Tuesday League Championship Series Thread: Red Sox @ Tigers, Cardinals @ Dodgers

With ALCS Game 3 scheduled for 4pm, and NLCS Game 4 scheduled for 8pm, what are the odds that the first game will end before the second begins? Four hours seems like quite a cushion, until you consider that every American League playoff game has taken an eternity, or so it seems. Even near no-hitters with a final score of 1-0 end up closer to four hours than three.

After a stunning display of bullpen incompetence, the kind of thing made all the worse because its occurrence will be used to fuel some vomit-inducing "mystique" narratives about David Phonebane and/or the Red Sox franchise as a whole, the Tigers are now back on their turf looking to reclaim the upper hand in their Championship Series. With Justin Verlander taking the mound, you have to like their chances of doing this, although Red Sox starter John Lackey was no slouch either.

Funny thing about the postseason: everybody has good pitching, for the most part. Nothing makes you realize what was missing from the Orioles so much as watching the four remaining teams. Like, I don't know, plate discipline, multiple better-than-league-average starters, bullpens full of guys who can throw 97.

You know I'll be rooting for Detroit today, but my heart's not in it. They failed us all on Sunday and that is not a slight that I will soon forgive.

As far as the National League goes, I have only one thing to say: anyone who doesn't like Yasiel Puig probably doesn't actually like baseball.