MLB Postseason Kicks Off: Phillies, Astros, Yankees and Padres All in Action on Wild Card Tuesday
Four best-of-three Wild Card Series open today, with the Phillies and Astros riding Game 162 clinches into October and the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry renewed under the postseason lights.
Major League Baseball's 2026 postseason gets underway Tuesday with a quadruple-header of Wild Card Series openers, as the Philadelphia Phillies, Houston Astros, New York Yankees and San Diego Padres all take the field on the first day of October baseball.
The bracket was set only after a dramatic final day of the regular season. The Phillies clinched the National League's last wild-card berth with a 7-3 win over the Rays on Sunday, while the Astros backed into the American League West title when the Rangers lost 6-4 to the Twins. Both clinches came down to the wire, setting up a bracket that pairs the Phillies at the Braves and the Cubs at the Padres in the National League, with the White Sox at the Astros and the Red Sox at the Yankees in the American League.
Tuesday's Slate
All four series are best-of-three, with the higher seed hosting every game. Tuesday's openers are staggered throughout the day and night: Phillies-Braves at 2 p.m. ET, White Sox-Astros at 5 p.m. ET, Red Sox-Yankees at 8 p.m. ET, and Cubs-Padres closing out the night at 10 p.m. ET. NBC and NBCSN are splitting national broadcast duties, with all four series also streaming on Peacock.
WIN OR GO HOME.
The Red Sox-Yankees series revives one of the sport's oldest rivalries on the biggest stage, with both AL East clubs looking to advance past the opening round. In the National League, the Phillies enter as one of the sport's hottest teams down the stretch, while the Padres will lean on a deep bullpen built for exactly this kind of short-series format against the Cubs.
Each matchup will be played entirely at the higher seed's ballpark — a format MLB adopted to reward the top division winners after criticism that a fully neutral bracket diluted the value of winning the regular season. Only the four Wild Card Series winners advance to the Division Series, where the top remaining seeds in each league await, having earned a bye through this round entirely. If any series is tied 1-1 after Wednesday, a decisive Game 3 will be played Thursday, with matchups and start times set by which series wrap up fastest.