strikeouts in three starts versus Detroit this year. And the Guardian’s bullpen outperformed Detroit when these two clubs went head to head in 2025. So the Guards have a lot going for them, but the Tigers have a rested Scoville in game one of a best of three. We’ll see today if that’s enough next up at 308 Eastern time, 208 local. It’s the Padres and Cubs at Wrigley Field and on ABC, a throwback to the 1984 NL CS between these teams in which the Padres prevailed in the decisive fifth game. The Padres will start nick Patta after he held opponents to a 195 average this season, the fourth lowest of any pitcher with at least 25 starts. The cubs tabbed all star Matthew Boyd after rookie of the year candidate Kate Horton was ruled out for this series with a rib fracture. San Diego has the strength of a bullpen that after the in season acquisition of Mason Miller is largely considered to be the best in the postseason field, but the Cubs possess more power than the Padres who ranked 28th in MB in home runs. And the Wrigley weather which is forecast to be sunny and in the seventies today could be conducive to the Cubs strengths or hey, maybe not at Wrigley. You never really know as Padres manager mike Schilt discussed Monday, I’m sure there’s a metric or somebody’s got an absolute to it. But um there’s not many more ball, another ballpark that would say that can be any trickier than, than Wrigley. And, um, you know, we’re aware of it. We spent some time, we created a workout time around it. Um It’s really just about continued awareness of the environment and making sure we’re communicating consistently as the game goes and, and know that the in the second, it could be different, the fourth, it could be different in the seventh. And you know, the time of game, we’re gonna see shadows and we’re gonna see sun balls probably the biggest X factor in this game. And in this series is Cubs star Kyle Tucker, he only returned from a strain calf this past weekend and went one for 11 in three games. He hasn’t played in the outfield since September 2nd. The Padres meanwhile are hoping to reverse the trend of their regular season that saw them going just 38 and 43 on the road compared to 52 and 29 at Petco Park. Coming up. The Yankees and Red Sox have met in the postseason a time or two , but never like this. That’s after the break, the Yankees and Red Sox have faced each other 24 times in the postseason and it’s an even split of 12 wins apiece. What do you say? We break that tie today at 6:08 p.m. Eastern time in Yankee Stadium and on ESPN. This will be the first time the Yanks and Sox meet in the best of three wild card round though their last postseason meeting was in the single wild card game in 2021 with the Red Sox pulling through. How’s this for a pitching matchup? 18 game winner, Garrett Crochet and his 2.59 a opposite 19 game winner, Max Fried and his 2.86 a , these were major offseason acquisitions for these two clubs brought aboard for a moment just like this. Here’s what Fried had to say about his first taste of this heated historic rivalry this season. It’s been a lot of fun. Um, every, every game feels like a playoff game when you play, when you play the Red Sox, you know, it doesn’t matter if it’s here or Fenway. So, uh, you know, that every game matters and, uh, yeah, it’s been, you know, it’s been a, it’s been a fun one to be a part of so far. The Yankees finished the season on an eight game winning streak and their bullpen is on a heater with a 0.53 a in their last 11 games, but Boston’s won nine of the 13 regular season games against the Yanks, including five of seven in the Bronx. Ever hear of this aaron Judge guy, he might have a say in the outcome here. Judge will look to put his past postseason struggles which include a 165 average and 35 strikeouts in 23 games behind him. He just won a batting title with North of 50 Homers. So I think he has it in him last up at 908 eastern time, 608 local on ESPN. It’s Dodgers versus Reds at Dodger Stadium. Hey, what are the Dodgers doing here in the wild card round? Shouldn’t they have a buy? Well, no, they never did get on that 117 win pace. People predicted for them, but they did seem to flip the switch in September with wins and 15 of their final 20 games. And what are the Reds doing here at all? They only won 83 games this year but with the Mets falling apart , Terry Francona’s team won just enough when it mattered most the Reds will be heavy underdogs here but don’t overlook their young arms. They’ll pit hunter Green and his 2.76 a opposite Blake Snell in game one tonight and you can expect to see some triple digit fastballs. Green threw 296 of them this year. That’s 101 more than the next closest pitcher. As for Snell, he had a 0.47 a in 19 innings across his last three starts. So he comes into his first postseason start in three years on a roll. By the way, shohei Otani will start game three of this series for the Dodgers if necessary. In the meantime, you can find him right there in the Dodgers lineup where he’ll try to avenge a Reds team that somehow held him to a 120 average this year. The Reds have their own trend to buck. They were 25th in MB and Ops against lefties this year. And that just so happens to be the hand Snell uses to pitch the Dodgers season underscores the theme of the 2025 MLB regular season, which is that there really wasn’t a dominant team. That means it’s a wide open postseason and it starts tonight. Finally, the managerial carousel is officially spit on Monday. The Giants dismissed Bob Melvin with a year left on his contract after finishing 500 this year while the twins dismissed Rocco Baldelli after seven seasons as he took the fall following a late season collapse in 2024 and Then a 92 loss season this year and the Rangers announced that they have mutually agreed to with future Hall of Fame, Skipper Bruce Bochy, who won a World Series with Texas in 2023 on the flip side. The Mets are keeping carlos Mendoza after their disastrous finish to the season and the Pirates remove Don Kelly’s interim tag. Interim situation still undecided as of this recording are Tony Manlio in Baltimore, Warren Schafer in Colorado and miguel Cairo in Washington. That’s all for today’s show, matt Monagan will be with you tomorrow to recap all of day one until next time. Thanks for listening. Please be sure to leave us a rating and review, share this episode with the baseball lovers in your life and enjoy the postseason, everyone.