Three up, three down: The MLB hot/cold report

The Astros are flying high at the right time

Naturally, if you're going into the playoffs as the defending World Series champions, you would ideally like to be playing your best form of baseball in October. Sure enough, that appears to be the case for the Houston Astros, as they made short work of the Cleveland Indians in a three-game sweep in the ALDS.

The only game in this series that even felt close was Game 2, when Cleveland went up by a run thanks to Francisco Lindor hitting a solo shot in the third inning. However, it felt as if Cleveland's lead was tenuous at best, and with Gerrit Cole making sure this was his only mistake of the day, it was only a matter of time before the Astros took control. As it turned out, a two-run dinger from MVP candidate Alex Bregman in the seventh inning was enough to put Houston ahead for good.

The other two games were blowouts in Houston's favor, and now the defending champions are back in the ALCS for a matchup that has been in the cards since the early stages of the season. The Red Sox have been playing excellent baseball all season, but the Astros may be entering this stage of their championship window playing even better than they did last season. This ALCS is going to be extremely tense for both fan bases and incredibly fun for the rest of us.

The "real" Dodgers have arrived

Speaking of peaking at the right time, how about the Dodgers? They started out the season sleepwalking, woke up around the halfway point, had their coffee in late August and after allowing the caffeine to process, they are now buzzing and playing at a high level.

The lineup from top to bottom has formed into the unstoppable Voltron that we all figured it would be, as it gave the Atlanta pitching staff nightmares for all four games of the NLDS. Even in Game 3 when the Braves scored five runs in one inning (including a massive grand slam from Ronald Acuña Jr.), Max Muncy, Justin Turner, Manny Machado and the rest of that loaded lineup simply scored five runs themselves over the next three innings to tie it. It's as if they're scoring at will.

To top it all off, L.A.'s pitching has been mostly solid as well. The first two games were immaculate, as Hyun-Jin Ryu was stellar and Clayton Kershaw reached back to his days of Cy Young Award candidacy and threw eight fantastic shutout innings. It's almost as if both the Dodgers and Astros are dead set on making sure that we get a World Series rematch.

Milwaukee continues to roll

With that being said, it will be tough for Los Angeles to get past the Milwaukee Brewers. In another case of a Divisional Series looking lopsided, the Brew Crew had no problem with Colorado for the vast majority of the games. In fact, Milwaukee held Colorado to just two runs over the entire series, and those two runs forced Game 1 into extra innings. Even still, the Brewers rode a Mike Moustakas walk-off hit to victory and then thumped Colorado over the next two games.

Even a return to Denver didn't help the Rockies and their offense. Instead, Milwaukee's entire pitching staff locked them down over the course of three games. Game 1 was actually designated as a bullpen day for the Brewers, and they still bamboozled Colorado's offense. You know things are going well when you can look to Brandon Woodruff as your "initial out-getter" and feel comfortable knowing that he and the rest of the bullpen will take care of business.

Plus, it also helps when you have Christian Yelich continuing to play like a bona fide MVP Award winner. This team is playing with an amazing amount of confidence right now and will be going into the NLCS on an 11-game overall win streak. The Brewers appear to be more than capable of putting the kibosh on a World Series rematch and bringing the Fall Classic back to Wisconsin for the first time since 1982.

Three down

Red Sox have yet another celebration at Yankee Stadium

Meanwhile, the prime-time battle between the Red Sox and Yankees went Boston's way yet again. Baseball's best team over the regular season took care of business in the divisional stage with a four-game series win over its hated rivals and did it in style at times. While Boston did drop a game at Fenway Park, the Sox more than made up for that slipup with their performance in Game 3.

That was when Brock Holt and the rest of Boston's powerful offense put the boots to the Yankees to the tune of a 16-1 blowout. Holt in particular stood out as he hit for the cycle, which is the first time in postseason history that has occurred. To top it all off, Red Sox fans can now lord over Yankees fans that the worst postseason loss in New York's history came at the hands of Boston.

If that's not enough, the Red Sox got to celebrate at Yankee Stadium again. They did it in the Bronx back when they clinched the AL East title in 2016, then again here when they clinched last month, and then they got to have a party in the Bronx after winning the ALDS. Oh, and the Red Sox also got to celebrate back at the old Yankee Stadium after they completed the historic reverse sweep of the Yankees back in 2004. This is starting to become a habit for Boston, which should be infuriating for the fans of the boys in pinstripes.

Cleveland goes out with a whimper

Even though the Houston Astros look to be playing some great baseball right now, if you looked at Cleveland's performance while it got swept, then you're probably laughing at people like me for feeling optimistic about how the Tribe would fare once the playoffs started. As it turned out, this was not going to be a memorable October for Cleveland, which exited the postseason in a meek and mild manner.

It sure would have been nice to see Lindor, Jose Ramirez and the rest of the team get a chance to at least show some life. But instead, the pitching let everybody down. Corey Kluber had himself a rough Game 1, and that basically set the tone for the rest of the pitching staff as it had no idea how to handle Houston's offense.

So now, all Cleveland will have to show for this season is an AL Central pennant that came against three teams that were actively tanking and a fourth team in the Twins that started out trying to contend but faded away in a hurry. As it turns out, beating up on cupcakes all year is not an ideal way to go into the postseason. The good news is that Chief Wahoo will finally be gone from Cleveland's uniforms in 2019, so at least some good came from the early exit.

The end comes for Atlanta and Colorado

The two biggest surprise packages of the postseason didn't last long, as both the Braves and Rockies got bounced in the first round. The Rockies ran into a buzzsaw in the form of the Brewers, while the young Braves got a lesson in playoff experience from the defending National League champions. Both teams had a disappointing end to what was a good season, but you have to imagine that each team will be leaving the postseason with a different perspective.

For the Rockies, they know exactly why they're currently planning for Hot Stove season: Their offense was putrid. Surprisingly enough for the team that plays in Mile High conditions for 81 games a year, the Rockies actually had a below-average offense this season. Despite the best efforts of Nolan Arenado, Charlie Blackmon and Trevor Story, the mediocre offense floundered at the worst possible time. As far as the Rockies are concerned, they have to find a way to fix it by the time next season rolls around when they have to battle in the NL West once again.

Regarding the Braves, they can leave the 2018 season with their heads held high after pulling off a surprise run at a divisional title. With that being said, it's clear that they're still a decent way from being in the elite echelon of teams. They have enough young talent all across the diamond to give you confidence that they're going to be in the conversation for the playoffs for the foreseeable future, but there's never a guarantee that things will go to plan. Will the Braves build on this success, or will they live to regret missing out on a chance to make a playoff run? Only time will tell.