For perhaps the last time in 2025, two MLB playoff games are on the schedule. And the stakes are high for all four teams.
Early Friday, the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners will face off in Game 5 of the American League Championship Series, with the winning team moving away from a World Series victory. Later, the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers could complete a sweep against the top-seeded Milwaukee Brewers with a victory in Game 4 of the National League Championship Series.
We’ve got it all covered for you with pre-match storylines and lineups, as well as game highlights and takeaways after the final pitches.
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The best moments
Blue Jays at the Mariners
Follow live for pitch-by-pitch coverage
Ernie Clement drives Alejandro Kirk to give Toronto the lead
Ern Dog comes CLUTCH! #WANTEVERYTHING pic.twitter.com/4xL7iOR67d
– Toronto Blue Jays (@BlueJays) October 18, 2025
The Jays tie with an RBI double from George Springer
George Springer belts one over the wall to tie this ball game 😤 pic.twitter.com/aoxQYUMY0u
– MLB (@MLB) October 17, 2025
Sailors escape bases-loaded jam unscathed thanks to double play
A WILD DOUBLE GAME TO ESCAPE THE JAM 🤯 pic.twitter.com/wfP2M67Dlz
– MLB (@MLB) October 17, 2025
Suarez hammers home a solo shot to give M the lead
Eugenio Suárez…ABSOLUTELY HAMMERED 💥 pic.twitter.com/LqImJdVbyq
– MLB (@MLB) October 17, 2025
Compositions
Los Angeles leads the series 3-0
Starting pitchers: Jose Quintana vs. Shohei Ohtani
Compositions
Los Angeles
1. Shohei Ohtani (L)P
2. Mookie Betts (right) SS
3. Will Smith (right) C
4. Freddie Freeman (left) 1B
5. Tommy Edman (S) 2B
6. Teoscar Hernández (R) RF
7. Max Muncy (G) 3B
8. Enrique Hernández (right) LF
9. Andy Pages (right) CF
Milwaukee
1. Brice Turang (L) 2B
2. Jackson Chourio (right) LF
3. Christian Yelich (left) DH
4. William Contreras (right) C
5. Jake Bauers (L) 1B
6. Sal Frelick (left) RF
7. Caleb Durbin (right) 3B
8. Blake Perkins (S) CF
9. Joey Ortiz (right) SS
What we’re watching in Friday’s games
ALCS Game 5: Blue Jays-Mariners
How can the Blue Jays maintain their momentum in Game 5?
Buster Olney: Toronto ace Kevin Gausman is fully rested and ready to go, and he could rely on the work of Max Scherzer, who was effective against the Mariners in Game 4 by slowing everything down. Seattle hitters seemed prepared for fastballs against Scherzer, and instead, Scherzer kept falling on off-speed pitches. And Gausman has an exceptional low-velocity weapon in his split-fingered fastball.
David Schoenfield: Keep hitting the ball hard! OK, seriously, few teams have come to Seattle — arguably the toughest place to hit in the majors — and dismantled the Mariners’ pitching staff like the Blue Jays did in the first two games here. They hit 21 balls with an exit velocity over 100 mph – 16 of them for hits and 11 of those 16 hits for extra bases. The Blue Jays had the lowest strikeout rate in the majors during the regular season and they showed how lethal this offense can be when it puts the ball in play. Oh, yeah, it helps when Andres Gimenez, your No. 9 hitter, has two homers, and it especially helps when Vladimir Guerrero Jr., after going 0-for-7 in the two games in Toronto, is 6-for-9 in the of the two games in Seattle.
What does Seattle need to do differently to save its final home game of this ALCS?
Olney: Bryce Miller lifted Seattle’s entire traveling group by pitching so well on short rest less than 48 hours after the incredible Game 5 win over Detroit in the AL Division Series, and because of the way Games 3 and 4 played out here, Miller is facing similar pressure in Game 5. Except now the Blue Jays hitters are rolling, having piled up a mountain of offense at over the last two days. It’s possible that Mariners manager Dan Wilson will be aggressive with his bullpen again — especially with closer Andres Munoz and regular-season ace Bryan Woo.
Schoenfield: Pitchers certainly need to swing more and miss against the Blue Jays, but Seattle’s offense needs to produce. It’s one thing to face Tarik Skubal twice, like the Mariners did against Detroit, but Skubal isn’t pitching in this series. Through nine playoff games, the Mariners are hitting just .215 and several key players are struggling: Randy Arozarena has a .536 OPS with 16 strikeouts, Eugenio Suarez has a .475 OPS with 14 strikeouts and Victor Robles, who was on the bench in Game 4, has a .474 OPS. Dominic Canzone, a key second-half player who hit .300 with an .840 OPS, is 2 for 19 in the postseason. Against the right-handed Gausman, his left bat is important.
NLCS Game 4: Brewers at Dodgers
What do the Brewers need to do to avoid a sweep in Game 4?
Alden Gonzalez: First, they have to hope that Jackson Chourio is healthy enough to play. And then they actually have to do a lot of what they did in Game 3: apply pressure early on, keep the score close and force Dodgers manager Dave Roberts to his bullpen sooner than he’d like. The Brewers, of course, need to hit a lot better (especially Christian Yelich, who is 1 for 11 in this series). But the Dodgers aren’t built to win many games in which their relievers have to get 10 outs to maintain a small lead. Just because they did it successfully in Game 3 doesn’t mean they can do it again in Game 4.
Jeff Passan: What if we hit? The Brewers had nine hits in the first three games of the series. Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow each allowed three in their starts. Blake Snell gave up one when he left. Alex Vesia and Roki Sasaki gave up one in a relief appearance. And that’s it. They scored a total of three points. Striking out 30% of the time doesn’t help, and the fact that they’re facing someone in Shohei Ohtani who had a strikeout-to-walk ratio of nearly 7-to-1 in the regular season only intensifies the need to find something now. The Brewers need to be better in every way to turn this series around, but putting runs on the board is priority No. 1.
What do you expect from Shohei Ohtani in his first NLCS start?
Gonzalez: Ohtani will take the ball on 12 days of rest. The last time he had this much time off between starts was Sept. 16, when he faced the Philadelphia Phillies after an 11-day hiatus from pitching. What followed was five hitless innings against one of the best offenses in the sport. The Brewers’ lineup isn’t as threatening as the Phillies’, but the team will play desperate and, unlike Game 3, won’t have to hit from the shadows. Ohtani, however, will be sharp, regularly reaching triple digits with his fastball. The question is whether he can break out of his offensive slump. In his first few days of the regular season, Ohtani’s slash line dropped to .222/.323/.556.
Pass: Because Ohtani slowly prepared to get out and about following his second elbow reconstruction, it’s easy to have missed the immediate return to business, which isn’t always the case during major surgeries. Ohtani has never thrown his average fastball harder, and his sweeper remains one of the best pitches in the game, smooth and confusing. Milwaukee hasn’t handled speeds over 97 mph particularly well during the regular season, and what makes the situation particularly problematic is Ohtani’s wide variety of other pitches to throw them off balance. His first playoff start went six innings, the same as his previous start to end the regular season. If he does the same in Game 4, the Dodgers should find themselves in a good position.
