The Buzz · October 10, 2026
The Buzz — Saturday, October 10
A Game 5 in Cleveland, an NLCS opener in Milwaukee, and four names — each with the number that settles or complicates what the crowd is saying.
Gavin Williams
The take Williams starts winner-take-all ALDS Game 5 after closing 4
The crowd sees a starter closing Game 4 and wonders if the arm is spent — but 18 pitches is a bullpen session with stakes, not a tax that breaks a start two days later. Williams struck out 11 White Sox over five innings in Game 2 on 98 pitches, and he is the man who led the American League with 248 strikeouts across 184.1 innings this season.
Vogt said Williams wants the ball, and the stuff that punched out 11 last time out is the same stuff that starts Saturday. The relief appearance got him to Game 5 with work in his arm and two days to recover.
Gavin Williams cards on eBay →(paid link)
Tarik Skubal
The take Skubal confirmed Dodgers NLCS Game 1 starter vs Brewers
The Dodgers traded for Skubal on August 2, and a 2.61 ERA since the trade is the reason he gets the ball Sunday at American Family Field. This is a two-time Cy Young winner arriving on a new roster and doing exactly what he always did — which is the whole point of the trade.
What Milwaukee has on him is six runs in 12 innings this season — five earned, across the regular year. That is the kind of line that says a good lineup has seen him and made him work for it.
The more recent evidence favors the Dodgers. In NLDS Game 1, Skubal gave them six innings of one-run ball — two hits, seven strikeouts — in a 5-3 win over Atlanta. Los Angeles won that series and lined up its rotation, with Yamamoto set for Game 2 on Monday. A team with its starters where it wanted them picked this matchup, and now it plays out.
Tarik Skubal cards on eBay →(paid link)
Sean Burke
The take White Sox starter opposite Williams in ALDS Game 5
The White Sox are finally starting a game the old-fashioned way — no opener, no relay — and handing it to the pitcher who has owned this matchup all year. Burke is 3-0 with a 1.19 ERA in five appearances against Cleveland this season, and in Game 2 he retired 13 straight Guardians in relief. Venable calling him built for these moments is manager talk, but the 1.19 ERA is the number that says Chicago's best chance is to let Burke pitch as long as the game lets him.
Sean Burke cards on eBay →(paid link)
Garrett Mitchell
The take Healthy Mitchell's defense keys Brewers' NLCS berth
The play everyone saw was the catch — Manny Machado's ball projected 406 feet at 106.7 mph off the bat, and Mitchell went over the wall in the eighth inning of a 3-1 clincher to take a game-tying home run back. That is the highlight. The story underneath it is that he was on the field at all.
Mitchell played 145 games this season after just 25 in 2025 before shoulder surgery ended his year and he watched the Brewers' playoff run from the sideline. The catch that saved the NLDS is what a full healthy season produces: a player whose body held up long enough for the talent to arrive in October. He went 2-for-4 with a triple in the same game, because the defense was not the whole contribution — just the part the cameras caught.
Garrett Mitchell cards on eBay →(paid link)
What Saturday decides
Williams vs Burke at Progressive Field is the only game that matters, and the question is whether Williams on 18 relief pitches and two days' rest is still the arm that struck out 11. If he is, Cleveland advances. If the outing cost him anything, Burke's 1.19 ERA against this lineup is the number that sends the White Sox to the ALCS. Sunday's NLCS opener starts a series that runs through next week, but Saturday is the one that ends.