It's Going To Be Hot As Balls For The Start Of The World Series

Ah, the Fall Classic. Overcoats and mittens and brisk walks through parks filled with trees showing off their fall colors. It’s World Series time, baby, and the forecast predicts a high of 101 degrees tomorrow in Los Angeles. Seems totally reasonable. Doesn’t seem at all like we’ve fucked up the planet beyond repair. Let’s get that toasty baseball, baby.

At 5 p.m. PDT tomorrow, right around first pitch, the temperature should drop to 95 degrees. It’s a dry heat, but it’s a heat heat. Buckle up for some sweaty-ass (and sweaty ass) baseball.

The weather might be a bit of a wild card factor here. Balls travel faster and farther in higher temperatures, and Dodger Stadium is fairly neutral as far as park factors go. For two teams with powerful offenses, this could mean trouble for the pitchers, if they can’t get batters to swing and miss. It might be a little bit better for Kershaw than it is for Verlander, whose rate of batted pitches that resulted in fly balls was the sixth-highest in the majors among qualified starters this season. But Kershaw has been somewhat plagued by the long ball this postseason, too.

It’s pretty hard to quantify the overall effects of the heat on the ball—not to mention how exhausting it is to stand in for three to four hours in 90-degree temperatures, even at dusk. But one thing is for sure: This is going to be a sweaty game for sweaty, sweaty men. Just dripping, broiling, sweaty men.