The final week of the 2017 Major League Baseball season presents a conundrum for the teams that have already secured a spot in the playoffs. Managers see players wearing down after the 150 games of the season and want to rest them as much as possible for the October baseball to come. Baseball players, however, are notorious creatures of habit who hate having their comfortable routines disturbed, even if done with good intentions.
The participants in today’s MLB swarm have to figure out how to interpret how managers and players will walk that tightrope. Tonight’s action features a number of quality pitchers (Chris Sale, Robbie Ray, Dallas Keuchel, Alex Wood, Gio Gonzales among them) who are pitching for playoff-bound teams. How tired are those pitchers? How deep into games will they pitch? It’s a variable that makes this week a particular challenge, but the swarm has some ideas about how the games will play out.
The swarm’s pick of the week is the Los Angeles Dodgers who host the San Diego Padres this evening. The Dodgers have all but wrapped up home field advantage for however long they last in the National League playoffs. The new World Series format also grants home field to the team with the overall best record, and the Dodgers are only a game in front of Cleveland in that race. Thus, Los Angeles has something to play for, and they’d also like to see their second-best pitcher this year, Alex Wood, get a good final outing before the start of the playoff chase.
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