The 162-game regular season is behind us and the brackets are set for the Wild Card round, which has already opened in Atlantat this afternoon. It’s been quite the season across baseball. We saw two future Hall of Fame pitchers end their careers, with Max Scherzer throwing on short rest the final day of the season to draw within three strikeouts of Justin Verlander’s career mark of 3,560. We also saw new stars emerge with Pete Crow-Armstrong posting the Cubs first 10+ fWAR season since 1929 and Jacob
Misiorowski setting a new MLB record for pitches thrown over 100 miles per hour.
In what’s become an annual ritual marking the passage of time and the seasons, we bid adieu to some of these stars. But many will continue their 2026 campaigns as they hope to lead their teams to a World Series Championship this October. For the second year running the Cubs are among the teams with a chance to hoist the Commissioner’s Trophy. So today let’s take a closer look at all of the matchups in the Wild Card round and what to expect. Play got underway in Atlanta at 1 p.m. Central Time.
White Sox vs. Astros: An unexpected party
The White Sox had not one, not two, but three 100-loss seasons between 2023 and 2025. Here in 2026 with an 84-78 record the South Siders find themselves heading to Houston to take on an Astros team who won a weak American League West with an 81-81 record. That said, these are the same Astros who have won two World Series in the last decade and barely missed the Postseason in 2025 after losing a tiebreaker to the Detroit Tigers.
This is the type of matchup you get some years with the expanded playoffs, two teams with lots of question marks. But also, great vibes. Japanese slugger Munetaka Murakami hit 35 home runs in 553 plate appearances in his first season on the Southside of Chicago and he’s here to win, y’all [VIDEO].
But it isn’t just Murakami, Grant Taylor is the only pitcher I saw in 2025 who turned my head the same way Jacob Misiorowski did. The ball hits the mitt differently when he pitches, and he’s been excellent with a 2.25 ERA off a 2.77 FIP in 84 innings this season. He’s posted those numbers with a filthy 31.5 K rate and an 8.9 BB rate. He’s a high-leverage guy, which sometimes also means closer, for the White Sox.
Speaking of closers, any rumors of Josh Hader’s decline were wrong. The 32-year old lefty may not be posting K-rates over 45 percent like he did for the Brewers, but the Astros will take his 1.01 ERA off a 1.94 FIP in 44.2 innings this year and run with it. You can see him striking out the White Sox Braden Montgomery to secure a save in late July below [VIDEO].
And then, there is Yordan Alvarez, who is honestly such an elite talent I always just want to call him “Yordan” no last name necessary. The American League’s likely MVP was just a few long balls and RBIs short of MLB’s triple crown this season and, well, he rakes [VIDEO].
The Astros will hope Yordan and company show up this afternoon in Houston. They’re banking on playoff experience overwhelming a young White Sox team that most people didn’t expect to be in the Postseason so soon. Their playoff roster isn’t out yet, but keep an eye out for old friends Nelson Velázquez, Cam Smith, Isaac Paredes and Hayden Wesneski, who all have a pretty good chance to be on it.
The White Sox will head into this afternoon’s game with a scrappy young team led by manager, and former Cubs coach, Will Venable. What they lack in experience, they hope to make up for in vibes. Oh, and don’t forget they have the Vicar of Christ cheering for them in the Holy See, that has to count for something.
Of course, you might need a Papal miracle to see this game, unless you already subscribe to Peacock or have one of the plans with whatever channel NBCSN is, but that’s a rant for another article.
Yankees vs. Red Sox: The two towers
The lone game that the powers that be at MLB and NBC have decided to make accessible to people with a normal cable plan (shockingly) is the prime time match up between the Red Sox and Yankees. Look, I get it. New York City believes they are the center of the universe and the Boston Red Sox are their primary rival. There are some in the sports universe who mistakenly believe that rivalry is the best in MLB. What can I say they just haven’t had the benefit of living in the Midwest and realizing the best rivalry in baseball is Cubs vs. Cardinals, but I digress.
This Red Sox team has solid pitching with a rotation of Sonny Gray, Ranger Suárez and game one starter Payton Tolle. Y’all, allow me to introduce you to Payton Tolle [VIDEO].
This Red Sox team might be the grittiest team in the Postseason. On June 24 they were 14 games under .500 and 15.5 games back in the division. They fired most of their coaching staff on April 25 after a lackluster start to the 2026 campaign, and when I say “most” the only reason it wasn’t all is because Sox legend Jason Varitek was reassigned to new duties. All I can say about that is the functional equivalent would be the Cubs firing Andre Dawson or the like, it just can’t be done. Look at this Playoff Odds Graph:
Cubs fans have some interest here, although how it shakes out may depend on your priors. This Red Sox team is being led by Willson Contreras, who is having the best season of his career in Boston, slashing .275/.386/.516 with a career high 27 home runs. He has the third best OPS in baseball among qualified hitters after Yordan and PCA with a mark of .901. You may have clocked this from his unexpected (by some) showing in the Home Run Derby, but Willson is playing with a chip on his shoulder the size of “traded by the Cardinals” and Boston may be the city that appreciates a well-earned chip on your shoulder more than any city in the country. It’s a beautiful sight to behold [VIDEO].
Willson has a talented, I might even say pre-2025 PCA-esque, player behind him in Ceddanne Rafaela. He’s joined by Jarren Duran, Roman Anthony and Wilyer Abreu in the outfield. Oh, and if you’re looking for other 2016 Cubs on this roster, look no further than their closer: Aroldis Chapman.
They are facing the New York Yankees, who most would have called the favorite in this series even after the Red Sox turned their season around. But the Yankees are missing their best player: Aaron Judge won’t be on the playoff roster for the Wild Card round, he’s dealing with a calf injury that has had him sidelined since September. The Yankees had a 93-68 record this year, that’s good for a .578 winning percentage. However, with Judge in the lineup the Yankees are a much better team. They were 41-25 (.621 winning percentage) in games Judge played and just 52-43 (.547 winning percentage) in games without him. They’ll try to make up that gargantuan hole with another slugger: Giancarlo Stanton. Finally, on the hitting side, keep an eye out for former Cub Cody Bellinger, who had a solid season in black pinstripes slashing .264/.338/.429 with 17 home runs in 562 plate appearances this season [VIDEO].
As for pitching, the Yankees will answer the Red Sox starters with Cam Schlittler, Max Fried and Gerrit Cole. All three hurlers have been outstanding this season, but Schlittler’s body of work really stands out. The 25-year old righty has a 1.95 ERA off a 2.56 FIP to pair with 239 strikeouts across 193.2 innings pitched this season. The Yankees have a slim edge in the season-long series having won seven of 13 match-ups between these AL East titans this season.
Phillies vs. Braves: A long-expected party
This predictable matchup between two National League East juggernauts is basically the polar opposite of the White Sox vs. Astros series. The Phillies and Braves are good. Most people expected them to be here. Now we see what happens when the two kings in the East face of in a best of three series in Atlanta.
The Phillies have 2016 Cubs legend Kyle Schwarber smashing bombs one more time in the Postseason. The hulk-like slugger wound up tied for the MLB lead in the category this year with Pete Crow-Armstrong [VIDEO].
The Phillies got some bad news this past week with Luis Arráez hurting his ankle running to first. But you have to think a team with Schwarber and Bryce Harper hitting early in the lineup along with a rotation that boasts two of the top five starters in the National League by fWAR in Jesús Luzardo and Cristopher Sánchez, plus one of the best closers in baseball in Jhoan Durán. Oh, and they also have Zack Wheeler throwing elite bullets out of the bullpen (you may recall Wheeler missed the start of the 2026 season with thoracic outlet syndrome).
On Atlanta’s side of the equation, Matt Olson has had an excellent 2026 with 41 home runs in 698 plate appearances. He’s led the Braves offense this year while veteran Chris Sale anchored work on the pitching side with another elite campaign. The 37-year old lefty, who is likely headed to Cooperstown someday, is in the final year of his deal with the Braves although he does have a club option. This season he threw 162.2 innings with a 2.16 ERA off a 2.29 FIP while striking out 30.9 percent of batters and walking just 4.8 percent. Sale struck out ten Reds to get to his 200th strikeout of the year in September [VIDEO].
The Braves dominated this season series in 2026 winning nine of the 13 matchups. Although Cubs fans will remember that sweeping the New York Mets in the 2015 regular did not translate to Postseason success that year. You can see one of the Braves walkoffs of the Phillies below [VIDEO]:
Cubs vs. Padres: The Return Journey
And so it begins.
The Cubs played themselves out of hosting the Wild Card series as a long September finally caught up to a bullpen that’s been pitching on fumes for a while now. As I detailed yesterday here, they did not get a nice easy week to set up for this series the way they’d like and, well, they are just going to have to rise above that if they want to make it back to the National League Division Series this season.
They’ll have this year’s presumptive NL MVP, Pete Crow-Armstrong, a relentless Alex Bregman and baseball’s best offense and defense in their corner as they try to win a series on the road at Petco Park. If Bregman can continue to hit the way he did in the last game of the season, that will help a lot. So would a few more Cubs sluggers heating up in the Postseason. You can see the Cubs with at least 30 plate appearances since September 13 ranked by wRC+ below:
Honestly, the Cubs have been hitting well the last couple of weeks. If one guy who had a wRC+ under 100 over the last couple of weeks stepped it up, their offense might be able to swing their way out of their pitching woes. I say might, because it’s a tall order for a group of guys who (mostly) got it done in the bullpen and rotation this year but I’m really not sure how they did it. I’m sure the Cubs elite defense had more than a little to do with it [VIDEO].
Plus, the Cubs will be facing off against a red hot Padres team that went 16-2 in their final 18 games. Not only that, the Padres are in their home ballpark and home timezone, oh, and if Fernando Tatis Jr. was hitting like this all season he might have given PCA a run for his money on the MVP front [VIDEO].
The real advantage for the Padres is pitching, both in the rotation and in their bullpen. Whereas the Cubs will send Matthew Boyd to duel with Michael King in Game 1, Games 2 and 3 are anyone’s guess on both sides. My hunch is the Cubs will send some combination of Kevin Gausman and either Clay Holmes or Shōta Imanaga to the mound to counter Nick Pivetta and Walker Buehler or Robbie Ray. A lot of those matches are close with an edge to the Padres on the starting front. The same cannot be said for the bullpen.
The Cubs best hope is that Daniel Palencia, Ryan Zeferjahn, Ryan Rolison, Jacob Webb, Javier Assad, Aaron Civale, Clay Holmes, David Peterson and Colin Rea can somehow go toe-to-toe with a bullpen anchored by Mason Miller with Adrian Morejon, Bradgley Rodríguez, Yuki Matsui, and former Cub Jason Adam coming in in high leverage, plus Joe Musgrove and Ray or Buehler in long relief. Here’s hoping the Cubs’ elite offense scores early and often off the Padres starters and makes all of this a moot point, because San Diego has a real edge if the bullpen gets these games with a lead [VIDEO].
