We made it, baseball fans. It was a chaotic sprint to finish the regular season, but with 162 games on the books, it’s time to kick off the postseason with the wild-card round.
Four best-of-three series begin Tuesday, so let’s jump in. Here’s what you need to know about the wild-card matchups, including projected starters, X-factors and series predictions.
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Yahoo’s picks for the first round of the postseason. (Mallory Bielecki/Yahoo Sports)
No. 6 Detroit Tigers vs. No. 3 Cleveland Guardians
Projected starters
Game 1: Tarik Skubal (DET) vs. Gavin Williams (CLE)
Game 2: Jack Flaherty (DET) vs. Tanner Bibee (CLE)
Game 3: Casey Mize (DET) vs. Slade Cecconi (CLE)
How they got here
Tigers: For most of the first half, Detroit looked like the No. 1 team in the American League. The Tigers entered the All-Star break with baseball’s best record, dominating like a souped-up version of the 2024 club that improbably snuck into the postseason. Tarik Skubal was sensational, the other pitching was good enough, the offense of interchangeable pieces was producing. Javy Baéz even made the All-Star team. All was well.
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Then the bottom fell out. Detroit went 28-37 after the break, the worst second-half record of any playoff team. And when the Guards got hot in September, the Tigers couldn’t right the ship, coughing up the division crown over the season’s final week. Only a similarly catastrophic collapse from the Astros kept Detroit in the playoff field. But now they’re in, and they still have the best pitcher on the planet.
Guardians: On the morning of Sept. 5, the Guards were 11 games behind the division-leading Tigers, wallowing in third in the AL Central. Their playoff odds, according to FanGraphs, were 2.9%. Their division odds, understandably, were even lower, comically so, at 0.1%. The last few weeks seemed destined to be a forgettable epilogue to a tumultuous season that included two players being placed on administrative leave as part of a gambling investigation.
Instead, history happened.
Cleveland’s pitching staff caught fire, and the Guardians rode their unique brand of crisp defense, aggressive baserunning and unflappable, José Ramírez-style moxie to a comeback of historic proportions. The club finished the season 19-4 over its final 23 games to catch and pass the flailing Tigers.
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Belief is a dangerous thing, and these Guardians have quite a surplus right now.
X-factors
Tigers: Riley Greene
At the break, Greene’s .879 OPS ranked 15th among qualified hitters. He’d seemingly emerged as a young star, the face of Detroit’s otherwise anonymous lineup. That earned him the honor of hitting second for the American League in the Midsummer Classic, directly in front of Aaron Judge.
But since the break, Greene has a .694 OPS, a mark that ranks 117th among qualified hitters. This dude is supposed to be this team’s best hitter, its best offensive player, and for the past two months, as the season started to crumble, he turtled. The best version of Greene is dangerous, imposing, a real power threat. The Tigers need that guy to reappear if they’re going to survive one last trip to Cleveland.
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Guardians: Jhonkensy Noel and José Ramirez
The man delightfully known as “Big Christmas” is the only active Guardian to have ever hit a home run off Tarik Skubal. Playoffs included, Cleveland’s roster has a collective .311 career slugging percentage in 145 plate appearances against the reigning AL Cy Young. For reference, Cleveland’s light-hitting backup catcher, Austin Hedges, has a career .313 slugging percentage.
The righty-hitting Noel is probably going to face Skubal three times in Game 1. Whether he gets a hold of one — and how many runners are on base if and when that happens — could dictate the outcome of the entire series.
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That said, it’s really all about Ramírez. Every time he steps to the plate, he exudes swagger and confidence, the flavor of which has spread to the entire Guardians club over the past few weeks. He’s the sparkplug, the heart and soul, the be-all and end-all for this team.
How they win
Tigers: Skubal dominates, and crucially, this time he doesn’t longsnap the game away through his legs. Even though Cleveland won the two most recent Skubal showdowns, both of which happened in the past 10 days, the Cy Young-in-waiting allowed just two earned runs across those outings while punching out 17. It’s more than conceivable that the American League’s best pitcher storms into Progressive Field, silences the crowd and changes the narrative.
Then what?
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Well, baseball is silly, and Cleveland’s offense remains relatively mediocre. They ranked 14th in OPS while they were chasing down the Tigers in September. Skubal plus a bad day for the Guards’ lineup could easily push Detroit through to the ALDS.
Guardians: The way they’ve been winning, baby. That recipe is great starting pitching, mistake-free defense, a few electrifying J-Ram moments, an infield hit or five, and the good graces of the hard-ball gods. Being a Cleveland Guardian right now seems like the most fun, heart-warming job in the entire world. They reaffirm every last cliche about “playing for one another” and “doing the little things right.” And they’re still playing with house money.
Series prediction: Guardians in three
Skubal carves in Game 1, but the Guardians win the next two to keep their magical ride rolling.
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— Mintz
No. 5 Boston Red Sox vs. No. 4 New York Yankees
Projected starters
Game 1: Garrett Crochet (BOS) vs. Max Fried (NYY)
Game 2: Lucas Giolito (BOS) vs. Carlos Rodón (NYY)
Game 3: Brayan Bello (BOS) vs. Cam Schlittler (NYY)
Note: Boston hasn’t announced the order it’ll roll out Giolito and Bello, but Giolito has been better recently. The Yankees also haven’t announced a Game 3 starter; their other two options are Luis Gil and Will Warren.
How they got here
Red Sox: What a roller coaster.
Here’s an incomplete list of notable things that happened to the 2025 Red Sox: They traded away the face of the franchise, Rafael Devers, after a very avoidable, very public kerfuffle about his defensive position. That situation escalated the way it did only because the team’s presumed first baseman of the future, Tristan Casas, suffered a season-ending knee injury on May 2. Big-ticket free agent Alex Bregman missed two months due to a quad issue. A trio of top prospects debuted and then either disappointed (Kristian Campbell) or got hurt (Marcelo Mayer, Roman Anthony). Garrett Crochet, who will finish second for the AL Cy Young, went to the zoo and saw some pandas. The team appeared magically tethered to .500 before a nine-game winning streak leading into the All-Star break propelled them back into playoff contention.
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It feels like the 2025 Red Sox played five seasons this season. Now they have to play another one.
Yankees: This is the best offense in baseball. The Bombers lead MLB in runs, homers, slugging percentage and OPS. Aaron Judge is either going to win MVP or almost win MVP. Giancarlo Stanton returned from a bizarre series of elbow issues and spent much of the summer putting fans in the outfield at risk. Jazz Chisholm solidified himself as one of the best second basemen in the sport. Ben Rice and Trent Grisham broke out. Cody Bellinger found his groove. Besides the mysterious capitulation of Anthony Volpe, things were really good for Yankee hitters this year.
The same was true for the rotation, which stepped up big-time after ace Gerrit Cole went down with a torn UCL in spring training. Max Fried was brilliant in his debut season in the Bronx. Carlos Rodón evolved his game, delivering a crucial bounce-back season. Two rookies, Cam Schlittler and Will Warren, emerged as stalwarts. We’ll, uh, talk about the bullpen later.
The Yankees struggled versus playoff-caliber clubs for much of the season before a solid stretch in September against Houston, Toronto, Boston and Detroit. There are still concerns about the defense and the baserunning — those pesky buggers that doomed New York in the 2024 World Series — but this team is playing well at the right time.
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X-factors
Red Sox: The lefty-mashing specialists: Romy Gonzalez and Rob Refsnyder
New York’s two best starters, Fried and Rodón, both throw with their left arm. In 42 plate appearances this season against lefty Yankees, Gonzalez and Refsnyder are a combined 13-for-35 with six extra-base hits and seven walks. That’s a .371/.476/.629 line. The other main righty bats in Boston’s lineup — Trevor Story, Alex Bregman, Carlos Narvaez — will be crucial as well, but how Romy and Rob do against Fried and Rodón could swing this series.
Yankees: The bullpen
This has been the club’s weak link all season, and it could be their Achilles’ heel in October. David Bednar, acquired from Pittsburgh at the deadline, has been great in the closer role. But the bridge between him and the starters has been shaky at times. The Luke Weaver/Devin Williams tandem hasn’t lived up to expectations. Another deadline add, sidewinding righty Camillo Doval, has shown flashes of dominance but doesn’t foster supreme confidence. The same is true for Fernando Cruz, whose splitter baffled hitters in the first half but hasn’t been as effective recently.
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The names are big, the pedigrees are impressive, but when it gets late and tense in October, does this Yankees ‘pen have what it takes?
How they win
Red Sox: Crochet shoves in the opener, and the Sox win a low-scoring game thanks to a few solo shots off Fried and the Yanks’ pen. Then Boston pounces on Game 2 starter Rodón, who struggled in his three starts against the Sox this year, with 10 earned runs in 15⅔ innings. Just like that, done and dusted, the Sox send the Yankees on an early vacation while reinvigorating baseball’s most historic rivalry.
Yankees: By bludgeoning Boston into submission. The Yankees’ lineup is better than the Red Sox’s lineup by a pretty significant margin. Of course, anything can happen in a short series, but New York’s firepower up and down the lineup feels like a game-changer.
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Series prediction: Yankees in two
Fried keeps it close enough with Crochet in Game 1 for New York’s lineup to explode late. The Red Sox can’t bounce back and fizzle out quietly in Game 2.
— Mintz
The postseason begins with two rivalry matchups in Tigers vs. Guardians and Red Sox vs. Yankees. (Stefan Milic/Yahoo Sports)
No. 6 Cincinnati Reds vs. No. 3 Los Angeles Dodgers
Projected starters
Game 1: Hunter Greene (CIN) vs. Shohei Ohtani (LAD)
Game 2: Nick Lodolo (CIN) vs. Blake Snell (LAD)
Game 3: Andrew Abbott (CIN) vs. Yoshinobu Yamamoto (LAD)
How they got here
Reds: When you hire Terry Francona to be your manager, which the Reds did this past offseason, you’re making a statement to your fan base and your organization that expectations are going to be higher. But it appeared for most of the 2025 season that a postseason appearance wasn’t in the cards for Cincinnati.
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That is, until the New York Mets left the door open for the third NL wild-card spot. The Reds were able to outplay New York over the final three months of the regular season, reaching the playoffs for the first time since 2020 and their first time in a 162-game season since 2013.
Dodgers: We all went into this season believing the Dodgers would run roughshod through the league after a winter in which they added ace Blake Snell, closer Tanner Scott and international free agent Roki Sasaki. But baseball doesn’t work that way, and things were not easy for the Dodgers in 2025. On offense, Mookie Betts and Freddie Freeman struggled in a way the team couldn’t have anticipated, but the good news for L.A. is Shohei Ohtani more than makes up for others’ flaws, hitting a franchise-record and career-high 55 home runs and likely winning his third consecutive MVP Award while returning to the mound.
As in the past several seasons, injuries plagued L.A.’s starting rotation in the first half. But they got healthier in the second half, with a rotation of Yoshinobu Yamamoto, Blake Snell, Tyler Glasnow and Shohei Ohtani coming into view. In the end, like they’ve done 12 times in the past 13 seasons, the Dodgers found a way to capture the NL West title.
X-factors
Reds: Hunter Greene
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If the Reds win this series against the Dodgers, it will be because their ace gets them off on the right foot and helps them get a critical Game 1 victory. When Greene is at his best, like he showed when he nearly tossed a no-hitter against the Cubs on Sept. 18, he is a true difference-maker. If Greene is great in L.A., the Reds have a chance.
Dodgers: Roki Sasaki
We didn’t know if we would see Sasaki again this season, as he missed most of the season due to a right shoulder impingement. Even when he was healthy, he didn’t show much consistency. But the rookie right-hander has looked like a different pitcher since his recent return to the big leagues in a relief role, with his fastball looking unhittable and his signature splitter keeping hitters off-balance.
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What makes Sasaki the ultimate X-factor is that where the Dodgers are most vulnerable right now is in their bullpen, particularly in high leverage. When he’s right, Sasaki probably has the filthiest stuff on the Dodgers’ roster, and with Blake Teinen and Tanner Scott both struggling, the Dodgers could make Sasaki their closer this postseason.
Even though Sasaki’s stuff has looked electric, the pressure of the postseason is a different animal. But fortune favors the bold, and the Dodgers might not have a better option.
How they win
Reds: Pitching. Pitching. And more pitching. The Reds reached the postseason behind strong starting pitching, and if they hope to beat the juggernaut Dodgers, it will have to be their starters who once again carry them. And Cincinnati will roll out their best in Greene, Andrew Abbott and Nick Lodolo against L.A. If there’s anything that can stop a world-class lineup like the Dodgers, it’s the arms on the Reds.
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Dodgers: There’s no secret sauce to the Dodgers’ success. When their superstars are playing at their best, they are almost impossible to beat. The combination of Ohtani, Betts and Freeman gives them a trio that few teams in MLB history could rival. If just one of them has a big series, that could be enough to carry this team into the next round. But L.A.’s bullpen is their weak link going into October. They’ll need length from their starters to keep that leaky bullpen from being exposed.
Series prediction: Dodgers in three
The Dodgers are better than the Reds in terms of elite talent, but the equalizer in this series could be the starting pitching. Greene has shown down the stretch that he can be one of the elite aces in baseball, and the Reds have enough to win a 3-2 or 2-1 game. But ultimately, the Dodgers’ high-powered offense will be the difference in this series. When you have players like Andy Pages and Teoscar Hernández hitting in the bottom of the order, that’s nearly unbeatable lineup depth.
— Dorsey
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No. 5 San Diego Padres vs. No. 4 Chicago Cubs
Projected starters
Game 1: Nick Pivetta (SD) vs. Shota Imanaga (CHI)
Game 2: Dylan Cease (SD) vs. Matthew Boyd (CHI)
Game 3: Yu Darvish (SD) vs. Jameson Taillon (CHI)
How they got here
Padres: San Diego’s path to the postseason was different than in years past. Usually, it’s the offense led by Manny Machado and Co. that drives the Padres. But this time around, it was the pitching, as San Diego finished the season top-three in baseball in team ERA and first in bullpen ERA. One of the big turning points for San Diego was the trade deadline, when they made arguably the biggest move in the sport, acquiring fireballer Mason Miller from the A’s. President of baseball operations AJ Preller once again cashed in his chips on a lights-out bullpen — one built to thrive in October.
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Cubs: For the first time since 2018, the Cubs reached the playoffs in a full season, recording their most wins since that year. With a first-half offense that was the best in baseball and breakout years from Pete Crow-Armstrong and Michael Busch, the Cubs surged early this year. But after an impressive first half, the second half saw Chicago have to grind to get into the postseason. Their offense sputtered, and they had to lean on their pitching to secure a wild-card spot. But they made it with room to spare, and the Cubs will have an opportunity to face their division rivals in the NLDS if they can get through San Diego.
X-factors
Padres: Jackson Merrill
It hasn’t been the easiest sophomore season for Merrill, coming off a phenomenal rookie season in which he became a household name. He began the season by signing a massive, seven-year extension, but shortly after, he landed on the injured list due to a hamstring strain. But fast-forward to September, and the 22-year-old not only looks fully healthy but also has locked in at the perfect time, with a .938 OPS and seven homers this month. Merrill hitting in the cleanup spot behind Fernando Tatis Jr. and Machado makes the Padres dangerous when the trio is firing on all cylinders.
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Cubs: Michael Busch
You can make a case that Busch has been the most underrated offensive player in baseball this season. With his 34 home runs, the Cubs’ first baseman has done something that not even Anthony Rizzo did in his time in Chicago, and his tally is the most by a Cub since Kyle Schwarber hit 38 in 2019. Busch has been the most consistent offensive player in the Cubs’ lineup, and whichever way he goes, usually Chicago’s offense follows. Busch having a big series vs. San Diego would be huge for Chicago’s hopes to advance.
How they win
Padres: San Diego will advance to the NLDS for the second year in a row if their stars come through. Preller built his lineup and roster around star power, and with Machado, Tatis and Merrill leading the way, San Diego has plenty of offensive firepower. Plus, beyond their starting pitchers, the power arms in their bullpen become the equalizer. If the Padres can get to the fifth inning with a lead, it’ll be difficult for the Cubs to record hits, let alone score, against Jeremiah Estrada, Adrian Morejón, Mason Miller and Robert Suarez.
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Cubs: If the Cubs rediscover the offense from the first half that made them one of baseball’s best teams, they can and will get to the NLDS. Chicago has shown glimpses of that with their surge over the last week of the regular season, especially from Seiya Suzuki, who seems to have rediscovered his power stroke. If the Cubs can come through with some clutch hits, they’ll get past San Diego and face Milwaukee in the NLDS.
Series prediction: Padres in two
The biggest blow for Chicago is that they will be without NL Rookie of the Year candidate Cade Horton, who was placed on the injured list due to a rib fracture on Saturday. Horton would’ve been the Cubs’ likely Game 1 starter, but instead they’ll turn to a combination of Imanaga, Boyd and Taillon.
Postseason experience matters, and if there’s one huge advantage for San Diego here, it’s that the Padres have been in the playoffs every year since 2022. After they were eliminated in the NLDS last year, when they believed they were the best team in baseball, it’s difficult to imagine them getting knocked out early a second year in a row. San Diego‘s ability to shorten games with its bullpen gives it the edge in a short series.
— Dorsey