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For the majority of the season, the Los Angeles Dodgers and Houston Astros looked like the two best teams in baseball. The Cleveland Indians made a run at that title in the second half of the year, but here we are in late October, and it’s the two suspected top dogs remaining in the World Series.
This marks just the eighth time in history that both teams in the Fall Classic won 100-plus games during the regular season, so you can expect it to be a battle over the next week.
Game 1 is scheduled to start Tuesday night at about 8:09 p.m. ET and will be broadcast nationally on Fox. Those with a cable log-in can watch via Fox Sports Go, but if you don’t have cable or can’t get to a television, you can watch the game online for free via one of the following cable-free, live-TV services if you’re in a select market:
Fubo TV: Fox is included in the “Fubo Premier” channel package.
DirecTV Now: Fox is included in all four of the channel packages.
Sling TV: Fox is included in the “Sling Blue” channel package.
Again, all of these options include a free trial, so you can watch tonight’s game–and the whole World Series–at no cost.
Pitching Matchup
Not only do the Dodgers have home-field advantage, but they also have Clayton Kershaw advantage.
The three-time Cy Young winner had a somewhat rocky–by his standards–finish to the regular season as he recovered from a back injury, but he was mostly his dominant self in the NLCS, holding the powerful Cubs lineup to seven hits, two walks and three runs over 11.0 innings. He limited opposing batters to a meager .179/.220/.333 slash line during his two starts.
Houston will counter with resident ace and fellow former CY Young Dallas Keuchel, who owns a 2.59 ERA and 1.09 WHIP through three postseason starts this year. He cruised through his first two starts but was most recently roughed up a little bit in Game 5 of the ALCS (4.2 IP, 7 H, 1 BB, 4 ER), which was his first road start of the playoffs.
A pitching duel is to be expected with these two studs on the mound, though we’ve seen both lineups capable of putting up runs in a hurry. Houston led the majors in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and runs per game, while the Dodgers have poured on 6.0 runs per game this postseason.