Let's play ball.

It's effectively wild.

It's effectively wild.

It's effectively wild.

Hello and welcome to episode 2385 of Effectively Wild

Baseball Podcast from Fangraphs presented by our Patreon supporters.

I am Ben Lindberg of the Ringer, joined by Meg Rally of FanGraphs.

Hello, Meg.

Hello.

Well, in the postseason, it's always important to specify when we are recording

so that you can situate us in time and amid the series that are ongoing here.

So we are talking Thursday afternoon, Eastern time, at least.

Wednesday we had four games, which was fun the last time that we'll have more than two games in a day this season.

And all four were potential clinchers, though only one of them actually

turned out to be a clincher. So we are recording now prior to two more potential clinchers,

both NLDS, game fours. Games four, game fours. I have to say, so we had a bunch of teams that actually were facing must-win games on Wednesday,

because if they did not win, they would have been eliminated.

However, we're getting this must-win game creep, which I think I have probably brought up before, but I've been noticing it more and more

where people try to heighten the stakes of games that already have high stakes. It's the postseason.

It's short series is best of five. Every game is important. We know that going in. It's not like any game is just,

sure, whatever. I guess we could afford to lose that one. But people just want to build it up

into being even bigger than it is. I'm going to pick on Jeff Passon here just for a second.

...