After a welcome break on Thursday following Wednesday’s truly remarkable night of baseball, the playoffs are here. The American League Division Series starts tonight with the National League starting tomorrow.

Rays @ Rangers (10:07 pm)

Friday sees the Wild Card winning Tampa Bay Rays travel to Arlington to play the Texas Rangers, AL West champs. Rookie phenom Matt Moore, with only nine major league innings under his belt, will take the mound for the Rays as they try to continue their improbable run. Moore has shown devastating strikeout ability in the minor leagues and in his short time up has already demonstrated that he can make major leaguers swing and miss just as easily (15 Ks in 9.1IP). He’ll need all of that against a tough Texas lineup.

C.J. Wilson pitches for Texas; the big left hander knows that even without a good playoff run he’ll be the biggest name in the pitching market this offseason with strong rumours already circling that the Red Sox will have the chequebook out. Wilson, a thirty year old former reliever who made a successful transition to the rotation only last season, could add upwards of $20m to his free agent price with a dominating playoff performance.

First pitch from Arlington will be at 10:07pm on ESPN America.

Tigers @ Yankees (1:37am)

Where pitching is concerned, Moore vs. Wilson is an exciting prospect in its own right. However, in boxing parlance it is but the undercard when compared to the marquee matchup of Justin Verlander and C.C. Sabathia at new Yankee Stadium when the AL Central winning Detroit Tigers face the AL East champion, and #1 seeds, New York Yankees.

Detroit’s Verlander has put himself in very realistic MVP contention, remembering that no pitcher has won the award since Oakland closer Dennis Eckersley in 1992 while no starting pitcher has won since Roger Clemens’ 1986 season. Verlander pitched a no-hitter in Toronto this year, facing just the minimum 27 batters, and finished 24-5 for the year with a major league leading 251 innings pitched. His ERA of 2.40 and particularly remarkable 0.92 WHIP demonstrate just how unhittable he’s been in 2011, firing down 100MPH fastballs regularly in the late innings.

The massive Sabathia, pitching for the Yankees, has had a superb season in his own right and will rightly receive some CY Young votes this year. Despite putting a few more men on base this season than in recent years he had a shiny 3.00 ERA backing up a 19-8 WL record.

On paper the Yankees should beat Detroit but anything is possible in a five game Division Series. This is made more difficult by the Tigers having a spectacular 1-2 pitching punch in Verlander and recent trade acquisition Doug Fister, whose performances since arriving from Seattle have been remarkable.

That said, New York has little to fear from the Tigers’ batting lineup aside from MVP candidate Miguel Cabrera so if they were to beat Verlander tonight they would be heavy, heavy favourites to take the series.

First pitch at new Yankee Stadium is at 1:37am on ESPN America.