The matchups are officially set for this year’s League Division Series as the Los Angeles Dodgers aim to win their third consecutive World Series title.
The 2026 MLB Wild Card Round has now wrapped up, with just one of the four series requiring a decisive third game as the eight remaining teams prepare for the League Division Series.
It was the Chicago White Sox, New York Yankees and San Diego Padres who moved on by virtue of a two-game sweep, while the Atlanta Braves outlasted their division rival Philadelphia Phillies to punch their first ticket to the NLDS since 2023.
Waiting in the wings are the four clubs that earned first-round byes thanks to finishing in the top two in their respective league, with the Tampa Bay Rays, Cleveland Guardians, Milwaukee Brewers and Los Angeles Dodgers well-rested and at home awaiting their opponents.
While the pressure is certainly on the Dodgers to repeat as World Series champions for the third consecutive season, there is also a fair amount of pressure on the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays – particularly on the Brewers, who have now made the postseason in eight of the last nine years and have still failed to make it past the NLCS.
This year’s ALDS will feature two division rivalries, with the Rays pitted against the Yankees while the Guardians and White Sox will meet in the postseason for the first time in franchise history. As for the National League, the Braves will meet the Dodgers in the playoffs for a sixth time, while the Brewers and Padres are matched up in their first-ever playoff encounter.
While the LDS offers a bit more runway than the best-of-three Wild Card series, the best-of-five LDS still features a very slim margin for error – meaning each team is just a moment of finding lightning in a bottle away from moving on to baseball’s final four.
With four tantalizing matchups on the menu this weekend, here’s a look at how my predictions for this round shake out:
New York Yankees vs. Tampa Bay Rays
The second all-time playoff meeting between these two teams, these division rivals previously met in the 2020 ALDS, which saw the Rays advance in five games en route to an eventual trip to the World Series.
After a forgettable 2025 campaign, the Rays emerged this year as the best team in the junior circuit for much of the season, largely thanks to a three-headed offensive monster led by Junior Caminero, Yandy Diaz and Jonathan Aranda.
The Rays also boast tremendous speed as well, having the AL leader in stolen bases in Chandler Simpson while featuring four other players with at least 17 stolen bases, giving the Rays a notable leg up on a Yankees team that heavily relies on Jazz Chisholm Jr. and former Ray José Caballero for their steals.
The Yankees enter this series with tremendous momentum, having just emphatically dispatched the Red Sox in a two-game sweep while having a rotation that is arguably the best starting pitching core left in the postseason.
While New York won’t be able to lead off the series with Cam Schlittler or Max Fried, having former Cy Young Award winner Gerrit Cole waiting in the wings as a Game 1 starter is about the best possible outcome one could ask for.
Though not nearly as star-studded as what the Yankees are offering, the Rays have a very impressive pitching staff of their own – with Nick Martinez and Drew Rasmussen leading the way with perhaps the sport’s most effective closer in Bryan Baker looming in the bullpen late in games.
The Yankees’ lineup has looked great this week against the Red Sox, but it remains a major question mark. While New York hopes to get Aaron Judge back from injury and has Giancarlo Stanton available in limited capacity, this is a team that has gone ice cold several times this year before – with plenty of reliance on Ben Rice and Cody Bellinger to carry the offensive load with Judge and Stanton being more of a question mark.
This is going to be a raucous series, with plenty of New York fans in attendance in St. Petersburg. While I can never count out a pitching staff of the Yankees’ caliber, the Rays ultimately feel like they’re just too complete of a team to be bested in a five-game series. I see this going the distance, but I’ll take the Rays. Rays in 5.
Chicago White Sox vs. Cleveland Guardians
A longtime divisional rivalry, these two historic franchises are finally crossing paths in the postseason, with the Guardians hoping to end the longest championship drought in baseball – having been without a World Series ring since 1948.
After it looked like it would be the Guardians and the Detroit Tigers battling for AL Central supremacy in 2026, a lackluster season from Detroit and a surprisingly resurgent campaign from the White Sox flipped the narrative on its head while the Tigers were ultimately deadline sellers.
It was the White Sox who controlled the AL Central for the vast majority of the season, but an upstart September from Cleveland catapulted them to the division championship and a first-round bye, which they’re putting to good use in this series.
Cleveland’s biggest advantage starts and ends with their pitching staff, a stark contrast to the bottom-10 staff the White Sox have won a playoff series with. Anchored by Parker Messick and Gavin Williams, the Guardians also have Tanner Bibee at their disposal, their innings pitched leader that pitched to mixed results this year while having potential to be a top-line starter.
The Guards also boast a solid bullpen, led by All-Star closer Cade Smith while Hunter Gaddis, Tim Herrin and Erik Sabrowski all contributed at least 1 bWAR this year.
The lineup for Cleveland offers plenty of concerns, with the Guardians finishing 26th in team OPS – the worst among all playoff teams. Nobody on the Guardians hit even 20 home runs, while just four players finished with an OPS+ above 100.
While the White Sox boast a power-heavy lineup led by the likes of Munetaka Murakami, Miguel Vargas and Colson Montgomery, the South Siders’ propensity for striking out could play right into the Guardians’ hands – while Cleveland’s lineup may have a bit of an easier time against a shaky White Sox staff without a clear ace.
To me, it will be strikeouts that define this series. The Guardians’ pitching staff was third in the majors in strikeouts, while the White Sox’s lineup was fifth – with more strikeouts than any other playoff team. It’s pitching that matters in the playoffs, and the Guardians have enough experience and talent in their lineup to craft winning opportunities in this series. And that’s not even mentioning a possible José Ramírez resurgence, who got some much-needed rest this past week. Guardians in 4.
San Diego Padres vs. Milwaukee Brewers
After a disappointing sweep at the hands of the Dodgers in last year’s NLCS, the Brewers appear, by many metrics, to be the team to beat across baseball this October.
Finishing the year with an MLB-best 103-59 record, the Brewers had more hits than any other team and more walks than any other team besides the division-rival Chicago Cubs, who were swiftly dispatched by the Padres this week. As if that wasn’t enough, Milwaukee has the second-best team ERA in baseball and the second-most strikeouts of any team, with those stats telling enough of the story that the Brewers are a remarkably complete team.
Still, if the Brewers had the ability to pick their opponent, I highly doubt they would go with the hottest team in baseball who has won 19 of their last 22 games with an offense that is truly firing on all cylinders after being among the league’s worst in the first half of the season.
While it’s virtually impossible to match up with Milwaukee ace Jacob Misiorowski, there are plenty of questions surrounding the rest of the Brewers’ rotation, which is as rife with inexperience as it is with talent.
The Padres will be seeing if their incredible September momentum can survive the calendar flip to October, feeling good with a core of Jackson Merrill, Fernando Tatis Jr., Manny Machado and Ty France all finding their stride at the same time – and since much has been made about the Brewers’ lack of home run power, that’s an issue you won’t really find with this Padres team, especially with how they’re playing now.
While San Diego has yet to sort out their rotation for the series, one can guess that Robbie Ray will take the ball in one of the first two games, with Michael King and Nick Pivetta waiting in the wings, and perhaps some more availability from the recently returned Joe Musgrove.
The Brewers will hope to simply continue being the team they were throughout the regular season, reliant on swiftly blowing away the opposing offense while stringing hits together in a way that is reminiscent of the mid-2010’s Kansas City Royals.
I expect most, if not, all of these games to be close, and I think this will be the most exciting series of the four matchups in this year’s LDS. While there’s no true correlation between September success and October success, the Padres have found a degree of confidence they’ve been searching for all year – and against the best team in baseball that is facing hordes of pressure to not be met with yet another disappointing October, I like their chances. Padres in 5.
Atlanta Braves vs. Los Angeles Dodgers
A classic meeting between two of the sport’s most historic franchises, this series pits a Dodgers team searching for a third-straight World Series championship against a Braves team that has been in a dire need of postseason success since their last Fall Classic win in 2021.
After a string of playoff disappointments, the Braves triumphed over the Phillies in the Wild Card Round for their first playoff series win since 2021, and their reward is a chance to dethrone a Dodgers team that is the textbook definition of poised and experienced.
Sure, this year they won’t have Shohei Ohtani on the mound, with the phenom also not quite 100% at the plate either – but one look at this lineup would have you know that the Dodgers have more than enough depth to overcome a not-100% Ohtani.
L.A. is perhaps feeling especially good about Mookie Betts and Kyle Tucker, two hitters that struggled immensely for most of the season before finding their stride in September, with Betts managing a 1.112 OPS in September while Tucker posted an .889 OPS, over 100 points higher than his total in any other month.
That resurgent offense is backed by a rock-solid rotation that will feature Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Tyler Glasnow, Blake Snell and Tarik Skubal – a devastating series of pitchers to face, regardless of what injuries have been dealt with this year.
The Braves will have to reorganize their pitching staff, and won’t have ace Chris Sale available until likely Game 3 of the series at the earliest – meaning Atlanta will likely need to persist in a bullpen game or two in this series to have a fair shot.
Atlanta’s lineup, featuring largely the same core the Braves have trotted out for much of this decade, is more than capable of outlasting the Dodgers when they’re all playing at their peak level – but it’s just hard to see how a taxed Braves team with an unorganized pitching staff is going to outlast the sport’s most tested playoff warriors who have had time to rest and prepare. I’m always intrigued in the rest vs. rust debate, but when it involves a team of the Dodgers’ caliber, it just doesn’t always matter. Dodgers in 4.
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