MLB Baseball
2025-10-04 - Los Angeles Dodgers at Philadelphia Phillies
A Sports Betting Pick by FirstDown
United States : MLB Baseball Playoff Divisional Series Game 1
Saturday 4th October 2025 - Scheduled 6:38pm
11:38pm (British Time)
Preview
By far and away the Divisional Series that most are looking forward to is this one in the National League and the winning team is going to be a big favourite to win the World Series.
The Los Angeles Dodgers crushed the Cincinnati Reds in two games in the Wild Card Round to move on and prepare for this Divisional Round Series against the Philadelphia Phillies. These two teams have been amongst the very best in the National League in recent years and the Dodgers came through to win the World Series in 2024, while the Philadelphia Phillies were beaten in the World Series in 2022.
In each of the last couple of years, the Phillies have struggled in the post-season and they will be keen to make a strong start to this Divisional Round Series.
Game 1 will see the Philadelphia Phillies hand the ball to Cristopher Sanchez who had a 13-5 record with a 2.50 ERA in the regular season. He took over 'ace' duties with real success for the National League East Winners, and Sanchez pitched 5 Innings in the Playoffs last year and only allowed two runs in his single start.
Cristopher Sanchez ended the regular season by allowing less than two runs in five of the last six starts made- however, the one exception was an outing against the Los Angeles Dodgers when Sanchez allowed four runs 7 Innings thrown, although he did not factor into the decision.
In both starts made against the Los Angeles Dodgers this season, Cristopher Sanchez allowed four runs in each outing.
The Dodgers will be looking for the top of the order to try and get on top of the Phillies starter immediately and that means Shohei Ohtani leading the team out.
The same player will be heading to the mound for the Dodgers and Shohei Ohtani finished with a 2.87 ERA in the fourteen starts he made as a pitcher. He did not give up a single run in the three starts made in September, and the Dodgers allowed Shohei Ohtani to build up his arm with a little more time spent on the mound in each outing.
Shohei Ohtani is pitching in the Playoffs for the first time, but he will be confident facing this Philadelphia batting lineup having held them scoreless in 5 Innings thrown last month.
The Phillies have won four of the six games played against the current World Series Champions in the regular season.
Prediction
Starting pitching is going to be very important in this Divisional Round Series with the bullpens perhaps vulnerable to what are two very strong batting lineups.
Out of the two teams, the Los Angeles Dodgers did manage to find a way to get to Cristopher Sanchez in both regular season games against him.
Overall it was a strong season for Sanchez, but he was knocked around for four runs in both games against the Dodgers, although the Phillies batting lineup did their best to back him up.
It may be tougher to do that in this game with Shohei Ohtani opposing them on the mound, but the Phillies will want to make him throw enough pitches to force the bullpen out.
This Philadelphia batting lineup is very effective, as is the Los Angeles Dodgers lineup, and these teams may be able to find the big shots to get into a position to surpass this total runs line set.
The Pick :
Philadelphia Phillies 4-5 Los Angeles Dodgers
FIXED ODDS BETTING TIP :
I'll back Over 7 Total Runs at -115 with Bovada
