Monday MLB playoffs open thread

Today is the last day of the year where there are four scheduled MLB games. For the baseball junkie who has Columbus Day off, there could be twelve consecutive hours of playoff baseball. That part, at least, depends on whether the remnants of Hurricane Nate get involved - and also whether one of these games can actually be played in less than three hours, which, based on how the playoffs have gone so far, doesn’t seem possible.

The games are lined up on the schedule as follows:

• Astros at Red Sox, 1:08 on Fox Sports 1
• Nationals at Cubs, 4:08 on TBS
• Indians at Yankees, 7:08 on Fox Sports 1
• Dodgers at Diamondbacks, 10:08 on TBS

Any one of the Red Sox, Yankees, and Diamondbacks would be eliminated with a loss. The winner of the Nationals-Cubs game takes a significant 2-1 lead in the best-of-five set. Here are the lineups for the first game of the day: