The key storyline for each Wild Card Game 1

We very much hope you are a morning person, because for the next week-plus, you’re going to have to get all your work done by lunchtime. Because there’s about to be baseball -- high-level, top-shelf, hyper-intense baseball -- all day, just about every day. We’re here to guide you through it.

The Wild Card Series begin on Friday with four games, and then continue on Saturday with four more. With any luck, we’ll have four more on Sunday. To help you through this maelstrom of baseball, we’ll be looking at One Key Storyline for each game on Friday. They are listed in order of game time, starting with the earliest.

Rays at Guardians
Shane McClanahan vs. Shane Bieber
12:07 p.m. ET, ESPN

Storyline: Can the Guardians generate enough offense and power?

For all the talk of the American League Central supposedly being weak, the Guardians are a most legitimate champion: They were six games better than these Rays, after all. But there have been questions about their offense all season. Even when it was thriving earlier in the year, it was doing so in an unconventional way, essentially sacrificing power for contact, a station-to-station approach that worked but made many wonder whether it would be sustainable.

Well, the offense plummeted to a .655 OPS in August and only barely rebounded in September to .719. A large part of the problem? The collapse of former MVP candidate José Ramírez, whose slugging percentage fell to .466 in August and .358 in September. The switch-hitting All-Star was notably poor from the right side, and that was a bugaboo for the entire team. Cleveland’s .646 OPS against lefties ranked 28th in the Majors, ahead of only Oakland and Miami. That plays right into the hands of McClanahan, one of the best lefties in the game.

Even beyond McClanahan, the Rays’ pitching is versatile and deep -- though perhaps not as versatile and deep as it has been in the past -- and known for keeping the ball in the ballpark. The Guardians, well … they could stand to hit some homers (29th in MLB).

• TB vs. CLE, position by position

Phillies at Cardinals
Zack Wheeler vs. José Quintana
2:07 p.m. ET, ABC

Storyline: Which slumping superstar will return to form?

Bryce Harper, the reigning NL MVP who didn’t play the field after April 16 this year as he dealt with injuries, put up his lowest OPS (.877) since 2016 along the way. And most concerning was how he finished: He hit .196 with only three homers in September and October and really hasn’t been the same since returning from missing all of July and most of August with a left thumb injury.

Cardinals first baseman Paul Goldschmidt, who still might win the MVP Award this year, had no injury excuse for his stagger toward the finish line: He hit .245 with just two homers in September and October. These are two of the best hitters in baseball whose teams desperately need them to rediscover their stroke this postseason.

• PHI vs. STL, position by position

Mariners at Blue Jays
Luis Castillo vs. Alek Manoah
4:07 p.m. ET, ESPN

Storyline: Which team’s great vibes will prevail?

You know where would be a fun place to be, if you couldn’t be at a game, this weekend? T-Mobile Park in Seattle, where they’re having watch parties to see their team play, in another country no less, its first postseason games since 2001. (And try to earn an ALDS spot for which they could actually host a game, in an atmosphere that would be electric.)

But for all the fun and joy of the Mariners’ story, the Blue Jays are quite a story themselves. Remember, this is a team that played games in three different cities in 2021 -- unable to go to their home stadium until July 30 -- after never getting to play in Toronto the year before. The Blue Jays had been building up their young talent, and spending money to supplement it, in order to maximize the quality of their roster right as the world turned upside down. Is it any wonder that Toronto has felt like a vaguely underperforming team for the last couple of years?

The Blue Jays just missed the playoffs a season ago, and star Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (who took his own step back this year, seeing his OPS drop from 1.002 to .818) has said that this, the postseason, was what they were building toward, that this is the time the uber-talented Blue Jays will finally put it all together. To combat all that happy Mariners energy, they’ll need to.

• SEA vs. TOR, position by position

Padres at Mets
Yu Darvish vs. Max Scherzer
8:07 p.m. ET, ESPN

Storyline: Is the one-two punch atop the Mets' rotation enough?

The whole plan for the Mets this season was to get into the playoffs, by proverbial hook or crook, and then ride Scherzer and Jacob deGrom through the postseason. The way the schedule is set up is going to make that difficult to do even if the aces are dominant -- though we have a suggestion to max out those aces’ usage -- but certainly, if the Mets are going to make their postseason as memorable as their 101-win regular season, they’ll need Scherzer and deGrom to be at the top of their games.

It’s up for debate whether that will be the case: Both pitchers were good in September and October (2.38 ERA for Scherzer, a somewhat-deceiving 4.50 ERA for deGrom), but it’s worth noting that Darvish was 5-1 with a 1.85 ERA in September and October -- better than both of them.

• SD vs. NYM, position by position