A momentum shift? A season on brink? Storylines for LCS action today

It was an electrifying night of baseball on Thursday, with a wild walk-off in Cleveland and the Dodgers asserting their dominance again in Queens. Los Angeles has a chance to return to the World Series for the first time since 2020 on Friday, but what’s happening in Cleveland, with two pitchers who haven’t thrown since the regular season ended, is even more fascinating. Will this be the last day of multiple games this season?

Every day throughout this postseason, I’ll be previewing the next day’s action, game-by-game, with the major storyline for each team.

Here are the biggest questions heading into Friday’s ALCS Yankees-Guardians Game 4 and NLCS Dodgers-Mets Game 5.

NLCS Game 5: Dodgers at Mets (LAD leads 3-1)
5:08 p.m. ET, FS1
Jack Flaherty vs. David Peterson

Dodgers Storyline: Can Shohei and Mookie just blast their way to the World Series?
Remember all that talk about Shohei Ohtani only getting hits with runners on base? Well, he quieted that chatter with a leadoff home run that looked like it was shot out of a cannon. That seemed to scare the Mets off, and they walked him in his next three plate appearances. And what happened? He scored three more runs, two of them coming on RBI knocks (a double and homer) from Mookie Betts. The Dodgers won on Thursday the way we all expected them to win: By having two of the best players in the world atop their lineup. Ohtani and Betts got on base a combined eight times, scored seven times, and drove in five combined runs (four of them by Betts). When that happens, uh, you’re not going to beat the Dodgers.

The Mets came back from Dodger Stadium tied 1-1 and feeling like they could ride the vibes all the way to the Fall Classic. Since then, they have been outscored 18-2 in front of an increasingly morose (and silent) Queens crowd. Shohei is one win away from his first trip to the World Series, and Mookie his third. Does it look like anyone’s going to stop them from doing that right now?

Mets Storyline: Can the Mets’ pitching staunch the bleeding at all?
It is a lot to ask Kodai Senga to give you much of anything at the moment, which is why manager Carlos Mendoza decided to give the Game 5 start to David Peterson. As much as Mendoza might want to call Senga an “ace, man," he was anything but in Game 1, putting the Mets behind the eight ball in a way that we’ve now seen repeatedly at Citi Field this week.

We saw Senga look fairly sharp in Game 1 of the Division Series against the Phillies, but right now it’s anyone’s guess what he might provide. Mendoza said Senga will be available in relief after Peterson, but when the Mets go to him – if they choose to at all -- is the biggest question. Do you really trust him to face the aforementioned Ohtani and Betts and (also, oh yeah) Freddie Freeman at least once, possibly twice? The Mets’ vibes seem to have mostly faded this week in Queens. The goal now is simply to keep the boat afloat as long as they can.

ALCS Game 4: Yankees at Guardians (NYY leads 2-1)
8:08 p.m. ET, TBS
Luis Gil vs. Gavin Williams

Yankees Storyline: What can they expect from Luis Gil?
When Luis Gil was announced as the Game 4 starter before Game 3, it didn’t feel like a situation that would bring that much pressure. The Yankees were up 2-0, they had a pitching advantage in Game 3, they had Aaron Judge starting to warm up and they looked, for all intents and purposes, like a team that was about to go up 3-0. And they were this close to doing so, before Jhonkensy Noel and David Fry etched their names in Cleveland lore forever.

• Yankees-Guardians ALCS Game 4 FAQ

Now suddenly Gil -- who, again, has not pitched in three weeks and gave up six runs against the Pirates when he last did on Sept. 28 -- has everything on his shoulders. Sure, he’s facing a pitcher in Gavin Williams who also hasn’t pitched this postseason, but for a guy who overall has been a positive story for the Yankees this season (and even seemed like a Rookie of the Year candidate for a while), this is the biggest moment of Gil’s young career by a wide margin. This is one of the most important starts in a decade of Yankees baseball. Right at the moment when Gil has been the most idle, and when he has struggled the most. It’s a lot -- a lot -- to ask.

Guardians Storyline: Wait, do the Guardians have all the vibes now?
You thought the Guardians were done. We all did. It’s OK that you did. The Guardians’ primary strategy this series was to get the game to their bullpen with a lead, and they did that on Thursday … only for Emmanuel Clase, of all people, to lose that lead in the top of the eighth on back-to-back homers given up to Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton. That was an absolutely brutal blow for any team to have to overcome, and honestly, we should all be forgiven for thinking there was no way they could do it. But then, in the bottom of the ninth, against the previously untouchable Luke Weaver, Noel hit a home run that Guardians fans will remember for the rest of their lives, no matter the outcome of this series. And it wasn’t even the most exciting homer of the night.

This is our favorite view of Fry’s walk-off homer:

That’s the sort of homer that will electrify a city, and a whole region, for days to come. The Guardians are starting a pitcher in Williams who hasn’t gone in weeks, just like the man he’s facing in Gil. But in the span of one inning, about 30 minutes on the clock, the Guardians didn’t just yank this game from the jaws of defeat … they may have just turned this whole entire series around.