Every postseason game as a strikeout duel: both starters, what SALCI projects, the range it expects, and where the book set the line. Same model, same stored numbers as the rest of the site — and a separate October record, kept in public from zero.
The model's published plays that land on a postseason game — exactly as stamped pregame, never re-priced.
Every series, MLB's own score line. No series odds — facts only.
Every club in the field on one scale. Switch the metric and the window — bullpens decide October, so they get their own rows.
The same arms, regular season vs postseason. The strikeout rate barely moves — the hook does. That's why a regular-season projection tends to run high in October.
In the 2023–2025 postseasons, the pitchers who started a playoff game averaged 4.1 IP in those starts (n=262) against 5.2 IP in their own regular-season starts that same year (n=2899) — a shorter hook, not a worse pitcher: K/9 barely moved (9.16 vs. 9.21). 14% of postseason starts (37) were opener-length outings, and they are counted in, not excluded.
The pitcher listed first in the box score’s `pitchers` order for that team, verified against `gamesStarted === 1` — the pitcher who threw the team’s first pitch. MLB credits gamesStarted this way regardless of how short the outing, so OPENERS ARE INCLUDED in the sample, not filtered out; their share of it is reported separately (openerShare) rather than assumed away.
The regular-season comparison is each postseason starter’s OWN regular-season starts that same year (per-pitcher game log, not a league-wide average) — comparing the same arms to themselves, not to the league’s 5th starters and spot arms who never see October.
Playoff baseball isn't what the model was fitted on — starters get quicker hooks, and a projection built on regular-season workloads will tend to run high. So October is graded on its own, from zero, against the numbers we stored before each game.
Above the dashed line: struck out more than projected. Below: fewer.
68 starts · projected 5.4 Ks on average, recorded 4.5 · 36 of 66 landed in the stated range.
For informational and entertainment purposes only. Nothing on this page is a recommendation to bet.
Clubs in a playoff spot by today’s regular-season standings — three division leaders plus three wild cards, each league.
