The Wild Card round is over, and we know not only who the Brewers will matchup with but what all the other matchups will be, too. Let’s take a look around the league. (All game ones are on Saturday, with times shown in central time)
National League
1 Milwaukee Brewers (97-65) vs. 4 Chicago Cubs (92-70), 1:08 p.m. on TBS and HBO Max
Harrison has a more in-depth preview of this series, but, phew, here we are—the Brewers and Cubs are set to face off in the playoffs for the first time ever.
We all know the
way the season went; after the Cubs jumped out to a big early lead in the division, the Brewers chased them down once they started playing good baseball at the end of May and ended up winning the division without much drama. The Cubs narrowly won the season series: they won two out of three in early May in Milwaukee (before the Brewers found themselves), then the teams split two games in June in Chicago (the middle game of this series was called off and rescheduled for later in the season). Milwaukee won two of three at home at the end of July, and then the Cubs won three of five in Chicago—including the made up game from earlier in the season—from August 18-21. Pretty even overall.
Chicago got here by defeating the Padres in three games, all of them pretty close; Chicago won game one 3-1, San Diego won game two 3-0, and the Cubs took game three 3-1, but with a gigantic assist from the home plate umpire in a controversial ninth inning.
The Cubs used Matthew Boyd, Shota Imanaga, and Jameson Taillon as their starters in the Wild Card round. It’s unlikely that they’d use Boyd on three days rest, so with Cade Horton injured, we could see Colin Rea in game one in Milwaukee. While Brandon Woodruff still hasn’t been officially ruled out, it doesn’t seem likely he’ll be available, and in that case the Brewers are expected to use Freddy Peralta in game one and Quinn Priester in game two. Game three remains a mystery: we could see any of Chad Patrick, Jacob Misiorowski, or Jose Quintana start that game, but expect a bullpen game type of situation.
2 Philadelphia Phillies (96-66) vs. 3 Los Angeles Dodgers (93-69), 6:38 p.m. on TBS, truTV, and HBO Max
The Dodgers easily dispatched the Cincinnati Reds in the Wild Card round, and while the Reds were the epitome of a “we’re just happy to be here” postseason team, the Dodgers looked uncomfortably like the formidable team we all expected them to be this spring. It’s been an up-and-down season, and there are real questions about Los Angeles’s bullpen, but the starting rotation appears to be hitting its stride at the right moment, Mookie Betts has found his form after a tough season, Shohei Ohtani is about to win another MVP, and Freddie Freeman is still chugging along.
The Phillies, meanwhile, came close to usurping the Brewers for the top seed in the National League but couldn’t quite pull it off. The Phillies are led by a powerful lineup and strong starting pitching, though the loss of Zack Wheeler to Thoracic Outlet Syndrome is a big deal. Kyle Schwarber faded a bit down the stretch (but still hit 56 homers) and Trea Turner missed a couple of weeks, but both were in the thick of the MVP race when the last month of the season started. They’ve also still got a guy named Bryce Harper, who has shown a knack for delivering big postseason moments in the past. Crucially, the acquisition of Jhoan Duran at the trade deadline turned the back-end of the bullpen from a big question mark into a strength.
Philadelphia’s three starters in this series are likely to be Cristopher Sánchez (who I expect to be the NL Cy Young runner-up), Ranger Suárez, and Jesús Luzardo. Los Angeles used Blake Snell on Tuesday and Yoshinobu Yamamoto on Wednesday; expect those two in games two and three. Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani are the other starting pitchers Los Angeles has available, and Emmet Sheehan, who finished the season strong, is expected to come out of the bullpen.
American League
1 Toronto Blue Jays (94-68) vs. 4 New York Yankees (94-68), 4:08 p.m. on FOX
The Blue Jays and Yankees went down to the wire for the AL East during the regular season, and ended tied for the best record in the American League, but the Blue Jays won the season series 8-5 so they got the top seed and the bye. The Yankees became the first team under the current playoff format to win a Wild Card round after losing the first game, picking up wins on Wednesday and Thursday over their arch rivals, the Red Sox.
Toronto is somewhat like the Brewers, in that they’ve gotten a lot of “bites at the apple” in recent years but haven’t had a whole lot of postseason success. This will be their fourth postseason appearance in the last six seasons, but coming into this season they’re 0-6 in those games and were swept in the Wild Card round in 2020, 2022, and 2023. After a disappointing last-place finish in 2024, the Blue Jays are back.
The Yankees, meanwhile, boast two massive power hitters—Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton—and a bunch of question marks on offense. They did address their defense after a bit of embarrassment last season, and the biggest addition in that respect, third baseman Ryan McMahon, made an amazing play in Thursday’s clincher against the Red Sox. But the Yankees’ bullpen is questionable, despite a bunch of big names, including Devin Williams; David Bednar has been good since arriving but it’s not a group that Aaron Boone has a ton of confidence in.
Kevin Gausman is deeply entrenched as Toronto’s number one starter, but the rest of that pitching staff is oddly shaky for a 94-win team. Veterans Chris Bassitt and Max Scherzer (who did not end the season well) are around, José Berríos wasn’t great this season. Former Brewer Eric Lauer threw 104.2 innings in an old-school swingman role, with 15 starts and 13 relief appearances. The Yankee rotation is led by Max Fried and Carlos Rodón, who started Tuesday and Wednesday, respectively. Of course, their game three hero was rookie Cam Schlittler, who threw eight shutout innings with 12 strikeouts and zero walks on Thursday. Luis Gil, last year’s rookie of the year who missed the first half of the season, could start Saturday.
2 Seattle Mariners (90-72) vs. 6 Detroit Tigers (87-75), 8:38 p.m. on FS1
The Mariners finished the season as the hottest team in baseball, if you ignore the three-game sweep at the hands of the Dodgers last weekend; between September 6 and September 25 they went 16-1, including a three-game sweep of the Astros in Houston that all but clinched the AL West. Detroit had the exact opposite sort of September, as they set a dubious new major league record: the largest division lead ever coughed up, as they were 15.5 games up in the AL Central in July but ended up losing the division in the last week to the Cleveland Guardians after going 7-16 in the last month.
Detroit achieved some level of redemption, though, by defeating that Cleveland team in three games in the Wild Card series. They are led by their ace, the best pitcher in baseball, Tarik Skubal, who nearly single-handedly won the first game of the Cleveland series on Tuesday when he struck out 14 in 7 2/3 innings. Their lineup doesn’t have a single transcendent star, but it’s a solid group of hitters and includes three players who hit at least 26 homers in Riley Greene (36), Spencer Torkelson (31), and Kerry Carpenter (26).
Seattle boasts a strong group that gained a couple of important hitters at the trade deadline. Their leader is Cal Raleigh, who has a legitimate shot at winning the MVP in the American League. Raleigh’s 60 home runs this season were historic in multiple aspects: it was the most homers ever by a catcher by 12, and the most by a switch-hitter by six. This lineup also includes Julio Rodríguez (arguably the best center fielder in baseball), those deadline pickups Josh Naylor and Eugenio Suárez, and postseason legend Randy Arozarena.
Seattle’s pitching rotation wasn’t quite as good this year as they have been in the past, but it’s still an excellent group, led this season by Bryan Woo. Logan Gilbert, Luis Castillo, and George Kirby all had varying levels of disappointing seasons, but all three are capable of making good postseason starts. Seattle’s bullpen is also anchored by one of the game’s best relievers, Andrés Muñoz. Detroit has questions after Skubal: Jack Flaherty has a lot of experience but wasn’t very good this season, and former first overall pick Casey Mize was the only other pitcher to make more than 13 starts for Detroit. The Tiger bullpen also has some questions; their closer is Will Vest, who saved 23 games with a 3.01 ERA this season.
