ALDS Game 5 Open Thread

The Guardians and Yankees will wrap up the Division Series slate tonight, one way or another, weather permitting.

The Guardians will use Aaron Civale, who pitched reasonably well in a half-season for Cleveland, but hasn’t yet appeared in a postseason game. The Yankees will start Jameson Taillon, who faced three batters and gave up a hit to each as the Bombers dropped a game in extras — we’ll see how far he goes and what the Yankees plan to do if he struggles, or even if he doesn’t.

On a separate note, the current record for outhomering teams in the postseason is just 11-5. That might change gradually towards something more normal, but 11-5 is definitely at odds with the juiced ball trend and recent experience, and is even lower than the steady-state, pre-juiced ball regular season mark. It seems like last year’s 92.5 percent mark is right out, and things will have to go in a very expected fashion for things to get back to normal. If they don’t, what happens in the offseason could be pretty interesting.