Yahoo Sports senior MLB analysts Jake Mintz and Jordan Shusterman preview Friday night's opening game of the Fall Classic - featuring a starting pitching matchup of Gerrit Cole versus Jack Flaherty. Hear the full conversation on the “Baseball Bar-B-Cast” podcast - and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen.

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Video Transcript

Who you got in game one?

Um I think still the Dodgers Yamamoto is the one I'm really like thinking about more.

I'm gonna take, I'm gonna take the Yankees and I'm gonna take the Yankees for a biased reason, which is I watched Jack Flaherty's most recent start in person in which he was throwing 90 miles an hour and couldn't find the strike zone to the point that he was throwing his curveball more often than he was throwing his fastball.

Now, is there a chance that the extra time off means he's ok. Yeah, sure.

But also what did we just see?

We just saw a pitcher who got crushed so much that he just stopped throwing a fastball.

I will take the guy with the Cy Young over that guy.

Can I say the last just big picture point that I don't think I said, and then we can, then we can say goodbye is just thinking about the kind this kind of relates to the Dave Roberts a discussion which is that Aaron Boone was dealing with some close tense games for the last two weeks, you know, I mean, those three games in Cleveland you know, hold on to your butts.

Right.

Dave Roberts was doing the opposite.

Uh, for certainly the last series there were some, obviously some closer games against San Diego, but they were either kicking their ass or getting their ass kicked.

And there wasn't a lot of, not that there weren't tough decisions to make, but it's those close games where it's like, ok, that, that puts managers in positions to do things unusually.

And I hope obviously for someone that has with this World Series being as hype it is, I hope the games are good.

I hope they're close.

The games are good, you know, like, obviously, right?

But I do think that that's another thing about this from both a managerial standpoint and just like how these players are responding and why I do think the Yankees might be more prepared for games like that.

Um Whereas what happens when the Dodgers are, are dealing with a, a, you know, a tie game in the, in the seventh, I just, you know, we haven't really seen that recently.

The games that the Yankees played here are the gaps in runs 33223 and that includes even closer than that.

And that's the thing.

It's two extra games.

You're the ones from the NL CS 948865.

And though it felt like in moments, it was like, oh, how's Dave Roberts gonna navigate this?

It never got to that next level of, oh, everyone's sweating and like, there's real tension in people fighting their, there were two of those games really in the, in the DS against San Diego, but it didn't really have that same feel.

And so you're right.

I'm curious to see if that does mean anything when the rubber hits.

It's just like what the, what the Yankees had to withstand, you know, in that game three and then even in game four where they had the big early lead and, and Cleveland managed to come back like Boones had to sweat through some of these things.

So I'm, I, I hope we get those good games and, and I'm curious how, how both the players, you know, and, and the managers respond in those situations.

Uh My prediction for tomorrow Cole is good, not dominant, Jack Flaherty does not get out of the third inning and the Yankees take game one.

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