MLB Weekly Rundown: All 30 Teams, Every Shift That Matters

the milwaukee brewers are up two games to none on the san diego padres and they've done it by scoring just seven total runs last week we ran the horn on all 30 teams still in the hunt this week the great sorting is over the field has been cut to eight and the lesson of the opening weekend is that october baseball is a different animal the 162 game marathon is done this is a series of knife fights in a phone booth let's get to the headlines in the american league the tampa bay rays pitched a one to nothing shutout against the new york yankees this was a masterclass from drew rasmussen who continues to be the yankees personal kryptonite making matters worse for new york they're doing it without the big man aaron judge who's out with that calf injury that is a massive hole in the middle of their order over in the other alds the chicago white sox walked into cleveland and blanked the guardians three to nothing remember cleveland had all the momentum

they stormed back to steal the al central from the sox in the final month but in october momentum is only as good as your next day's starting pitcher advantage chicago and in the national league the los angeles dodgers took game one from the atlanta braves five to three the box score from the regular season said atlanta owned this matchup winning five of six but the dodgers are finally healthy and in the postseason the team on the field in october is the only one that matters not the one that played in july the braves found that out the hard way so what's the real story here let's start in milwaukee the brewers won an mlb best 103 games you hear that and you think powerhouse you think home runs you would be wrong this team finished twenty ninth in the league in homers twenty ninth but they led all of baseball in runs scored how do you do that you play a brand of baseball that most people thought was extinct you manufacture runs it's a

walk it's a stolen base a bloop single a sacrifice fly they don't beat you with one big swing they bleed you to death with paper cuts their two wins against the padres came by scores of three to two and four to three that's not a coincidence that is their identity we've seen this before it's got the shape of whitey herzog's st louis cardinals teams from the eighties speed defense and just enough pitching they didn't have the sluggers to compete with the power teams so they just ran circles around them on the base paths the brewers have taken that blueprint and updated it for the twenty first century they have the pitching anchored by an absolute bulldog in jacob mizorowski who posted a 1.80 era this season when your starter is that good you only need to scratch out two or three runs and this milwaukee team is built perfectly designed to do exactly that the padres came in hot sweeping the cubs but they run into a

quiet efficient and utterly relentless machine now let's look at that american league east blood feud rays one yankees nothing this series feels like it could be a tipping point for the yankees this is their worst case scenario playing out in real time first you have the drew rasmussen problem his career era against the yankees is 1.81 that's not a trend that's a statistical chokehold some guys just have a team's number rasmussen has the yankees' number their address and the keys to their house second the geography is brutal for new york the entire best of five series is at tropicana field the rays don't have to steal a game on the road they just have to

defend their turf that is a monumental advantage in a short series the pressure is entirely on the yankees to break through in a hostile environment and third the elephant not in the room aaron judge taking his bat out of the lineup against a team that pitches as well as tampa bay is just devastating the yankees are built around the three run homer it's hard to hit a three run homer when your best home run hitter is watching from the dugout and you can't get men on base game one wasn't just a loss it was a proof of concept for everything the yankees feared coming into this matchup so what does it all add up to regular season rewards consistency over a long haul but october october rewards adaptability it exposes teams that only know how to win one way the brewers are proving that a team

built on speed and fundamentals can still dominate the yankees are learning the hard way what happens when your one big weapon gets taken away this week sets up a fundamental question for the rest of the postseason can the power first teams like the padres and yankees find a new way to win or will the clubs built on pitching and relentless execution prove that in the playoffs the old ways are still the best ways