The 2026 MLB postseason begins on Tuesday with the Wild Card Round – with a couple of rivalries headlining the action.
The marathon from late March to late September has finally concluded, with MLB’s 162-game regular season wrapping up on Sunday as the final two playoff teams were determined with October right around the corner.
Despite limping down the stretch, the Philadelphia Phillies scooped up a clinching victory on Sunday to set up a best-of-three meeting with the Atlanta Braves – whom they dismantled in the NLDS in 2022 and 2023, setting the stage for plenty of drama.
Over in the junior circuit, fans were treated to some dubious history as the Houston Astros became the first team to make the playoffs in a full season without a winning record, taking home the AL West crown with a rather unremarkable 81-81 record that still earns them a home playoff series.
The top two division champions in each league get to sit out and wait for the League Division Series – with the Los Angeles Dodgers and Milwaukee Brewers receiving byes in the NL while the Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Guardians earned the same benefit.
This year’s Wild Card round features two rematches from 2025 – the seventh all-time playoff meeting between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, as well as the third all-time meeting between the Chicago Cubs and San Diego Padres – with the Dads having home field advantage this time around.
While there are plenty of familiar faces in this year’s postseason, it’s fair to say that this playoff field isn’t exactly what most expected heading into the 2026 season. The Chicago White Sox emerged as the most prominent of these surprises, leading a remarkable turnaround from a 60-102 season in 2025 to an 84-78 finish with an AL Wild Card berth.
Yet what was perhaps more noticeable were the conspicuous disappointments. The Toronto Blue Jays, after being inches away from a World Series title in 2025, struggled to a forgettable 79-83 record. On the other hand, the Seattle Mariners also squandered a season full of high expectations, ultimately finishing 76-86 while costing manager Dan Wilson his job.
Oddsmakers unsurprisingly remain quite boorish on the Dodgers, who are aiming for their third-straight World Series title – although the Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays aren’t far behind when it comes to championship favorites.
As for the teams without a Wild Card Round bye, there is still a long ways to go – here’s a look at how I see the four Wild Card Round matchups shaking out:
Boston Red Sox vs. New York Yankees
A rematch from 2025 and the seventh all-time postseason meeting between the two teams, this series serves as a fitting conclusion for a pair of wildly different seasons between the two historic archrivals.
The Yankees, who have weathered injuries to Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton all year long while seeing the incredible breakout of ace pitcher Cam Schlittler, appear to be in fairly good shape heading into October, particularly in terms of a pitching staff that has been the best in baseball all year.
While a rotation of Schlittler, Max Fried and Gerrit Cole is arguably the scariest of any team this postseason, the Yankees are still bogged down by the absence of the best hitter in baseball – compiling a mostly mediocre offense throughout the season.
On the other hand, the Red Sox took just about the most unconventional path a team could take to the playoffs – starting the season 32-46 before going on a torrid 21-4 run in July that included a 15-game winning streak, which turned out to be more than enough to catapult them into the playoff picture in a lackluster American League.
Despite being without Garrett Crochet for the vast majority of the season, the Red Sox sport a great playoff-ready rotation themselves, headlined by veteran Sonny Gray with Payton Tolle, Ranger Suarez and Jake Bennett all serving as solid rotation options in a playoff series.
The offense has been rather feast or famine, and there’s no doubt that the Red Sox will feel much better with a healthy Willson Contreras in the lineup, who has put together a career year in his first season at Fenway Park. Don’t sleep on the bullpen either, with Aroldis Chapman still a top-notch closer alongside solid protection from Garrett Whitlock, who has been an elite set-up man this year.
Any Red Sox-Yankees matchup is tough to predict, and this is no different. With that said, I think it’s relatively safe to assume that offense won’t be easy to come by in this series, and both teams will be looking to use the home run-friendly Yankee Stadium to their advantage to help compensate for that.
Maybe it’s just wishful thinking, but I don’t think the Red Sox’s pitching staff is that far below where the Yankees are at – and all it takes is a backbreaking hit or two to flip a best-of-three series. I have Boston getting their revenge this time around.
Red Sox in 3
Chicago White Sox vs. Houston Astros
A playoff matchup that just about nobody forecasted heading into the season, this pits two teams with records that would never be seen at this time of year in most seasons – with the 81-81 Astros hosting the 84-78 Wild Card White Sox.
This season began as an outright disaster for the Astros, who spent much of the first two months of the season with the worst pitching staff in baseball – with a particularly brutal bullpen. Thanks to getting a bit healthier as the season went on, the Astros recovered enough to win an abysmal AL West – and much of that can be attributed to closer Josh Hader returning from injury to put up a 1.01 ERA in 45 games.
Houston also benefitted from the midseason return of ace Hunter Brown, who greatly helped shore up a rotation that had been full of question marks throughout the first half – with the return of righty Hayden Wesneski also aiding the Astros in getting back in the mix.
While this Astros team should not at all be confused with the teams that terrorized the rest of MLB from 2017 to 2022, there should be all the attention in the world given to Yordan Alvarez – who appears to be this year’s AL MVP while leading all of baseball in batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage, OPS and OPS+.
There’s definitely plenty of power potential elsewhere in the Houston lineup as well, with Christian Walker, Isaac Paredes, Cam Smith and Jeremy Peña all hitting at least 21 homers this season – meaning the White Sox will certainly have to look out for the longball.
Now of course, the White Sox have a lineup that can answer with plenty of power on their own – headlined by the trio of Colson Montgomery, Miguel Vargas and Munetaka Murakami, who hit 31, 33 and 35 home runs this year, respectively.
The pitching on the South Side has been quite the mixed bag all year, with Sean Burke and Davis Martin emerging as two reliable rotation headliners – though they’re far from arms teams would be petrified of facing in the playoffs. Furthermore, a trade deadline pickup of Luis Castillo did not pan out for Chicago, who is now on the injured list after posting an 8.42 ERA since being acquired.
These are ultimately two relatively similar teams – but the Astros do have a clear advantage when it comes to the bullpen. While I don’t doubt at all that the White Sox could simply overpower Houston and get solid enough performances from their pitching staff to move on, I think it’s hard to pick against the Astros in a close game considering the presence of both Yordan Alvarez and Josh Hader.
This should be an exciting series, but I think the star power in Houston will be too much for the White Sox to overcome in their return to the playoffs.
Astros in 3
Philadelphia Phillies vs. Atlanta Braves
One of the best divisional rivalries in all of baseball, these two teams get to add another chapter to their recent postseason history in 2026 – with the Braves looking to avenge two brutal losses in 2022 and 2023.
For the Phillies, it is that magical 2022 run that they’re trying to replicate – perhaps even moreso this year as the Phils, like 2022, limped into the postseason and took the last available spot in the National League.
This year has been a crazy mixed bag for the Phillies, who weathered an early 10-game losing streak in April before leveling out through much of the summer – eventually catching fire with a 21-7 August that put Philadelphia in solid playoff position.
That was all thrown into doubt last week, when a late surge by the Arizona Diamondbacks and a sudden Phillies collapse left them fighting for their lives on Sunday – with their win erasing all of the noise that would have accompanied the Phillies missing out on the playoffs.
While the Phillies may not look like the best version of themselves, they remain a formidable threat – though that’s mostly because of their pitching. Outside of Kyle Schwarber and Bryce Harper, the Phillies didn’t have any position players that hit at an above-average clip, leaving them hoping on playoff resurgences from the likes of Trea Turner, Brandon Marsh and Alec Bohm.
With a rotation headlined by Zack Wheeler and Cristopher Sánchez though, one can not count out the Phillies, especially in a matchup they’re very familiar with.
The Braves certainly have a scarier offense this season, with great campaigns from Drake Baldwin, Matt Olson and Michael Harris II leading the way as Atlanta returns to the postseason following a one-year absence in 2025.
With memories of NLDS losses at the hands of the Phillies in 2022 and 2023 still fresh in the minds of fans in Atlanta, this Braves core that was there for all of that is likely entering this series with a bit extra juice – especially with all three games being played in Cobb County.
While I’d certainly rather have the 1-2 punch the Phillies are bringing into the playoffs (with Jesús Luzardo potentially available coming back from injury as well), the Braves’ duo of Chris Sale and Grant Holmes is more than capable of delivering what the Braves need in order to win.
This is the toughest series to predict, because I can legitimately see all four possible outcomes happen in this matchup. I see a world where the Phillies, rejuvenated by their Sunday win, steamroll the Braves and look like the August version of themselves by the NLDS. Yet it’s also easy to see a world where the Phillies, an aging team that has made the playoffs for a fifth straight year, simply don’t have what it takes to hang in there with a Braves team hungry for revenge.
The Braves have been quietly great all year – and with mainstays like Ozzie Albies and Austin Riley coming off of rather lackluster seasons, I think Atlanta is about to get a fitting October resurgence from at least one of the two.
Braves in 2
Chicago Cubs vs. San Diego Padres
The other rematch in this year’s Wild Card Round, it’s the Padres with home field advantage this time around, who are eager to avenge their three-game defeat to the Cubs at Wrigley Field in last year’s postseason.
As a Cubs fan, I’ve written about it at length throughout the season, but it goes without saying that this is one of the craziest, weirdest, most confusing teams I’ve ever seen in my life.
If the playoffs and baseball in general were only about what position players were capable of, the Cubs would be overwhelming favorites to win the World Series.
Led by the most complete player in baseball in Pete Crow-Armstrong, the Cubs not only finished the year leading the MLB in runs scored and team OPS – they also destroyed the rest of the league when it came to defense. With 74 outs above average, the Cubs had 30 (!) more than the second-place team in the Arizona Diamondbacks, absolutely dwarfing the rest of the league while featuring a top-notch defender at every position.
So how did the team with the best offense and defense in the league only finish with an 89-73 record and a Wild Card spot?
The answers all lie on the bump of dirt that sits 60 feet and six inches away from home plate.
The four starters that pitched the most for the Cubs this year (Shota Imanaga, Colin Rea, Matthew Boyd, David Peterson) have combined for 4.3 WAR – a total well below the individual contributions of not just league-leader PCA, but also Alex Bregman and Seiya Suzuki, who both finished with a WAR above 5.
The problems with pitching were no more obvious than with the team’s propensity to give up home runs – with their 231 home runs allowed only being topped by the Athletics, who play their home games at the notoriously hitter-friendly Sutter Health Park in West Sacramento.
It’s these glaring issues that must make the Padres feel pretty good about their chances, especially when they’re armed with what may be the most stacked bullpen in the league.
The Padres’ lineup is fairly unremarkable overall, but it certainly hasn’t felt like that in recent weeks as San Diego has rushed into the playoffs going 17-3 over their last 20 games. While there’s no true correlation between being hot in September and getting the job done in October, you’d have to feel like the Padres are finding their stride at the perfect time if you’re a fan.
What was a power-starved lineup early in the year has become Slam Diego again in recent weeks, with Ty France, Manny Machado, Fernando Tatis Jr. and Jackson Merrill all hitting at least 20 home runs this season – giving plenty of reason for Cubs fans to be nervous about allowing the longball.
The Cubs will certainly have their opportunities against a patchwork Padres rotation that has definitely taken a step back from what it was last year – when the Cubs had to face Dylan Cease in the Wild Card Round. While Michael King is certainly not an arm to sneeze at, a playoff rotation of King, Walker Buehler and Randy Vásquez is certainly a hittable one for the Cubs – but they’ll be forced to do their damage early.
Headlined by fireballing closer Mason Miller, the Padres bullpen also features fellow hard throwers in Adrián Morejón and Bradgley Rodriguez – with Yuki Matsui providing a devastating change of pace to opposing offenses late in games.
I certainly don’t rule out the Cubs being capable of simply outslugging the Padres and running them out of their own park – but I think it’s much more likely that the Friars find enough big hits against a fledgling Cubs pitching staff to get the job done this time around.
I do think the Cubs’ offense overpowers San Diego enough to get one win, but the season-long kryptonite of giving up too many home runs will ultimately be the death of the Cubs in the Wild Card Round.
Padres in 3
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