{"id":909543,"date":"2026-09-29T07:48:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T07:48:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909543\/"},"modified":"2026-09-29T07:48:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T07:48:27","slug":"dodgers-eye-three-peat-red-sox-face-yankees-as-mlb-playoffs-begin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/909543\/","title":{"rendered":"Dodgers eye three-peat, Red Sox face Yankees as MLB playoffs begin"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers seek a third consecutive World Series title but Boston and the New York Yankees own the spotlight when Major League Baseball’s playoffs begin Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers seek a three-peat not achieved since the Yankees in 1998-2000 after winning 100 games over the six-month season.<\/p>\n

“It doesn’t change anything as far as our standing going forward in the post-season, but it’s still a nice feather in our cap to win 100 games,” Dodgers manager Dave Roberts said.<\/p>\n

Six teams each qualified for the National League and American League playoffs, which start with best-of-three wildcard series play.<\/p>\n

The Yankees will host arch-rival Boston with the winner advancing to face AL top seed Tampa Bay in the best-of-five division series.<\/p>\n

Slugger Aaron Judge, recovering from a calf strain after missing 84 games earlier with a rib injury, aims to return against the Red Sox. The Yankees were 7-6 against Boston this season.<\/p>\n

“My goal is to come back as soon as I can,” outfielder Judge said. “Ask me if I’m going to be back I’ll tell you yeah.”<\/p>\n

Yankees manager Aaron Boone was more cautious, saying, “We’ll listen to the trainers and medical and see where we’re at.”<\/p>\n

Last-day qualifier Houston — the AL West winners with the worst record in playoff history, at 81-81 — will host the Chicago White Sox in the other AL series. The Astros won the regular season series 5-2.<\/p>\n

The winner meets Cleveland, which also earned a first-round bye.<\/p>\n

In the NL, San Diego will play host to the Chicago Cubs, who went 5-1 against the Padres, with the winner advancing to face NL top seed Milwaukee, which won an MLB-best 103 games this season.<\/p>\n

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\n The other NL wildcard series sends Philadelphia, which survived four straight losses to qualify on the last day, against Atlanta, which went 9-4 against the Phillies.<\/p>\n

The winner will visit Dodger Stadium for a division series opener on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Dodgers went 18-7 in September to enter the post-season on a hot streak.<\/p>\n

“As a group we played better baseball again and that’s what you want going into the post-season,” first baseman Freddie Freeman said.<\/p>\n

“Our pitching staff is amazing. Guys started to swing the bat better. Some of us still need to use these five days to figure it out. But a lot of good things happened over the course of the end of the season.”<\/p>\n

One concern for the Dodgers is the play of Japanese superstar Ohtani, who struggled in five games since returning from left knee and right biceps injuries.<\/p>\n

Ohtani, a four-time league Most Valuable Player, batted 5-for-21 with eight strikeouts and one walk over his closing stretch, ending the season hitting .275 with 30 home runs.<\/p>\n

“He came out of it healthy, so you just expect the ensuing days he feels even better,” Roberts said. “When you look out to Saturday, I think he’ll be in a good spot.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Shohei Ohtani and the Los Angeles Dodgers seek a third consecutive World Series title but Boston and the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":909544,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,85],"class_list":["post-909543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909543","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=909543"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/909543\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/909544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=909543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=909543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=909543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}