The Buzz · October 15, 2026
The Buzz — Thursday, October 15
The NLCS turned on one 11-pitch at-bat, the ALCS turns to a starter carrying 210 pitches in six days, and under each name is the number that settles the argument or keeps it alive.
Jake Bauers
The take Bauers' 11-pitch HR gives Brewers 3-0 NLCS lead
Eleven pitches, and the series turned. Bauers drove the last one 412 feet to right — a two-run shot that flipped a 2-1 deficit into a 3-2 lead the Brewers would not give back.
Milwaukee won 6-2 and now sits one win from a World Series berth, with the two-time defending champions needing four straight. What the crowd calls a miracle is less miracle than payoff. Bauers hit .199 in 2024, the Brewers released him, and he nearly walked away — came back on a minor-league deal, played 144 games, led the club with 26 home runs. The at-bat was the kind a hitter earns by surviving everything that came before it.
Jake Bauers cards on eBay →(paid link)
Blake Snell
The take Snell left in too long; back-to-back HRs sink Dodgers
He had retired 14 in a row and had not allowed a home run in 46 1/3 innings this year. Through six he had nine strikeouts on about 81 pitches, and the Dodgers led 2-1. Dave Roberts sent him back out for the seventh because the stuff said he should — Roberts said after: "I don't think they were seeing him well." He was not wrong about the first six.
Andrew Vaughn walked to open the seventh, snapping the streak. Bauers grinded through 11 pitches and drove the last one 412 feet to flip the lead. Garrett Mitchell followed with a 428-foot solo shot, and a dominant start became a 4-2 deficit the Dodgers never closed. It was the first time in Snell's career he allowed consecutive home runs to left-handed hitters — in 1,200 2/3 career innings, lefties had taken him deep 15 times total.
The crowd calls it mismanagement, and it is second-guessable. But Snell was good, then he was not, and the margin in a 3-0 series does not care about the distinction. The larger problem is a Dodgers offense that is 3-for-32 with RISP this postseason with no NLCS home runs. The pitching did not lose this series alone.
Blake Snell cards on eBay →(paid link)
Gavin Williams
The take ALCS Game 3 start after high-K ALDS outings
Williams is the arm Cleveland keeps turning to, and the reason is in the radar. In the ALDS he threw 210 pitches over six days — 11⅔ innings, 24 strikeouts, a 1.54 ERA across three appearances — and his four-seamer in the winner-take-all Game 5 averaged 99.1 mph, above his season mark of 97.6. A pitcher whose stuff is declining does not throw harder on short rest. He led the AL with 248 strikeouts in 184⅓ innings this season, and the Guardians named him Thursday's starter for ALCS Game 3 against Griffin Jax and the Rays, first pitch moved to 1 p.m. on a rain forecast. The workload is real. The arm, so far, is holding.
Gavin Williams cards on eBay →(paid link)
Thursday belongs to Cleveland
The only game on the schedule is ALCS Game 3: Williams against Griffin Jax at Progressive Field, series tied 1-1, first pitch at 1 p.m. on a rain forecast. Meanwhile the Dodgers need four straight to climb out of a 3-0 hole, and the number that should scare them is 3-for-32 with RISP and zero NLCS home runs. Snell's seventh inning will get the replay treatment all day, but a lineup that cannot hit with men on base does not need a bad inning to lose a series. It needs four good games in a row, and it has not put together one yet.