We’re one week into the 2025 MLB playoffs, with two games having now been played in all four division series matchups.

In the small-sample-size world of October baseball, it might seem like that means we’ve seen enough to know a lot. But the reality for a sport that combines 162-game seasons with the chaos of short playoff series is: Things can change in a hurry this time of year.

As we do early in every MLB regular season, we asked our MLB experts to go all-in on one thing they’ve noticed by giving us their boldest prediction for the rest of the postseason based on what they’ve seen so far.

Some of our predictions are quite bold, whereas others took a milder approach. But all of them have a chance of becoming smokin’ hot by the time the World Series trophy is raised this month — or ending up freezing cold.

The themes that we’ll all be talking about

All four division series will go five games

The division series was introduced 30 years ago, and only once, in 2012, did all four of them go the distance. It’ll happen again this year — even though three of the four have already begun with a 2-0 lead.

The gap among the eight remaining playoff contenders feels smaller this year than it has in quite a while, especially with arguably the two best, the Philadelphia Phillies and Los Angeles Dodgers, squaring off so early. The New York Yankees and Chicago Cubs are perfectly capable of winning back-to-games at home. The series between the Detroit Tigers and Seattle Mariners, which began with a split in Seattle, seems primed to extend into a fifth game. And though the Phillies have their backs against the wall, coming off two straight losses in Philadelphia, they have the ability to take two in a row at Dodger Stadium — heck, they did it less than a month ago. — Alden Gonzalez

One pitch will decide October

The team that wins the World Series will be the team that has the best differential in performance between throwing splitters and hitting them. Do I know if this will happen? Definitely not! But the proliferation of splitters so far in the postseason has been staggering.

TruMedia has pitch-type data going back to 2008. The percentage of pitches classified as splitters has ranged from 0.2% (2016) to 3.1% (2023). So far this year: 5.7%. The leading practitioners: the Toronto Blue Jays, by far, at 25.9%, mostly thanks to Kevin Gausman and the amazing Trey Yesavage. Incidentally, they were also by far the best-hitting team against splitters in the regular season (.346 WOBA). Guess this means the Jays are going to win it all. — Bradford Doolittle

The success of the splitter this October will make it the most-talked-about pitch in the spring

The eye-opening postseason performances of Trey Yesavage, Kevin Gausman and Roki Sasaki will serve as jet fuel for the rising popularity of the split-fingered fastball. There was already growing interest in the splitter throughout the 2025 season, thanks to the success of the likes of Hurston Waldrep. Then, along came Yesavage and Gausman and their diving splitters, neutralizing the powerful Yankees: In the first two games of the ALDS, New York was 0-for-22 with 13 strikeouts in at-bats ending with a splitter. The Yankees swung at splitters 39 times and missed 24 times. In a copycat industry, you can bet a ton of pitchers will be tinkering with splitters before next spring, just as hundreds of pitchers adopted cutters because of Mariano Rivera. — Buster Olney

The stars who will shine all postseason

Cal Raleigh will outhomer every other 60-home-run hitter in the postseason — combined

The Mariners’ star slugger just became the fifth player to reach the postseason on the heels of a 60-homer season. The others?

1927 Babe Ruth: 2 HR in 4 games
1961 Roger Maris: 1 HR in 5 games
1998 Sammy Sosa: 0 HR in 3 games
2022 Aaron Judge: 2 HR in 9 games

Raleigh didn’t leave the yard in the first two games of the ALDS against Detroit, but he did collect four hits while Julio Rodriguez, batting behind him, supplied the power. Given Seattle’s balance, depth and October path, it’s easy to envision a long run — and with it, at least half a dozen blasts from the Big Dumper. — Paul Hembekides

Jackson Chourio will become the 10th player to win both LCS and World Series MVPs

Why doubt the Milwaukee Brewers now? They’ve enjoyed a magical run to this point and have looked great at the onset of the division series. Chourio has been quite the table-setter — he had three hits in two innings in Game 1 — and he’s one of the game’s budding superstars. This October is his breakout party. — Tristan Cockcroft

Roki Sasaki, Jhoan Duran and Andres Munoz will post nothing but zeros

This trio — two relief aces and a starter-turned-closer for the playoffs — won’t give up an earned run in either the LDS or LCS. Munoz and Duran were two of the top relievers in the sport this year, and Sasaki started looking like one in the past couple of weeks, which my colleague Jeff Passan broke down in his dive into how the Dodgers fixed their flamethrower. — Kiley McDaniel

Roki Sasaki Clayton Kershaw will record the final out of the 2025 World Series

As Dodgers manager Dave Roberts goes game to game in the postseason trying to figure out exactly which relievers he can trust in a big moment, how about this for the ultimate scenario: Kershaw, in his final pitch in the majors, gets that final out. Maybe it’s a save. Maybe it’s a blowout. Maybe the game goes extra innings. Maybe it’s an act of desperation after Roberts uses Roki Sasaki — who’s looking more and more like Roberts’ closer — earlier in the game. And that final pitch? A big, looping 72 mph curveball. — David Schoenfield

The teams that we’ll be watching all October

The Blue Jays will average 10 runs per game in the playoffs

Well, Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and pals are certainly off to a great start, but why stop after two blowout wins over the Yankees? The Blue Jays hammered Luis Gil, Max Fried, Will Warren and Luke Weaver. Will Carlos Rodon, Cam Schlittler (maybe, if the series goes to Game 4) and whichever pitchers other remaining teams throw at the Blue Jays do better? Probably, but Vlad Jr., Daulton Varsho, Alejandro Kirk, George Springer, Ernie Clement and eventually Bo Bichette are ready to make history! — Eric Karabell

Toronto won’t lose a game until the World Series

The Blue Jays have enough pitching to win every game on the way to the World Series. So much so that Max Scherzer and Chris Bassitt weren’t even needed in the ALDS and were left off the roster. They might be in the ALCS, but even then, Toronto will have choices to make for its rotation. The emergence of rookie Trey Yesavage has changed the calculus for the Jays on the mound, giving them more options than most teams at this time of year.

Add in the potential return of Bichette, Toronto’s great home record (tops in the AL) and a potential long series between the Tigers and Mariners on the other side of the AL bracket, and the Blue Jays are set up for a potential undefeated run to the Fall Classic. Their smoking hot offense might get them there on its own. — Jesse Rogers

The Yankees will send the ALDS back to Toronto

As underwater as they look, the Yankees have a pathway back into this series despite a 2-0 deficit. Shane Bieber, the Blue Jays’ Game 3 starter, is going to fill up the strike zone — and has been homer-prone in recent starts. And with the short porch in right field calling, the Yankees’ left-handed bats will answer. Getting to Game 4 brings Cam Schlittler, who, in his first postseason start, threw eight shutout innings and punched out 12 without walking a batter. Although the Blue Jays are ball-in-play merchants, Schlittler’s stuff is overwhelming enough to quiet them and make for a Game 5 for the ages at Rogers Centre. — Jeff Passan

The Dodgers are going to 2019 Washington Nationals their way through the postseason

Washington rode five starting pitchers and three relievers all the way from the do-or-die wild-card game through its World Series Game 7 victory over the heavily favored Houston Astros. Led by starters Stephen Strasburg, Max Scherzer, Patrick Corbin and Anibal Sanchez, eight pitchers combined to pitch 141⅔ of the Nationals’ 153 playoff innings. Joe Ross, who got a spot start in Game 5 of the World Series, was the fifth starter Washington used.

Those Nationals happened to topple the Dodgers in the NLDS.

This year’s Dodgers, like those Nationals, boast a deep rotation and a shaky bullpen. Shohei Ohtani, Blake Snell, Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Clayton Kershaw, Emmett Sheehan, Roki Sasaki and Alex Vesia should absorb the bulk of the October workload. Of those eight pitchers, only Vesia was primarily a reliever during the regular season. The Nationals proved a version of the formula can work. Six years later, it’s the best recipe for the Dodgers to win a championship. — Jorge Castillo

The Dodgers will sweep their way to a repeat

With 10 hitters who hit double-digit home runs during the regular season, the Dodgers simply don’t have to worry about that one bat going cold. And outside of Yamamoto, none of their pitchers has thrown over 125 innings — but they have such a depth in their rotation that they’ve been able to push some of their starters to the bullpen in October.

It’s all hands on deck in any game they need it. — AJ Mass

The 2025 World Series champion won’t come out of the Dodgers-Phillies NLDS

Ever since the bracket for this postseason was set — even before the Dodgers advanced out of the wild-card series to make the meeting official — there has been a thought percolating that Los Angeles vs. Philadelphia was this year’s true World Series (or at least NLCS) playing out in the division series round. Well, I’m here to tell you that is not a foregone conclusion.

Yes, the Phillies and the Dodgers possess the most talent of any teams in the sport — but that didn’t stop the Brewers from going a combined 10-2 against Philly and L.A. during the regular season. And how about those Blue Jays (the team two of my colleagues predicted very big things for above), or the Mariners, who definitely have the it factor on their side, or the Tigers, who have the best pitcher on the planet (excluding at-bats vs. Jorge Polanco) on theirs.

I’m going to play the percentages here and say someone other than the Phillies or Dodgers will be the last team standing. — Dan Mullen

The New York Yankees are not done yet. They rallied from a 6-1 deficit for their largest comeback win in an elimination game in franchise history, taking Game 3 of the ALDS against the Toronto Blue Jays.

The Yankees scored eight unanswered runs in the middle innings to secure a 9-6 victory. They’ll now turn to rookie Cam Schlittler – whose first postseason start was a masterpiece in the Wild Card Series win over the Boston Red Sox – as they face elimination again Wednesday night. 

Meanwhile, Blue Jays manager John Schneider will likely rely on a bullpen game to try to cool off a suddenly red-hot Yankees lineup. 

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After being outscored 23-8 in the first two games, the Yankees needed to strike early. But the Yankee Stadium crowd was silenced almost immediately by another Vladimir Guerrero Jr. home run.

The red-hot slugger hammered a Carlos Rodón changeup over the left-center-field fence to make it 2-0 right away for Toronto. The Yankees responded with a Giancarlo Stanton two-out single in the bottom of the first inning, but the Blue Jays took the wind out of any Yankees sails in the top of the third.

BLUE JAYS’ TREY YESAVAGE MAKES MLB PLAYOFF HISTORY IN DOMINANT YANKEES STUNNER

Toronto put up a four-spot as a slew of RBI singles from Daulton Varsho, Ernie Clement and Anthony Santander made it a 6-1 game and knocked Rodón out, much like Max Fried in Game 2 when he couldn’t go more than three innings.

But the Yankees continued to hang around and responded as Aaron Judge hit an RBI double in the bottom half of the third, while Stanton came through again with a sacrifice fly to score Cody Bellinger and make it a 6-3 game.

The Blue Jays still owned a solid lead after three innings, but the Yankees were simply looking for that one break and one moment that could potentially turn everything around in this series. That’s what they got when what seemed to be an easy pop-up by Austin Wells turned into a crucial error by Addison Barger in short left field. 

Jazz Chisholm Jr. of the New York Yankees reacts after hitting a solo home run against the Toronto Blue Jays during the fifth inning in game three of the American League Division Series at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 7, 2025 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Al Bello/Getty Images)

With Wells on second base and Trent Grisham walking, Judge came to the plate with a chance to tie the game with one swing. Judge has been critiqued heavily for his postseason career, and though he has a playoff-high total of hits thus far, he hasn’t done what he does best — hit the ball out of the ballpark.

If there was ever a time for another signature Judge moment, this was it — against Louis Varland, the Blue Jays’ high-leverage reliever who has given up two long balls to No. 99 in his career.

With a two-strike count, Judge swung at a 99.7 mph fastball well off the plate inside and roped it down the left-field line. It banged off the foul pole for a three-run home run to tie the game at six, and the Yankee faithful awoke with a collective roar.

Of course, the Yankees knew the game was only tied and they needed more runs to keep their season alive. In the bottom of the fifth, Jazz Chisholm Jr. knew he got all of a Varland fastball when he hammered it to the second deck in right field for the team’s first lead of the series. Wells added some insurance with an RBI single to make it 8-6.

The Yankees, now holding a 9-6 lead thanks to a Ben Rice sacrifice fly in the bottom of the sixth, needed nine outs from their top two bullpen arms, Devin Williams and David Bednar, to move on to Game 4. Williams came through with four outs, including two strikeouts, while Bednar provided the final five outs without allowing a hit.

Aaron Judge of the New York Yankees celebrates hitting a three-run home run against the Toronto Blue Jays during the fourth inning in game three of the American League Division Series at Yankee Stadium on Oct. 7, 2025 in the Bronx borough of New York City. (Al Bello/Getty Images)

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New York also wouldn’t have been in position to win this game if it weren’t for Fernando Cruz, Camilo Doval and Tim Hill shutting down the Blue Jays’ offense while the Yankees chipped away at the deficit.

Game 4 will be an 8:08 p.m. ET first pitch at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday night. 

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The Arizona Cardinals have reportedly fined head coach Jonathan Gannon $100,000 for his sideline altercation with running back Emari Demercado. 

Gannon was upset after Demercado dropped the football before crossing the goal line on what should have been a 72-yard touchdown that would have put Arizona up 28-6 early in the fourth quarter. 

Instead, the Cardinals went on to lose to the Tennessee Titans, 22-21. 

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A video posted to social media showed Gannon approaching Demercado, who was being consoled by left tackle Paris Johnson after the mistake, and confronting him. Gannon appeared to get in Demercado’s face before making brief contact with the running back’s arm as he walked away. 

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Gannon apologized for his actions on Monday, saying, “I kind of let the moment get the better of me there.” 

There will be no other discipline for Gannon than the fine, according to ESPN. 

Head coach Jonathan Gannon of the Arizona Cardinals leaves the field after a loss against the Seattle Seahawks following the game at State Farm Stadium on Sept. 25, 2025 in Glendale, Arizona. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)

This is the first time an NFL head coach has been fined for a player altercation since Bruce Arians, who was coaching the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was disciplined for hitting safety Andrew Adams’ helmet during a Wild Card Round game against the Philadelphia Eagles. The Bucs docked Arians $50,000 for the incident. 

Demercado’s blunder allowed the Titans to get back into the game, as rookie Cam Ward orchestrated a touchdown drive to cut the deficit. 

Demercado wasn’t the only Cardinals to falter. Several defenders failed to recover a red-zone fumble following an interception, allowing Tennessee’s Tyler Lockett to fall on the ball in the end zone for a wild touchdown. 

Head coach Jonathan Gannon of the Arizona Cardinals stands on the sidelines during the second half of an NFL football game against the Tennessee Titans at State Farm Stadium on Oct. 5, 2025 in Glendale, Arizona. (Brooke Sutton/Getty Images)

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After the Cardinals failed to pick up the first down, Ward led the Titans on a final drive capped by a walk-off field goal as time expired. 

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