Despite having the highest payroll in baseball, leading the National League East for most of the year and compiling 101 wins, the New York Mets could see their season end today. The San Diego Padres beat the Mets 7-1 in New York on Friday and with a win in Game 2, the Padres will head back to southern California to play the Dodgers in the division series, and the Mets will head home. Two former Cy Young award winners — Jacob deGrom of the Mets and Blake Snell of the Padres — will oppose one another as starters. Game 2 starts today at 7:37 pm ET (4:37 pm PT) on ESPN.

Here’s how you can watch baseball’s postseason, from the Wild Card round through the World Series, without cable.

What’s the schedule for the Padres-Mets series?

The Mets nearly won the NL East but lost a tiebreaker to the Braves and now are facing the Padres in the wild card round. They did finish with a better record than the Padres, however, so all three games will be played at Citi Field in Queens.

Here’s the schedule for the Padres-Mets series.

• Game 1: Padres 7, Mets 1 (San Diego up, 1-0)
• Games 2: Saturday at 7:37 pm ET (4:37 pm PT) on ESPN
• Games 3: Sunday at 7:37 pm ET (4:37 pm PT) on ESPN (if necessary)

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Who knew that “growth hacking,” a term coined in 2010 by Sean Ellis, the first marketer at Dropbox, would become so commonplace in 2022? Considering the fact that growth marketing wasn’t even a formal function at startups 12 years ago, I think it’s okay to say that we couldn’t have predicted how growth hacking would evolve.

But let’s discuss what growth hacking is and isn’t. First, growth hacking isn’t a way to code or hack your way to 100x growth with one clever tactic. It’s also not a magical solution that only a few people in this world possess.

Growth hacking actually means growth testing. Exhaustive growth testing.

Growth hacking involves using creative strategies with minimal resources to help startups acquire and retain customers. At the heart of growth hacking are growth marketers who use stringent experimentation frameworks to run countless A/B tests to achieve rapid growth.

Let me give you an example.

During my tenure as a growth lead at Postmates, we ran into massive roadblocks because of constrained budgets and lofty fleet (driver) acquisition targets. This was before the company raised the $300 million Series E from Tiger Global Management, so we had to get crafty and find new ways to acquire fleet.

Apple’s next major iOS update, iOS 16.2, will let you send a report to the company when Emergency SOS has been triggered on accident, according to 9to5Mac. That could be a useful way to share data back to Apple if the feature activates, say, after riding a roller coaster.

The iPhone 14 lineup includes a new crash detection feature that activates Emergency SOS if it believes you have been in a car crash and you don’t respond. Emergency SOS contacts emergency services and can send your location to selected contacts, so having it trigger automatically after a crash could be genuinely helpful. It alerted responders to a crash in Lincoln, Nebraska, earlier this month.

But the feature has been inadvertently triggering for some people on roller coasters, as reported by The Wall Street Journal, leading to 911 calls when there isn’t actually an emergency situation. It also activated for one person after their iPhone flew off their motorcycle; while the owner was fine, his family panicked after receiving texts that he was in a crash.

An unnamed Apple spokesperson told the WSJ that its crash detection algorithms were validated with more than a million hours of data and real-world driving and said that the crash detection feature is “extremely accurate in detecting severe crashes.” This new reporting feature, included in the first iOS 16.2 developer beta released on Tuesday, indicates Apple is open to data from iPhone 14 users that could help it refine its crash

UFC 281 is here, the last truly mega UFC card of 2022. This is not a PPV you can afford to miss.

At the top of the card is Israel Adesanya. One of the UFC’s biggest stars, he defends his UFC middleweight title against a surging Alex Pereira. This time round, the normally unbeatable Adesanya could have a minor chink in his armor. Adesanya, currently unbeaten at middleweight, has been defeated not once, but twice by Pereira in kickboxing matchups.

But this isn’t kickboxing, it’s mixed martial arts. And Adesanya’s kickboxing bouts with Pereira come with caveats. In the first match, Pereira was gifted a decision many thought Adesanya won. In the second fight, Adesanya was winning clearly before being brutally knocked out by a brutal, clinical hook.

Regardless of how this plays out, for the first time in a long time, there’s an element of drama to an Adesanya main event.

And outside that fight, UFC 281 is stacked. We’ve got a second title fight featuring Carla Esparza vs. Zhang Wei. Esparza recently won the UFC strawweight title against Rose Namajunas in one of the worst fights I’ve ever witnessed, but this contest will almost certainly be different. Look for Zhang Weili to go full beserker mode here. I expect Esparza could get steamrolled.

Outside of that we’ve got a certified banger in Dustin Poirier vs. Michael Chandler. The legendary Frankie Edgar also has his retirement match against Chris Gutierrez.

Can’t wait.

Predictions

Israel Adesanya vs. Alex Pereira

The dominant Astros are one win away from the World Series. In the American League Championship Series Houston shut out the New York Yankees 5-0 on Saturday to take a commanding 3-0 series lead. For today’s Game 5 in the Bronx, the Yankees’ hopes rely on the left arm of starter Nestor Cortez, while the Astros turn to righty Lance McCullers. Houston hasn’t lost yet in the playoffs and another win sends them to the World Series for the fourth time in six years. Game 4 of the ALCS between the Yankees and Astros is scheduled for 7:07 pm ET (4:07 pm PT) on TBS.

What’s the schedule for the Yankees-Astros series?

The Astros beat the Mariners and the Yankees beat the Guardians in their respective Division Series matchups. The Astros are the top seed in the American League and have home-field advantage for this best-of-seven series.

Here’s the schedule for the Yankees-Astros series. All games will air on TBS.

• Game 1: Astros won 4-2
• Games 2: Astros won 3-2
• Games 3: Astros won 5-0
• Games 4: Astros at Yankees, Sunday, Oct. 23 at 7:07 pm ET (4:07 pm PT)
• Game 5 (if necessary): Astros at Yankees, Monday, Oct. 24 at 4:07 pm ET (1:07 pm PT)
• Game 6 (if necessary): Yankees at Astros, Tuesday, Oct. 25 at