Three AL teams are still alive with a chance to make a dream come true. The Blue Jays have already punched their ticket to the ALCS and will await the winner of Friday night’s Tigers vs. Mariners matchup. By this point, there are no unknowns between the Tigers and Mariners. This will be the second start of the series for both Tarik Skubal and George Kirby. All of the bullpen arms have been seen. All of the hitter tendencies have been memorized.

Tonight, it’s all about execution. It’s about the team that fouls back a mistake vs. the team that doesn’t miss it. It’s about the managers pushing the right buttons. Maybe home-field advantage will come into play. I guess we’ll have to wait and see. Detroit is a road favorite with the presumptive back-to-back Cy Young Award winner on the mound.

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Here are the MLB best bets today for October 10:

Tigers (-121, 6) at Mariners

8:08 p.m. ET (FOX)

If the total is to be believed in this game, then this is going to be a very tough watch for both teams. The beauty of the MLB playoffs is that the game can swing on any singular pitch. That is especially true when you’re talking about a game with a total of 5.5.

Skubal is the right guy to have on the bump for that kind of game. Over his last 67 starts, including five in the postseason over the last two years, he has allowed a total of 112 runs. Not even two runs per game. Not even close, frankly. He also has 469 strikeouts in that span. There’s a reason why he won the Cy Young last season and is in line to win it for the second time this season.

In 14.2 playoff innings thus far, he has 23 strikeouts against four walks. The Mariners did win Game 2, which Skubal started and allowed a couple of home runs to Jorge Polanco. We can reasonably assume that Skubal will be very good in a pitcher’s park with elite command on full rest.

Therefore, Kirby is the one who should be under the microscope. He only went five innings in his start, but they were five good innings, as he allowed two runs on six hits with eight strikeouts against just one walk. He had 16 Whiffs in 49 swings and reached back for a little extra, as his pitches were all up about one mph in velo from the regular season. It was a shortened regular season for Kirby, who only worked 126 innings after back-to-back 190-inning efforts.

In that start earlier in the series, Kirby went heavy on the hard stuff, as he threw 64% sinkers/four-seam fastballs. Most of the rest of his pitch usage was on the slider. Detroit was an above average offense on both fastballs and sinkers during the regular season. Will he go with more sliders in this start? He had nine Whiffs in just 21 swings on that pitch. It’s an adjustment that I would look to make facing them for the second time.

Skubal had 16 Whiffs in 53 swings. He, too, went with a lot of hard stuff, throwing a sinker or fastball 61% of the time. I do wonder what sort of adjustment he’ll look to make in this start. The Mariners were a very good offense during the season with both sinkers and changeups, but Skubal’s version of those two pitches trumps what you’re going to see from other guys. Polanco hit out a sinker and a slider, for what it’s worth.

The off day on Thursday really benefitted both bullpens. One thing to keep in mind is that the Mariners are likely going to need more outs from their relief corps. Kirby threw 94 pitches to get 15 outs. And I feel like Dan Wilson wants to get him out quickly. Kirby faced 109 batters the third time through the order and allowed a .310/.349/.580 slash.

It’s hard to want to pick against Skubal here and I don’t want to. I was going to be on Over 19.5 Outs, but that price moved up overnight to around -130. If I think that Skubal is going to pitch around seven innings and do so really well, then I might as well take my chances with the -121, as it has a few more ways of coming through.

Pick: Tigers -121

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