No easing into the week

Welcome to a new week in sports! And everything feels consequential on this Monday: Milwaukee can put the Dodgers in a shocking 2-0 NLCS hole this evening, Cleveland opens the ALCS tonight after roaring back from down 2-0 against Chicago last round, and Bills-Rams gives us Allen vs. Stafford and a possible Super Bowl preview in primetime. (Well, maybe.) We’ll get to all of that below — plus the Eagles’ and Commanders’ pair of spectacular efforts to botch winnable games Sunday. Here’s what we’re watching out for on the schedule today:

The Main Events

All listed times are Eastern. 🚨= Elimination game

MLB:
⚾ NLCS: Dodgers (56%) at Brewers (44%) - Game 2 (MIL leads 1-0), 5 p.m. (FOX/FS1)
⚾ ALCS: Guardians (39%) at Rays (61%) - Game 1, 8 p.m. (TBS/HBO Max)
⚾🏆 World Series title check-in: Dodgers 34% to win

Football:
🏈 Monday Night Football: Bills (39%) at Rams (61%) - 8:15 p.m. (ESPN/ABC)
🏈🏆 Super Bowl check-in: 49ers 15% to win NFL title
🏈🏆 College Football Playoff check-in: Georgia 21% to win national title 

WNBA:
🏀 No games. (Off-day; Dream-Valkyries Finals begins Sat., Oct. 17)
🏀🏆 WNBA title check-in: Valkyries 52% to win 

NHL:
🏒 Panthers (50%) at Sabres (50%) - 1 p.m. (ESPN+)
🏒 Senators (45%) at Devils (55%) - 7 p.m. (NHLN)
🏒 Golden Knights (49%) at Wild (51%) - 8 p.m. - Possible Western Conference Final preview
🏒🏆 Stanley Cup check-in: Avalanche 13% to win

Soccer:
⚽ Premier League: Coventry City (29%) at Newcastle United (44%) - 3 p.m.
⚽🏆 Champions League title check-in: FC Barcelona 27% to win
⚽🏆 Premier League title check-in: Arsenal FC 63% to win
⚽🏆 MLS title check-in: Nashville SC 22% to win MLS Cup
⚽🏆 NWSL title check-in: Gotham FC/Washington Spirit 28% to win

NBA:
🏀 Preseason action (regular season starts 10/20)
🏀🏆 NBA title check-in: Thunder 24% to win

Game on

Baseball’s postseason is down to a Final Four, and each league serves up a mismatch of sorts — or at least, it seemed that way to traders beforehand.

In the National League, the markets have steadfastly fixated on the starry Los Angeles Dodgers all season as they pursue their third consecutive World Series title, particularly since they acquired former Tigers ace Tarik Skubal at the trade deadline in August. The opposing Milwaukee Brewers’ argument that things would be different after last year’s lopsided sweep largely fell on deaf ears ahead of Sunday’s Game 1, as the Dodgers were installed as about 60% favorites.

And over in the American League, the Cleveland Guardians survived the Chicago White Sox in Saturday’s do-or-die Division Series clincher, only to be set as 60-40 underdogs by the market going into tonight’s ALCS opener against the Tampa Bay Rays.

But predicting baseball is hardly a perfect science, and the Brew Crew proved that Sunday night. Despite Skubal outpitching Milwaukee’s impossibly hard-throwing ace Jacob Misiorowski, the Brewers were able to tag him for a home run in the 4th inning and then manufacture a second run in the 5th — which was all their superior bullpen needed to secure the 2-1 victory.

Beating the Dodgers three more times won’t be easy, especially with postseason god Yoshinobu Yamamoto taking the mound for LA against Milwaukee's other young phenom, Logan Henderson, in Game 2 this evening. But the opening result has caused traders to rethink their Dodger love, downgrading them to (slight) NL pennant underdogs for the first time in ages: 

(Of course, even that is a testament to the market’s faith in LA — a 53% probability for Milwaukee leading 1-0 is substantially lower than the 70% historical LCS success rate for teams with home-field advantage who won Game 1.)

So should the Rays be worried as well ahead of their own Game 1 date with Cleveland? Maybe — the Guardians did outscore the White Sox 20-8 while storming back to win three straight in the ALDS, and José Ramírez has an 1.187 OPS in the playoffs. Tampa Bay will counter with ace Drew Rasmussen, whose lone appearance this postseason saw him flummox the Yankees with 10 strikeouts and only 1 run allowed in 8 innings. The big question will be whether Cleveland’s offensive explosion can continue, or if they’ll revert to the form that ranked just 24th in park-adjusted RPG during the regular season.

But with Milwaukee already showing how quickly the league’s perceived hierarchy can get scrambled in October, it’s now Cleveland’s turn to see if it can do the same — and the Brewers’ chance to truly shock the baseball world by putting the Dodgers in a 2-0 hole.

A thousand ways to lose (or tie)

For what has to be a group of fairly smart guys, NFL coaches have long owned a reputation for finding weird ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory — and Sunday offered up a few of the worst examples we’ve ever seen in that regard. In the morning London game, Nick Sirianni’s Philadelphia Eagles kicked what appeared (certainly to me, lol) to be the game-winning field goal… but they hadn’t run down the clock as much as they could beforehand, and then kicked the ball to Jacksonville return-man Ameer Abdullah, who promptly took it back for 53 yards with 1 second left. This set up strong-legged kicker Cam Little to make a 57-yard game-winner. Just a few hours later, Dan Quinn’s Washington Commanders got the ball in OT on a fumble by Giants RB Cam Skattebo in FG range — dodging what looked like a loss — and Jayden Daniels drove them down within their own kicker’s range. But on the final play, Daniels appeared to forget there were no timeouts left, running the ball instead of spiking it or throwing it away to stop the clock — therefore allowing time to expire on the tie without ever trying what would have been just a 41-yard FG. Courtesy of ESPN, here are the swings in Win Probability from each NFC East rival’s squandered game:

What else we’re reading

Smart, short reads we liked while building today’s odds.

🏈 “A refresh of the Between the Pipes NFL Win Probability App” by Stephan Teodosescu
🏀 “How to lose championship vibes in 4 months” by Tom Ziller
🏈 “Larry Centers: The Running Back Who Couldn’t Run” by Robbie Marriage
🏒 “Which team is better positioned to overcome the absence of their star goalie: the Jets or Rangers?” by Adam Gretz
🌍 “The Week in International Sport: lacrosse sixes, the Rugby League World Cup and João Cancelo” by Ben Wylie
🏃 “‘Special to be part of history’: Olympian, Izzi Batt-Doyle, blitzes Australian marathon record by almost one minute” by Harriet Thornton

Next on deck…

Tuesday (10/13)
🏈 CFB: FIU at Jacksonville State
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Guardians at Rays, ALCS Game 2
🏀 WNBA Playoffs: No games. (Off-day; WNBA Finals begin Oct. 17)
🏒 NHL: Oilers at Kings
⚽ UEFA Champions League: Atlético Madrid vs. Manchester United

Wednesday (10/14)
🏈 CFB: Western Kentucky at Sam Houston
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Brewers at Dodgers, NLCS Game 3
🏀 WNBA Playoffs: No games. (Off-day; WNBA Finals begin Oct. 17)
🏒 NHL: Stars at Avalanche
⚽ UEFA Champions League: Manchester City vs. Paris Saint-Germain

Thursday (10/15)
🏈 Thursday Night Football: Seahawks at Broncos
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Rays at Guardians, ALCS Game 3
⚾ MLB Playoffs: Brewers at Dodgers, NLCS Game 4 🚨
🏀 WNBA Playoffs: No games. (Off-day; WNBA Finals begin Oct. 17)
🏒 NHL: Rangers at Devils
⚽ UEFA Europa League: AC Milan at Red Bull Salzburg