Postseason rematches highlight 5 series to watch

The 2025 season is (roughly) a month old and already cutting teeth. Trends are forming, numbers are starting to hold actual meaning and team identities are starting to take shape, for better or for worse.

So let's forge ahead. The week of April 21 will feature a couple of heated postseason rematches, a meeting between Paul Skenes and the only team that's truly had his number and a pair of potentially illuminating interleague series.

Yankees at Guardians
3 games (Monday-Wednesday)

Head-to-head: The 2024 ALCS marked the seventh time the Guardians and Yankees have met in the playoffs, but over the last decade or so, that postseason rivalry has become distinctly lopsided. Of the five times the Guardians have made the playoffs since 2017, they've met and subsequently been sent home by the Yankees in four of them.

Storyline: For the last eight years, what the Astros have been to the Yankees, the Yankees have been to the Guardians. You can't settle a score like that in one April series, but that narrative remains the elephant in the room.

Watch out for: The supporting cast. José Ramírez is off to a nice start and Aaron Judge has a 1.202 OPS, but have a look at what the Guardians have gotten from Steven Kwan (.325 AVG) and Kyle Manzardo (6 HR, 16 RBIs) and the Yankees from Paul Goldschmidt (.361 AVG) and Ben Rice (.292 AVG, 5 HR).

Padres at Tigers
3 games (Monday-Wednesday)

Head-to-head: The Padres have won each of their last two series, two games to one, but those were greener Tigers teams, and it's not much to go on -- of 24 total head-to-head matchups, the Tigers have won 13.

Storyline: Two challengers off to great starts, one from each league -- how do they stack up against each other? The Padres were built to win the NL West, whether or not it's actually been winnable, and the Tigers have transitioned out of another rebuild but need look no further than Cleveland to be reminded that their success is heavily dependent on their ability to keep pace with their shinier counterparts.

Watch out for: The Padres are without Jackson Merrill, sidelined with a right hamstring strain, and just lost Luis Arraez, who was involved in an ugly collision in Houston on Sunday night, so Fernando Tatis Jr.'s hot start gets more important by the day. Through Sunday's action, the 26-year-old has a nine-game hitting streak to complement his eight home runs and .358/.436/.691 line.

Phillies at Mets
3 games (Monday-Wednesday)

Head-to-head: The Phillies just took last year's season series, seven games to six, but things had changed by October, when the NL East champs ran into the buzzsaw that was the second-half Mets. New York won that series, their first ever postseason matchup, 3-1.

Storyline: This will be the clubs' first meeting in 2025, which means the Mets' bragging rights are very much intact even before you factor in their early two-game lead over the Phillies in the NL East. A rivalry that's always at least smoldering has been fully reignited.

Watch out for: Pete Alonso was a bit of an afterthought this spring, and he may have taken exception to that. At the start of play Monday, he's hitting .346 with six home runs and leads all qualifying hitters with a .718 slugging percentage.

Pirates at Dodgers
3 games (Friday-Sunday)

Head-to-head: The Dodgers have an active four-game winning streak against the Pirates, pretty typical of recent history -- they've won six of their last seven season series going back to 2017.

Storyline: If Paul Skenes is an unstoppable force, the Dodgers are his immovable object. They saw him twice in his rookie season and touched him up for seven runs on 12 hits over 11 innings, and Skenes is lined up to start on Friday, setting up another showdown between otherworldly, overpowering baseball men.

Watch out for: Yoshinobu Yamamoto. Through five starts (29 IP), he has a 0.93 ERA, 0.86 WHIP and 38 strikeouts against seven walks. His splitter, and just how much opposing hitters whiff at it, are worth the price of admission alone. (Bonus: he could very well match up with Skenes, in which case you might want to just cancel your plans for the night.)

Rangers at Giants
3 games (Friday-Sunday)

Head-to-head: A vintage World Series rematch, these teams haven't seen much of each other since 2010. The Giants won their only head-to-head series in 2024 (2-1) and have a slight advantage in regular-season meetings (12-10) since that Fall Classic.

Storyline: Rangers manager Bruce Bochy has already received his warm welcome back to Oracle Park, but now his former team is being run by his former star player, which does somewhat change the dynamic. Because Buster Posey's playing career ended during Bochy's temporary retirement, these games will also functionally be their first on opposite sides of the ball. Like all the best baseball, it's sentimental and just a little strange.

Watch out for: Jung Hoo Lee is owed a lot of the credit for the way the Giants have played early on. Hitting .333 with a .593 SLG, more than half of his hits have been for extra bases, which has also helped to absorb the potential impact of Willy Adames' slow start.