2017 World Series Game 2: Astros vs. Dodgers, Wednesday 10/25, 7 p.m. CT

One thing that wasn’t mentioned in the discussion of how quick Game 1 was (2:28), is the fact that World Series commercial breaks are the longest of any game during the season. Breaks during the first two rounds of the postseason were timed at 2:55. World Series breaks are timed at 3:15, which is more than a minute longer than during the regular season.

That’s one extra minute for each half-inning, or 16 extra minutes beyond what a similarly-paced regular-season game would take. That would have made the game 2:12, if the commercial breaks had been timed at 2:05, as they are during the regular season.

The last World Series game to run 2:12 or shorter was Game 1 of the 1977 World Series, which ran 2:07.

We live in different times.

Justin Verlander vs. Rich Hill

Reinhold Matay-USA TODAY Sports

Rick Scuteri-USA TODAY Sports

Justin Verlander made two absolutely outstanding outings in the American League Championship Series, striking out 21 in 16 innings and allowing just 10 hits, two walks and one run. He seems rejuvenated.

And, he’s already faced, and defeated, the Dodgers this year. On August 20 in Detroit, Verlander threw eight innings against L.A., allowed two hits and one run, and struck out nine. The only run was a homer by his former teammate Curtis Granderson, who isn’t on the Dodgers’ World Series roster.

Verlander should be primed for a good game tonight.

Rich Hill had many good outings this year, including one in the NLCS against the Cubs. He does have a tendency to get bounced around from time to time if his curveball isn’t working. Expect the Astros to try to wait that out. Current Astros are a small-sample-size 9-for-51 against Hill, though both Carlos Beltran and Jose Altuve have homered off him.

Tonight’s game is on Fox-TV. Announcers: Joe Buck, John Smoltz, Tom Verducci and Ken Rosenthal.

Here is the complete MLB.com Mediacenter for today.

MLB.com Gameday (classic mode)

(Note: Going forward, I am going to link to the “classic” Gameday here because MLB.com broke the links I used to use to get to their “new” Gameday. If you click on this link, you can then click on “New Gameday” at the bottom of the page to get to the updated version. Note that the “classic” Gameday won’t load until just before game time.)

Baseball-reference.com game preview

SB Nation game preview

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This is the only thread for today’s game. Enjoy, and discuss amongst yourselves.