ABC7 Chicago is now streaming 24\/7. Click here to watch<\/a><\/p>\nThe Los Angeles Dodgers are seeking a third straight World Series title. It remains to be seen how much some of the game’s biggest stars will be able to participate in the playoffs, though.<\/p>\n
The Dodgers are once again among the best teams in the big leagues, and they’ll have several challengers in October, including the Milwaukee Brewers and Tampa Bay Rays. All three teams could finish the regular season with 100 wins or more. Los Angeles is rolling into the postseason and four-time MVP Shohei Ohtani is expected to return to the lineup on Wednesday after a stint on the injured list.<\/p>\n
The New York Yankees, Boston Red Sox and Atlanta Braves have also clinched spots in the postseason. Yankees slugger Aaron Judge, a three-time AL MVP, is dealing with a right calf strain that will likely keep him out through at least the Wild Card Series.<\/p>\n
While the 12-team playoff field appears mostly set, there are a few long-shot contenders for the postseason, and specific matchups are in flux.<\/p>\n
Here’s some of what to watch as the season comes to a close.<\/p>\n
Here’s who can clinch a playoff spot Wednesday
In the American League, the Cleveland Guardians can qualify for the postseason with a win at Boston and a loss by either the Texas Rangers or Houston Astros.<\/p>\n
The Chicago White Sox can cap a turnaround season and earn a spot in October with a win over the Kansas City Royals and a loss by the Rangers.<\/p>\n
Over in the National League, the Chicago Cubs can clinch a playoff spot with a win over the Miami Marlins or a loss by the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Philadelphia Phillies can clinch a wild card if they beat the Milwaukee Brewers and either the San Diego Padres or D-backs lose.<\/p>\n
The Padres can clinch a playoff spot with a win over the Dodgers and a loss by the D-backs.<\/p>\n
AL Central and West are tight, other division winners are set
There’s quite a bit of mediocrity in the AL Central and West divisions this season, which has led to some fascinating pennant races and could lead to a sub-.500 team making the postseason.<\/p>\n
The Guardians (82-75) have a narrow advantage over the White Sox (81-76) in the AL Central while the Texas Rangers (78-79) and Astros (78-79) are fighting for the AL West.<\/p>\n
Over in the National League, the playoff bracket is close to set.<\/p>\n
The Cubs (87-70), Padres (87-70) and Phillies (87-70) are jockeying for position in the wild-card race but will almost certainly make the postseason. The only team within shouting distance is Arizona (83-74), which is four games back. Chicago holds the head-to-head tiebreaker for home field over Philadelphia and San Diego, and the Phillies own the tiebreaker over the Padres after sweeping that season series 6-0.<\/p>\n
MVP races, stats to watch<\/p>\n
MLB’s major awards probably won’t have much drama this season.<\/p>\n
Both MVP races have strong favorites with Chicago’s Pete Crow-Armstrong running away with the NL honor while Houston’s Yordan Alvarez is the probable choice in the AL, though Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero has also had a fantastic season. Alvarez still has an outside shot at a Triple Crown. He leads the AL in batting average at .314 and his 41 homers are tied with Caminero, but his 102 RBIs are six back of Baltimore’s Pete Alonso.<\/p>\n
For the Cy Young Award, Milwaukee flame thrower Jacob Misiorowski and New York ace Cam Schlittler are the favorites in the NL and AL, respectively.<\/p>\n
The Rookie of the Year races also look set with Cincinnati’s Sal Stewart and his 110-RBI season the leader in the NL and Detroit’s Kevin McGonigle the favorite in the AL.<\/p>\n
What is the MLB playoff format?<\/p>\n
There are 12 teams that qualify for MLB’s postseason, including six teams from both the AL and NL. The three division winners in each league get seeds No. 1 through No. 3, ranked by win-loss record. Then the three wild-card teams get seeds No. 4 through No. 6, also ranked by win-loss record.<\/p>\n
The top two teams with the best record in both the AL and NL automatically advance to the Division Series. The other eight teams play in the Wild Card Series, which is a best-of-three format beginning on Tuesday, Sept. 29. In both the AL and NL, the No. 6 seed will travel to face the No. 3 seed while the No. 5 seed goes to No. 4. The higher seed hosts all three games.<\/p>\n
The winners then advance to the best-of-five Division Series, followed by the best-of-seven League Championship Series and a best-of-seven World Series between the winners of the AL and NL.<\/p>\n
What is the MLB postseason schedule?<\/p>\n
Wild Card Series: Sept. 29-Oct. 1 (NBC\/Peacock)<\/p>\n
Division Series: Oct. 3-10 (AL on TBS, NL on FOX\/FS1)<\/p>\n
Championship Series: Oct. 11-20 (AL on TBS, NL on FOX\/FS1)<\/p>\n
World Series: Oct. 23-31 (FOX)<\/p>\n
Who are the favorites to win the World Series?<\/p>\n
The Dodgers (+220) are the favorites to capture a third straight World Series title while the Brewers (+600), Yankees (+800) and Rays (+800) are viewed as the top contenders.<\/p>\n
Red Sox move Sunday’s game and will play doubleheader against Cubs on Friday with storm expected<\/p>\n
The Red Sox are adjusting the schedule of their weekend series against the Chicago Cubs because of a significant storm that’s expected to bring heavy rain and strong winds to the Boston area.<\/p>\n
The team said it was moving the Sunday afternoon game to Friday to create a split doubleheader. The first game is scheduled to begin at 1:05 p.m. EST. The originally scheduled 7:05 p.m. EST night game was moved up to 6:05.<\/p>\n
The Red Sox said in a press release Wednesday that the change was made in consultation with Major League Baseball.<\/p>\n
The Cubs are currently in a tight race for one of the NL’s three wild-card spots.<\/p>\n
There was no mention of a change to Saturday’s game, which is slated for a 7:15 p.m. EST first pitch.<\/p>\n
ABC7 Chicago contributed to this report.<\/p>\n
Copyright \u00a9 2026 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CHICAGO — Major League Baseball’s postseason is rapidly approaching. The Chicago Cubs and White Sox are among teams…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":903547,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[471754,64,63,5158,227934,429660,471747,180237,471752,471751,471753,471749,471748,471746,471750,1188,591,135818,123476,85],"class_list":["post-903546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-471754","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-chicago-cubs","tag-chicago-news","tag-cubs-game","tag-cubs-marlins","tag-cubs-news","tag-cubs-playoff-tickets","tag-cubs-postseason","tag-cubs-tickets","tag-cubs-vs-marlins","tag-marlins-cubs","tag-marlins-game","tag-marlins-vs-cubs","tag-miami-marlins","tag-mlb","tag-mlb-news","tag-mlb-playoff","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=903546"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/903546\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/903547"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=903546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=903546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=903546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}