Major League Baseball couldn’t announce its full schedule of playoff games – the teams and the times – until the final playoff spot was sorted out. You can’t know when you’re gonna want various games to go until you know which time zone they’re being played in.
With the full playoff composition now decided, MLB has announced game times for the first game in each series, and I hope you like early afternoon playoff baseball. The Cubs will host the Marlins for Game One of their series at 1pm CT on Wednesday, September 30 at Wrigley Field on ESPN/TBS/ABC.
I hope you can get an excused absence from school or work. Or watch on your phone. Or say that you soiled your unders and head on home.
Game Two, which is the next day on Thursday, October 1, is still a TBD time. Game Three, if necessary, will be the next day.
Also still TBD? The starters for the games. We know that Yu Darvish and Kyle Hendricks will get the Cubs first two games, though we don’t yet know which order. We also don’t know for sure who would get game three, if necessary, but the Cubs have strongly suggested it will be Jon Lester. After getting another look at Adbert Alzolay today, my guess is Lester will start, but he’ll be on a fairly short leash with Alzolay ready to take over mid-game. Not a bad setup with a lot of off-days after that before the NLDS: let Lester go through the lineup once or twice, let Alzolay go through once or twice, and then turn it over to the bullpen.
For the Marlins, it’s gonna be young starters Sandy Alcantara, Sixto Sánchez, and Pablo López. We’ll have much more on them this week.