Who is ready for October baseball? Well, we won’t need to wait for the start of a new month in order to get some postseason action since the MLB playoffs begin Tuesday, the final day of September. That’s when all four of the Wild Card Series will get underway.
We’ll see division rivals face off in the American League as the Guardians host the Tigers and the Yankees clash with the arch-rival Red Sox. In the NL, the Dodgers will play the Reds, and the Cubs will square off against the Padres.
Here is what you need to know about each of these matchups.
All stats are updated through Sunday.
(5) Red Sox at (4) Yankees
Schedule
Game 1: Tuesday, 6 p.m. ET on ESPN
Game 2: Wednesday, 6 p.m. ET on ESPN
Game 3 (if necessary): Thursday, 6 p.m. ET on ESPN
Season series: The Red Sox went 9-4 against their arch-rival this season, including 5-2 at Yankee Stadium, which will host this three-game series.
Postseason history: This will be the sixth postseason series between these two foes. The Red Sox won the most recent meeting, triumphing in the 2021 AL Wild Card Game, 6-2.
Keys to the matchup: The Red Sox won eight of their first nine meetings with the Yankees this season, and they did so authoritatively, outscoring New York 54-31. However, the Yanks claimed three of the final four games, holding the Red Sox’s offense to 12 runs in the process. New York got solid outings from Max Fried and Carlos Rodón in two of those victories, and both of those southpaws will be integral to the Yankees’ goal of advancing to the Division Series.
Player to watch: Garrett Crochet. The Red Sox’s ace and Game 1 starter faced the Yankees four times this year, and Boston won each game. The left-hander struck out 39 batters and posted a 0.88 WHIP over 27 1/3 innings. He has also done a stellar job of holding Aaron Judge in check. Although the Yankees’ captain has two homers in 15 career at-bats versus Crochet, 11 of those remaining 13 ABs have ended in a strikeout. Winning Game 1 is paramount in a short series, and the Red Sox have to be feeling pretty confident about their chances to grab control of this series early with their Cy Young contender on the mound.
(6) Tigers at (3) Guardians
Schedule
Game 1: Tuesday, 1 p.m. ET on ESPN
Game 2: Wednesday, 1 p.m. ET on ESPN
Game 3 (if necessary): Thursday, 1 p.m. ET on ESPN
Season series: Cleveland won eight of 13 in 2025, and the AL charter members have split 2,344 games since 1901 including the postseason, with each team winning 1,166 and 12 ties.
Postseason history: The two teams met in last year’s ALDS, won by Cleveland in five games after the Guardians rallied from a 2-1 deficit. This will be their second postseason series.
Keys to the matchup: Both the Tigers and Guardians clinched a playoff spot on the second-to-last-day of the regular season and, with the division title and home-field advantage hanging in the balance, decided to hold back their aces for Game 1 of the Wild Card Series. That means we’ll get a first-rate matchup between Detroit’s Tarik Skubal, likely to be voted the Cy Young Award winner for the second straight season, and Gavin Williams. Williams has cemented his ace status with a 1.96 ERA since Aug. 1. Skubal will be making his third consecutive start against the Guardians; one fateful inning in his last start helped Cleveland beat Skubal and win the tiebreaker over the Tigers.
Player to watch: Kerry Carpenter. Should the Guardians go with three right-handed starting pitchers — perhaps Williams followed by Tanner Bibee and Slade Cecconi — Carpenter figures to start for the Tigers in all three games. Carpenter plays almost exclusively against right-handers and hit 23 of his 26 homers against them in 2025. Perhaps he can provide the jolt that he did in last year’s Division Series, when his three-run homer in the ninth inning broke a scoreless tie in Game 2. Carpenter also six home runs in 22 regular-season games against Cleveland.
Schedule
Game 1: Tuesday, 3 p.m. ET on ABC
Game 2: Wednesday, 3 p.m. ET on ABC
Game 3 (if necessary): Thursday, 3 p.m. ET on ABC
Season series: Each took two of three games at home and each totaled 25 runs as they split six games, but those happened way back in April.
Postseason history: The Cubs and Padres have met once in the postseason, in the 1984 NLCS. The Padres took the series in five games, winning Game 4 on a walk-off home run from Steve Garvey, but then lost the World Series in five to the Tigers. San Diego is still looking for its first World Series championship.
Keys to the matchup: The Padres don’t have widely varying platoon splits — they’re 19th in OPS against left-handed pitchers and 18th against right-handers. But they recently lost one of their best right-handed bats when Ramón Laureano was lost for at least the Wild Card round when he broke his finger on Sept. 24. The Cubs can exploit that with two left-handed starters, Matthew Boyd and Shota Imanaga, and a handful of lefty relievers. Meanwhile, all of San Diego’s potential starters are right-handed, and the Cubs just welcomed back one of their top left-handed bats, Kyle Tucker, after he missed nearly a month with a calf strain. The Padres have won nine of their last 13 games at Wrigley Field, but the confines will be far less friendly for a playoff series.
Player to watch: Imanaga is the only starter in either team’s likely three-man rotation who has not appeared in the postseason. This could change if Randy Vásquez starts a game for the Padres. But that doesn’t mean Imanaga, the 32-year-old second-year pitcher from Japan, doesn’t have big-game experience. He started for Japan in the championship game of the 2023 World Baseball Classic, which Japan won, 3-2, over the United States. He also pitched in front of his countrymen during the Tokyo Series in March. In three career starts against the Padres, Imanaga has allowed three earned runs with 19 strikeouts in 19 1/3 innings.
Schedule
Game 1: Tuesday, 9 p.m. ET on ESPN
Game 2: Wednesday, 9 p.m. ET on ESPN
Game 3 (if necessary): Thursday, 9 p.m. ET on ESPN
Season series: The Dodgers dominated their head-to-head meetings with the Reds this season, winning five of the six matchups and outscoring Cincinnati 30-15.
Postseason history: The teams have just one previous meeting in the postseason, having squared off in the 1995 NLDS. The Reds, led by NL MVP and future Hall of Famer Barry Larkin, swept the series in three games and outscored Los Angeles 22-7.
Keys to the matchup: Despite a significant difference in their season records, the teams are evenly matched in some key categories. Both teams had similar ERAs (3.86 for the Reds; 3.95 for the Dodgers) and opponents’ average (.233 for the Reds; .232 for the Dodgers). But the differences on offense are vast. The Dodgers have an NL-best .768 OPS, while the Reds rank 10th at .706. Also, the Dodgers have outscored the Reds by more than 100 runs this season and outslugged them by 50 points. So, for Cincinnati, priority No. 1 will be to limit the damage from the L.A. bats and hope their own offense can squeak across a few runs. If not, it could be a quick exit for the Reds.
Player to watch: Shohei Ohtani. This will be his first two-way postseason, so he has a chance to truly dominate the series. It’s unclear how the Dodgers will use him as a pitcher, but his 2.87 ERA and 11.9 K/9 ratio this season speak to how he can cause headaches for an offense, no matter his role on the mound. And with two straight 50-plus-homer seasons and three straight seasons with an OPS north of 1.000, his game-changing bat remains an ever-present weapon.
