Mason Miller took the ball in Sunday's NLDS Game 2 and the Brewers won 4-3 on Jackson Chourio's walk-off single. He retired the Nos. 2, 3 and 4 hitters on 12 pitches in the eighth, returned for the ninth, and finished with 40 pitches: three walks, then the single. San Diego is now down 2-0 in a best-of-five series with Game 3 at home, so a loss ends its season.
Padres manager Craig Stammen denied that pitch-tipping caused Sunday's ninth and said he may not use Miller for more than one inning again this postseason, according to ESPN. Miller's season line argues for using him: a 1.67 ERA against a 1.70 xERA, and a slider that drew whiffs on 56.3% of swings, thrown half the time. The slate's question is how many innings the lead can be protected with. Yuki Matsui threw 15 pitches Saturday and 27 Sunday, and Bradgley Rodriguez 19 and 13; Monday was an off day for this series, so those are workload notes, not availability reports.
The pitching matchup is Dustin May for Milwaukee against Nick Pivetta. May has a 4.70 ERA over 145 innings against a 3.63 FIP, a 1.07-run gap, with a .318 BABIP and a 67.6% strand rate. Pivetta has thrown 34 innings this season: a 2.86 ERA, a 2.21 FIP and a 30.0% strikeout rate. Chourio, who ended Game 2, has a 12.3% barrel rate and seven Outs Above Average in left field.
DraftKings has San Diego at -136 with a 7.0 total; across nine books the consensus is -134 for the Padres and 7.1, with totals ranging from 7.0 to 7.5. First pitch is forecast at 84°F, clear, with 7 mph wind (WIS 0/7).
Game 3 pairs two aces who get there differently. Sale is 14-9 with a 2.16 ERA, a 2.29 FIP, a 30.9% strikeout rate and a 4.8% walk rate, and hitters still have a .304 BABIP against him, right at the league average. Yamamoto is 14-9 with a 2.53 ERA, a 3.33 FIP, a 25.7% strikeout rate and a .217 BABIP, 83 points under the league average, with 80.7% of baserunners stranded.
The difference is who has to make the play. Yamamoto's number depends on fielders and on sequencing; Sale's depends on bats missing. Both beat their xERA, Sale by 0.81 runs (2.16 against 2.97) and Yamamoto by 0.41 (2.53 against 2.94). The gloves behind them rank differently: Atlanta has +62 Defensive Runs Saved, tied for fourth in baseball with Milwaukee, and Los Angeles has +37, ninth, per FanGraphs.
The lineups bring contact quality to it. Shohei Ohtani has a 16.2% barrel rate and a .397 xwOBA against a .377 wOBA, and Atlanta's Matt Olson has a 14.1% barrel rate, a 52.0% hard-hit rate and 12 Outs Above Average at first base. Los Angeles took Game 1, 5-3, and Atlanta Game 2, 3-2.
DraftKings has Atlanta at -109 and Los Angeles at -110, and the nine-book consensus is -107 and -108 with a 6.1 total (6.0 to 6.5). First pitch is forecast at 75°F, clear, with 7 mph wind (WIS 0/7).
Ottawa won at Toronto on Saturday, 3-2, and at Boston on Monday, 4-1, and now plays at Detroit on Tuesday: games on three of four nights, in three cities. It is the only team on tonight's NHL board that played Monday. ESPN's transactions list shows the Senators placed left wing Andre Burakovsky on injured reserve and recalled defenseman Donovan Sebrango from Belleville.
Detroit has lost both home games to open the season, 2-0 to the Rangers on Friday and 3-2 to Winnipeg on Sunday, and has not played since. The Red Wings have earned no standings point. ESPN has the moneyline at -110 on both sides with a 5.5 total, so the market does not separate a 2-0 team on short travel from a 0-2 team on rest.
Schedule is context, not a prediction: Ottawa has won both games despite the travel so far, and one game says little about the next.
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